please consider a **[DONATION](https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VBQAW7KNZR5N6)** in order to support **First Tuesday** practice
and the **Online Center for Pragmatic Buddhism**

join the **[Online Sangha](https://www.cpbonlinezendo.com/)** on the first Tuesday of every month at 7:00 pm EST for monthly **Meditation and Discussion**

via: **[https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83521606075](https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83521606075)**

or by selecting **[Enter Practice Room Now](https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83521606075)**

**First Tuesday** practice includes:

* meditation
* a short Sutra service
* a Dharma talk followed by group discussion

**TOPIC** | Life Is Our Monastery

While it’s true that in some schools a student formally graduates from one school to the next, when “Life Is Your Monastery” there is no such graduation.

Students here receive one belt and one belt only: the white belt ( this life ).

Those who put in the time, training, and effort will find their belt getting so soiled that eventually it turns black of its own accord.

Only then will they have achieved black-belt status.

When “Life Is Your Monastery”, the black belt is not a goal or an end anyway.

At other schools, the black belt may signify ultimate achievement, but when “Life Is Your Monastery” it is only a point along the path.

I have great respect for those who reach the black-belt level; it takes sincere commitment.

But the true Way of “Life Is Your Monastery” asks black-belt practitioners to redouble their training until their belt becomes so worn and frayed it begins to lose its color and returns to white.

Only through completion of that circle — white to black, black to white — can one know the depth of the Way of “Life Is Your Monastery”