A number of you are signing up to receive the first five precepts and several will also be receiving the full sixteen. Precept practice is one leg of the whole of a life of practice. Precepts help us live the Bodhisattva Way. They are a promise and a guide — to stay awake and aware of what we are doing.
Through our daily activities, our thoughts, our speech we make the world. We affect what happens in the community of all life. In practice we are always going beyond, deepening, broadening awareness and refining our behavior. We become clearer about our choices, about how to turn towards love and connection, towards caring. We grow beyond just doing.
A practice is not just something we do, but something we become. We become more of who we are and shuck the limiting habits of ignorance that keeps us looking only after a self that is separate from all. They help us wake up from the trance world of anxiety, greed and aversion. Every time we practice, we live into our intention to serve all of life. How can we sit and dream on the cushion when this treasure is offered us? Each breath of attention is a coin of the Noble Way.
