This is the final section of Lojong training slogans. It’s called “Guidelines of Mind Training”. It encompasses the largest number of slogans - 20 of them - but it continues along the same themes as the previous points. A quick summary:
- This “me” that we identify with, cherish and defend, doesn’t really exist. It’s a construct, a shorthand, a bundle of thoughts, emotions and awareness that we take to be a solid thing.
- Our attachment to this amalgamation causes us a lot of pain. It dramatically limits the way we interact with the world (the subject/object framework) and it constricts how we interact with other people (everyone is either someone to be pulled closer, pushed away, or ignored).
- One of the best ways to undo this confusion is to get out of our heads, out of our conceptual minds, and open our hearts to the world and to each other. These Lojong teachings in particular continually encourage us to put others first - a direct challenge to our normal way of going about our life.
Since we don’t have time to go through all 20 slogans in this section, I’ll just mention a few of them. But these are all worth reading, contemplating and meditating on.
#39 “All activities should be done with one intention”
Whatever you are doing, eating, dressing, sleeping, walking, sitting, working, playing, cooking, etc. try to benefit other beings. Think of how your actions could help others, instead of what we usually do, which is to think of how our actions will help ourselves. The “One intention” is the intention to benefit others. Or, as Pema Chodron says, “Increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.”
#42 “Whichever of the two occurs, be patient”
“The two” here are good circumstances and bad circumstances. So either way, whether you are down on your luck and things aren’t going your way, or you are lucky, happy, wealthy, healthy, etc. don’t lose your sense of perspective. Maintain your practice. Keep opening your heart. Keep using your situation as fuel for waking up. If things are bad, wish that your difficulties would ease someone else’s load, or at least connect you more to what others are going through. If things are good, don’t succumb to carelessness and indifference. Share your success with others as much as you can. It’s not in the commentaries, but to me “be patient” also carries a sense of “these circumstances will change”. Like they say about the weather in New England “If you don’t like it, wait a minute”
#44 “Train in the Three Difficulties”
These three are to:
- recognize selfishness and all the difficult emotions that come from it - anger, jealousy, greed, envy, defensiveness, etc.
- interrupt the habitual chain of those selfish thoughts or feelings - ie don’t go down that same path again, and
- chart a new course - do whatever you can to not perpetuate, feed, encourage this selfish approach to life.
These are called “Three Difficulties” because it’s hard to do any of them! It’s difficult to recognize anger or jealousy as its coming up in our experience. It’s difficult to interrupt that chain of thought. And it’s really difficult to change our lives so the same thing doesn’t keep coming up.
Student Betsy added a fourth difficulty: “seek out the hard stuff.” Actively look for the places, things and issues that are hard.
#47 “Keep the Three Inseparable” or “Make the Three Inseparable”
The Three are body, speech and mind. These are the three major components of our human existence. “Keep” or “Make” them inseparable means to join them fully in your meditation practice, in your mind training. Dedicate every part of you into this practice. Engage with mind training whole heartedly.
In general, to me anyway, this slogan is a great reminder to join body, speech and mind. Integrate my experience, unify my physical life, my breath, hearing and speaking, and my thinking and feeling life into one.
#49 “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment”
I like Jamgon Kongtrul’s commentary on this one best. He says (I’m paraphrasing) Meditate by bringing out extra love and compassion for difficult people and situations. Pema Chodron says “Do tonglen practice whenever you feel resentment. Do it with small things all the time. Then you will be prepared when large difficulties arise.”
Student Raylen talked about how helpful it is to acknowledge that she even feels resentment!
#51 “This time, practice the main points”
This time means right now, in this lifetime, at this point of your life. We waste so much time feeding our sense of self, our ego, and defending this mistaken belief. But now we understand how much suffering that causes, and we have practices to open our heart. So practice them!
The main points are:
- Helping others is more important than looking out for ourselves
- Practicing what our teachers taught is more important than what we read in books
- Opening our heart, awakening compassion, lessening selfishness, is more important than any other spiritual practice.
#53 “Don’t vacillate” or “Don’t fluctuate”
If you only meditate when things are good, or bad, or on certain days, you’ll never feel confident in this path. Work on opening your heart and mind to everyone, in every circumstance, every day.
The last four are pretty self explanatory
#56 “Don’t wallow in self-pity” or “Don’t make a fuss”
#57 “Don’t be jealous”
#58 “Don’t be frivolous” or “Don’t be temperamental”
#59 “Don’t expect applause”