Spiritual Tourism

We all have the karma to take one spiritual path or another, and I would encourage you, from the bottom of my heart, to follow with complete sincerity the path that inspires you most.
    If you go on searching all the time, the searching itself becomes an obsession and takes you over. You become a spiritual tourist, bustling about and never getting anywhere. As Patrul Rinpoche says; “You leave your elephant at home and look for its footprints in the forest.” Following one teaching is not a way of confining you or jealously monopolizing you. It is a compassionate and practical way of keeping you centered and always on your path, despite all the obstacles that you, and the world, will inevitably present.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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Choosing a path for me has been akin to taking aim at a target on a shooting range. I am focused on the target and am not concerned at all about the things around it. At first I do this to hone my skills and then I go out into the field where I must be aware of, but not distracted by, the movement around it. In meditation practice I have chosen my target and I have chosen a particular practice… but not because I mine is better than yours.
    Another question comes to mind about how to deal with others who insist that their practice, or beliefs, are superior to my own. This attitude is not exclusive to Christians or Muslims and etc. Some Buddhist sects often feel that they too have a superior practice or discipline than others as do some sects of Hindus. I believe it is almost a universal impulse to seek out the best in our beliefs and then suppose that those beliefs exclude inferior ones. My only template is; do my beliefs inspire truth, justice, kindness, and a practical application to everyday living?
   Once I have found one that suites me, I then settle down and practice it as thoroughly as I can in order to get the most of these qualities to live with. I can’t do that flitting about from one practice to another but, just because I have chosen one path doesn’t make mine superior to yours. I don’t argue religion or politics. My attitude once was stated as such; “To stand for nothing is to swallow anything.” But now my faith needs no defender, I simply show by my living what I believe because all my words fall on flatly to the ground if I don’t live by what I say.

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