Question: How does one go about dedicating their life to this practice? I’m 25 and don’t have many responsibilities, so I have more flexibility and time to give to it.

Answer: It’s like that old Nike slogan: just do it. There are ways of going about “doing the non-doing” but in the most basic terms, one must fearlessly commit himself to “doing” the path so that the path can, ahem, “do” him.  Once this fiery resolve is born within, the next opening to address is how. With this in mind, I have one bit of advice: go methodically, with care. This doesn’t mean for you to be timid. Instead it means for you to be aware of your steps since desperation nearly always defiles and derails the process. Loosen up while at the same time let the light of your fire show you where you are clinging. Study the clinging with complete curiosity and fearlessness, over and over and over. This is what allows for us to ascend… even as we descend. Weird, but language gets in the way at times.  A word of caution… don’t turn your search into another attachment. Time and again I see people that give up everything to start anew and they burn out after a relatively short time. Your path is wherever you are. Travel won’t necessarily bring you any closer to your own experience. It might, but it’s usually a romantic distraction that serves to only minimally enhance the process of awakening. The real work is right in front of you, right in this moment.  Is there a felt sense of openness and space in your experience right now? If not then there is clinging. Look there and begin the search for a guide that can keep pointing you in the right direction.

Enjoy the dialog Michael shares with Vince Horn, the host of the Buddhist Geeks podcast.

Topics range from children to Svabhavikakaya to good beer.

Buddhist Geeks Interview: The Mountain of Spirit [ 27:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (19)

It’s hard to take much of this too seriously, but I still think two things are amazing:

1. Brit Hume’s views on what Buddhism does and doesn’t offer speaks to a significant lack of understanding, and
2. He does his best to play the martyr here even though an apology might have been the most “Christian” thing he could have done, allowing him to embody his faith.

Question: I’ve got a nuts-and-bolts question about meditation.  There are so many varieties:  following the breath, paying attention to whatever arises,  focusing on something particular (like a prayer), Tonglen, etc.  After years of teaching and practice, which methods have proven most helpful to you and your students? Is it useful to try different types of meditation at different stages?  What are your recommendations for the beginner, as well as the more experienced student?

Answer: This is a great series of questions about what is core to any authentic spiritual practice. So let me first start by saying that the heart of enlightenment, or awakening, or whatever you want to call it, is stillness. We can uncover the stillness that is the source of everything when we become truly still in these bodies we inhabit. Now as simple as this sounds, most of us find it rather difficult to actually become still. There is always a sense of movement, be it in the body or the mind, that minimizes our recognition of stillness. We might recognize it briefly, but then in our excitement we find that it’s gone. So we practice, over and over, moment by moment, year after year, to open ourselves to the deep quietude that permeates and lies beneath all experience, by meditating.

When we start out, we usually find it difficult, so we do simple things like following the breath, scanning the body, or reciting a sacred verse or mantra. All of these are great ways to open our experience to stillness, since they tend to allow our discursive minds to take a break. Suddenly we notice that the chatter has died down and there is a vastness to our experience that we may never have known before. It’s not beginner’s luck. It’s an invitation to the amazing party of authentic spiritual work, a celebration that is at once glorious and challenging.

As we get better and better at stilling our mind, we can begin to use any number of different techniques to train ourselves more deeply, allowing us to explore the various meditative states that are always available to us. However, I’ve seen this exploration lead people astray for years. They become skilled at uncovering various meditative states and confuse these states with enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a state. Rather, it’s the groundless ground of all states that is consciously integrated into the lives of those practitioners interested in sharing it. This is why I prefer to encourage students to simply open to what is showing up in the moment, then watch without commentary as each thought or feeling shows up. Just watch. As this watching continues, a subtle awareness of what we might call the “watcher” develops.  This is a naked awareness that is both still and totally oriented in the present moment. Consciously meeting our lives from this open stillness can’t help but awaken us to what is eternal in us.

Give it a shot… and report back.