Student and Teacher

Together on the Path

As students on the Tibetan Bön Buddhist path, we offer our teachers a range of questions from the simple to the complex. Here is a question about knowing what practice to do and when.

Student: I have a question about going home after retreat and taking the practice home. We did a lot of practices. How should I work with the different practices?

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche: The other day we were suggesting the importance of knowing the amount of time you have and what situation you are in. Your situation is not always the same. There are good and bad days and terrible days. When you are experiencing more difficulty, do more physical practices like tsa lung and trul khor. Sometimes you can go directly into self-transformation; sometimes you need more purification; sometimes you can spend more time abiding. Know the condition of yourself and the practice. That doesn't mean every day you change your practice, but just be aware in this way.

I'm not suggesting that you change the practice whenever you are a little moody – you can always practice the same thing no matter what condition you are in – but sometimes, in just being aware of your condition, changing the emphasis of the practice helps.

It's like traveling in a hot air balloon: if you want to fly, you have to know the condition of the wind. Which direction is the wind moving? If it is the wrong direction it is better not to fly that day, or you will end up in the wrong place. If the air is moving in the right direction and the speed is good, then you take off.

I went up in a balloon one time, and the first thing the pilot did was to kick the dust to see how it settled. The second thing he did was to look down at the village to see where the smoke was going. Think that the smoke is your internal energy. Is it going up or down? Which way the smoke is going determines which practice is good today. It is a matter of skillful means.