Ask yourself, where are you on the path? Checking in with yourself, is a great method for self-guidance. When honestly look at where you are, you’ll find yourself able to apply the specific doses of the specific medicines in the specific combinations you require, at this moment to get you back. You are your own best spiritual doctor on the path. Others may be of some help, but looking and listening to yourself is your best source of healing and helping.
I get a feeling in this online, connected world, many of us are engaged in practice as our own guides to the path. I deeply believe we’re doing great things. I feel we are making right-efforts to reach our goals, that we are not waiting or making excuses about the suffering in life. I feel we are all engaging in life as it as, accepting our situations and moving along the path as it arises.
The flip-side of this, that I feel and have been personally experiencing is that if I don’t sometimes check-in, asking where I am, I sometimes find myself straying from the path. I find I become blind in some way, without even noticing it. This question, when honestly asked, breaks through the blindness, shaking me from the stray, back into line. This time around, I’ve been noticing for a while something’s up, but couldn’t place my finger on it.
Sitting on the cushion, checking in, I realize I’ve been making excuses for my lack of morning meditation, and unskillfully extending myself. This is a great weight of my shoulders, no longer am I in a cloud of fear and worry. No longer am I trapped in the realm of thought or mind. Asking the question honestly, sitting down and openly accepting the answer, the path illuminated itself, and removed the weight.
Regardless of how you’re traveling along this path, I’d suggest you ask yourself where you are on it. Really allow openness and space for the answer to reach you. You may be closer or further along then you thought. How will you know, unless you ask the question? Peace to all beings.
(The Five Hindrances have been a great source of questioning for me. For more material on the hinderances, check out Zencast 47 – Doubt.)
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I am currently on the Left side of the path. I started on the Middle Way, but the path curved…as it often does. This required correction through Right effort. But naturally, there was some overcompensation involved and I really had to concentrate to avoid the thousand-petalled lotus just over there in the ditch. Right now I am trying to see whether the line in the centre of the path is solid or broken, because you really don’t want to pass on a solid line, especially if you’re going up a hill. And there do seem to be a lot of hills.
Larry, Thank you for your beautiful comment, it makes me smile.
Metta,
Wade
I’m right now in the Meditation Training (Right Mindfulness,Right Concentration) section of the path.
This does not mean that I have perfected Wisdom and Ethics training. Far from it! 90% of my day I’m asleep at the wheel, driving in the ditch.
But, I’ve come to the point where it is not understanding that I need to cultivate. I need to practice what I’ve studied. My current realization is that it is mindfulness and meditation that enable us to actually live up to our human potential.
But by practicing meditation I am finding some balance, by living fully within the present we are free from our hindrances, and we achieve Right View. Of course this is a slow, process. The development of it possibly never ending. But, by being right here, right now we don’t need to strive – - we can just be.
Wonderful awakening post!
I too can sometimes fall asleep at the wheel so to speak. We generally pull the wool over our own eyes.
Whenever I pause to ask myself where I am on the path, I acknowledge that we are always at the beginning, even near the end.
Beginning is the dawn of new awareness and we are always on the brink of a new dawn.
Blessings.
I am completely new to buddhism, a good friend of mine from the military introduced it to me, I fell off the right path and now am looking to get back into it. Where do I start and how do I go about doing so? Any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated, if anyone can help with that please send them to my email address, razur_25@yahoo.com Thanks
Where am I on the path,
I went the to the extreme after meditation for a year few years back. I had Right Mindfulness,Right Concentration. At the same time, I felt less human, less connected with the real world. (more connected with the universe)
I thought buddhism was avoiding pain and suffering, then I realise is that pain and suffering makes us human. Make us who we are.
where I am is where I questioning:
What is the middle path, where is this path taking me.
We all get lost even on the buddhism path, if we don’t meditate.
Lance Wheeler, truth comes from the floor, comes from within. Zen Meditation could be a way how we both can get back onto it.
Like hiking in the woods, sometimes you lose the path. Once you realize this, you can forge ahead, backtrack, or wander around until you find the path again. It is always a relief to return to the path so you start to relax and before you know it, you are lost again.
It’s funny that this very thread is thread is an example of losing the path. I lost this post, and it took Jerry to post a comment to find I’d strayed away. Sorry.
@Greg, I wonder how things have changed in the last 10 months. Your last sentence “by being right here, right now we don’t need to strive – – we can just be.” rings true for eternity regardless. Thank you for that.
@Vera, thanks for your kind words. The Enso is the symbol for showing that the beginning and end are not separate, but part of the same. A symbol I try and remember every day and moment of my life. Absolute and Relative, and working within and between both…
@Lance, I’d suggest heading over to the recommended sections at the top. There’s free audio downloads, and books if you’d like to read instead of listen.
@Yem, Big questions, that need constant asking. The Middle Way is always in motion
I find that Meditation helps clear things up, but we can still be meditating and caught in ideas, even ideas about meditating…
@Jerry, thanks for bring me back. Very beautifully written, something I’ve personally done a few times myself, so it hits even harder.
May all beings have peace, may all beings be happy.
Gassho,
Wade