Tendai practices

There are many ways to put the teachings of the Buddha into practice. Here you can learn about some of the forms in the Tendai school.

Meditation

Meditation is at the core of Tendai practice. It is through different meditations, through cultivating concentration and insight that we can work through karma, learn to think, speak and act with integrity and heart, and realize the true nature of reality. Meditation will help develop skills to help your everyday life; when mindfulness, wisdom and compassion grows, life becomes an art-form.

Science has shown us how the brain is capable of physically changing, how it will react to structured training. Meditation is training; it’s a cultivation of the heart and the mind. Through continuous meditative training, the brain will change, and the areas connected with positive feelings will become stronger.

Esoteric practice

Esoteric rituals serve multiple purposes in Buddhist practice. It provides the practitioner with a way of expressing qualities and realizations, which are otherwise beyond conceptual perception, and thus impossible to communicate or relate to. These rituals allow the experienced practitioner an experiental realization of the unborn and the deathless – the unconditioned. In esoteric rituals, both body, speech and mind are engaged, thus un consciously bridging the apparent gap between our conditioned efforts and the goal; the unconditioned.

Devotional practice

Devotional practices are not well known in the West, where practices like prostrations, mantra practice and chanting often is thought of as ‘cultural bagage’, easily dispensable in the cultivation of the Buddhist Path. However, these practices have been an integral part of Buddhism from the very start, and for good reasons; devotional practices help develop faith, gratitude, happiness and other positive emotions, while strengthening equanimity and calm.

Work practice

Everyday tasks like cleaning, cooking and gardening are part of the mindfulness training that takes place during retreats and other periods of intense practice. Learning to stay with the present, and to devote full attention to the task at hand, is a spiritual practice as valid as any practice that takes place on the cushion, and is at the same time an important Dana (generosity) practice.

Study

Study and practice are both important features of the Path. While the true nature of reality must be realized directly, study of the traditional texts and the modern commentaries will feed the process. How can you really put the teachings of the Buddha into practice if you don’t know these teachings? There is a long tradition in the Tendai school for scholarship, and while not all are scholars, we acknowledge the importance of at least some intellectual understanding on all levels of practice.