Art, gardening, writing, contemplation, mindfulness, cooking, mothering, loving kindness, communing with nature, yoga, social action, nursing and other forms of service all function as daily practice. So does nightly praying, keeping the Shabbat, sitting meditation, repeating a mantra, fasting, and other practices traditionally prescribed by religious groups. The important thing is to bring a conscious, ongoing awareness into your chosen activity, acknowledging that it forms a part of your spiritual path. This intent, this consciousness, helps to stabilize and deepen your experience.
It is important to connect with a practice from the heart, not because someone else recommends it. When you find one that speaks to you, use it regularly. A daily--or at least an ongoing--habit of consciously connecting to the spirit by a specific method creates a pattern in the body and in the unconscious which will carry you through when the mind is exhausted. An ongoing practice automatically leads you to spiritual renewal and revitalization.
Retreats, seminars, and workshops help to broaden and strengthen spiritual practice and introduce you to others on the same path. In time, you may wish to find a teacher or become part of a community, but the first step is to establish an ongoing practice.
Ayya Khema, a Theravadan nun, was born in Germany and, as a girl, escaped the
Nazis by fleeing to China with her family. Along with other Jewish refugees,
she was put into a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp where her father died. She
married, had two children, but managed to meditate as a householder. Before
she became involved with Buddhism, she learned meditation at the Aurobindo ashram
in India from the Mother, and studied Advaita at Ramana Maharishi's ashram.
She has established Buddhist centers in Germany, Australia, and Nun's Island
in Sri Lanka, and is the author of Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.
Spiritual practice
is often misunderstood and believed to be something special. It isn't. It is
one's whole body and mind. Nothing special at all, just oneself. Many people
think of it as meditation or ritual, devotional practice or chanting to be performed
at a specific time in a certain place. Or it may be connected with a special
person without whom the practice cannot occur. These are views and opinions
which lead to nothing.
In the best case they may result in sporadic practice and in the worst case,
they lead to fracturing ourselves, making two, three or four people out of ourselves
when we aren't even one whole yet. Namely, the ordinary person doing all the
ordinary worldly chores and the other one who becomes spiritual at certain times
in diverse ways. Meditation, rituals, devotional practice, chanting, certain
places, certain people can be added to our lives but they are not the essence
of our spirituality.
Our practice consists of constant purification; there's nothing else to be done. Eventually we will arrive at a point where our thought processes and feelings are not only kind and loving but also full of wisdom, bringing benefit to ourselves and others.
Ayya Khema
Little Dust in Our Eyes
Nun's Island, Sri Lanka, 1988
Is there a special "spiritual" you that stands apart from your other
persona? Examine the ways in which this part of your personality is kept separate
(untouched?) from your "normal" self. Becoming conscious of this division
is perhaps the first step toward integration.
Most religions offer some way of purifying past actions through confession of wrong and commitment to improved behavior in the future. In the following exercise, one confesses to and receives absolution from a source of light visualized above the head. Although this light can be seen to represent divine forgiveness and compassion, these forces--projected by your own psyche--are also inner.
Visualize a source of light about six inches above your head. Take a moment to relate to this pure and healing source of light. Confess--to yourself, to the light--something you've done wrong. Contemplate the consequences of your action, not just on yourself, but on others. Feel deep regret for your action. Vow not to repeat the action. Experience the light above you streaming down through the crown of your head and flowing through your body, pushing out the impurities caused by your actions; feel their negative residue leave your body through your pores, through the soles of your feet. Repeat this process until you feel filled with light. Sincerely wish that others can benefit from this light.
Contemplating impermanence helps you to realize that the true nature of reality is change. Since everything is passing, fleeting, moving, why get so upset over every little thing? A large part of being a peace keeper is learning to abide in the present moment. In turn, being in the moment means being able to change with the changing situation around us, of "going with the flow." We can't do this unless we deeply understand the ongoing impermanence of ourselves, our world and everything in it. If we don't intuitively understand this, we can come to do so gradually by training.
Set up a signal to yourself--every time you open the car door, for instance--as a time to contemplate impermanence. Remember that you won't be here for long, that everything that comes together falls apart, that meeting implies parting, that with birth comes death. Every time you open that door, feel the truth of impermanence. This helps to loosen not only self-clinging, but the importance we place on every tiny situation during the day.
In Islam, fasting from sun-up to sunset is required during Ramadan, roughly one month out of the year. It is recommended at other times to allow a person to detach from desires and rest in dhikr. The basic principle of dhikr, which is remembrance or invocation of Allah, is to bring a person into a state where there are no thoughts, thereby becoming neutralized or cleansed.
The Prophet said, "For how many people does fasting bring nothing other than hunger and thirst?"
The Prophet once heard a woman neighbor cursing her servant. He sent her some food, and she sent back a message saying that she was fasting. He said, "How can you be fasting, and yet curse your servant? What is the use of your fast?" We cannot take just one portion of our path. We cannot take only the outer practices without the inner meaning. What is the inner meaning of fasting? The real meaning, the inner secret, is for one's heart to fast from anything other than Allah.
Shaykh Fadhlalla
Haeri
Living Islam: East and West
Element Books, London, 1989