Conduct Becoming A Yogic Practitioner

Non-renunciate does not mean that we do whatever we feel like, indulge in any behavior or that anything goes. Non-renunciate tradition does mean that we do not avoid relationship, material existence, family, body, emotions and work. We are not retreating from mundane life. We do not renounce the world, instead, the world is our inspiration for practice. Being in the world leads us deeper into our practice if we have trained in the view, meditation and conduct of the path.

The Essential Principle of Yogic Conduct
is based on Guarding Our Mind From Confusion

Even though we have not renounced the world, we still have rules of conduct. Our conduct in this path is still highly governed by the five vows and by the guidance of our Root Teacher. The essential principle is that our conduct is based on guarding our mind from confusion.

In the renunciate traditions the prescriptions are for conduct are based on renouncing the world as a way to access awareness. When we have renounced relationship, work, family, possessions, body and emotions, opportunities for confusion do not have as many triggers. We have less distractions. So there is an opportunity to meditate and encounter awareness.  This is a brilliant path, but it is not for everybody. We can make the same discovery by engaging with the world of all forms, it reveals the open vast nature too.

In the non-renunciate path, the conduct is based on being fully in the world but not falling into confusion. Relationship, work, family, possessions, body and emotions are opportunities to transform our confusion and rediscover awareness. Our conduct in the world arises out of a precise attention to what supports our sleep and what conduct supports us to be awake.

Non-renunciates give plenty of vices up: depression, clinging, narcissism, aggression, jealousy-envy... The five poisons and the six realms... We actually renounce quite a bit, but the renouncing is internal. Specifically we are renouncing indulgence in confusion and we are renouncing suppression of confusion...  Neither indulging or supressing, we transform our confusion into the opportunity to find awareness.

We can transform our entire lives into the domain of meditation practice. Our entire lives become the inspiration to go beyond confusion and our conduct is based on what supports us doing that. The five vows express conduct that liberates confusion rather than creates it. Yet when we practice the five vows from the perspective of non-duality we see that we must be very specific with our conduct. Conduct that would create confusion for one person may not create confusion for another. Our training in conduct then is very specific, tailored for us by our tradition, our personal relationship with our root teacher and by our study of what causes us to lose awareness.

In ordinary life, conduct is based on whatever "feels good," and that is usually considered freedom. But when whatever "feels good," is based on conditioned desires and impulses, can this really be called freedom? The conduct of the non-renunciate Yogic-practitioner is the conduct of avoiding falling into un-awareness. When Guru Rinpoche explained how a Tantric Yogi should practice he said our view should be vast (dzogchen) but our conduct should be fine as flour. To conduct ourselves in the ways that promote awareness is quiet a strict instruction. It has to do with awareness in every aspect of our lives... how we eat, how we relate to our romantic partners, how we work, how we behave in general. The beauty of transforming our conduct into the path is that we spend so much our time in activity, and all of those activities could be tailored toward arousing awareness and minimizing our confusion. In that case our whole life is transformed into practice and into path.