The intimacy of practice is the practice of non-separation, of being at one with whatever is happening. We tend to think that we are not all right now—we're too fearful, greedy, angry, whatever—and if we take up some spiritual practice we can improve ourselves. By doing this, we think, we will be all right at some moment in an imagined future. This is the mind that works on the "in order to" principle—we are always doing this in order to get that, or to be that. Yet this very tendency—to … [Read more...]
Larry Rosenberg
Body People, Mind People
One of my early teachers was Shivananda Saraswati, who was about 85 years old when I first met him. He was traveling on the Greyhound bus, and I was so impressed that I became his traveling companion. He was a Vedandin monk, and told me that Vedantins were often great scholars who practiced a kind of awareness called ‘witnessing,’ but who could also be condescending about bodily care, seeing it as a burden and obstacle to liberation. However, Shivananda observed that his fellow monks were … [Read more...]
The Wisdom of the Ordinary Mind
Larry, you have been involved with the dharma for some time now, and you have studied, practiced, and taught in a number of different ways. How would you describe your current interest in dharma practice? Where is your greatest passion these days? In recent years I have mostly been working with people who practice dharma in the context of householder life. This has required a great deal of flexibility and creativity, insofar as every practitioner finds himself or herself in unique … [Read more...]
Shining the Light of Death on Life: Maranasati Meditation (Part II)
The first part of this article which appeared in the Spring 1994 issue of Insight ended with this quote from the great Tibetan yogi Milarepa: "In brief, without being mindful of death, whatever Dharma practices you take up will be merely superficial." What was Milarepa suggesting? When we forget about our own death, we may also be more likely to forget the dharma? If we don't recall death we will also lose the wish to train our minds in dharma? In forgetting about death do we become … [Read more...]
Shining the Light of Death on Life: Maranasati Meditation (Part I)
(Adapted from a workshop at BCBS on November 20, 1993) Meditation on death awareness is one of the oldest practices in all Buddhist traditions. In the words of the Buddha, “of all the footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditation, that on death is supreme." The Tibetan Book of the Dead was one of the first and most popular books to attract the attention of Buddhist practitioners in America in the nineteen-sixties and seventies. The tremendous popularity … [Read more...]
