CedarTree wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:37 pm*Meaning what are you doing, studying, practicing, and how do you see your life and practice as well as others and others practices*
I've already outed myself as someone not qualified to be giving advice as a "heavyweight" or authority of any sort here.
That being said, if I could return back to your OP, CedarTree, what I would say is this:
I came into Buddhism through atheism, of a particularly Dawkinsian "New" variety, but before that, I was raised in a Methodist household. Christians don't have moments where they start going into a Christian "practice" and ending a Christian "practice". Christianity is holistic and effects every waking moment of a Christian's life. I don't see Buddhism as any different, and I'm sure that no one here treats "practice" like an on/off switch of something you "do" and then "don't do". That being said, its interesting that Buddhists generally, on these forums at least,
speak of practice in such a way. The highest dimension to Buddhism, in my unqualified opinion, is the realization and fruition of profound practice in the constant waking daily life of the practitioner. I am unlikely to be alone in this. I see "practice" as every thought, every word, every interaction, and every contemplation. Every mindset and every mind-moment.
That being said, it is also something of a brutal criterion under which to judge one's self, but I think it is also a realistic criterion. What did I
do after doing "Buddhist stuff"? That is what I look for when reviewing myself. As such, how good I am as a practitioner is very much how good I am as a human being. Sometimes quite good, IMO, sometimes quite bad and not proud of myself at all.
On terms of things I try to do "daily" to stay engaged, I observe a practice that is actually modelled after my Anglican boyfriend's practice, who is much more pious and generally a better human being than me, though that is not related to his piousness directly necessarily. Anglican's pray a set of rotating prayers called the Daily Office. Inspired by my boyfriend's observation of this office
(also called the 'Liturgy of the Hours'), I took to incorporating some of the morning service into a parallel morning activity for myself to supplement my visitation to the nearby Dharma Centre I attend a few towns over. "Proper" or "advanced" meditation
(i.e. "Buddhist" meditation that goes beyond basic smṛtyupasthāna/establishment of mindfulness via breath, basic stuff, etc.) is not something that I have actually incorporated into my practice at all as of yet. I have significant personal reservations about engaging in what I perceive to be advanced Buddhist meditation.
Meditation aside, I do not consider this morning activity of mine "Buddhist practice", as no Buddhist teacher has ever suggested to me that I start doing this, it's simply "what I do", based on what some other people "do". I suppose that is what practice is, though, what one "does".
I adapted the sequence from the morning service, like I mentioned earlier.
Currently I do:
1) Incense gāthā
2) Śūraṅgama dhāraṇī
(this one is more of a challenge to myself than something I actually chant in it's fulness every day. I would like to have it eventually memorized. As such, I only use what I have memorized currently, which is the firstmost section, which then leads directly into 3) instead of the other dhāraṇī.)
3) Heart Sūtra
That is clipping off the middle and end of the proper monastic observance of the morning service, which includes numerous other sections. Maybe if some day I find myself having fully memorized and more-or-less "used to" the above, I may add more or change it up, but if I can at least do the 3 up there, then at the very least, I did "something". That being said, the Śūraṅgama dhāraṇī is rather massive, and I have set myself quite the task to memorize it, given that short-term memory and long-term memorization have always been my most horrible skills.