Clearing My Vision

Clearing My Vision is a compilation of instructions on Atisha's 12 century training on awakening the heart to be generous and the mind to be clear of hindrances. The training includes the slogan's of Atisha, commentary, pictures and practices. This is both a personal practice journal as well as a set of encouragements and practices for those who want to clear their vision and awaken their heart.

Step One: The first step is to memorize the preliminaries.

Preliminaries:

Life is precious. This teaching refers to the awareness of seeing life as precious. Perhaps you know this, perhaps you do not know this...the question to ask is "how do you know life is precious?" Is it a belief or a clear vision of reality?

I do not always see that life is precious. Sometimes I am so concerned about some petty thing that I am unable to see this clearly. Sometimes I am focused on my own self to such a degree that I am unable to notice much of anything else. I ask myself, when do I see life as precious? How do I know that life is precious? There is a sense of transitoriness that comes along with this view. I see the passing and fleeting of life. I see some type of luck; something beyond ordinary thought. Life is value; worthwhile. When I say this I hear more questions. What makes life worthwhile? When I ask this question I see that I want to add something to life; a price tag. I want to say life is precious because....and add something to it. Rather than just see life is precious. Do I see life is precious? I am looking.

The Atisha teaching is fully, life is precious as a human being because humans have the opportunity to study the dharma. They add a reason why life is precious which presupposes that there is value in being humand and studying the dharma. I don't want to add anything. It seems it narrows the reality to add a particularity to the slogan. Life is precious. Life is worthwhile. Nothing extra, nothing missing.