Posted inHenry's Messages

Message from Henry, Outriggers of Practice

September 3, 2019

…at some stage of our practice, it seems to be necessary to go all in.

Last week’s message was about committing to a single path of practice. This week I’d like to add a rider to that.

For some of us it can be most helpful to have “outriggers” to the “hull” of our primary practice at times. For example, personally I have had some training along the way in other traditions, and have at times worked with practices more commonly found in other schools, such as “Tonglen”, the foundations of mindfulness, lovingkindness and mantras. Sometimes these have been a great help, without deflecting from the primary path I have followed.

Likewise for some of us psychotherapy can be a blessing. The path of awakening is of course also a path of healing. Our sitting practice can turn up elements in the psyche that can really benefit from some professional help to process and work through. Over the decades, personally I have been grateful to get help from various schools of therapy, such as Gestalt, cognitive-behavioral, Jungian dreamwork and somatic work.

Dogmatic adherence to a creed is not the point. The point is rather that at some stage of our practice, it seems to be necessary to go all in. We have to throw all our efforts into one endeavor, and just hope for the best. Perhaps even stake our life on it. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t seek help from other quarters if we need it, especially if it supports and even propels our primary practice.

Message from Henry is from our September 2, 2019 Newsletter
Image: Sky by enriquelopezgarre, Pixabay License
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