September 14, 2002

samsara of practice

Suffering makes for good Buddhist practice (or any spiritual path, for that matter). Then you start to feel better and things start to work out a little bit like you’d hoped they would. There is still a certain degree of suffering that happens, but your attitude towards it is better adjusted to cope with the situation. Maybe you don’t, but I get comfortable in this “new mode” and let myself slip a little. I get back to my old ways and eventually I’m not sitting in the mornings, not listening to teachings and doing a lot of things I thought I had given up. Start to find a lot of attitudes I thought I had left behind creeping up and invading my mind.

At this point I usually remember why I started in the first place because I’m feeling very much like I did when I started. I hope for that rush that I got the first time I heard the Diamond Cutter Sutra. This seems to work the first few weeks and I get pretty comfortable in my practice—the samsara of spiritual progress. Around the wheel we go again.

posted @ 7:58 PM

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