Practice is the cornerstone of my dharma. It is what I try to do all the time. Practice – until I no longer realise I am practising. Every moment, every walking, sitting, lying, awake and sleeping moment is an opportunity to practice. Of course often I will catch myself not practising – the irony is of course, that in that moment of realisation, I am practising (how’s that for a good buddhist style paradox to begin with).

What do I practice? Being loving? Compassionate? Kind? Sincere? Open? Happy? None of that (and all of that). I practice being no thing, nothing.  And in being nothing we are kind, compassionate, loving, sincere, open and happy. Through being nothing we are what the Shambhala buddhists describe as ‘basic goodness’.

Because ‘we’ are our dharma, there is nothing  to practice. No rules to follow, no code of conduct. All we need to practice being is ‘us’. Simply, gloriously, wonderfully ‘us’.  And how do we do that? How do we practice being ‘us’?

Unfortunately the answer is another one of those buddhist type ones -  we practice being ’us’ by letting go of ‘us’. All that we are is a construction, an illusion – an ego made up of all these past and present influences/discourses.  Discourses that form into opinions, judgements, likes, dislikes, wants, perceptions – that form into us – so complex, so multiple that we seem so brilliantly unique.

And we are. Unique. And once we know this, once we are this, then the point of practice is to touch that which makes us all the same. And we do that by practising letting go of all that we are.

And when all that we are as unique individuals is no longer here, there is just the simpliest of things – just our breath, going in and out. Nothing else. We are simply, gloriously ALIVE. We are gloriously, simply AWAKE.  We are gloriously, simply PRESENT. We ARE.

We are able in these moments to experience a world free of construction, free of constraint, free of conditions. It is a world that simple is as it is. Never wrong , or right. Never good, or bad. Always and in all ways wonderful, exciting, open, gratifying and awe inspiring.

That’s why my number one rule is practice, all the time.