Here’s the twelfth lojong slogan: Drive all blames into one. It’s simple, but by no means is it easy. When something goes awry, the first thing we do is look for someone or something to blame. We toss blame around like a hot potato, refusing to…
When something goes wrong, we tend to flee into our oldest habits. It’s a matter of safety, and routine. While this is sometimes necessary, it can also limit us. That’s why the eleventh slogan instructs us to “transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi.” This…
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Whatever you’re facing in life, work with what you’ve got. That’s the essence of the eleventh lojong slogan. It reads, “When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi.” The path of bodhi, remember, is the path of the compassionate…
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Buddhist teachings are filled with instructions to be present to each moment with a sense of gratitude. For example, Shantideva wrote, “When eating do not gobble noisily, Nor stuff and cram your gaping mouth. -Shantideva Which sounded like a serendipitiously funny thing to read on Thanksgiving…
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It’s really that simple: don’t be selfish. The tenth lojong slogan tells us to begin the sequence of taking and sending with ourselves. And as I said in the last post, that means offering ourselves compassion. It means, especially for us right now, giving ourselves an…
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Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself. This is our tenth lojong slogan. As you remember, sending and taking is called tonglen practice. We take in the suffering of the world, and in its place we send love, peace, and well wishes. It is…
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Here’s a true lojong slogan for the moment: safety first. Last week, I invited you to write your own lojong slogan. When I asked myself what I most needed to remember to train my mind for compassion over the next few weeks, the answer felt pretty…
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This week, write your own slogan! Judy Lief teaches that slogan practice is always practical and applies to everything we do. That’s why the ninth lojong teaching tells us, “In all activities, train with slogans.” It always helps. She writes, “Once you understand the underlying point—to…
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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…
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Once again, I love Norman Fischer‘s zen take on the lojong slogan for this week. He simplifies it into three words (on purpose? By accident?! Who knows, but I like the thematic consistency): turn things around. Fischer says, “Where there’s confusion or pain in your life,…
