Tag Archives: Buddhism

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Lojong #10: Begin the sequence of sending & taking with yourself

“Whenever anything happens, the first thing to do is take the pain on yourself.” (Trungpa) — Give up the good feelings so someone else can benefit. This is connected with developing the Paramita of Discipline. Open your territory completely, let go of everything.

Kongtrul says: Take on all the suffering that will come to you in the future, then you’ll be able to take on others’ suffering.

Radical stuff. Like the Tibetan mountain paths, it’s not for the faint-hearted.

But it’s probably the best program ever devised for helping yourself learn to be more compassionate to others…

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Lojong # 9: In all activities, train with slogans

In daily life, use the lojong slogans to help you put words to “the first thought” (as in arising anger, etc.). When the feeling of I-ness hits, Trungpa suggests we think: “May I receive all evils and my virtues go to others; profit and victory to others, loss and defeat to myself.”

Sort of a corrective for the usual tendencies, such as putting self first. A little additional help may come from using something like this with your morning vows: “I vow to pursue Bodhichitta and develop a sense of gentleness toward self and others; I promise not to blame others but to take their pain on myself; I vow to put others before self.”

It may seem impossible, but the nature of the Bodhisattva vow is – simply interpreted – that you vow to do what you know can’t be done. Such as save all the innumerable sentient beings on the planet, extinguish your inexhaustible delusions, master the immeasurable Dhamma teachings, and follow completely the Buddha’s endless way.

In the Japanese, it’s:

Shu jo mu hen sai gan do,

Bon no mu hen sai gan dan,

Ho mon muryo sai gan gaku,

Butsu do mu jo sai gan jo.

(Three bows.)

It’s a tall order.

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Lojang #8 Three objects, three poisons, three seeds of virtue

This one seems obscure at first, but is really very accessible… and very powerful. It can change your life, all by itself.

The three objects are friends, enemies and neutrals…

The three poisons are craving, aggression, ignorance (which are  sometimes rendered as: passion/anger/delusion or attachment/aversion/indifference).

The three virtues are the wisdom sides of the three poisons – i.e., ‘the flip side’! What this means is, the wisdom you gain from observing carefully when you experience the three poisons. On one level, this is the post-meditation/everyday life version of tonglen, and can be practiced fully only when tonglen is understood. Basically this amounts to uncoupling from the objects of your emotions and attachments and realizing that without the objects, the passions have no power…

But the simple, straightforward level, the accessible version of this is to realize that whatever bad experiences you are in at this moment can teach you what suffering is for others and thus help you develop understanding, insight or wisdom (panna) — and thus compassion for others.

A simple personal example: I was driving to work a few days ago in a very stressed state due to a combination of circumstances too complicated and mundane to go into, but suffice it to say I was so stressed that I began to wonder if I was safe to drive. As I was driving along, I realized that many of the people around me on the road must be experiencing the same kinds of stress, and that indeed that stress could be the source of many of the frightening and annoying things that other drivers often do  – things that typically get an angry or at least contemptuous response from me. Seeing how this stress could be affecting others, I realized I was able to tap into a source of compassion for them which is helping me be less annoyed and much more equanimous in my daily drive.

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Lojong #7 Sending and taking should be practiced alternately…

… These two should ride the breath.

[HERE BEGINS POINT 2B: RELATIVE BODHICHITTA TRAINING:]

This is a simple description of the very advanced practice of tonglen, which is the main practice in developing relative Bodhichitta, awakened heart. Extensive practice in basic meditation, beginning with awareness of breath (anapana in Pali, shamatha in Tibetan), is essential before attempting this practice. A solid background in Metta practice, the practice of sending loving-kindness and compassion out to all the world, is also very helpful, as tonglen can be very dark and overwhelming otherwise.

The practice involves taking into oneself with each inhalation all the bad in one’s surroundings (eventually the world) and sending out with each exhalation all the good one has, actually transforming the bad in the environment into good and giving it away.

This turns the natural tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain on its head, and generally seems absurd to the conventional consciousness. After some years of meditation and observation of the practice, one will usually come to an understanding of its wisdom and transformational power.

Pema Chodron writes about tonglen in her wonderful book The Wisdom of No Escape.

I’m not suggesting that anyone try this, but if you do please read what Trungpa and Pema have to say about it. I’m introducing it here because this is a foundational notion in much of the lojong practice: the idea that one can take negative energies or situations and transform them, simply by one’s willingness to do so – not thru any kind of occult powers or anything. It’s a powerful idea.

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April 4, 2013

Time for the truth.

As I hinted at earlier in the introduction to the Lojong – the Training the Mind post – my practice has deteriorated seriously over the past year.

As I haven’t gotten to the end of the story in the narrative section, I’ll not go into the details of my practice when I started this blog, but it was a very strong practice. At least I thought so. It was regular and deep. Perhaps not regular enough, or deep enough.

I still can’t sort out all the elements that got me off track, but it was complicated. As I mentioned earlier, my mother’s death, and three days later my wife’s father’s death, threw both of us into a cycle of anger, grief and depression that is still having an impact on our lives.

But I think the main problem came because I made the fatal mistake of taking a break from the cushion. A mistake that I know the warnings against, the dangers of, the difficulties of recovering from… yet out of weakness and selfishness I made the mistake.

I have been struggling for months now to get back into a solid practice. Depression is a great enemy of meditation practice, precisely because meditation practice is a great help in dealing with depression. Depression has a sleazy, insidious way of undermining anything that may help you get over it, so it really seems to hate meditation.

In taking a break from the cushion, I allowed the depression to move in and undermine my confidence in the practice itself, I allowed it to introduce doubts about my practice. Which in turn made it harder to get back on the cushion. It becomes a vicious cycle. I’ve almost had to start all over.

As I mentioned, I have returned to some of my earlier rituals and simple things like morning vows and chanting, as well as the Lojong, as a way to get back into practice. I’ve been practicing for some time in the Vipassana tradition, which teaches that such things are not likely to take you to the deeper levels of meditation… and that seems true to my experience, but it could be wrong. At any rate, I am finding them helpful in getting myself re-oriented.

I hope to use these Practice Notes as a way of sorting out how things are going for myself, and perhaps they’ll be helpful to readers as well.

I hope I will be able to be consistent and honest in my reports of how it goes.

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Lojong #6 In post-meditation, be a child of illusion

This is meditation in action, the discipline of daily life. Trungpa says to continue the experience of meditation in your daily activities, remembering that all this stuff that seems to be going on is, at least as understood on the absolute level, just an illusion created by your mind-system.

Remember to keep everything soft, pliable, workable, with lots of space. Recognize the simplicity of the phenomenal play.

The phrase “child of illusion” has always been hard for me to understand. My best take on it: – it suggests that you – that notion of ‘self’ that is identified as ‘you’ – are created by (child of) the illusion of experience. To ‘be’ that, perhaps, means you recognize it clearly.

Yes, this one is a bit confusing, unclear perhaps. As I understand it, the “be” means just being aware of this truth. The “child of illusion” is the Self. The essential notion is that the Self is not a fixed, permanent entity, and keeping that in mind as you go about your daily life helps to lighten things up a bit. The self, in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, is understood to be simply the product of stringing together all these discrete experiences of ongoing life and reifying the experiencer as some entity, “me.” Of course, since all this stuff going on is essentially created by the mind, it is an illusion, so its creation, the Self is also unreal, in the absolute sense.

Judith Leif says, “In this slogan, the particular postmeditation practice is to “be a child of illusion.” It is to play within an environment that we recognize to be shifty and illusory. So rather than trying to make our world solid and predictable, and complaining when that is not the case, we could maintain the glimpses of the illusory nature of experience that arise in meditation practice, and touch in with that open illusory quality in the midst of our daily activities. That looser more open quality is the ground on which the compassionate actions of the bodhisattva can arise.” from — https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/train-your-mind-slogan-6/

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Lojong #5 Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence

Ah, this one is so sweet! [long deep release of breath…]

Alaya means ‘abode’ (as in Himalaya, abode of snow), and refers here to the 8th consciousness, clear, non-discriminating mind, basic goodness.

Resting in this state is the Ultimate Bodhichitta practice, the practice leading to realization of awakened heart, understanding that phenomena are non-solid, self-luminous. The idea of ‘resting in’ means we are seeing this as a beginning point for deeper awakening, not as some end in itself.

Trungpa says, “You can just come home and relax. The idea is to return to home-sweet-home.” The home of our basic consciousness, pure awareness. This is the essential element in shamatha practice, and the Ultimate Bodhichitta practice, and is the beginning point for all that comes.

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Lojong #4 Self-liberate even the antidote

Realization of emptiness/impermanence (shunyata) — the antidote — is helpful in not taking ourselves or anything else too seriously, but it may tempt one to slide into “the poison of shunyatta” attitude: ‘nothing is important, so why bother’. In Zen, this is known as ‘the stink of Zen.’

Trungpa says we must get beyond this naivetè, stay grounded in practice, and remember: “We are not particularly seeking enlightenment or the simple experience of tranquility – we are trying to get over our deception.”

Again, this is a key point, or barrier to get past. When you realize what your deception consists of, you’re on the path to real liberation, true enlightenment.

In considering all these things – which, by the way, you shouldn’t think about too much! – it’s helpful to remember that a main notion in Buddhism is ‘the middle way.’ As the Thai man said to me, “Buddha say, not too much, not too little, just enough!”

It’s also helpful to remember that non-dualism is an underlying notion in all of this. Beyond this and that, good and evil, wrong and right, deceived and not deceived, enlightened and not enlightened. Just this.

 

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Lojong #3, Examine the nature of unborn awareness

Ah, this is a pithy one!

Simply look at your own basic awareness, mind, noting that if you pursue it to the deepest level (which means spending a lot of very still, silent time) there is nothing there.

No color, no shape, no size, no attributes or qualities – just awareness. Sometimes referred to as “pure awareness.” Awareness that has no content. Essentially, we realize that awareness is simply the potential to be aware of some content. So the mind, in itself, without anything else, is nothing.

Pursuing this, eventually we see that the nature of everything is impermanence, emptiness or shunyata – not that it doesn’t exist, but simply that everything is empty of an independent, abiding nature. So it doesn’t exist in and of itself, it only exists in co-existence with everything else.

As I said, pithy. You might have guessed that this is the essential thing you must get before much else in the Buddhist meditation catalog really works for you…

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Lojong #2 Regard all dharmas as dreams

POINT 2A, ULTIMATE BODHICHITTA TRAINING:

In the interest of developing compassion and openness, it’s perhaps best to regard whatever happens as only phantom… “Nothing ever happens. But because nothing happens, everything happens.” I.E. don’t take this so-called ‘reality’ too seriously. Whatever ‘reality’ is, all we can ever know of it is what our mind-system perceives and conceives. Which keeps everything light and open….

Bodhichitta means enlightened heart or mind… ultimate Bodhichitta slogans are those that are concerned with the absolute nature of reality, as opposed to relative, which is the everyday practical stuff.

Before you get too stuck on this one, be sure you go on to #3 and #4…