The twentieth lojong slogan says, “Of the two witnesses, hold the principle one.” In other words, trust yourself. Here, the two witnesses are you, and other people. Sometimes we base our understanding of ourselves on what other people say about us. Sometimes they’re right. But sometimes,…
The eighteenth lojong slogan says, “All dharma agrees at one point.” And that point, in one word, is compassion. Another way to say this is egolessness or no self. (Dharma here simply means teachings.) I admit, for a few years, this concept of no self in…
The eighteenth lojong slogan basically tells us that what we practice in life, we practice in death. It reads, “The mahayana instruction for ejection of consciousness at death is the five strengths: how you conduct yourself is important.” It’s so important to die well. And these…
The last of the five strengths is the strength of dedication. As a reminder, the seventeenth lojong slogan says, “Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.” You can read about determination, familiarization, reproach, and seed of virtue in my previous posts. Dedication of merit is…
The fourth strength, reproach, is the courage to accept your faults. As a reminder, the seventeenth lojong slogan says, “Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.” The first three strengths are determination, familiarization, and seed of virtue. The fourth is, trickily enough, called reproach. This…
Seed of virtue is the third of the five strengths that make up the condensed heart instructions of lojong slogan seventeen. (You can read about the first two, determination and familiarization in my previous posts.) Norman Fischer writes, “Seed of virtue is the recognition of our…
The seventeeth lojong slogan teaches us to “practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.” The first strength is determination, and the second is familiarization. In other word, it’s our habits. We know our day runs by our habits. If we want to quit a habit,…
The seventeeth lojong slogan says, “Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.” These strengths, or forces, as Jamgon Kongtrul calls them, give us everything we need to grow on this path of service and enlightenment. And they’re called heart instructions because that’s where they come…
Whatever you meet is the path. That’s the translation Zen teacher Norman Fischer gives to the 16th lojong slogan, “Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation.” Fischer writes, “We human beings are always doing spiritual practice, whether we know it or not.” This may feel strange,…
“Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation.” No matter what, life includes meeting the unexpected. We can’t get around life’s little (and big) surprises. And even though this happens to us every day, we often act like it’s a surprising personal affront every time. The 16th…
