Commitments and monotony

• How to keep a daily practice
• Creating the causes for realizations
• Benefits of practicing daily

I think we all go through those kind of phases, or most of us do. I certainly do. Maybe the high practitioners don’t, but I certainly do. I think the basic bottom line is if we promise to do a practice, do the practice daily. If we’re exhausted, we may not be able to do it very well, it may be a route thing, but the fact that we’re keeping our promise is very important, and the fact that we’re doing it even though we’re not putting our full energy into it, still there’s a cumulative effect. Whereas if we just say, “Well, I can’t do it perfect so I’m going to give up. I’m not going to do the practice at all,” then we don’t get any benefit and that’s breaking the samaya, but if we’re still doing it and, okay, you know, you can’t have a spectacular meditation every time and the purpose isn’t so that every time we meditate we’re blissed out or we’re going “Ah ha.” You have to have all those meditation sessions that just seem rather ordinary, but they’re actually creating the cause for you to have the time when something really clicks.

So do your practice anyway. Don’t give it up, do it, and then you’ll see some days, you know, you can see some things going on in your life and you really need to renew your refuge very strongly and come back and center yourself because there’s going to be a difficult situation, and at that time, your practice is still there for you simply because you have been keeping it up on a daily basis without missing anything.