Navigating the Path to Awakening: The Benefits of Sukhasiddhi’s Unique Path of Structured Programs of Practice and Study
We live in a time of sound bites, the 24-hour news cycle, short dharma quotes on Facebook, 280-character tweets, short TikTok videos, quick Instagram images that all flash past the eyes as one scrolls through social media. While our moment-to moment experience can be enriched and expanded through all the information and communication available to us today, it is clear that it is not a source of lasting happiness and sustainable well-being. For centuries, countless seekers have searched for that holy grail.
For more than 2500 years, those who have studied and practiced the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha have found sustained relief and liberation from the suffering and challenges of life as well as a framework for fully experiencing and enjoying all that this rich human life presents. The Buddha told his followers to not accept this on faith but encouraged them to examine the teachings and practices for themselves to see if they were effective and resonated as true. Today, that invitation remains open to us, encouraging us to explore the teachings and practices of Buddhism to see if they are the medicine that will truly address and heal our mental, emotional, and physical pain and unease in a sustained way and show us how to fully experience the depth and breadth of our boundless heart and mind.
In this time of unprecedented access to information and the teachings of multiple spiritual traditions and lineages within those traditions, it can be difficult to know where to start this exploration and once started, it can be hard to know what the best path forward is, in what order one should study the teachings, and where to go when questions arise. At the core of what we offer at Sukhasiddhi Foundation is a series of depth practice programs that introduce the teachings and practices and walk participants through them in a graduated and systematic way. Students are supported by a like-minded cohort and through both group and individual guidance from qualified lamas and teachers. Sukhasiddhi’s depth practice programs have been honed and refined over 22 years to optimize support, growth, and fruition for lay practitioners in the West.
Our entry level program is the Dharma Training Program in which participants study the foundational teachings and are supported in developing a consistent meditation practice. By studying the foundational teachings in a systematic way, our life experience along with its challenges are acknowledged. We learn about the process of consciousness and how the way we perceive the world can be indirect and distorted and how this influences the ways we engage with ourselves and others which can be problematic. We gain perspective and come to understand the source of our general unease, anxiety, and dissatisfaction as the teachings deconstruct how we get tangled in our moment-to-moment experience. The teachings and practices then guide us in how to be present with and navigate the joys and sorrows of this life without being taken apart by them or swept away by them.
Essential to the integration and implementation of these teachings is the development of a consistent meditation practice. In the Dharma Training Program, one begins to develop a collection of meditation techniques that can be practiced in various circumstances as needed. The core practice is calm abiding (shamatha) meditation in which we learn to rest in a way that is not distracted or disturbed by thoughts, emotions, sensations and external circumstances. This then provides the foundation for learning Green Tara and Chenrezig practices which introduce us to embodiments of awakened love and compassion who become our ever-present companions on the path. These practices help us come to recognize innate love, compassion, and wisdom within ourselves and provide techniques for helping us to fully uncover and embody those qualities in our daily lives.
In steeping in these foundational teachings and practices in the Dharma Training Program, we come to recognize and come to understand the circumstances and thought processes that cause us to get caught and suffer and how this keeps us from enjoying the richness of this life while, simultaneously, our innate love and compassion begin to surface and open. This leads us to recognize that our friends, family, and all beings suffer and get caught in internal and external struggles in a similar way to us. Our hearts naturally open to them and wish that they, too, find a path to sustained joy and happiness. This is the beginning of the bodhisattva path, which is the focus of the Bodhi Program which follows the Dharma Training Program.
In the Bodhi Program, we cultivate the wish that all beings be happy and free of suffering, and we cultivate the aspiration to awaken on behalf of all beings without exception so that they, too, can be liberated from the cycle of suffering. This unfolds through teachings that help us to cultivate generosity, patience, ethical conduct, perseverance, and more. In the Bodhi Program, the consciousness teachings presented in the Dharma Training Program deepen and we explore not just our relative, distorted experience of reality but the genuinely true reality that is simultaneously arising. We come to find the connection between these two perspectives and how our distorted view can lead directly to wisdom. Along with these teachings, the next level of meditation techniques are presented, adding to our toolbox of practices that can be applied in various circumstances as needed. In this program, we learn to loosen our habitual grip on thinking that our happiness is more important than the happiness of others. We develop a courageous heart that can effortlessly hold and engage with the suffering of the world. It is a deep dive into the opening of the heart of compassion and recognizing that our hearts are boundless and innately kind and compassionate.
In these two programs and the ones that follow, participants have the opportunity to:
Learn multiple meditation techniques, develop a consistent meditation practice, and deepen that practice.
Clarify what is true for oneself and find strength, confidence, and conviction in that understanding.
Develop a foundational understanding that will sustain one’s practice and provide the framework for understanding one’s own and others’ suffering, and embodying resilience in the face of that suffering.
Come to experience and embody one’s innate qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom.
Gain the capacity to be present with all that life presents and to respond and engage with others in a conscious, skillful, and heart-full way.
New modules of both the Dharma Training Program and the Bodhi Program begin this month.
