Dharma Glimpses with Judy Lief Judy Lief

Buddhism is often referred to as a path; not as a set of beliefs or a doctrine, but as a trail, a path, a walkway  • it's a direction, or a guideline, or a map of sorts; you have an idea of trying to get somewhere, but you can't see where the destination is  •  so there's a quality of faith that if you walk along this path, you'll get where you'd like to go  •  walking on a path teaches you about your own resilience, your own strengths, your own fears and hesitations  • you're confronted with challenges all the time: the path is washed out, or something blocks the path  •  such obstacles are central to the experience  •  but there's also a sense of accomplishment, of building resilience and strength, of finding out who you are in the face of challenges  •  if you have a fixed idea of some destination, you might begin to wonder, Where am I trying to get anyway?  •  the path keeps unfolding and you keep walking along, but you have no idea how to know if you've reached your destination or not  •  Am I there yet? Is this it? You may even start to suspect that there is no “there” •  all your thoughts about where you're trying to get to can begin to crumble —  which is actually wonderful and amazing  •  you might even say,  now you're finally getting somewhere.

Walking meditation is often introduced in the context of group practice: you're sitting and a gong rings, and then you stand up and begin walking; then another gong rings and you go back to sitting  •  this brings up a couple of interesting things  •  how do we transition from one state to another without losing it and needing to regroup on some subtle level?  •  we are brought face to face with the challenge of having a more continuous sense of mindfulness and awareness, rather than turning it on and turning it off  •  the group aspect also brings up how easy it is to be in our practice bubble, and not really be aware of those around us or the environment in which we're practicing  •  it also brings in a relational aspect: when you are walking in a circle, there's someone in front of you and someone behind you  •  they may be wearing funny clothes, or they may be going faster or slower than you'd like  •  you have to coordinate what you're doing with others, so there's a relational aspect that has a rich texture  •  another important and inspiring aspect of walking meditation is how it's connected with going beyond our own concerns, with making gestures of peace in the midst of war-torn worlds  •  training in walking meditation can help us to be able to touch in with the force of peace, even in the midst of struggle and chaos and suffering. 

In this episode I'd like to explore the topic of walking meditation  •  in some ways walking meditation is a link between stillness and movement; it is a bridge between the quiet and peaceful state of sitting meditation and the activities of daily life  •  but in walking meditation, we're not trying to get somewhere; the walking itself is the point  •  in walking meditation, you place your attention on the contact of your feet with the earth or the floor  •  you pay attention as your balance shifts from one foot to the other foot, and to the pushing off as you shift from one foot to the other  •  it’s very simple  •  the idea is not to be overly precious or self conscious, but simply keep our attention so that when we walk with each step, it's a genuine step, a true step  •  when we walk, we really walk; we include everything in each step  •  walking meditation has the sense of continuous presence, continuous awareness, continuous being  •  you don't have to be in a formal setting; you can notice how you walk, notice how connected or disconnected you are with your walking, and then work with that  •  I invite you to explore what it's like to walk, just to walk, with mindfulness  •  it's amazing how powerful one true gesture can be.  

In this episode I'd like to explore the role of self reliance on the Buddhist path  •  the basic idea is that nobody can walk your path for you; even if we encounter the wisest teachers and most supportive community that ever existed, fundamentally, at some very deep level, each of us is on our own  •  we must confront our own mind, our own emotions, our own habits; each of us must discover what this journey of awakening is all about  •  the quality of self reliance is very much related to a sense of persistence—learning how to just stick with something when our inspiration wanes  •  we might look for shortcuts, for ways to beat the system, so to speak; but there's really no way around the fact that if we want any results, we need to persist  •  one way of looking at this is to compare an escalator and a staircase  •  with an escalator, you just hop on and it lifts you up to your destination  •  it seems so much better than trudging up a staircase  •  but when you reach the top of the escalator, you haven’t really changed  •  when you walk up a staircase, one step at a time, you're building strength; with each step, something is transforming  •  the person at the top is very different from the person who took that first step. 

Today I'd like to explore the question of sacredness  •  there is a tendency to think that there are certain special things in life that are sacred, and then there's the rest of life, which is secular  •  is sacredness something that exists out there, or do we decide what is sacred?  •  in Buddhism there's an emphasis on seeing sacredness in the most mundane aspects of our ordinary life  •  viewing things with a sacred outlook has the power to reconnect us with a quality of wonder, a quality of awe, a quality of deep respect  •  you simply view everything — your body, your words, your emotions, your thoughts, your consciousness — as though it matters, as though it is worthy of your mindful attention and care  •  we can be inspired by certain special sacred sites, but the point is not to use those experiences to diminish or devalue the rest of our life  •  there are opportunities  to see the sacredness all around us in every situation, in every encounter, all the time, hidden in plain sight.

This episode focuses on the faults and shortcomings we see in ourselves and in other beings:  how do we become friends with ourselves, with all our faults, without excusing them and without concealing them?  •  why is it so easy to see everybody else's faults and so hard to look at our own?  •  I was inspired in part by a traditional poem called “Calling to the Gurus from Afar”; it's an example of a student being willing to show up as they are  •  here is the stanza I’m referring to: “My faults are as large as a mountain, but I conceal them within me  /  Others faults are as minute as a sesame seed, but I proclaim them and condemn them  /  I boast about my virtues, though I don't even have a few  /  I call myself a Dharma practitioner and practice only non-dharma  /  Guru, think of me, look upon me quickly with compassion, grant your blessings so that I subdue my selfishness and pride”  •  this poem was written by a great Tibetan master named Jamgon Kongtrul  •  it's oddly reassuring that someone like that can lay out such faults so easily, so openly, and with a sense of humor or lightness as well  • it’s like taking our pile of juicy neurotic habits or attachments and laying them out like dead fish and exposing them to the light of the sun, and in that environment of sanity and compassion, they simply dry up.