(Spirit Rock Meditation Center) The Dalai Lama says: "The purpose of life is to be happy." This practice leads to true happiness. It starts with the mind intending to awaken the heart and all the goodness within us.

James Baraz: Connecting Mind and Heart: Awakening Joy

I try to convey that the wisdom and compassion we are looking for is already inside of us. I see practice as learning how to purify our mind and heart so we can hear the Buddha inside. In doing so, we naturally embody the dharma and help awaken that understanding and love in others we meet.

I try to use the formal teachings as a doorway for people to see the truth in themselves.  I feel I'm doing my job when people look into themselves to come to their own deep understandings of the truth, access their own inner wisdom and trust in their "Buddha-knowing," as Ajahn Chah called it, which is different from their intellectual knowing.

The Buddha-knowing is a deeper place, underneath the concepts, which is in touch with the truth, with our seed of awakening.  I want practitioners to have more and more confidence in, and familiarity with, that deeper place of knowing.  It is accessing this dimension of our being that  becomes the guide to cutting through the confusion caused by greed and fear.  We have everything we need inside ourselves.  We do not need to look to a teacher when we remember who we really are.

Religion & Spirituality

Buddhism

I try to convey that the wisdom and compassion we are looking for is already inside of us. I see practice as learning how to purify our mind and heart so we can hear the Buddha inside. In doing so, we naturally embody the dharma and help awaken that understanding and love in others we meet. I try to use the formal teachings as a doorway for people to see the truth in themselves. I feel I'm doing my job when people look into themselves to come to their own deep understandings of the truth, access their own inner wisdom and trust in their "Buddha-knowing," as Ajahn Chah called it, which is different from their intellectual knowing. The Buddha-knowing is a deeper place, underneath the concepts, which is in touch with the truth, with our seed of awakening. I want practitioners to have more and more confidence in, and familiarity with, that deeper place of knowing. It is accessing this dimension of our being that becomes the guide to cutting through the confusion caused by greed and fear. We have everything we need inside ourselves. We do not need to look to a teacher when we remember who we really are.

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James Baraz: Connecting Mind and Heart: Awakening Joy

James Baraz: Connecting Mind and Heart: Awakening Joy