In all activities, train with slogans. That’s the ninth lojong slogan. It serves as a kind of resting point along the way, reminding us why we do this mind training in the first place. We do it to cultivate compassion as not just a response, but a way of life.

Even though it’s hard to know it from just reading the slogan, most Buddhist teachers say the focus on training here is on selfishness. When we train with slogans, we slowly reprogram ourselves away from selfishness and toward compassion and joy.

Vidyadhara would often flip his hand back and forth to remind his students that they were to switch up their reactions. Feeling jealous of someone? Flip it and be excited for them instead. Wish someone harm? Switch that, and wish them well. It’s a lot like Jesus’ commandment to love our enemies. Someone want your coat? Give them your shirt also. Just flip the switch. Go beyond what they expect. Surprise them with kindness. Selfishness becomes compassion, in a flash.

Traleg Kyabgon writes, “Lojong (is) a kind of trick to make us happy. If someone’s beauty reminds us of our own ugliness, or someone’s wealth reminds us of our own poverty, or someone’s successful children remind us of our own child’s bad grades, we should learn to rejoice in their good fortune.”

Also, I kid you not, one summary of this switch that comes from the Kadampa tradition says this:

I offer all gain and victory to all sentient beings,

I take all loss and defeat for myself.

Training with the slogans, at its heart, asks us to want the best for others. So we can’t be sore losers or jealous naysayers or grumbling bystanders. We step in with compassion. In our own minds, we just make that little flip from resentment or anger or whatever else to joy and compassion.

Pema Chodron says it so simply: “Recalling any of these slogans ‘on the spot’ can dissolve our self-centeredness and unkindness.” Yes.

Where do you need to flip the switch this week?