In Daily Life

The crucible of our practice is how we show up in the world. Akincano and John offer suggestions for contemplating and cultivating the entry points of the spiral.

In Daily Life

Acknowledging our skills

It is crucial that our practice makes sense in daily life. Buddhist teaching is not meant to be an intellectual or esoteric enterprise that takes us away from daily life. The application of this teaching occurs right here, right now.
All too often, we can focus on the negative: what we haven't got, what we lack, what we desire. But actually, we all have skills that we use to negotiate our lives. The acknowledgement of these skills is vitally important.
We are talking about very specific skills as the entry points to the spiral, but skills nonetheless that we possess. It's about beginning to perceive which skills come naturally to you. Perhaps being analytical does not come naturally, but we do have a sense of trust in the teachings, for example.

Akincano Weber

Surveying the entry points

There's a striking discrepancy between our willingness to acknowledge faults and our ability to appreciate our goodness, strength, valor, and skill.

Task: take stock of these skills in yourself

Let's remind ourselves of the entry points into the spiral. We would ask you as a task to go through these entry points and acknowledge their presence. How far are they developed in you? How confident are you about each? Acknowledge this in yourself and acknowledge more generally that such skills exist. Who in your life or as an inspirational figure embodies these qualities for you? Who would you like to emulate?

Reflecting on our facility with the entry points
Sense restraint	The capacity to hold back, to not be impulse driven—both impulses towards experiences and away from. Remember, it's not just greed, it's also aversion: retreating from experience and defending.
Trust / confidence	How easy is it, or how difficult is it, for you to trust—not just the Buddhist teachings but to actually trust someone or to know that you trust something?
Care, heedfulness, dedication	Can you dedicate yourself to something? Can you actually care for things and take up the care of something or someone? Not necessarily through sympathy, not necessarily liking it, but can you accept responsibility to care for something and then follow through on this?
Wise investigation	Can you investigate? Can you examine? Can you hold questions and come to learn something? Can you gain different access points and figure things out? Can you probe into things?
Mindfulness & situational awareness	The classic. The fullness of your mind's presence and your skill in situational awareness. Mindfulness creates relationship with experience. Can you contextualize that relationship in the bigger sphere of your own values, what's important, what's urgent, what's needed, what's happening right now, what's present?
Inspiration	Several of the spiral texts speak of inspiration. Something touches you and makes your heart widen, your ears prick up and you're willing to engage with something. Inspiration is that which calls for engagement. Can you be inspired or is your response to new things to be lukewarm?
Ethics / virtue	The capacity to live in your behavior, your actions, your speech in accordance with what you sense has value, in your heart. We all have a sphere of values and we're trying to bring congruency between our behavior, actions, and speech, and the sphere of values. Is this something you have skill in? Do you sense that certain actions are ethical or unethical, skillful or unskillful, needed or unneeded, wholesome or unwholesome? Do I have a good grasp of this or does it take a long time and you only find out afterwards when you're off the mark?

John: reflecting on confidence

Take the word, "saddhā", usually translated as trust, and consider another translation: "confidence". This is important because not being able to articulate many of these entry points, is actually due to a lack of confidence in ourselves and our abilities.
Confidence is one of the traditional starting points for the spiral. We can consider this kind of confidence in ourselves and our ability to do this as a base from which we start—not exclusively—but it has a role in enabling the other virtues.

Complete and Continue