It’s cold outside today, but I am going to dress appropriately. Appropriately for a dharma practitioner. What’s a dharma practitioner? A mind scientist. What is the mind. The mind is clear and knowing and resides at the heart, in the chakras, in the channels. The right channel is white, the left channel is red and the central channel is blue. You have six chakras. Don’t dispute it. At the secret place, the stomach, the heart, the throat, the forehead and crown. Look at yourself. Study the mind. Don’t be distracted. Abandon your obsession with the five sense objects and focus clearly, virtuously on the mind. At your heart sits Chenrezig, the Buddha or Guru of Compassion, watching, observing with his omniscient mind, your every move. Be aware of your own actions of body, speech and mind, by relying upon mindfulness, alertness and introspection to develop the actions of the white path that lead towards a higher rebirth, liberation and Buddhahood.

In western countries, even perhaps in the East, such a to-do regarding appearance. What does a dharma practitioner look like? Virtuous, kind-hearted, not impatient. The Buddha has many qualities of body, speech and mind. Why not study that for a change, instead of burying your unhappy subjective, stupid mind in a magazine that offers nothing but misery?

Anyway, I’m going to dress like Amogasiddhi in green. Anything wrong with that? Apparently so. I now look like a Tibetan business woman to Harold the cook. What am I wearing that looks so business like? Well just a belt; a green chuba, brown woollen jacket, sky blue shirt, grey socks, brown sneakers. That’s means business and Tibetan to some and Buddha-dharma to others. It’s warm, practical, modest, colourful, comfortable, sensible, groovy and cool.

What would you wear to go and get breakfast. To purify the place? It’s not the case that dharma practitioners only wear burgundy or marrone. Doctors of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy wear gold and burgundy, thai monks wear orange or yellow. Japanese monks wear black and cream. I am a dharma practitioner who today wears green, brown, sky blue and cream. What’s the big deal. I keep my vows. Do you keep yours? That’s what a mind that is attached to appearance doesn’t understand. Your inner freedom and wisdom is to do what is wise, not harmful, decent and unattached which opposes, cuts off and abandons the small minded desires, hatred and  ignorance of the common or ordinary world.