Disciples of the Buddha
are fully awake
dwelling both day and night
in contemplation of the Awakened One.
Dhammapada v. 296
We can admire our Teacher, the Buddha, without abandoning who and what we are right now. There are those who, when invited to dwell in contemplation of the spiritual master, betray themselves in their attempts to imitate another. The Buddha didn’t want us to ignore who we feel ourselves to be and pretend to be somebody else; rather he encouraged an open-hearted, clear-minded receptivity of ‘this’ person, here and now, including all of our limitations and obsessions. Taking on a new set of conditioned habits in an attempt to be free from suffering is not liberation, it is abdication. In practice we include all of ourselves in a vast field of awareness, free of discrimination and bias, and in so doing offer all of ourselves in service to Dhamma.
With Metta,
Bhikkhu Munindo
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