Dear Practice Instructors of Nalandabodhi,

I hope you are finding our blog a good idea. There are many questions and ideas that we could include and hopefully very soon you will find this an indispensable way to stay connected.

My tours are completed, at least for now. I had a wonderful time visiting our sangha. It is so helpful to be right there with folks and hear first hand what is going on. (This picture was taken at NB Montreal.)

I come away from these visits with a strong sense that practice (and consequently Practice Instructors) has a tremendous responsibility in furthering Nalandabodhi and the wishes of The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. There are so many aspects to our mandala such as fundraising, hosting, building buildings, designing publications, that our time is always taken up. All of these needs have tangible outcomes: either they happen or they don't. Practice is more invisible. It even sometimes feels like it is a lesser need when there are so many demands on our time. Practice cannot be quantified, it doesn't show up in any report, and at the end of the year no one panics about its deficit.

So how can practice maintain a central place at Nalandabodhi with so much activity going on? This is a PI challenge. If we PIs can't keep a place for it, how can we encourage our students to do so? If our students to not see it as a value within Nalandabodhi, how can they understand the reasons for the other activities? When I don't practice I become more full of self-interest, speedier, harsher-edged. I forget to listen. Instead I wait for the open slot so that I can insert my own agenda. We might begin now to recognize and propagate practice as a way, a manner, a do (as in zendo, or kyudo) through which these other things get accomplished in order that dharma activities don't become just more business as usual.

Practice may not show up on the excel charts, but it can help a planning meeting be more than a bunch of ideas batted about. It may not bring in the big money, but it can envision elegance on a small budget. It might have little to do with the relative results, but everything to do with the path to these. I feel that we are responsible to create a sangha that listens well. As I see it, Rinpoche expects us, the PIs, to sustain a spacious container so that the construction and the computers and the dollars remain in their proper perspectives.

I look forward to working on this project together with you and I invite your wisdom, comments and inspirational ways and means to enrich this blog and to make a meaningful practice environment for us all.

Happy Losar! Auspiciousness abounds!

Lee