a talk i gave on ‘a system of training’, at the order weekend at wymondham, in east anglia, marking the 40th birthday of the order.

it looks at the system of practices current in the western buddhist order, how they relate to going for refuge, and, through the relationship to the five spiritual faculties, how the system of practice relates to the the nature of the awakening mind itself

the talk referred to a seminar extract by the ven sangharakshita, where he describes what he calls the '5 great stages of the spiritual life'.

a number of people have asked me for the reference, and you can read the full text of that seminar extract here.

meantime, here is bhante summing up the significance of the five great stages:

So what does this mean? It means that everyday

one has got five things to practice as best you can.

i

one has too keep up the effort to be mindful and aware and to be as integrated as possible;

ii

one remains in as positive a mental state as one possibly can;

iii

one does not loose sight of one's ultimate goal at any time;

iv

one tries to apply at every level whatever you've realised or discovered on the highest level of your being;

v

and you do your best for other people, you do what you can to help people.

This is your spiritual life and this is your spiritual practice. These are the things with which you are basically concerned...

On the practical side, this is all that you really need or all that you really need to think in terms of. What so ever has been said by all the different Buddhist teachers in the course of several hundred years of development is all really contained in this in principle.... this is essentially, this is basically what it is all about.

You can also think of these if you like in terms of the Five Spiritual faculties which are both successive and linear. the first stage correspond to the faculty of mindfulness. The second corresponds to the faculty of faith. The third corresponds to the faculty of wisdom. Fourth to the faculty of meditation. The fifth to the faculty of virya.

So if you just try to do these five things all the time you can forget all about making progress or where exactly you are along the path. One just intensifies one's effort in those five directions as it were, all the time. One simply can't go wrong then, (pause).

Now is that reasonably clear?