Mindfulness, vigilance and … a loophole! Each and every verse resonates with me, but I feel that in particular verses 35 and 36 are the heart of the 37 practices. As I said in the post on these verses, linked above, each of the preceding practices in fact depends on mindfulness and vigilance. To review: mindfulness knows what will help us awaken and what will dig us deeper into samsara; and vigilance knows which one we are doing.
We’ll get to the loophole in a bit.
Audio for verses 1-7. (Click where the play button should be.)
Preparation for the path: We’re halfway through the first 7 practices of a bodhisattva, and this seems like a good time to take another look at the structure of the book.
Suppose someone gave you a treasure map, with a guarantee that if you followed it, you would find a million dollars at the end, and it would be ALL YOURS—no taxes, no fine print, no legal hassles. What would you do? Who wouldn’t drop everything that could possibly be dropped and devote every spare minute to the pursuit of such a fortune?