Thirty-one answers to the question "What is practice?"

  • Practice is about experiencing the truth of who we really are.
  • Practice is about being with our life as it is, not as we would like it to be.
  • Practice is about clarifying our belief systems so that even if they remain, they no longer run us.
  • Practice is about seeing through the illusion of a separate self.
  • Practice is about learning to be kind, but we will never be kind until we truly experience our unkindness.
  • Practice is about attending to and experiencing wherever we're stuck, whatever we're holding, whatever clouds our True Nature.
  • Practice is about willingly residing in whatever life presents to us.
  • Practice comes back again and again to the the basic koan: "What is this?" -- always pointing directly to the experiential truth of the moment.
  • Practice is about turning away from constantly seeking comfort and trying to avoid pain.
  • Practice is about learning to be no one, not giving solidity to any belief system -- just Being.
  • Practice is about becoming free of the slavery of our self-judgments and our shame.
  • Practice is about increasing awareness of who we are and what our life is.
  • Practice is about becoming a lamp unto ourselves.
  • Practice is about moving from a life of emotional upset toward a life of equanimity.
  • Practice is always about returning to our True Nature.
  • Practice is about the growing ability to say thank you to everything that we meet.
  • Practice is about the transformation of our unnecessary suffering.
  • Practice is about the clash between what we want and what is.
  • Practice is about increasingly entering into Love -- not personal love, but the Love that is the nature of our Being.
  • Practice is about turning from a self-centered view to a life-centered view.
  • Practice is about finally understanding the basic paradox that although everything is a mess, All Is Well.
  • Practice is about appreciating our preferences without making them demands.
  • Practice is about suffering, but learning from our suffering.
  • Practice is about perseverance -- the ability to continue in our efforts even though life doesn't please us in the ordinary sense.
  • Practice is about learning to live from the open heart -- the heart that only knows connectedness.
  • Practice is about becoming free of our attachments and the suffering that is born of those attachments.
  • Practice will always entail forgiveness, at least as long as there is even one person whom we can't forgive.
  • Practice must ultimately deal with the most basic human fear, the fear of extinction, whether of the physical body or of the ego.
  • Practice is about learning to say yes to what's happening, even when we hate it.
  • Practice is about giving ourselves to others, but like a white bird in the snow.
  • Practice always comes back to the willingness to just be.