Entertainment. A society, like ours, that seems obsessed with seeking entertainment, will probably never find time to devote to inner progress. Cell phones, game boys, Sunday football, blogging. We have filled the nooks and crannies of our days with pleasant distractions. Ours is an age that does not seem suited for the time and energy needed to learn the dharma and put it into motion. I hate all these distractions around me, but they are very hard to resist!

I often feel that I am just playing with Buddhism, learning it at an intelletual level, but not really changing inwardly in response to what I think I am learning. I think that it will be hard to make any real progress without the time and effort needed for a serious attempt at meditation. With jobs, kids and family, that is just something I don't have the time or energy for now. But I am also often reminded of the figure of Tukten, in Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard. Matthiessen holds him up in the end as his real teacher, this humble porter who has no pretensions at all of being a spiritual guide. Near the end of the book, Matthiessen says:

In his life in the moment, in his freedom from attachments, in the simplicity of his everyday example, Tukten has taught me over and over, he is the teacher that I hoped to find.

And so, perhaps we can be quite accomplished, without even knowing it.