Here are a few helpful hints for sustaining your sitting practice:
- Sit every day, even if it’s for a short period. Intentionally dedicate this time of quieting — it is a gift to the soul!
- A few times during each day, pause. Establish contact with your body and breath. Pause more and more — the space of a pause will allow you to come home to your heart and awareness.
- Reflect regularly on your aspiration for spiritual awakening and freedom — your own and that of all beings.
- Remember that, like you, everyone wants to be happy and nobody wants to suffer
- Practice regularly with a group or a friend.
- Use inspiring resources such as books, CD’s or web-accessed dharma talks (IMCW, Dharma Seed)
- Sign up for a retreat — one day, a weekend, or longer. The experience will deepen your practice.
- If you miss practice for a day, a week, or a month, simply begin again.
- If you need guidance, ask for help from an experienced meditator or teacher.
- Don’t judge your practice — rather, accept what unfolds and trust your capacity to awaken and be free!
- Live with a reverence for life — committed to non-harming, to seeing, honoring and serving the sacred in all beings.
- You are traveling a path that has led to clarity, peace and deep realization for many people over thousands of years.
May their awakening support and inspire you.
May the sincerity of your practice heal and free your spirit.