Alaya means “home” in Sanskrit. So we could translate the fifth lojong slogan, “Rest in the nature of alaya, of essence,” as coming back home. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says, “You don’t have to run away from yourself all the time in order to get something outside.…
Lojong Slogan #5: Rest in the nature of alaya. What is alaya? It’s your Buddha-nature, your basic human goodness. I imagine some of you are wondering how this differs (or if it does) from unborn awareness. Here’s one way to look at it. Unborn awareness helps…
Norman Fischer translates this slogan: Don’t get stuck on peace. It’s a little clearer than saying “self-liberate even the antidote,” right? Fischer says, “Don’t get excited about the empty, dream-like nature of everything, because now you’ve conceptualized it and made it into something, an idea, and…
Self-Liberate even the antidote. I admit, that sounds super confusing. But as the fourth lojong slogan, it’s well timed. If we get too caught up in recognizing that our thoughts aren’t as solid as we thought, and life isn’t as secure as we thought, and on…
Beloveds, we’ve been reflecting on living the lojong slogans for a couple of weeks now. How about we take a pause for today, catch our breath, and reflect back on the four preliminaries. How are you honoring the unique and precious gift of your life today?…
When living into the lojong slogans, our goal is to reside in absolute bodhicitta. And, while all 59 slogans teach us how to do so, the first six slogans help us get a sense of what it is and what it feels like. That’s why we…
The idea of the soul of unborn awareness may be repetitive. Because in my understanding, the soul is unborn awareness. I realize there’s some difference here from traditional Buddhist understanding. Buddhists don’t tend to use the language of soul or Self. But for me, the soul…
The third lojong slogan is “Examine the nature of unborn awareness.” Like the previous slogan, “See everything as a dream,” this slogan asks us to consider the nature of the mind itself. We want to examine its nature. And its nature is unborn awareness. But what’s…
What makes people cling so defensively to their rigid views of the world? I’ve been pondering this as I practice seeing everything as a dream this week. And while the answer is multi-layered and more complicated than can be addressed in one blog post, I think…
Reflections on the second lojong slogan, "See everything as a dream." …