That’s how people also move on the spiritual path. That’s why it begins with learning and that begins with focus, concentration. If you don’t focus, you don’t learn anything. You all know. When I was a kid, I used to learn a lot. I memorized a lot, but not necessarily learned. All these memorized things I could say without thinking. Blah, blah, blah, for hours and hours and hours. So that means nothing, honestly. When you begin to think about the blah, blah, blah words, then you are learning something. The same thing goes for us. Many of us say our sadhanas like blah, blah, blah, blah, and the mantras also, blub blub blub blub, right? That’s how we say them. But we never think and when you don’t think, nothing happens. And then you begin to blame the sadhanas, or deities, or me, or somebody. We are good at blaming, we have to blame somebody besides ourselves.
But the reality is, we are not thinking and we are not focused. And I have been saying blah, blah, blah, life-long and when you begin to think, it gives you some taste. Then you begin to chew, and then you begin to understand. So you need to get some taste and then you begin to understand, and that’s how you move. So concentration is based on focusing.
Everything you do on the spiritual path – in other words, you have to be serious. You can’t be fooling around. If you have nothing else to do but fooling around with the spiritual path, then you are welcome to fool around. But if you hope to gain something that way, nothing is going to happen.
Don’t fool around. Be serious and pay attention. Focus, learn, meditate. These are the steps to follow and that does not complete the concentration points. You know, we have GOM workshops and there are GOM transcripts and this is the best available for concentration and meditation documents, honestly. It has direct help. The help is coming from the meditation. Meditation is coming from focusing. Focusing is coming from being serious. Honestly. That’s how it is. And the main thing I need to talk to you is GOM…
~ Gelek Rimpoche, Jewel Heart Ann Arbor, June 7, 2015
