HÜMÜH teaches that viewing each person as separate from all other sentient life is a delusion, which arises when we strongly identify with our karma. This false view is the result of attachment to ideas of who we are. Ultimately, all sentient beings are karmic expressions of the oneness of divinity, which cannot be divided or separated. It is the birthright of every sentient form to realize this oneness, to attain enlightenment; but, it takes a human body to be able to do so, because humans are the only sentient life form that is able not only to be aware, but to be aware that they are aware.

Nevertheless, because of the oneness of all sentient life, logically, what each of us does affects the whole of sentient life. That is why HÜMÜH offers the path of the bodhisattva. For students of HÜMÜH who have deepened their commitment through taking the bodhisattva vow, one of the primary spiritual practices is the study and application of the Transcendental Awareness Key Formulas. These are based on the ‘six perfections’ of generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration/meditation, and wisdom, which are also aspects of higher awareness.

Through the application of these formulas in daily life situations, students are able to discern logical courses of action from their own experiences. This way, deeper levels of insight are gained that would not be possible with only intellectual study or debate, because the Teachings can only be truly validated through direct experience. Analyzation is a dissection of accumulated ideas from the analyzer’s current point of view, not the enlightened view, which is perceived directly through a fusion of subject to object of one’s attention. That is why analyzation is inherently limited. Realization cannot come about through mulling over words in one’s mind. To truly know the Teachings is to live the Teachings.

Furthermore, students learn to deepen their awareness of their connection with everything they do through being wholeheartedly one with every movement, so that subject and object become one. This is a thread from Zen Buddhism. In this state, without a split in our attention, we are one with the present moment, which is inseparable from the past and the future. At Skycliffe, HÜMÜH’s monastery and retreat centre, this is practiced in the form of Karma Yoga, a union with what we are doing in the moment. This often takes the form of work service and moving meditation.

The purpose of the Path of HÜMÜH, or any true Buddhist path, is to awaken to the fact that we are all divinity wearing a body. Guided by the Wisdom Master, students cultivate compassion, a heart-connection with all life, living in a manner that takes the attention off of oneself, seeking to act impeccably in all situations, and developing a quiet mind and an awareness of the light, so that, eventually, they become one with the light. They become en-lightened, and suffering ends, just as it did for Sakyamuni.