The Leisure to Practice

Is basically having the time to "Pray without Ceasing" 24 hours a day in your life if you wish.

It was around 1980 when I realized it was possible to pray for a life like this. I saw clearly the advantage to having time to do this and all the good it created in my own life and others around me, in my family as well as people I met or passed by on my way through life.

It starts with having the time to maintain your center around your spiritual practices which allows you to begin to change your world and all the world around you through prayer.

Around 1980 I began to more formally study Tibetan Buddhism. Up until that time in my life I had been a dualist in my thinking more. But, I began to realize it wasn't working to think like this.

A good example might be if you look at a rain storm. Is a rain storm good or bad? That's right. It depends upon who it is affecting. For some people who need water to drink or to wash down their driveway or to water their plants the rain might be good. But, for people caught out in the rain without an umbrella or rain jacket it might be bad depending upon the situation.

So, there is no ultimate way to say that rain or snow or wind or even drought is ultimately good or bad, is there?

So, trying to make blanket statements of what is good or bad simply cannot work for things like weather or people. People can be good in one situation and bad in another situation. And this is true of everyone on earth. No one is always good or bad in any situation. So, to live as a dualistic thinker is to be a child and immature in your thinking.

So, for me, I saw non-dualism as a more useful approach to life, a more adult approach to life where having compassion for all beings in all situations made sense.

However, what is useful is right mindful compassion and not idiot compassion. In right mindful compassion one realizes whatever is going on around one and compensates for that situation and thinks things through and finds ways to be helpful in whatever situation one finds themselves in.

So, having the time to pray without ceasing is also a time for practicality in the application of kind thoughts, kind feelings and kind actions towards oneself and all beings in the universe.....

By God's Grace