Practice deeply with little fanfare

From: Pointing Out Instructions 9
Full transcript
Audioclip

In his commentary on Seven Points of Mind Training, Kongtrul said: Practice deeply with little fanfare. This is a very, very old tradition.

Some of you may have heard the story about Shantideva who was regarded by his fellow monks as a complete wastrel who ate, slept and shat. And did nothing else. Little did they know that he was practicing very deeply all the time. Only when they tried to make of fun him by asking him to deliver an annual lecture that they learned as they listened to him recite the Bodhicaryavatara which was his own composition, “Oh, he’s not who we thought he was.”

So there’s no need to make any kind of display or tell anybody. I mean the very worst kind of thing—and this is a dharma center disease—“I’m going to be so compassionate, I’m going to give you the opportunity of being patient first.”