The gift of practice
My teacher Shantala Ramaiah wrote a beautiful blog entry for Gurupūrṇimā last month. In it she talked about how to pay homage to our teachers. She said the biggest gift we can offer our teachers is sitting down with the practice.
Not talking about it. Not posting about it. Sitting down, and doing it.
That's what keeps a lineage or any tradition intact - not devotion in the abstract, but the actual effort of staying inside the practice, day after day. That effort is what ensures something survives long enough to reach the next person. And somewhere in the middle of all that repeating, something starts to shift within you. Repetition steadies the mind. Within the steadiness, a quiet clarity begins to arise.
Sādhana or practice, is one of three tools the tradition hands us for working with our karma - dāna (generosity) and sevā (service) are the other two, and they all run on the same principle. You engage in a practice(action). You keep showing up for it. And it works on you, quietly, the whole time you're doing it.
We come to this practice because it crosses our path. Usually we come to it with no expectations, but rather a feeling of hope. At some point - we don't usually notice exactly when - the initial reason for which we came begins to shift, we show up because we have found that sense of coming home and we just want to keep returning to it. Slowly overtime it may even become how you live. It becomes the actual means you have of working with your own karma.
This is why a lineage outlasts every single teacher and practitioner who has ever carried it. The practice carries its own strength born of the dedication of the many who carried it and continue to carry it.
Feeling the call to engage in a practice that can actually transform you is karma too. Finding a teacher who transmits in a way you're able to receive, walking into a tradition that has stayed intact long enough to reach you, having the time, and the means to actually practice…All of it is a result of karma. It is a true blessing.
I think about Ram Dass sometimes when I sit with this, about the way he used to talk about the spiritual path never being a straight climb toward the good feelings. He would emphasize that the doubt, the ups and downs, the obstacles, those are an integrated part of it too. The fear, the anger, even the low periods we'd rather skip past - all of it is perfect. None of it is separate from the work. You don't get to keep only the parts of the path that feel like grace.
Blog post by Bibi Lorenzetti