Focusing on What is Truly Important

As I mentioned in my previous posting, last month was wonderful with having great teachers staying with me. It is what they do and how they act that is the greatest teaching for me.

Lama Osel would get up every morning and practice for hours before doing anything else for the day. While I never asked him this, I get the feeling that once the daily practice is complete for the day, whatever else happens that day is just “extra.”

What do I mean by this “extra?” Our practice and meditation is what provides the fuel for not only this day but also our future (including future lives but we won’t get into this here). Fully fueled up every morning gives us the opportunity to the most good for that day and plants the seeds for even greater things in the future.

One morning, after we had both completed our practices, we were sitting there just talking. As I look around to the representations and photographs of great teachers in my meditation room, I realized that every one of these masters had been GREAT PRACTICITIONERS. No matter what ever they had done in their lives, their example as practicitioners always stood out.

This was the common thread passing through each and every one of them. Biographies of these teachers always recount the importance of their time in practice – every single day.
First and foremost, each one was a practicitioner who put their practices first!

While I have always tried to practice every day, I do not feel that I put the emphasis on its daily importance. As the result of Lama Osel’s example and the realization that great masters are always daily practicitioners first, I have adjust each day to put my practice as the only Must Do Today item. I promise to never miss a day of practice. Nothing else could ever be as important.

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff