Practice Matters

Forall keeps asking us: what is practice?

In this last Awakening Period, he told us dozens of times a day to practice. He even said the same thing with several synonyms, including, “spiritual maturation,” “inner growth,” and most commonly, “Deepen your essence!”

Slowly we realized that we didn’t know what he was talking about. Forall says this happens as one practices. The false knowledge one has lived by is seen as hollow and is discarded.

When I first came here, I thought I knew what he was talking about. I thought he meant: following the breath. I asked. He said: no, the breath ends. The safety you’re seeking is not based on the breath.

So I asked, “You tell us to follow the breath, but the breath isn’t the practice. The breath doesn’t practice. Still, we can use the breath to practice. How do we do that?”

And Anandabodhi just asked, “What are you talking about? What essence?”

He answered these questions by telling us a story.

He said that he tried, as a child, to figure out how to care for all living things. He didn’t know how, so he thought through many possible careers, such as becoming a politician and making laws to incentivize people to care for all life, or becoming an entrepreneur and selling a gadget that tricks people into caring for all life, or becoming a general and killing people who don’t care for all life. But he saw that none of these would really work. As he thought through these possibilities, he became sad and angry. He said that he may have seemed depressed or anxious to the adults around him who didn’t understand his aspiration. But really the problem was that in considering these professions, he was giving up on the most genuine part of his aspiration without admitting it.

He talked to many people about his despair, hoping someone would understand. One day, he was talking to his high school guidance counselor. He told her he wanted to care for all life, that this one goal was all he wanted to achieve in his lifetime, but he really had no idea how to do it. She listened with kindness and enthusiasm. Then she gave him a book that told a true story about Peace Pilgrim, a real woman who lived with integrity.

He realized there is such a thing as practice. It was as if his goal was right in front of him, but he had never thought of going straight ahead to get it.

Once he knew that there is practice, he knew what to do, and no one could stop him.