I've found the following procedure to be useful in attaining the benefits of spiritual teachings: (1) establish a good motivation; (2) stabilize your mind through meditation; (3) get the information; (4) establish an appropriate practice through analysis, synthesis, resolution and dedication.
Lam Rim students often establish their motivation through a simple recitation of the Four Immeasurables: "I would like to learn these precepts so that I and all beings may have happiness and its causes; may be free of suffering and its causes; may never be separated from the joy that is free of sorrow; may dwell in equanimity, free of attachment and aversion."
In
Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand (#20-23),
Pabongka Rinpoche advises students to consider themselves "vessels for the Dharma." Students are advised: (1) Don't be an
upside-down cup, which the Dharma just bounces off without retaining any of it; (2) Don't be a
dirty cup, where the Dharma is polluted by worldly concerns such as gain and loss, praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain; (3) Don't be a
leaky cup, which is unable to retain and practice the Dharma. Similar advice is given by Jesus in the
Parable of the Sower.
Christians may consider it helpful to think of their minds and hearts as chalices to receive the Dharma, just as in the Eucharist the chalice receives the sacramental wine. We want that chalice to be upright, clean and whole.
What? know ye not
that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
which is in you,
which ye have of God,
and ye are not your own?
-- 1 Corinthians 3:16
