In Buddhism, wisdom and compassion are inseparable; they must be conjoined for true application of either.

Last night, I returned to the sangha I left two years ago when I headed west to Maui. Despite studying yoga (with an incredible teacher who has become one of my most loved and dear friends) and exploring Buddhism and the Buddhist teachings the island had to offer, I never quite felt as connected to my spirituality as I did sitting in Dzogchen meditation or chanting.

Perhaps the warmth of the teachers and their teaching – not so formal as the Maui Dharma Centre or austere as a zendo – connected me to a greater sense of compassion. So even on my own, as my world crumbled around me, I found myself attempting to sit, or at least to utter the mantras:

Om ah hung benzar guru pema siddhi hung

and

Om Tare tuttare ture soha

and of course,

Om mani padme hum

and reading commentaries on the Lam Rim.

In Buddhism, wisdom and compassion are inseparable; they must be conjoined for true application of either. So many people, however, take either the path of the Heart, the ‘whatever’ path, the path of no discipline and no discernment, and yet even more follow the path of the Law, without awareness of the damage a practice without compassion can cause themselves and others. They’ll flog themselves with rules and guidelines until they spiritually bleed and exhaust themselves.

And yet neither path, alone, expresses true wisdom or true compassion. In Boston, I was a follower of the Law; even when I didn’t sit for one reason or another (forgetting or just being plain lazy), I guilted myself for not sitting, for all the things I was doing wrong. Ironically, I’d just begun to see the relationship between the Heart and the Law before I moved to Maui.

But it wasn’t until I got there that I saw people who’d abandoned themselves to the Heart. On the surface, most people seemed happy. But looking closer, I saw money struggles, sanity struggles, spiritual crises galore. Abandoning to the Heart alone causes a purely reactive but not skillfully responsive life.

The signs in my life are pointing again toward teaching. And what I have to teach is only this, and this little gem that’s helped me go from an angry, twisted young man through insanity and come out the other side as a calm, (mostly) content seeker: the Heart & the Law.

It’s time I found ways to share it with you.