Suppose you considered your neighborhood to be your temple—how would you treat your temple, and what would be your spiritual task there?
All of spiritual practice is a matter of relationship: to ourselves, to others, to life’s situations. We can relate with a spirit of wisdom, compassion, and flexibility, or we can meet life with fear, aggression, and delusion. Whether we like it or not, we are always in relationship, always interconnected.
Much of the past nineteen chapters has focused on relating wisely to our inner self, through healing, training, and understanding the cycles and possibilities of a spiritual life. Because expressing spiritual practice in all aspects of our life is so important, there could well be a companion volume to this one that spells out traditional practices such as right livelihood and conscious sexuality, as well as practices for marriage and family life, for politics, economics, community life, and art. Yet in this book we have already touched on the major principles we need to understand and live with awareness in each of these areas.
The laws that govern wise relationships in politics, marriage, or business are the same as in inner life. Each of these areas requires a capacity for commitment and constancy, for taking the one seat. In each of these relationships we will encounter the familiar demons and temptations, and again we will be called upon to name them and dance with our difficulties. Each area will have its cycles, and in each we must learn to be true to ourselves.
To extend our practice we must learn to consciously bring the spirit of wakefulness and loving-kindness to every act. Albert Einstein, one of our modern wise men, described spiritual life in this way:
A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Expanding our spiritual practice is actually a process of expanding our heart, of widening our circle of insight and compassion to gradually include the whole of our life. Being on earth here in human bodies, this year, this day, is our spiritual practice.
It used to be that most of Eastern spiritual practice was preserved by monks and nuns in monasteries and temples. For centuries much of Western contemplative practice in Europe took place in cloisters as well. In our modern times, the monastery and temple have expanded to include the world itself. Most of us are not going to live as monks and nuns, and yet as lay people we seek a genuine and profound spiritual life. This is possible when we recognize that where we are is our temple, that just here in the life we are leading we can bring our practice alive.
My old guru in Bombay would teach us in this way. He would let students stay just long enough to come to some genuine understanding of life and love and how to be free in the midst of it all. Then he would send them home, saying, “Marry the boy or girl next door, get a job in your own community, live your life as your practice.” On the opposite coast of India, Mother Teresa sends home the hundreds of volunteers who come to help in Calcutta, saying, “Now that you have learned to see Christ in the poor of India, go home and serve him in your family, on your street, in your neighborhood.”
From a traditional Buddhist view, it is taught that we have all been reborn since the beginning of time over countless lifetimes in every form. We are instructed to reflect on this perspective and see that lifetime after lifetime we have been born as mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters for one another in every form. Thus, we are instructed to treat each person we meet as if they were our beloved children or our parents or our grandparents. In Buddhist countries it is common to refer to everyone with the honorific title of some relative: Uncle President, Auntie Mayor, Uncle General, Grandfather Teacher, and so forth. We are all one family.
This can be felt most directly in the silence of an undivided heart. When the mind is still and the heart open, the world is undivided for us. As Chief Seattle reminded our ancestors when he surrendered his land:
This earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.
When the heart is undivided, whatever we encounter is our practice. There is no difference between sitting in meditation in dedicated silence or acting in every realm. They are like breathing in and breathing out, two inseparable aspects of our life. The Zen tradition says this explicitly when it states:
In spiritual practice there are only two things: you sit and you sweep the garden. And it doesn’t matter how big the garden is.
We take time to be quiet, to open and awaken, and then we manifest that awakening in the garden of the world.
Sometimes we must heal our own wounds first, to come to some inner well-being, but eventually we experience a natural movement to serve, a longing to give back to the world. This spirit of service needn’t be based on ideals, on trying to fix all that is wrong in the world. When we have touched our inner garden, we bring a grace to all we touch. This poem by Lynn Park expresses it so well.
Take the time to pray—
it is the sweet oil that eases the hinge into the garden
so the doorway can swing open easily. You can always go there.
Consider yourself blessed.
These stones that break your bones
will build the altar of your love.
Your home is the garden.
Carry its odor, hidden in you, into the city.
Suddenly your enemies will buy seed packets
and fall to their knees to plant flowers
in the dirt by the road.
They’ll call you Friend
and honor your passing among them.
When asked, “Who was that?” they will say,
“Oh, that one has been beloved by us
since before time began.”
This from people who would have trampled over you
to maintain their advantage.
Give everything away except your garden,
Your worry, your fear, your small-mindedness.
Your garden can never be taken from you.
When we expand our garden, our actions become the natural expression of our heart filled with gratitude, love, and compassion. These feelings arise when we recognize the blood of our own family in everything that lives. We receive physical and spiritual sustenance from the world around us; this is like breathing in. Then because each of us is born with certain gifts, part of our happiness is to use these to give back to the earth, to our community, family, and friends; this is like breathing out. As we grow in interconnectedness, the integrity and responsibility of a world citizen naturally grows in us.
In expanding our circle of practice, we may feel that we haven’t enough time. Modern life is already very fast-paced and getting more so all the time. Saving time is even beginning to replace sex as a means of selling products on television. Do we have enough time to expand our practice? Remember how someone complained to Achaan Chah that there wasn’t enough time to practice in his monastery because there were so many chores—sweeping, cleaning, greeting visitors, building, chanting, and so forth—and Achaan Chah asked back, “Is there enough time to be aware?” Everything we do in life is a chance to awaken.
We can learn to see here and now those places where we are afraid or attached or lost or deluded. We can see in the very same moment the possibility of awakening, of freedom, of fullness of being. We can carry on this practice anywhere—at work, in our community, at home. Sometimes people complain about how difficult it is to practice in family life. When they were single, they could take long periods of silent retreats or spend time in the mountains or travel to exotic temples, and then these places and postures became confused in their mind with the spirit of the sacred itself. But the sacred is always here before us. Family life and children are a wonderful temple. Children can become fantastic teachers for us. They teach us surrender and selflessness. They bring us into the present moment again and again. When we’re in an ashram or monastery, if our guru tells us to get up early in the morning to meditate, we may not always feel like it. Some mornings we may roll over and go back to sleep thinking we’ll do it another day. But when our children awaken in the middle of the night because they are sick and need us, there’s no choice and no question about it—we respond instantly with our entire loving attention.
Over and over we are asked to bring our whole heart and care to family life. These are the same instructions a meditation master or guru gives us when we face the inevitable tiredness, restlessness, or boredom in our meditation cell or temple. Facing these at home is no different from facing them in the meditation retreat. Spiritual life becomes more genuine when things become more difficult. Our children have inevitable accidents and illnesses. Tragedies occur. These situations call for a constancy of our love and wisdom. Through them we touch the marrow of practice and find our true spiritual strength.
In many other cultures the nurturing of wise and healthy children is seen as a spiritual act, and parenting is considered sacred. Children are held constantly, both physically and in the heart of the community, and each healthy child is seen as a potential Leonardo, Nureyev, Clara Barton, a unique contributor to humanity. Our children are our meditation. When children are raised by day care and television, in a society that values money-making more than its children, we create generations of discontented, wounded, needy individuals. A key to extending practice into the demanding areas of child rearing and intimate relationships is the same development of patience or constancy as in following our breath, bringing our heart back a thousand times. Nothing of value grows overnight, not our children, nor the capacity of our hearts to love one another. I saw the power that grows from loving respect on a family sabbatical to Thailand and Bali. My daughter Caroline studied Balinese dance for two months with a wonderful teacher, and when she finished he proposed to stage a farewell recital for her at his school, which is also his home. When we arrived they set out a stage, got the music ready, and then started to dress Caroline. They took a very long time dressing a six-year-old whose average attention span is about five minutes. First they draped her in a silk sarong, with a beautiful chain around her waist. Then they wrapped embroidered silk fifteen times around her chest. They put on gold armbands and bracelets. They arranged her hair and put a golden flower in it. They put on more makeup than a six-year-old girl could dream of.
Meanwhile I sat there getting impatient, the proud father eager to take pictures. “When are they going to finish dressing her and get on with the recital?” Thirty minutes, forty-five minutes. Finally the teacher’s wife came out and took off her own golden necklace and put it around my daughter’s neck. Caroline was thrilled.
When I let go of my impatience, I realized what a wonderful thing was happening. In Bali children are held in great respect as members of society. Whether a dancer is six or twenty-six, she is equally honored and respected as an artist, one who performs not for the audience but for the gods. The level of respect that Caroline was given as an artist inspired her to dance beautifully. Imagine how you would feel if you were given such respect as a child. Just as the Buddha cultivated patience, respect, and compassion to mature his heart over one hundred thousand lifetimes, we can bring a bit of this to our families and love relationships.
Spiritual practice should not become an excuse to withdraw from life when difficulties arise. Meditation practice of any sort would not get very far if we stopped meditating every time we encountered a difficulty. The capacity for commitment is what carries our practice. In a love relationship such as marriage, commitment is the necessary down payment for success. Commitment does not mean a security pact where love is a business exchange—“I’ll be here for you if you don’t change too much, if you don’t leave me.” The commitment in a conscious relationship is to remain together, committed to helping one another grow in love, honoring and fostering the opening of our partner’s spirit.
In both child rearing and love relationships, we will inevitably encounter the same hindrances as we do sitting in meditation. We will desire to be somewhere else or with someone else. We will feel aversion, judgment, and fear. We will have periods of laziness and dullness. We will get restless with one another, and we will have doubts. We can name these familiar demons and meet them in the spirit of practice. We can acknowledge the body of fear that underlies them and, together with our partner, speak of these very difficulties as a way to deepen our love.
As our life circumstances change and we learn to find balance in a succession of difficulties, we discover the true meaning of wakefulness and freedom. What better temple can we ask for? We can extend these same principles from family life to the work of our community, to politics, to economics, to global peace work, or to service to the poor. All of these spheres ask us to bring to them the qualities of a Buddha. Can we bring the Buddha into the voting booth where we live; can we act as the Buddha, writing letters to our congressmen and congresswomen; can we share in feeding the hungry; can we walk like the Buddha to demonstrate for peace or justice or care for our environment? The greatest gift we can bring to the challenges of these areas is our wisdom and greatness of heart. Without it, we perpetuate the problems; with it, we can begin to transform the world.
I remember the first anti-Vietnam War demonstration I attended, how the protestors brought the same aggression and hate to the generals and politicians as the generals brought to their battles. We were simply re-creating the war. Yet I believe we can be on the barricades, make strong political statements, place our hearts and bodies in the service of justice, without basing actions on hatred, without creating “us” and “them.” Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us never to succumb to the temptations of making people our enemy. “As you press on for justice,” he said, “be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapons of love.”
A well-known writer friend was gravely disturbed by the mass destruction of the Persian Gulf War. She wished to respond in as personal and direct a way as possible. So she took her meditation practice out into the square in the center of her town. Every day at noon, in rain, snow, or sun, she would sit peacefully and meditate next to a sign that asked for peace in the Persian Gulf. Some days people shouted at her, some days they joined her, some days she was alone. But no matter, she continued to demonstrate the peace she wanted in her square, day by day.
One Zen master is currently training thousands of ecological and political demonstrators in the principles of sitting and nonviolence. They learn about working with the inevitable conflict and demons that arise, and how to bring the peace and integrity they desire to the process of change. Another spiritual peace worker, in an important meeting with the general who heads the European nuclear forces, began his conversation by saying, “It must be very difficult to bear responsibility for the defense of all the people in Europe.” Starting from this initial sense of mutual respect, the dialogue went very well.
We can enter the realm of politics with the integrity of world citizens and the wisdom of a bodhisattva, a being committed to the awakening of all. We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred. Suppose you considered your neighborhood to be your temple—how would you treat your temple, and what would be your spiritual task there? Perhaps you would simply pick up litter when you saw it or move rocks out of the road before anyone could strike them. Perhaps you would drive in a mindful sacred way or drive less and use less gas. Perhaps you would greet neighbors with the hospitality that you greet your brothers and sisters within the temple. Perhaps you would organize care for the sick or hungry.
No one says this will be easy. Sitting in meditation is difficult and acting in meditation is equally difficult. It may take years of practice to learn how to enter the family arena or the political arena and stay connected with our deepest compassion. Staying connected takes a particular and conscious effort. Yet, what is sacred and what is true is found here as much as anywhere.
We may be confused initially because our world is complex. When we sit alone, we face only our own suffering. When we act in our families and in the world community, we must also face the suffering that connects us with all of life. Hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters live in situations of great injustice or great poverty. At times the injustice and the sorrow of it all seems overwhelming, beyond our capacity to face. Yet something in us knows that this, too, is part of our spiritual life and that we can respond to this suffering as a part of our own, which in fact it is! None of us can avoid tyranny, loss, sorrow, or death. We are all interconnected in the destruction or saving of our planetary environment.
We must remember that the world’s current problems are fundamentally a spiritual crisis, created by the limited vision of human beings—a loss of a sense of connection to one another, a loss of community, and most deeply a loss of connection to our spiritual values.
Political and economic change have never been sufficient in themselves to alleviate suffering when the underlying causes are not also addressed. The worst problems on this earth—warfare, poverty, ecological destruction, and so forth—are created from greed, hatred, prejudice, delusion, and fear in the human mind. To expand the circle of our practice and to face the sorrow in the world around us, we must face these forces in ourselves. Einstein called us nuclear giants and ethical infants. Only when we have found a compassion, a goodness and understanding, that transcends our own greed, hatred, and delusion, can we bring freedom alive in the world around us.
A wide and open heart gives us the strength to face the world directly, to understand the roots of our sorrows and our part in them. President Dwight Eisenhower reminded us of this responsibility when he stated:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in its true sense … it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
It is our society that does this. Each of us in a modern society must acknowledge our part in the world dilemma. There are many important levels from which we can address global suffering. We must do what we can in every arena, bringing compassion and skill to economics, to education, to government, to service, and to world conflict. Underlying all this work we must find a strength of heart to face injustice with truth and compassion.
There are two sources of strength in our world. One is the force of hatred, of those who are unafraid to kill. The other and greater strength comes from those who are unafraid to die. This was the strength behind Gandhi’s marches against the entire British Empire, the strength of Dorothy Day’s tireless work for the poor on the streets of New York. This strength of heart and being is that which has reclaimed and redeemed human life in every circumstance.
Awakening compassion and freedom on this earth will not be easy. We need to be honest in dishonest times, when it is easier to fight for our principles than to live up to them. We must awaken in a time when the Tao, the dharma, the universal laws are often forgotten, when materialism, possessiveness, indulgence, and military security are widely advertised as the correct basis for human action. These ways are not the dharma, they do not follow timeless laws of human harmony and human happiness. This we can see for ourselves. We must find or discover in ourselves the ancient and eternal law of life based on truth and compassion to guide our actions.
To widen our understanding and compassion, our action must be in harmony with these ancient laws of conscious conduct. These laws alone are the basis of conscious spiritual life, and to follow and refine them in every circumstance is itself a practice leading to liberation of all beings. I saw one of the clearest examples of these laws demonstrated in the Cambodian refugee camps. I was with a friend and teacher Mahaghosananda, an extraordinary Cambodian monk, one of the few to survive, when he opened a Buddhist temple in a barren refugee camp of the Khmer Rouge communists. There were fifty thousand villagers who had become communists at gunpoint and had now fled the destruction to camps on the Thai border. In this camp the underground Khmer Rouge camp leaders threatened to kill any who would go to the temple. Yet on its opening day more than twenty thousand people crowded into the dusty square for the ceremony. These were the sad remnants of families, an uncle with two nieces, a mother with only one of three children. The schools had been burned, the villages destroyed, and in nearly every family, members had been killed or ripped away. I wondered what he would say to people who had suffered so greatly.
Mahaghosananda began the service with the traditional chants that had permeated village life for a thousand years. Though these words had been silenced for eight years and the temples destroyed, they still remained in the hearts of these people whose lives had known as much sorrow and injustice as any on earth. Then Mahaghosananda began chanting one of the central verses of the Buddha, first in Pali and then in Cambodian, reciting the words over and over:
As he chanted these verses over and over thousands chanted with him. They chanted and wept. It was an amazing moment, for it was clear that the truth he chanted was even greater than their sorrows.
Every great spiritual tradition recognizes and teaches the basic laws of wise and conscious human conduct. Whether called virtues, ethics, moral conduct, or precepts, they are guidelines for living without bringing harm to others; they bring sanity and light into the world. In every human being, there is the capacity to take joy in virtue, in integrity, and in uprightness of heart. When we care for one another and live without harming other beings, we create freedom and happiness.
Buddhist practice requires the undertaking of five basic precepts as the minimum commitment to not harming others through our speech and actions. These precepts are recited regularly to remind students of their commitment. The precepts are:
I undertake to refrain from killing and harming living beings.
I undertake to refrain from stealing and taking that which is not mine.
I undertake to refrain from causing harm through sexual misconduct.
I undertake to refrain from false speech, harmful speech, gossip, and slander.
I undertake to refrain from the misuse of intoxicants or substances such as alcohol or drugs that cause carelessness or loss of awareness.
The positive power of virtue is enormous. When we don’t live by these precepts, it is said we live like wild beasts; without them, all other spiritual practice is a sham. Imagine trying to sit down to meditate after a day of lying and stealing. Then imagine what a different world this would be if everyone kept even one precept—not to kill, or not to lie, or not to steal. We would truly create a new world order.
These simple teachings are a perfect way to enact our practice, to expand our circle of understanding and compassion into the world around us. To follow precepts is to train our attention and respect. It takes attention and care to avoid harm to others. The precepts clearly signal us when we are about to lose our way, when our fears and delusion entangle us so that we might harm another being. Buddhist monks follow not just five but several hundred training precepts, and out of this practice arises exquisite mindfulness and respect, in speech, in decorum, in all action.
The basic precepts are not passive. They can actively express a compassionate heart in our life. Not killing can grow into a reverence for life, a protective caring for all sentient beings who share life with us. Not stealing can become the basis for a wise ecology, honoring the limited resources of the earth and actively seeking ways to live and work that share our blessings worldwide. From this spirit can come a life of natural and healing simplicity. Out of not lying we can develop our voice to speak for compassion, understanding, and justice. Out of nonharming sexuality, our most intimate relations can also become expressions of love, joy, and tenderness. Out of not abusing intoxicants or becoming heedless, we can develop a spirit that seeks to live in the most awake and conscious manner in all circumstances.
At first, precepts are a practice. Then they become a necessity, and finally they become a joy. When our heart is awakened, they spontaneously illuminate our way in the world. This is called Shining Virtue. The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them. Better than perfume, its fragrance rises to the gods. Viktor Frankl, the well-known psychologist, has written of this power:
Those of us who lived through the concentration camps can remember very clearly the men and women who walked through the huts comforting those in need and giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they are a testimony to the possibilities of the human spirit.
Each of us has this spirit in us—sometimes hidden, sometimes more available. This light and this generosity and this peace are our greatest gift to the earth. In expanding our practice, we become the center of a circle, like a stone thrown into a pond that sinks softly to the bottom while ripples move to touch each shore. As the center of the circle, we become peaceful in ourselves and bring alive this same peace to others no matter what changes of life are before us. Suzuki Roshi says, “To find perfect composure in the midst of change is to find ourselves in nirvana.”
In widening our circle of practice, we learn the art of honoring life in each encounter, moment by moment and person by person. This is not an idealistic practice but an immediate one.
William Blake put it this way:
If one is to do good, it must be done in the minute particulars. General good is the plea of the hypocrite, the scoundrel, and the flatterer.
Living a spiritual life does not demand high ideals or noble thoughts. It requires our caring and kind attention to our breath, to our children, to the trees around us, and to the earth with which we are so interconnected.
The monks following the Buddha were prohibited from cutting plants or trees. Their nonharming and reverence was extended to embrace all of the life around them. In these modern times the forests of Asia are being destroyed as rapidly as the rain forests in the Amazon. Recognizing that soon there will be no forests left for forest monks and forest monasteries, some meditation masters have led villagers out into the forests to tie monks’ robes from their temples around the oldest and greatest of the trees. An ordination ceremony is then performed as if the tree itself were formally becoming a follower of the Buddha. The Thai and Burmese people have such reverence for this ordination ceremony that they spare these trees and the whole area of the forest is saved.
This kind of repeated caring and attention becomes our spiritual practice. When we remember that every being we meet has been our uncle and our aunt, our son and our daughter, our heart becomes responsive and flexible.
More than any idea we may have about how things should be, the key to flexibility and respect is a listening heart. As Gandhi says, “We must care for the truth in front of us more than consistency.” A modern peace project that follows this principle is called The Compassionate Listening Project. This group of Americans and Europeans have trained themselves in listening with care, attention, and deep compassion to every side of difficult situations. They have recently sent out teams to listen to some of the most cut-off people in the world. One team went to Libya and sat and listened in a compassionate way to the views and stories of Libyan army officers and the followers of Muammar Qaddafi. This listening was to try to understand the situation from their point of view. Another team was sent to Nicaragua to listen to both the peasants and to the armed commandos of the Contras, to hear from each their point of view, their suffering, their difficulties, and their perspectives. Another team was sent to the Middle East to listen to the factions in Lebanon.
When we listen as if we were in a temple and give attention to one another as if each person were our teacher, honoring his or her words as valuable and sacred, all kinds of great possibilities awaken. Even miracles can happen. To act in the world most effectively, our actions cannot come from our small sense of self, our limited identity, our hopes, and our fears. Rather, we must listen to a greater possibility and cultivate actions connected with our highest intentions from the patient and compassionate Buddha within us. We must learn to be in touch with something greater than ourselves, whether we call it the Tao, God, the dharma, or the law of nature. There is a deep current of truth that we can hear. When we listen and act in accordance with this truth, no matter what happens, our actions will be right.
One of the best examples of this listening heart came after Gandhi’s death, when the whole Gandhian movement of his followers was in disarray. Within a year or two of the establishment of India, a number of his followers decided to have a nationwide meeting to see how best to continue his work. They hoped to convince one elder, Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi’s closest disciple and heir apparent, to lead this conference, but he declined. “We cannot revive the past,” he stated. After much pleading, they finally convinced Vinoba to lead their gathering, but only on the condition, as he requested, that it be postponed for six months, giving him enough time to walk on foot from where he lived to the meeting site, halfway across India.
He began to walk from village to village. As he stayed in each village, he would call a meeting as Gandhi had done. He would listen to their problems and at times advise the villagers. Naturally, he walked through a series of very poor villages, there being many of them in India. In one, many people spoke of the hardship, of their hunger and how little food they had to eat. He asked them, “Why don’t you grow your own food,” but most of them were untouchables, and they said, “We would grow our own food, sir, but we have no land.” Upon reflection, Vinoba promised them that when he returned to Delhi he would speak to Prime Minister Nehru and see if a law could be passed giving land to the poorest villagers in India.
The village went to sleep, but Vinoba, struggling with the problem, did not rest that night. In the morning he called the villagers together and apologized. “I know government too well.” He said, “Even if after several years I’m able to convince them to pass a law granting land, you may never see it. It will go through the states and provinces, the district head man and the village head man, and by the time the land grant reaches you, with everyone in the government taking their piece, there probably will be nothing left for you.” This was his honest but sad predicament.
Then one rich villager stood up and said, “I have land. How much do these people need?” There were sixteen families, each needing five acres apiece, so Vinoba said, “Eighty acres,” and the man, deeply inspired by the spirit of Gandhi and Vinoba, offered eighty acres. Vinoba replied, “No, we cannot accept it. You must first go home and speak with your wife and children who will inherit your land.” The man went home, got permission, and returned saying, “Yes, we will give eighty acres of our land.” That morning eighty acres of land was given to the poorest families.
The next day Vinoba walked to another poor village and heard the plight of hunger and landlessness from its lowest caste members. In the meeting he recited the tale of the previous village, and from his story another rich landowner was inspired. He offered one hundred and ten acres for the desperate twenty-two poorest families and again was directed to get permission from his family. Within the day the land was granted to the poor.
Village by village, Vinoba held meetings and continued this process until he reached the council several months later. In the course of his walk, he had collected over 2,200 acres of land for the poorest families along the way. He told this story to the council, and out of it, many joined him to start the great Indian Land Reform Movement. For fourteen years that followed, Vinoba Bhave and thousands of those inspired by him walked through every state, province, and district of India, and without any government complications or red tape, collected over ten million acres of land for the hungriest and most impoverished villagers.
All this began from the spirit of listening, a caring for truth, and a compassionate beginner’s mind brought to an old and difficult situation. To live in this way takes a courage and simplicity, a courage to listen honestly and face the world as it presents itself, and a simplicity to see what life asks of us with unclouded eyes and heart.
This courage recognizes that no one has ever lived our life before. There is no exact plan or model we can follow, even from the greatest inspiration. We all follow an unknown path and an uncharted stream, and it takes great courage to move ahead with our eyes and our hearts open. When we look with deep compassion, we may find it necessary to change our life again and again, to let go of unwise parts of ourselves or to extend our compassion in new ways to the world around us.
To live a path with heart in this way is called Living the Life of a Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is a Sanskrit word of two parts. Bodhi means “awakened” and sattva means “a being.” Together they mean a person who is committed to awakening, a being committed to the freedom and well-being of every creature, who like a Buddha uses every circumstance to express the human capacity for understanding and compassion. It is said that even if the sun were to arise in the west and the world turned upside down, the bodhisattva has only one way. Even in the face of the greatest difficulties, the way of the bodhisattva is to bring a spirit of understanding and compassion alive there too.
In widening our circle of practice, we discover the capacity of our heart to bear witness to the suffering of the world and experience our heart expanding, connecting in compassion to all life.
The bodhisattva within us knows that true love is irresistible and unconquerable and that it transforms whatever it touches. Amazingly, to live a life as a bodhisattva is not grand or idealistic. It is simply bringing to every circumstance a spirit of love, openness, and freedom. Then our very being transforms the world around us.
When Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a reporter for a message to the Indian people, just as his train was pulling out, he scrawled on a piece of paper, “My life is my message.”
To expand our circle of practice is to let our life be our message.
MEDITATION ON SERVICE
Pick a quiet time. Let yourself sit comfortably, being at ease and yet awake. Feel your body sitting and feel the gentle movement of your breath. Let your mind be clear and your heart be soft. Reflect on the bounteous gifts and blessings that support all human life: the rain, the plants of the earth, the warm sunshine. Bring to mind the many human benefactors: the farmers, parents, laborers, healers, postal workers, teachers, the whole society around you. As you feel the world around you, be aware of its problems as well: the needs of its people, its animals, its environment. Let yourself feel the movement in your heart that wishes to contribute, the joy that could come with the offering of your own unique gift to the world.
Then, when you are ready, pose the following questions inwardly to yourself. Pause after each one and give your heart time to answer, allowing a response from the deepest level of your compassion and wisdom.
Imagine yourself five years from now as you would most like to be, having done all the things you want to have done, having contributed all the things you want to contribute in the most heartfelt way. What is your greatest source of happiness? What is the thing you’ve done by which you feel the world is most blessed? What is the contribution you could make to the world that would give you the most satisfaction? To make this contribution to the world, what unworthiness would you have to relinquish? To make this contribution to the world, what strengths and capacities would you have to recognize in yourself and others? What would you have to do in your life today to begin this service, this contribution? Why not begin?
UNDERTAKING THE FIVE PRECEPTS: NONHARMING AS A GIFT TO THE WORLD
Every great spiritual system offers guidelines for ethical conduct as a statement that spiritual life cannot be separated from our words and actions. A conscious commitment to virtue and nonharming is the foundation for living a harmonious and compassionate life. At first, following a moral code can be seen as a protection for yourself and others. With further practice and reflection, you can see how each basic area of truthfulness and integrity can be developed into a meditation itself, bringing you awakening and sowing seeds of inner freedom. As you develop each area of your virtue, it can become a spontaneous gift, an offering of caring from your heart to all other beings.
In Buddhist practice, one way to establish virtue and integrity is to formally repeat and undertake The Five Precepts. This can be done regularly, as a reminder and a recommitment of your intentions.
To undertake the five precepts, sit in a quiet and alert fashion in your regular place of meditation. If you have an altar, you may wish to light a candle or offer incense or flowers. Then rest with your body still and your heart open. When you are ready, recite the following precepts:
I undertake the training precept of refraining from killing and harming living beings.
I undertake the training precept of refraining from stealing and taking that which is not mine.
I undertake the training precept of refraining from causing harm through sexual misconduct.
I undertake the training precept of refraining from false speech, harmful speech, gossip, and slander.
I undertake the training precept of refraining from the misuse of intoxicants such as alcohol or drugs that cause carelessness or loss of awareness.
As you recite each precept, feel the intention in your heart. Sense the strength and well-being it can offer you and the compassion it holds for all beings in the world.
Then at some time in your practice, if you wish to explore further ways to work with these precepts, you can do the following exercise:
Pick and refine one of the five precepts as a way to cultivate and strengthen virtue and mindfulness. Work with that precept meticulously for one week. Then examine the results and choose another precept for a subsequent week. Here are some possible ways to work with each precept.
1. Refraining from killing: reverence for life. Undertake for one week to purposely bring no harm in thought, word, or deed to any living creature. Particularly become aware of any living beings in your world whom you ignore (people, animals, even plants), and cultivate a sense of care and reverence for them too.
2. Refraining from stealing: care with material things. Undertake for one week to minimize consumption—driving less, spending less, letting each physical act be one of caring stewardship and respect. Then undertake for one week to act on every single thought of generosity that arises spontaneously in your heart.
3. Refraining from false speech: speech from the heart. Undertake for one week not to gossip (positively or negatively) or speak about anyone you know who is not present with you (any third party).
4. Refraining from sexual misconduct: conscious sexuality. Undertake for one week to observe meticulously how often sexual feelings and thoughts arise in your consciousness. Each time, note what particular mind states you find associated with them, such as love, tension, compulsion, caring, loneliness, desire for communication, greed, pleasure, aggression, and so forth.
5. Refraining from intoxicants. Undertake for one week or one month to refrain from all intoxicants and addictive substances (such as wine, liquor, marijuana, cigarettes, and caffeine). Observe the impulses to use these, and become aware of what is going on in the heart and mind at the time of those impulses.