Practicing the eighth lojong slogan is how we learn to live beyond the buckets of passion, aggression, and indifference. When we work with the three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue, we’re really doing another form of tonglen. As you remember, in tonglen we…
Lojong 8 has a trio of threes: Three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue. This slogan feels more like a grocery list than mind training, doesn’t it? So: what does this trio of threes mean? Basically, it means paying very specific attention to three…
Pema Chodron reminds us that tonglen, the practice of taking in pain and sending out light, relief, and peace, can happen right in the middle of our day. At any moment, we can respond to the suffering we see by breathing it in, and sending out…
Lojong 7: Sending and taking should be practiced alternately. These two should ride the breath. Sending and taking describes a powerful Buddhist practice of compassion called tonglen. In tonglen, we practice taking in the pain of the world as we inhale, and then send out light…
Being a “child of illusion” as the sixth lojong slogan teaches means tapping into our childlike innocence. Norman Fischer writes, “Spiritual practice requires a certain degree of childlike innocence. What could be more childlike, if not childish, than to believe that radical spiritual transformation is possible,…
Here’s the sixth lojong slogan: “In postmeditation, be a child of illusion.” When I first began to meditate, I would hear my teachers use this phrase “postmeditation” and I had no clue what they were talking about. Was there some kind of ritual or practice we…
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…
