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Slogans 17 & 18

The middle Five Points of Mind Training are connected with the Six Paramitas:

You remember the six paramitas right? These are both path and fruition qualities.

Two - Generosity (Ultimate Bodhicitta) and Discipline (Relative Bodhicitta)

Three - Patience

Four - Exertion

Five - Meditation

Six - Wisdom

And what’s the difference between the Paramita of Generosity and normal everyday generosity for example? It’s about ego. If you are being generous (or patient, or exerting, etc) for some self-aggrandizing motivation, it’s not the Paramita of Generosity. If you are practicing the Paramita of Generosity, you don’t expect anything in return. You are not looking for recognition. As one of the later slogans says - “Don’t expect applause”.

For now, let’s talk about the Fourth Point, the Exertion Point. Joyful and Free from Laziness. “What you can do now while you are alive and what you can do when you are dying”

Slogan 17

“Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions”

  1. Strong determination - when you wake up in the morning, you refresh your determination. No matter what yesterday was like, you start fresh with the objective of opening your heart, becoming more aware, seeing the world more clearly. There’s even a sense of joy, despite or because of the effort. We are doing something worthwhile with our life.
  2. Familiarization - We have been over this ground many many times. More and more you are reminded of meditation, of connecting, of helping others, of waking up.
  3. Seed of Virtue - You have found the seed of wakefulness in your experience and your life will never be the same. More and more you find yourself yearning for it. Despite all the setbacks and difficulties, you return. Like a compass that you shake up and spin around, it always ends up pointing north. Your body, speech and mind are dedicated to opening up, connecting, becoming more alive, serving others.
  4. Reproach - Revulsion with Samsara. Revulsion with clinging, with falling back into bad habits, ruts, bad relationships. Even when you do, summoning the energy to pull yourself out of them yet again.
  5. Aspiration - The wish to become a good person. The wish to be helpful, kind, thoughtful. The hope of freeing ourselves from neurosis, the wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings…

Those are the five strengths. The condensed heart instructions.

Slogan 18

“The Mahayana instructions for ejection of consciousness at death is the five strengths. How you conduct yourself is important”

I know we’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth underlining, since we have such a hard time remembering this… we are all going to die. We could be young and healthy and die tomorrow. Or we could be old and frail and live for another ten years like my grandmother, but eventually, we will all die.

This slogan is making the point that the way we die is an extension of the way we lived. And it’s the same five strengths as above:

  1. Strong determination - “Even as I am dying, I will maintain my awareness, my connectedness, my love, my sanity. No matter what happens after I die, may I continue this process, this path of waking up.”
  2. Familiarization - You have practiced mindfulness in your life. You know that thoughts, feelings, experiences come and go. You are familiar with the rise and fall of emotional intensity. So you have some equanimity which you can bring into the dying process. This too shall pass.
  3. Seed of Virtue - Connected with not resting or taking a break in the dying process. Continually letting go of attachments to people and things as we die.
  4. Reproach - Again, kind of a tough love approach, “Ego, self, my self image, you don’t exist anyway. I’ve got no reason to fear losing you. You were never there to being with.”
  5. Aspiration - You have already accomplished everything you could accomplish in your life. You have amazing strength and sanity now. Considering where you started and what happened along the way, you have made enormous strides. Then you make the aspiration to continue this waking up through the dying process, into the complete dissolving, and into whatever comes next.

For two slogans, that’s a whole lot to get your minds around. Let’s practice, let it settle, and see what comes up in your experience as you process this…