Tonight Donald explored ways in which we can deepen our daily life practice. He asked us to reflect individually on what supports our practice. Answers ranged from reading inspirational material, to being in nature, tuning into the body, and keeping things in perspective.

In most Buddhist cultures, daily life practice is a considered second class practice. The real action is being a monk or a nun. For us, we're somewhere in between. For most of our teachers, learning unfolds in daily life. It's not easy and distractions are endless in a society that support diversions.

Five Basic Supports:

1. Have a daily practice.
2. Do reading that inspires you.
3. Be part of a Sangha or community where there is support for the values of mindfulness and compassion.
4. Do retreats or take a day off once-a-week.
5. Follow the ethical precepts

Five More Supports:

These are supports from Donald's own practice. He followed each one with related text and a poem.

1. Know what's important.

   To what extent are our lives guided by what's most important to us or structured by others? Ask - what are my priorities? Am I living according to my deeper values?

   Text is from The Four Mind Turnings or the Four Relfections.

   1. Reflecting on the preciousness of human life.
   2. Reflecting on Impermanence.
   3. Reflecting on the reality of suffering.
   4. Reflecting on the inescabability of karma.

   Our actions are continually producing consequences by how we incline our minds.
   The Poem is When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

   When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up having simply visited this world.

2. The importance of the body in daily life practice.

   Having this awareness is a major way to bring mindfulness into the flow of daily life. John Travis said, "Let your body be your monastery." Let your body bring you back to mindfulness.

   The text is from Buddha, "If you pay attention to your body, the whole of the spiritual path is there." Being in one's body breaks the trance of thinking, which is crucial for daily life practice.

   The Poem is The Gift by Hafiz ()

   The body a tree. God a wind. When He moves me like this, Like this, Angels bump heads with each other Gathering beneath my cheeks, Holding their wine Barrels Catching the brilliant tear, Pearl Rain

3. Bring one's practice into more and more parts of one's life.

   This is what maturation of practice is about. Is there a way that my spirituality is segmented? Are there some places where it is alive and places where it is not? Ask - how may I bring the spirit of my practice into those places where it is not developed. The world is in a desperate condition. It's time for people to stand up. Try taking one cause that is dear to you and bring your best practice into it.

   The Text is from The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, a lay person who brought practice into all aspects of his life. (Quote too long to reproduce here).

   The Poem is I Live My Life in Widening Circles from Rilke

   I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I've been circling for thousands of years and I still don't know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?

4. Practice the Craft of Alchemy.

   Take difficult circumstances as a starting point for practice. When we do this our practice accelerates. It's a sign of maturation.

   The Text is from the Tibetan. "Transform all obstacles into the path of practice. It's not for everyone at every time, especially if we've had a lot of pain. First stabilize the healing. Ajahn Chah said, "We often run away from our pain; but we find that our pain comes running after us."

   The Poem is from The Dueno Elegies
   by Rilke.

   Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you, inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain. How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end. Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, one season in our inner year, not only a season in time, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.

5. Go for the Beauty.

   Find ways to access your deeper vision – through art, or writing, or the natural world. Deliberately move toward the wonderful qualities of love and wisdom.

   The Text is from Buddha.

   Luminous is this mind, brightly shining, but it is colored by the attachments that visit it. This unlearned people do not really under- stand, and so do not cultivate the mind. Lu- minous is this mind, brightly shining, and it is free of the attachments that visit it. This the noble follower of the way really understands; so for them there is cultivation of the mind.

   The Poem is Navajo, found by Donald at Chaco Canyon.

   Walk with dignity But be in touch with the beauty and the luminosity and the .breath of our being. Walk with dignity With beauty may I walk With beauty before me may I walk With beauty behind me may I walk With beauty above me may I walk. With beauty all around me may I walk. In old age wandering in the trail of beauty lively may I walk

   We ended with a Q & A.