Learning to practice
as awakened beings do.
At some point in our practice of Buddhism, we will want to work on developing our bodhi mind, the mind of understanding and compassion.
How?
We could practice the bodhisattvas’ six paramitas of giving, morality, patience, diligence, meditative concentration, and prajna wisdom.
Wow! Where would we even begin?
An excellent place is the sutras and their commentaries. Or we could study the more recent, and often easier to understand, works of Buddhist masters. Prefer even more modest sources? We could observe and then emulate those who already practice the paramitas.
Alternatively, we could come at this from the opposite direction and observe those who are behaving contrary to the paramitas. While these bad examples won’t show us what to do, they can teach us what not to do.
And they can inspire us to work much harder as they show us the kind of person we could become when we fail to practice.