Walking the path alone

If one wants to progress along the path without having much connection with other Buddhists, then this will require great maturity and the ability to correctly assess one's own development. And while many would love to do it, it is hardly possible to develop well only with the help of books and on the basis of insights from past drug experiences.

Experiments with the means of expanding consciousness are fundamentally different from meditation: they make the mind distracted and use up its good impressions and opportunities, which must have taken many lifetimes to accumulate. Meditation, on the other hand, concentrates the mind and helps to recognize its inherent fearlessness, joy, and far-sighted love. And in theory it should be easy to choose from these two paths of enduring meaning. The Buddha is not a moralist, he has no other strange features, and the purpose of his teachings is convincing. He wants to make beings self-reliant and give them access to the many possibilities of life.

After all, even simpler things we learn from others! Knowing the nature of the mind is much more difficult than studying something external, and on this path we are always lured by enemies, often pride and envy, which can play a cruel joke on us. If you still want to try and go on your own strength, please remember the following diagram. The sole purpose of the Buddha's Teaching is to know the mind as timeless naked awareness.

The path to this covers three levels applicable to life. In behavior, words and deeds that bring suffering should be avoided. This eliminates the causes of suffering in the future and remains a secure foundation. The attitude should be to develop compassion and liberating wisdom in a balanced manner. What is needed here is a deep desire for the happiness of beings and the gift to clearly discern the conditioned and compound factors in every event, which gives freedom from personal perception. On the secret and ultimate level of seeing, one should behave like a Buddha until one becomes a Buddha.

The first two steps, subject to deepening life experience and the use of the right books, are available without a Teacher, although they require a lot of time. But this approach is inapplicable to the third one: without the Teacher it is impossible to understand the Diamond Way and it is impossible to follow it. In the absence of interchange with the Lama or with the center and teachers representing his circle of power, the means turn out to be "toothless" and the person largely depends on self-conceit, sentimentality and superficiality, which he himself does not notice and cannot compensate for in any way. So it is very easy to become lonely and useless in everyday life, instead of gaining the ability to help others.

This is no exaggeration of the danger of wanting to go alone. There is no doubt that never before have so many gifted, independent and idealistic people had such full access to the variety of Buddhist information as they do today. The Internet alone contains the richest offer of various Buddhist schools and trends, but even authentic Buddhist sources use different terms for similar things and the same for different things, which in itself creates a lot of confusion.

In addition, there is no protection against numerous vaguely written or poorly translated books. As a result, people do not distinguish between different paths. Here, only an experienced teacher and his groups will clearly show what is what and help save our precious time. If we have finally made it onto the broad freeway to Enlightenment, then there is still a hidden danger of two delusions that are not easy to recognize. Nevertheless, they must be taken into account by everyone who walks the Buddhist path.

First, there are tempting exits off the road: all sorts of "mental sciences". Of course, it is useful to apply in life such abilities acquired on the path as healing, clairvoyance, astrology, and the like, but one should not forget about the ultimate goal - Enlightenment for the benefit of all. Otherwise, we will be wasting a precious opportunity that we may not be able to meet again for countless lifetimes.

So desired "experiences", all kinds of "experiences" can also become an annoying hindrance. They are unpredictable and changeable, and each time it brings more and more frustration. If we take them as milestones and try to take them with us, then we can grow arms like gorillas, and we will be left to stagnate with all our supernatural stories. The goal will not be reached. We will never come close to the effortless state in which all the enlightened qualities of the mind spontaneously unfold. It is wiser to trust space in the moment “here and now”, and not strive to relive any experience, to prove or reinforce something. Out of the love and joy of space, all that is needed will manifest at the right time, and just moving on with that attitude, we will be amazed at how limitless everything is.

From Lama Ole Nydahl's The Way Things Are: A Living Approach to Buddhism