How To Judge Our Practice


Thoughts on the Three Turnings of the Wheel

How To Judge Our Practice

In this series of talks, we explore the question of how to understand our progress along the path. We look at the whole journey through the lens of the Buddha’s “three yanas”, or the three “turning of the wheel”. This journey begins with a simple faith in the truth of cause-and-effect. This leads us to laying aside causing harm. Living a life of “non-harm” comes to fruition as a sense of deep care and compassion for all beings. This culminates in ability to experience all beings, and the world itself as being completely good, whole and perfect. This way of seeing the world could be understood as “enlightened vision”, or “sacred outlook”.

Generosity is the ornament of the world
Through generosity, one turns back from the lower realms
Generosity is the stairway to the higher realms
Generosity is the virtue that produces peace
— The Sutra of the Recollection of the Noble Three Jewels