Home » Mind & Soul » Buddhism » Formal or Informal Practice?

Formal or Informal Practice?

© Yeshe Chodon

Slant Boards and Knee Pads
One of the first Buddhist teachings I attended was given by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. It all seemed so beautiful, of love and compassion and his thick accent and his witty translator. But then after the teachings, I remember a flyer was passed. For a minimal fee, we could go up to the center in Oregon, and there we could perform 100,000 prostrations. The center would provide knee pads.

Immediate American cynicism. Well, I'd love to. But...

Twenty years later, in Bodhgaya, we saw pilgrims from many nations doing the 100,000 prostrations in the gardens around the Mahabodhi Temple on slant boards provided for that purpose. And in India, you just get two little slider pads for your hands and no knee pads.

Lobsang showed us the proper form for the prostrations. We had time and we had slant boards, but of the nine of us fat-cat Americans, I don't remember anybody jumping to hands and knees. Instead we went to lunch.

It was the same years ago when I went to Kundalini Yoga camp. Yes, I attended, yes I felt devotional, but no, thank you, I do not want to wear a turban.

Informal Practice
I resolved these issues (at the time I called them non-issues) for myself up until recently by saying that I am eclectic and making steady progress by following my own intuition about what is best for me.

Is it not enough that I walk alone in the hills with just my dogs for company almost every day, and live alone the rest of the time, contemplating, reviewing past performance, reading, working in a human services job, and striving to grow toward the Buddhist goals of compassion and equanimity?

Psychotherapy in the forms of formal counseling, self-help groups, reading, and discussions with friends, as well as just living to middle age, has put out the surface flames of unhappiness that scarred my earlier life, allowing me to live more comfortably for most of the time. Why do I need formal Buddhist practice? For that matter, what is formal Buddhist practice?

Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind toward Dharma
There are days I wish I'd never opened that Pandora's box. But I have. And I cannot get away from the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind toward Dharma. And I suspect that these Four Thoughts are the Trojan horse containing the knee pads and the slant boards.

The copyright of the article Formal or Informal Practice? in Buddhism is owned by Yeshe Chodon. Permission to republish Formal or Informal Practice? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.