Practice

Practice is how insight becomes real. It is where teachings move from words on a page into the rhythm of your own breath, the shape of your daily life.

What is Practice?

We often imagine practice as something separate from life: a cushion, a shrine, a retreat. In truth, practice is the way we learn to live with awareness, wherever we are.

At first, practice may look like structure—sitting each day, repeating mantras, training the mind to focus. Over time, it becomes less about what we do and more about how we are. It is the thread that ties together moments of clarity, compassion, and insight into a path that carries us forward.

To deepen your practice is not to add more techniques, but to return again and again to presence. Whether on retreat or in the middle of daily routines, the same instruction applies: rest in awareness, and let each moment be a teacher.

A Path with Many Doorways

Practice takes many forms: daily discipline, retreat, working with obstacles, applying view in action, and remembering heart advice. Below, you’ll find reflections gathered into these themes. Each one offers guidance for weaving practice into your life.

Meditation

What does meditation mean to you? You might think of peaceful monks meditating, or maybe the popular mindfulness movement that is sweeping through our culture. You might think of single-pointed concentration, a blissful state free from all thought. You might think of loving-kindness meditation, or maybe even meditation on a

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

Three pillars of your practice

The importance of discipline, meditation, and wisdom in your practice.

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

How to Deepen Your Practice Without Becoming a Monk

Feel stuck in your practice? You don’t need to quit your job or renounce the world. Here’s how to go deeper, right where you are.

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

How are you showing up?

The Buddhist path is about answering a simple question through our lived experience: how are you showing up?

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

Read more blog posts related to Practice.

Starting a Daily Practice

Discipline turns inspiration into reality. A little every day opens the door to deeper stability.

Beginner’s meditation advice.

To say that you meditate [https://www.lifes.work/science-of-training-the-mind/] is like saying that you play sports, there are many types of meditation and each has its own place and purpose. As a beginner, the most important thing is to get comfortable with the technique, rely on some key principles,

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

Guided meditation: With an object.

Take your seat. Sit comfortably in the seven-point Vairocana posture [https://www.lifes.work/beginners-meditation/]. Relax your body, your breath, your mind. Relax your shoulders, neck and jaw. Take a moment to close your eyes and slowly scan the body from the crown of the head to the soles of

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

Beginner’s Dzogchen Practice

A beginner’s guide to Dzogchen practice. How to sit, breathe, and rest in awareness as it is. Simple methods to recognize the nature of mind.

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

Read more blog posts on Meditation

Retreat Practice

Retreat gives us the chance to step outside habit and see clearly what guides our life.

The importance of regular retreats.

A retreat forms an integral part of the cycle of a practitioner’s life. To retreat means to step out of the deep ruts of our normal daily life and encounter the world anew. Imagine skiing in the mountains after a fresh snowfall, where we are no longer conditioned by the

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

What’s stopping you?

Rather than endlessly planning for the retreat of a lifetime, why not consider a lifetime of retreats?

A Life's WorkGreg Patenaude

Read more on Retreat Practice

Practice is not something you “do” to become someone else. It is how you live, here and now, with presence.

“The heart of practice is simple: whatever you are doing, be fully aware you are doing it.”

Join our email list for weekly reflections and retreat opportunities.