The session only lasted for less than an hour and a half. It was hard going and difficult to concentrate, the words that were so familiar to me on retreat I stumbled through and had to piece back together again. It was tough and again, I felt like a phony. I tried to get some feeling back for how it should be – setting the right motivation, going for refuge to the 3 jewels, trying to generate the mind of bodhicitta.

While I was on retreat my mind was so sensitive, so open. I’ve been back in the city for perhaps 2 months. Now my mind is wrapped up again in mental defence of the self, focusing on protecting ‘this self’ among a sprawling mass of ‘other people’. Old tried and tested habits have quietly re-established themselves in my mind, like weeds growing rampant in a garden. It will take some time to peal back just a few layers of the weeds that have grown in just 2 months.

Today I made the first step forward, and I’m glad about that much at least.

“If the text is complete, it can lead you along the path, regardless of the amount of detail it has to offer – in the same way that the huge room of a minister of state and a monk’s cell both serve their own purposes” pg. 79

3 faults of a vessel: Pabongka Rinpoche describes the 3 faults of a vessel:

1. The fault of being like an upturned vessel: so we need to focus entirely during the teaching
2. The fault of being like a stained vessel: so we need to listen with the right motivation – bodhicitta
3. The fault of being like a leaky vessel: so we need to ask ourselves what the best way of retaining the information is, and do that

6 helpful attitudes: Of the 6 helpful attitudes (pg.82) the one that really stood out for me was 4. the attitude that diligent practice will cure the illness. I find it difficult to fit meditation into my regular daily routine. The idea being that after you have studied or received the teachings from a qualified teacher and considered it as personal instruction, you must then go on to put the personal instruction into practice.

“Yet the patient does not take this most wholesome

And precious medicine, the potential cure,

Do not blame the doctor; the medicine’s not at fault.

Rather, the patient himself is to blame” pg.85

While I am trying to put the teachings into practice in my daily life, I am failing to incorporate my study into my formal meditation practice. So there is a gap here. Pabanongka Rinpoche goes on to explain that this gap is in fact dangerous:

“Too much study and too little meditation is cause to become unyielding toward the Dharma”

distinctions such as Mahayana versus Hinayana, or theoretical Dharma versus practical Dharma – and abandon part of the Dharma, producing a continual stream of the direct type of karma. The obscuration that result are extremely heavy

The idea being that abandoning any of the Buddhadharma is a bad idea because it results in a heavy unwholesome deed.

I am am often quick to focus on the areas of the dharma that I find interesting or easy to hear. I often pass lightly over sections that I find unappealing, technically complicated or difficult for me to hear. In the quote presented above, it is clear that this attitude is a bad idea.

Balance of two opposing ideas: So I guess this suggests that I need to balance these two opposing ideas:

1. Being open to all authentic sources of the Buddhadharma, whether it be my preferred Tibetan Buddhism, or another Mahayana presentation of the Dharma such as Chinese or Japanese, or the Thai or Vietnamese Hinayana presentations. I should be more open to these other, authentic presentations of the Buddhadharma. By “authentic” I use this to disqualify Western forms of Buddhism where the Dharma has been edited / sullied.
2. There are many pathways up the mountain, but to reach the top one must walk one pathway. From the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, this requires a reliance upon a qulified teacher who will guide me (the student) through the various stages of development, using their extensive scriptural understanding and knowledge based upon meditation experience.

Conclusion: While I have my focus for my own spiritual development, I should still be open to other presentations of the Buddhadharma.