The Gradual Path Blog
Steps 1-6 are called the Ordinary Preliminaries and have to do with our meditation practice.
Prepare your body for meditation with a dignified and comfortable posture.
Prepare your mind for meditation with one of three kinds of motivation depending on your predisposition and capacity.
1) “May ...
The altar is our workbench.
What’s on the altar is that which we aspire to become.
The purpose of offering is to exercise or cultivate good qualities that will hasten maturation or manifestation.
With a pure heart offer anything - pure water, fresh fruit, flowers, lit candles, sweet incense ...
 Create a sacred space to do the work.
What is the relationship between the environment and our state of mind?
Do we prioritize our psychological growth enough to designate an actual workspace for it?
What design elements would go into a space to make it inviting for you?
What about Mother Nat...
Awakening in 30 Steps is a series of contemplations on each of the lam rim steps from Dr. Miles Neale's book Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human.
The lam rim is not a linear sprint to a final destination, it’s a spiral-like process of gradual awakening.
When we...
Raw and full of lived wisdom, Dr. Miles Neale returns to the Inner Truth podcast to talk to David Newell about navigating through the dark night in the the midst of his own dark night.
Sitting cross-legged in an upright meditation posture facing an altar, I take refuge in the Three Jewels in Pali and then Tibetan. My voice is overshadowed by an unfamiliar sound on a loudspeaker – the call to prayer beckoning the Islamic devotees to the mosque. A reminder that I am no longer in Ame...
Acclaimed photographer and author Julian Bound and Buddhist therapist joins Dr. Miles Neale for an intimate conversation about the journey of awakening.
Julian’s stunning photographs from his many travels to sacred Buddhist sites throughout Asia as well as his latest book By Way of the Sea (2021)...
Dr. Miles Neale recently talked to Tom Parkes of the Mentally Flexible podcast. In this episode they discuss:
- The Contemplative Studies Program
- How Miles’s childhood informed his spiritual life
- The importance of presence in helping another person feel safeÂ
- The lam rim, or gradual path of awak ...
 Dr. Miles Neale returns to the Third Eye Drops podcast to talk to host Michael Philip about living life as art, keeping the sacred alive without dogma, the meaning crisis, Joseph Campbell and more.Â
"When you come across a quote, an idea, a song, whatever the medium is, and it strikes your very...
Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Did you have any particular experiences/stories that shaped your adult life?
I grew up in Hong Kong with tremendous privilege but often felt dissatisfied as if something essential was missing. By the time I was twenty I had made it to India to...
Sound healer and Integrated Vibrational therapist Phil Jacobs of Toronto Sound Therapy is a regular guest of the Contemplative Studies Program. Phil has brought soothing sounds and vibration to Miles' guided visualizations to powerful effect on a number of occasions. Phil rejoins Miles this Wednesda...
Join us for this free event April 21 at 7pm EDT when Geshe Tenzin Zopa (Unmistaken Child) shows us how to meditate on the themes from the 1000 year old Tibetan Buddhist tradition of lam rim or gradual path of spiritual awakening.
Register here.
