Not Resting on Our Laurels

I always learn so much from listening to Ayya Khema. This time, she makes very clear the need to constantly practice, not just to move forward on the path, but also to not go backward. 

Mindfulness practice is work, constant work. This is why it is called practice. This week, I visited the Mindful Living page on the Huffington Post and was struck by the number of articles attempting to trivialize mindfulness as something that can be easily captured with minimum effort. Headlines such as   'Are You Up For The 24-Hour Mini-Mindful-Moment Challenge?', 'Momentary Mindfulness', 'One Minute to Stress Less', 'Mindfulness in 60 Seconds or Less', . . . The truth is mindfulness practice flies in the face of our fast, flashy, pleasure seeking, goal oriented culture. Mindfulness practice is tedious, often times boring, and mostly about effort.

There is no such thing as taking a vacation from practice.