“Step one of your spiritual journey is to discover that you have the potential to awaken to your innate wisdom-nature…How often do you wake up excited to face the day? My hope is that you will begin to reclaim the excitement about life that is due you. The process of creating a spiritual life is largely a process of discovering that you deserve to be happy. You deserve to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. You deserve to bring your innate wisdom-nature to its full blossoming.” – Lama Willa Miller from Everyday Dharma: Seven Weeks to Finding the Buddha in You
Dharma Tip: What is a Bodhisattva by Lama Willa Miller:
In the Buddhist tradition, a central goal of a spiritual seeker is to train as a bodhisattva. Bodhi means “awakening” or “enlightenment.” Sattva means “one who exists.” So a bodhisattva is one who exists in order to awaken. This does not refer to waking up from a good night’s sleep, but rather waking up from the sleep of ignorance and apathy into the daylight of wisdom and compassion. Such a person’s purpose in life is to wake up his or her potential for the highest good and to express this awakening as conscious acts of kindness. Therefore, a bodhisattva, or “one who exists to awaken,” is both kind and wise. (From Everyday Dharma: Seven Weeks to Finding the Buddha in You)
Everyday Dharma is designed to be a spiritual manual to be read over seven weeks. For some, these weeks might be a start to a meditation practice, and for others an enhancement or a re-commitment. Each week will contain an exercise, a dharma tip, and an inspirational quote such as “The Zen ‘genius’ sleeps in every one of us and demands an awakening.” – D.T. Suzuki
We invite you to read along with us over the next seven weeks. We hope you get in touch with the sleeping genius within you. And be sure to comment below and let us know how it’s going.
Willa B. Miller, PhD is the founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship in Boston and Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, New Hampshire. She is an authorized lama in the Tibetan tradition, and has practiced for decades and completed her training under the direction of several of the leading Tibetan lamas of the twentieth century. Meditators around New England would tell you that it’s worth the drive to hear her teachings – her schedule is available here.