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The Essentials of Pure Awareness Practice With the growing interest of pure awareness as a form of practice within the FWBO we need to look very carefully at the essential features of a greatly misunderstood approach to practicing the Buddha-Dharma. Unless we do, the fulfillment of this most profound approach to liberation will never be truly possible. Because of its essential empty nature from the outset on this retreat we find ourselves in a dilemma trying to convey a practice that has no form as its foundation nor in its essence. So in its strictest interpretation can’t really be said to be a ‘practice’ in the way we understand the word. Whatever is conveyed misses the mark yet we need to communicate. In order to do this we all need to accept the paradoxical nature of almost everything that can and will be said on this retreat. If we can agree to this ‘pact’ then it will be possible to help one another. On this retreat we will explore together the essential features that we need to put in place. The most important one is to begin the practice of re-integrating mind and body. In fact, it could be said to be the only feature. Most of us most of the time live in our heads. We need to learn to turn our attention back into out bodies and begin to live our lives out of that reality. In order to do this we need to nurture our sense of awareness. Awareness, that is the key to awakening, is to be found in the body and is the centre of all that radiates from this form of practice. When we are aware of what is in front of us and engage wholeheartedly with that experience we are fulfilling the ‘practice’ of pure awareness. Nothing special, just responding to circumstances. But can we pull it off? In order to awaken to our ever-present awareness we need to embark upon a journey that takes us into our bodies. There we will find not just the source of our suffering but enlightenment also. In order to make this journey possible we will explore together, mainly through sessions of questions and answers, how we need to put a few essential features in place. We will see that the commitment made on our cushion to fully open up and let all of our experiences just rise and pass away crucially then needs to be taken off that cushion and into the rest of our life with that same spirit of commitment. We will learn how to restrain and endure our emotional habits and reactions, not by oppression but with openness and clarity and discover we are actually putting (not in the orthodox way) the eightfold path into practice and fulfilling the middle way. We will learn how to develop a positive and forgiving attitude towards ourselves. Indeed, we learn how to love ourselves and because of that, love others and life itself. We will learn how to open up ourselves to the profound Dharmic change that is taking place at the heart of our very being. We will learn how to open, trust, surrender and develop a relationship with the great mystery that we all live out of, yet is beyond ‘me’. Discover how we can be carried through life by this wondrous mystery. This will be seen as the true meaning of going for refuge. As we begin to discover the nature of our journey we will see that despite the commitment through discipline and sometimes courage we are not actually ‘doing’ anything. Realising the greatest paradox of all Buddhist practices! The Dharma that is whole and complete within all of us is to be found within the body. Clearing away the ‘dust’ through ‘the practice of no practice’ the truly profound discovery that our very awareness is Buddha-nature, that is beyond life and death and truly eternal, will be realised. This awakening becomes the fulfillment of the ‘practice’ of pure awareness - and the return to the warmth, love and compassion of our eternally pure intrinsic awareness, that not for one moment have we ever left. David Smith Bearwood,
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DharmaMind Buddhist Group