Courage and Humility

What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the courage and humility to really ask for help, from the depths of our hearts: to ask for the compassion of enlightened beings, to ask for purification and healing, to ask for the power to understand the meaning of suffering and transform it; at a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom of the master.

GLIMPSE 

AFTER GLIMPSE

Sogyal Rinpoche (August 9)

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 Everyone seeking spiritual growth needs someone to bounce off of. Those of us in recovery have a sponsor and fellowship to get us started but some of us need something more. It is important to have a path. The meaning of religion to me is direction and a distinct discipline for guidance. We have churches, priests and ministers in the Western traditions but we don’t have much beyond the confessional for our spirituality. We either, approach “God” through the intercession of “the Saints” and priests in Orthodox and Catholic Christian churches, or we do so directly, as in most Christian Protestantism. I believe that this is why there are so many confusing sects and denominations interpreting the scriptures of the Bible. The twentieth century also brought us the development of various psychiatric therapies… some of which have elements that resemble spiritual awareness. We speak of athletes excelling through rigorous training but we resist going to someone, or teachings, in a fellowship that can actually help us with the most important thing in our lives… our conscious contact with the Heart of Compassion.

    I confess that I am somewhat of a hypocrite along these lines because I have my own meditation practice that I have gleaned what I can understand from the writings of a few Tibetan masters… but I am getting there and, at least, have chosen a path. When challenged to choose this or that guru I can ask: Who was the Buddha’s master?

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