Hearing the Dharma
We need to learn the basic teachings by heart. The basic teachings can become how we live in the world because having memorized it we carry it around with us all the time. When we learn something off by heart it becomes a part of our thinking. Learn the basic formulations. Learn the basic lists like the precepts or the five hindrances. If you can learn the formulas by heart, that helps them to become a part of the way we live in the world. That happens because they can offer a frame to how we think about the world. New conditioning arrives to replace the old.
Some people may have had unfortunate experience with formal education and may have difficulty with such things as note-taking. They can get help by going through the text with somebody else and overcoming their lack of confidence that way.
Your first task in the study is to get clear about what is actually being said. Indeed, you may need to get beyond your reactions in order see what is actually being said. This is a reason for note taking - i.e. simplifying down to the main points and main Dharmic formulations. It will help you to be objective and reasonably balanced about what you have heard. If we take notes we can be confident we know the important points when we come to study. When we are in the group we may need to be able to give a summary if asked.
Reflecting on the Dharma
In the context of a study group this means seeing it from different angles by talking to others and listening to their different viewpoints and entering sympathetically into their different stand-points.
Cinta-mayi-prajna is also the stage of reflecting on the Dharma which we can do on our own. Individual reflection also includes discussion around the topic with friends. Discussion with others is an essential part of cinta-mayi-prajna. We get the benefit of encountering what is being talked about as seen from different temperaments, life-experiences and viewpoints. Energy is more easily maintained when engaged in group discussion. Exchange of views is something to be encouraged. The way to arrive at this is to arrive armed with our own points made from our own summary of the text.
May our mind become Buddha
This is 'bhavana' or meditation, the third level of wisdom - What we know transmutes us into another being. But even more how we relate to others effectively transforms us. We transform ourselves by relating to others differently. We transcend ourselves in how we relate to others and that is what it is to make Sangha and mature the Heart's Release. We enter the new territory of dhamma katha by making it, constructing it in terms of how we relate to others in terms of discussion and openness.
Dharma study is an opportunity to relate to others in a Dharmic context, and that reminds us to relate to each other on the basis of our highest selves. This practice of relating to each other on the basis of our highest selves can be taken as a definition of Sangha. A Sangha is a group of people relating to each other in terms of what is best in them. A study group is a mini-Sangha at work.
Sometimes a Dharma study group will seem to take off into magical territory - a joint exploration of the Truth, where ego is forgotten, where we seem to be one mind with many bodies, where we get an idea of the living, life-changing spiritual truth behind the words of the teachings.
The study group shoots off into the stratosphere. The subject of discussion indeed becomes the truth of things and you are all working together on the exploration. Ego is forgotten. It's the three Aniruddhas all over again, multiple bodies but only one mind. This is particularly important because it is this experience of working together at the truth that makes the Dharma really become alive and when that happens we realize how much the Dharma is transformative. We realize this because we experience it working on the ego through purifying our communication with one another - may our communication with one another be Sangha - it's the vital mutual responsiveness of spiritual friendship. It is the whole of the spiritual life because it is the essence of the life of Sangha that transforms lives by purifying our vision. The whole of kalyana mitrata is transformation, and transformation is dhamma katha.
In a study group we experiment with seeing things differently. We even begin to recreate ourselves. It is a help to us to be talking and relating by means of a new previously unknown self - this makes the new higher realm of dharma-katha real and tangible. If the Dharma is to become real for us it must be made real out of the tapasya of our communication.
We deepen our coverage of the previous levels of hearing the Dharma and Reflecting on the Dharma. For this we need intellectual understanding, we need to have reflected on it, it needs to become part of our thinking, and then when we meditate on it - it transmutes us humdrum prthjanas, like dross being turned alchemically into pure gold.
We need to learn the basic teachings by heart. The basic teachings can become how we live in the world because having memorized it we carry it around with us all the time. When we learn something off by heart it becomes a part of our thinking. Learn the basic formulations. Learn the basic lists like the precepts or the five hindrances. If you can learn the formulas by heart, that helps them to become a part of the way we live in the world. That happens because they can offer a frame to how we think about the world. New conditioning arrives to replace the old.
Some people may have had unfortunate experience with formal education and may have difficulty with such things as note-taking. They can get help by going through the text with somebody else and overcoming their lack of confidence that way.
Your first task in the study is to get clear about what is actually being said. Indeed, you may need to get beyond your reactions in order see what is actually being said. This is a reason for note taking - i.e. simplifying down to the main points and main Dharmic formulations. It will help you to be objective and reasonably balanced about what you have heard. If we take notes we can be confident we know the important points when we come to study. When we are in the group we may need to be able to give a summary if asked.
Reflecting on the Dharma
In the context of a study group this means seeing it from different angles by talking to others and listening to their different viewpoints and entering sympathetically into their different stand-points.
Cinta-mayi-prajna is also the stage of reflecting on the Dharma which we can do on our own. Individual reflection also includes discussion around the topic with friends. Discussion with others is an essential part of cinta-mayi-prajna. We get the benefit of encountering what is being talked about as seen from different temperaments, life-experiences and viewpoints. Energy is more easily maintained when engaged in group discussion. Exchange of views is something to be encouraged. The way to arrive at this is to arrive armed with our own points made from our own summary of the text.
May our mind become Buddha
This is 'bhavana' or meditation, the third level of wisdom - What we know transmutes us into another being. But even more how we relate to others effectively transforms us. We transform ourselves by relating to others differently. We transcend ourselves in how we relate to others and that is what it is to make Sangha and mature the Heart's Release. We enter the new territory of dhamma katha by making it, constructing it in terms of how we relate to others in terms of discussion and openness.
Dharma study is an opportunity to relate to others in a Dharmic context, and that reminds us to relate to each other on the basis of our highest selves. This practice of relating to each other on the basis of our highest selves can be taken as a definition of Sangha. A Sangha is a group of people relating to each other in terms of what is best in them. A study group is a mini-Sangha at work.
Sometimes a Dharma study group will seem to take off into magical territory - a joint exploration of the Truth, where ego is forgotten, where we seem to be one mind with many bodies, where we get an idea of the living, life-changing spiritual truth behind the words of the teachings.
The study group shoots off into the stratosphere. The subject of discussion indeed becomes the truth of things and you are all working together on the exploration. Ego is forgotten. It's the three Aniruddhas all over again, multiple bodies but only one mind. This is particularly important because it is this experience of working together at the truth that makes the Dharma really become alive and when that happens we realize how much the Dharma is transformative. We realize this because we experience it working on the ego through purifying our communication with one another - may our communication with one another be Sangha - it's the vital mutual responsiveness of spiritual friendship. It is the whole of the spiritual life because it is the essence of the life of Sangha that transforms lives by purifying our vision. The whole of kalyana mitrata is transformation, and transformation is dhamma katha.
In a study group we experiment with seeing things differently. We even begin to recreate ourselves. It is a help to us to be talking and relating by means of a new previously unknown self - this makes the new higher realm of dharma-katha real and tangible. If the Dharma is to become real for us it must be made real out of the tapasya of our communication.
We deepen our coverage of the previous levels of hearing the Dharma and Reflecting on the Dharma. For this we need intellectual understanding, we need to have reflected on it, it needs to become part of our thinking, and then when we meditate on it - it transmutes us humdrum prthjanas, like dross being turned alchemically into pure gold.