Daily meditation practice

[MindTheGap]

So, I'd like to request some guidance and suggestions from you gals and guys about my daily meditation practice from a Mahayana / Vajrayana perspective, and get some ideas about what I'm doing and maybe what I should be doing in my everyday meditation practice.


Before I begin, I have an aspiration of my own I wrote:

Clear mind,
Warm heart,
Helping hand:
the aspiration to remain
until all beings find 
liberation from suffering.
See all things
As a teaching.
Focus not on the goal,
but on the path;
Remain mindful
of every thought and action:
with compassion  to relieve 
the sufferings of the world.

At the beginning of my meditation, I do three prostrations, and recite the following:

Shamatha verses before meditation

The verses of refuge:

I go for refuge to the Buddha,
The Dharma, and the Sangha.
Through the virtuous merit
that I collect by practicing
giving and other perfections;
may I attain the state of the Buddha
in order to benefit 
all sentient beings

The four immesurables:

May all beings have happiness
and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from suffering
and the causes of suffering.
May all beings never be separated
from great joy beyond all misery.
May all beings dwell in equanimity 
unaffected by attraction and aversion.

—————————————

Verses after meditation:

Four vows of the Bodhisattva 

Sentient beings are numberless; 
I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; 
I vow to end them.
The dharma gates are boundless;
I vow to open them.
The enlightened way is unsurpassable;
I vow to embody it.

Dedication of merit:

Let this merit represent 
all of my merit past, present and future.
May all of this merit be dedicated
towards the full attainment of awakening
for the benefit of all sentient beings.
As the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the three times
have dedicated their merit;
so may my merit go towards that
to which they have dedicated theirs.

...

And, one of the following as I feel needed in my life's circumstance:

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them;
let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it;
let me not look to allies in life's battlefield but to my own strength;
let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom. 

- (by Rabindranath Tagore)



Calling the Guru from Afar (short form)

Guru, think of me; kind root guru think of me.
Essence of the Buddhas of the three times;
Source of the holy Dharma of scripture and experience;
Master of the Sangha, the noble assembly;
Root guru, think of me.

Precious guru, I pray to you;
Kind Lord of the Dharma I cry to you with longing;
I am an unworthy person who has no other help but you.
Grant your blessing so that my mind mixes inseparably with yours.

Guru, think of me.
Look upon me quickly with compassion;
Grant your blessing so that whatever I do becomes Dharma.

*************************

I also make the eight-bowl offering once a week with the Seven Limb prayer on a day of intensive meditation practice (four sits interspersed throughout the day with periods of work - mostly housework - listinening to recorded dharma talks or reading dharma books, and two small meals) somewhat fashioned after a Zen sesshin.

I guess my question is - is this appropriate (I've already gotten advice on Calling the Guru from Afar), should I add anything, subtract anything, too much / too little, wrong wording, &c &c &c...

I don't mean to make a big deal out of it - just want my practice to be appropriate and the best it can be.

[Ayu]

I think, it is a matter of your personal taste, amount of time and what resonates with you.

The lamrim gives some advices how to set up the daily practice. I liked the advice to have four sessions a day:
Before and after sunrise, before and after sunset. I followed that for a while and liked it very much, because it was independent from the clock. Right now this rule is a little bit upside down for me and I don't follow it.

[MindTheGap]

The above is definitely what resonates with me

Due to my work schedule (rise at 3:20 am, @ work by 4:00 am to get a parking place - work 12 hours 5:00am to 5:30pm - home by 6:00pm - feed cats, eat dinner, do a little Internet here and there mostly at dinner time - meditate 15 to 20 minutes, try to squeeze in a little reading, some mantra practice with my mala - off to bed) I only meditate once a day on the days I work.

Weekends, I do my intensive practice mentioned above on Saturdays. Also on the weekend, I attend Shambhala meditation and instruction. Also volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Keeps me busy!

Fridays are just to relax and unwind, do whatever. Still, I do two 20 minute sits on that day. Housework and laundry as needed.

I tend to stay up a little too late on Sundays. Once again, a little unwinding before the plunge into the workweek.

...not to mention family birthdays, holidays &c. I have a close family.

That was probably more than you wanted to know, but, oh well.

I guess the point is I do as much practice as I can, given my schedule.

Jeez, I need to practice and get to bed!

[Ayu]

There are practices besides "sitting" that count as meditation, too.
Some people claim, they see no difference in the quality of their meditation wether they sit or not and they say their whole day and night was a meditation.
At least these words sound good.

[MindTheGap]

I do have "moments of mindfulness" during the day. I take about five minutes during my breaks just to follow my breath. If something difficult comes up, I do Tonglen on the spot or as soon as I can (some things require immediate action, during which I try to focus on the breath and mindfulness on the task at hand). So, yes, it is about more than just sitting practice - the practice cultivates how you live your daily life

I've also added chanting the mantra of the heart sutra at the the very end. I don't usually do much chanting, but I'm really getting a lot of benefit from that.

I've been reading a lot of Thich Nhat Hahn lately - getting back to the basics. It's really helping me to enrich my practice in general.

One nice thing about the weekends is being able to awaken just before the sunrise and do sitting practice as twilight creeps into the room. Then, I look out the window and watch the sun rise with a nice cup of tea. You're right - it does add a little something extra

[tomschwarz]

all this is not going to work. as your friend, I can offer you one very very very very very very very small piece of advice, you do not exist, neither do I, in this sense of what I do, what you do, did, done ....e.g. give it 1000 years and it will truly be remembered by none, I am certain. but on the other hand the waves of cause and effect will continue with some input from what you did, have done. so consider collapsing all of your positive intentions on to itself and give up your personal territory and simply take on the suffering and causes for happiness of all sentient beings.

[muni]

Thank you for all kind examples and practice for all.

Meanwhile I am meditating and I am practicing this and also this and that. Since I am a devoted Buddhist I am kind, generous, I am patient and much more. And I study very nicely and so I know this and that and also that and so on. I am from this tradition. I am practicing many practices (chod and so on) from this hour till that, and after that I am…….

All these are with the focus/identification on I and I feel this is what I already do so many suffering lives. It doesn’t work at all indeed! Okay I must do self-inquiry, I do that very well, I am already well trained in such and I………

I often have wondered, how to put focus on others and take their suffering upon me and wish may they have the causes of happiness, can help me!

……………………………………………………..oops. Oh well!

Much love.

[Ayu]

When I started with Buddhist meditation my sole motivation was to support my eldest son from afar.
I knew, I should have had a wider focus on more beings, but honestly I did care only for my son and for the rest of my family.
Retrospectively I think, this was a very good starting motivation.
The right view is nothing fixed, it has to develop all the time further and wider and deeper.

[muni]

It’s the I always behind everything, which keeps Buddhism as a dual game, and can feel good to ego. I do this and that.
Ha, now I am a Buddhist, hello! And you? You are wrong or you simple do not exist. And they? Well also. Case closed.

Whatever such daily practice, such never works. I the person, I the Buddhist, I the this and the that. I is a fixated concept in a thought/feeling and identifying with such habitual fixation is a warranty for our suffering and the space in which thoughts/feelings arise-subside isn’t experienced at all. Only phenomena what the senses can hear-see-smell-feel-taste… are experienced, the empty spacious awareness in which all play is not seen. And so we identify with phenomena thoughts, feelings, emotions, body, and recognize only known-seen-heard…phenomena.

That spacious awareness which is not a thing, Masters explain, the air in front of us is not seen, but that means not it is nothingness. The air is not a thing, in that way all-embracing air-space-sky is metaphor for dependence-emptiness or spacious equality appearances-emptiness. Example:

What you must do is to rest in the spaciousness
Of the equality of appearance emptiness.

There are many wonderful practices and guidance given in the different traditions.

Sure directing energy to others is the way to open heart-open mind in order these extremes; ‘I and others’ are allowed to vanish. Then awareness is, awareness without any fixation.

Oh yes. Thank you Ayu for your example of widening, opening our heart!

Much love.