The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion

by Chogyam Trungpa

  34

  Don’t transfer the ox’s load to the cow.

  This slogan is similar to the last one. The idea is that it is very easy to say, “It’s not my fault, it’s your fault. It’s always your fault.” But that is questionable. You have to think about your problems personally, honestly, and genuinely. If there were no “you” to initiate situations, there would be no problems. But since you exist, there are problems. You do not want to transfer that load. An ox is more capable of carrying heavy burdens than a cow, so the point is that you don’t transfer your heavy load to someone who is weaker than you.

  Transferring the ox’s load to the cow is based on not wanting to deal with anything on your own. You don’t want to take on any responsibilities—you just pass them on to your secretary, your friends, or anybody you can order about. Passing the buck in that way is a bad idea. You are supposed to be cutting down and creating less traffic in the samsaric world. You are supposed to be reducing chaos and administrative problems. You are supposed to be trying to sort things out. So although you could invite other people to be your helpers, you should not just pass the buck.

  35

  Don’t try to be the fastest.

  When you begin to develop your own understanding and appreciation of the dharma, you may fall into a sort of racehorse approach. You may become concerned with who is the fastest, who can best understand the highest meaning of tantra, who has the highest understanding of ultimate bodhichitta, who has understood any hidden teachings. You are concerned with who can sit better, who can eat better, who can do this and that better. You are always trying to race with other people. But if the path is regarded purely as a race, it is a problem. The whole thing becomes a game, rather than actual practice, and there is no seed of benevolence and gentleness in you. So you should not use your practice to get ahead of your fellow students. The point of this slogan is not to try to achieve fame, honor, or distinction through your practice.

  36

  Don’t act with a twist.

  Acting with a twist means that since you think you are going to get the best in any case, you might as well volunteer for the worst. That is very sneaky. You could act with a twist in dealing with your teacher or with anything else in your life. You could pretend to be a completely benevolent person who always takes the blame, realizing all along that you are going to get the best.

  Acting with a twist is a form of spiritual materialism. You always have the ulterior motive of working for your own benefit. For instance, you may temporarily take the blame for something in order to get good results for yourself, or you may practice lojong with the idea of protecting yourself from sickness. The idea of this slogan is to drop that attitude of looking for personal benefits from practice either as an immediate or a long-term result.

  37

  Don’t make gods into demons.

  This slogan refers to the tendency to dwell on pain and go through life with constant complaints. By doing so, you make painful that which is inherently joyful. Likewise, through your arrogance, you make dharma into anti-dharma.

  You may have achieved a certain level of taming yourself. Having developed tonglen and practiced exchanging yourself for others, you feel that your achievement is real. But you are so arrogant about the whole thing that your achievement begins to become evil. Because of your intention to show off, dharma has become adharma. Your achievement may be the right kind of achievement, and you may have a very good experience. But if you regard that as a way of proving yourself or building up your ego, it is not so good.

  38

  Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness.

  This slogan is about hoping that somebody else will suffer so that you can benefit. For instance, you may know that if a friend of yours dies, you might inherit something. Although you may benefit from that person’s misfortune, you should not wish for that and dream about what you can get out of such a situation. Happiness that is built on pain is spurious and only leads to depression in the long run. The point is that you should not build your own happiness on the suffering of others.

  1. Yeshe chölwa, or “wisdom gone wild,” is a term for a level of realization that completely transcends the limits of conventional mind.

  42

  Point Seven: Guidelines of Mind Training

  By understanding and practicing lojong, you begin to become both humble and visionary. Smallness and bigness combined brings the possibility of overcoming ego in the fashion of absolute bodhichitta, and developing the softness, gentleness, and openness of relative bodhichitta. With that combination of humbleness and vision, you will be able to practice and follow the instructions of mind training properly and fully.

  POINT SEVEN contains twenty-one slogans or guidelines. These slogans are instructions in how to proceed further in everyday life, and conduct yourself properly in your relationships and in the general postmeditation experience.

  As you practice lojong, or mind training, you should become softer and more willing to adapt yourself to the rest of the world. All the slogans tell us the same thing: the problem is ego. If you become hard-nosed and individualistic, if you become aggressive toward your practice, if you develop self-righteousness or religiosity, if you think you are becoming the greatest practitioner of lojong ever, the problem is that your egotism is coming back. You would always like to prove yourself one way or the other, but that is problematic. Therefore, it is necessary to have appreciation and gratitude for the spiritual friend and the sangha. You should appreciate that without a practice environment, without a teacher, and without the dharma, you cannot practice. So appreciation and thankfulness seems to be most important.

  You might think that you have tamed your unworkable ego and that your mind is completely soaked in the dharma, but it is still possible for you to become egotistical. In order to save yourself from that, a sense of gratitude toward the circumstances that brought you to the dharma is necessary. Gratitude humbles you, and at the same time uplifts you. Without gratitude, it is impossible to give rise to bodhichitta.

  In order to arouse bodhichitta in your basic state of being, you have to learn to give and to open up. At the same time, you have to be visionary. You need to think, “The tathagatas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas of the past have gone through this journey. Therefore, I too would like to share this vision and journey in that same way.” In order to do that, you have to relate with somebody who has done it already, which is the principle of the spiritual friend. Your relationship should not rest on the personality of the spiritual friend alone—the spiritual friend is simply a reflection of the teachings. You have to develop immense yearning, dedication, and appreciation for the teachings.

  By understanding and practicing lojong, you begin to become both humble and visionary. On one hand, you are reduced in size; on the other hand, your size becomes larger. You are so small and so big. We could say that you are like a grain of sand with gigantic eyes. You are not arrogant, because you are as tiny as a grain of sand, but you have tremendous vision, because you have a pair of eyes the size of pots and pans. Smallness and bigness combined brings the possibility of overcoming ego in the fashion of absolute bodhichitta, as well as developing the softness, gentleness, and openness of relative bodhichitta. With that combination of humbleness and vision, you will be able to practice and follow the instructions of mind training properly and fully.

  39

  All activities should be done with one intention.

  Your one intention should be to have gentleness toward others and a willingness to always be helpful. In whatever you do, whether sitting, walking, eating, drinking, and even sleeping, you should always take the attitude of being of benefit to all sentient beings. That seems to be the essence of the bodhisattva vow.

  40

  Correct all wrongs with one intention.

  When you experience increasing kleshas, or you are in the midst of perverse circumstances such as serious illnesses, economic or domestic crises, cour
t cases, or resistance to practice, you should develop compassion for all sentient beings, who also suffer like this—and you should aspire to take on their suffering yourself through the practice of lojong.

  The problems you experience should be overcome right when they occur. If your practice becomes good when things are good for you, but nonexistent when things are bad, that is not the way. Instead, whether situations are extremely good or extremely bad, you should continue to do your practice. You need to stamp on obstacles. Whenever you don’t want to practice, whenever any bad circumstance comes up, stamp on it! With this slogan you are deliberately, immediately, and very abruptly suppressing the kleshas.

  41

  Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end.

  The point of this slogan is to begin and end each day with twofold bodhichitta. In the morning, you should remember bodhichitta and take the attitude of not separating yourself from it. At the end of the day, you should examine what you have done. If you have not separated yourself from twofold bodhichitta, you should be delighted, and you should vow to take the same attitude again the next day. If you were separated from bodhichitta, you should vow to reconnect with it the next day. In this way, your life will be sandwiched by bodhichitta.

  Because of your commitment and the vow you have taken to put others before yourself, at the beginning of the day, as soon as you wake up, you promise yourself that you will work on twofold bodhichitta and develop gentleness to yourself and others. You promise not to blame the world and other sentient beings, and you promise to take their pain on yourself. And at the end of the day, when you go to bed, you do the same thing. In that way, both your sleep and the day that follows are influenced by that commitment.

  42

  Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.

  Whether you are in the midst of extreme happiness or extreme suffering, you should be patient. You should regard your suffering as the result of previous karma, but there is no need to feel remorseful. Instead, you should simply try to purify any evil deeds and obscurations. Your happiness is also the result of previous karma, so there is no reason to indulge in it. Instead, you should donate any riches to virtuous causes, and resolve to use your personal authenticity and power for virtue.

  Whether a joyful or a painful situation occurs, your practice should not be swayed. You should maintain continual patience and continual practice. When things are disturbing or problematic for you, you may lose your sense of perspective and try to find some kind of scapegoat. You may try to justify your own inability to practice by coming up with all sorts of excuses and complaints—the environment is not right, the other practitioners are not right, the organization of the dharmic environment is not right. This pattern happens quite a lot among dharma students. In extreme cases, you may go back and take refuge in non-dharmic people and find situations in which your individual ego might be acknowledged. But patience means taking your time and being forbearing. It means that, whether situations are bad or good, you maintain your practice.

  43

  Observe these two, even at the risk of your life.

  This slogan is about keeping your commitment to the two vows you have taken: the refuge vow and the bodhisattva vow. It means that you should maintain your hinayana and mahayana disciplines even at the risk of your life. To begin with, you should maintain the general lifestyle of being a decent Buddhist. Beyond that, the special discipline and practice of lojong should become a very important part of your life. You should keep the hinayana and mahayana disciplines, and the practice of lojong in particular.

  44

  Train in the three difficulties.

  The three difficulties are the difficulty of recognizing your kleshas, the difficulty of overcoming them, and the difficulty of cutting through them. In order to deal with these difficulties, you need to recognize the kleshas, overcome them, and take a vow never to re-create them. So altogether there are six categories: three difficulties and three things to do about them.

  Dealing with your own kleshas or neuroses is difficult. It is very difficult to recognize the point at which you are tricked by your neuroses, it is very difficult to overcome them, and it is very difficult to cut through them. So when a klesha arises, first you need to recognize it as neurosis. Secondly, you need to overcome it. Since neurosis comes from selfishness, from placing too much importance on yourself, the way to do that is to cut through your ego. Thirdly, you need to cut the continuity of the klesha, and vow never to re-create such a neurosis again. You should develop the determination to stop feeding the neurosis or being attracted to it. In order to overcome the kleshas, you need to take an abrupt approach.

  45

  Take on the three principal causes.

  What causes you to be a good dharmic person or a bodhisattva? According to this slogan, the three causes are: having a good teacher, cultivating a mind and demeanor applicable to the dharma, and having the right practical circumstances for practicing the dharma.

  The first cause is having a good teacher. You realize the necessity of the teacher, someone who introduces you to the dharma.

  The second cause is cultivating a mind and demeanor applicable to the dharma. You realize that your mind should be tamed, but you may have all kinds of funny ambitions about your life and the dharma. You might get into the dharma in order to become a teacher, or to write a book, or to start a business. That kind of ambition was not all that prominent in the days when Jamgön Kongtrül wrote The Great Path of Awakening, but today there are more choices. You might think that by becoming a Buddhist, you could be a great hunter, a great author, a great bodhisattva, a great salesperson, or a great prostitute. But that kind of ambition is not all that good. Instead, you should reach the point where you say, “I would like to devote myself to the dharma completely and fully.”

  The third cause is having the right practical circumstances for practicing the dharma. You realize that you need to take an open attitude toward your life, and develop some kind of livelihood so you can economically afford to practice. Your food, clothes, and shelter need to be taken care of, and you need to have a roof over your head.

  You should try to maintain those three causes and take delight that you have such an opportunity.

  46

  Pay heed that the three never wane.

  The three that should never wane are devotion to your spiritual friend, delight in practice, and keeping the hinayana and mahayana disciplines. First, your mental attitude of admiration, dedication, and gratitude toward the spiritual friend should not diminish. Second, you should maintain a delightful attitude toward lojong. Your appreciation for receiving such teachings should not diminish. Third, you should maintain your conduct and the hinayana and mahayana vows you have taken. Your practice of the hinayana and mahayana disciplines should not diminish. At this point in mahayana practice, it is necessary to rouse an attitude of strength and energy.

  There is a connection between the last three slogans. The slogan “Train in the three difficulties” is how to begin. The second slogan, “Take on the three principal causes,” is how to proceed. The third slogan, “Pay heed that the three never wane,” is what you are finally getting into.

  47

  Keep the three inseparable.

  Your practice of lojong should be wholehearted and complete. In your three faculties of body, speech, and mind, you should be inseparable from lojong.

  48

  Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial always to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly.

  The practice of lojong includes everyone and everything. It is important to be thorough and impartial in your practice, excluding nothing at all that comes up in your experience.

  49

  Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.

  Always meditate on that which is most difficult. If you do not start right away, the moment a difficulty arises, it is very hard to overcome it.

  50

  Don’t be swayed by external ci
rcumstances.

  Although your external circumstances may vary, your practice should not be dependent on that. Whether you are sick or well, rich or poor, have a good or a bad reputation, you should practice lojong. It is very simple. If your situation is right, breathe that out, and if your situation is wrong, breathe that in.

  51

  This time, practice the main points.

  “This time” refers to this lifetime. You have wasted many lives in the past, and in the future you may not have the opportunity to practice. But now, as a human being who has heard the dharma, you do have that opportunity. So without wasting any more time, you should practice these three main points: the benefit of others is more important than yourself; practicing the teachings of the guru is more important than analytical study; and practicing bodhichitta is more important than any other practice.

  52

  Don’t misinterpret.

  In your practice, you may twist or misinterpret things. The six primary things that we tend to misinterpret are: patience, yearning, excitement, compassion, priorities, and joy. It is a misinterpretation of patience to be patient about everything in your life except for the practice of dharma. Misinterpreted yearning is to foster yearning for pleasure and wealth, but not to encourage the yearning to practice dharma thoroughly and properly. Misinterpreted excitement is to get excited by wealth and entertainment, but not to be excited by the study of dharma. Twisted compassion is being compassionate to those who endure hardships in order to practice dharma, but being unconcerned and uncompassionate to those who do evil. Twisted priorities means to work diligently out of self-interest for whatever benefits you in the world, but not to practice dharma. Twisted joy is to be happy when sorrow afflicts your enemies, but not to rejoice in virtue and in transcending samsara. You should absolutely and completely stop all six of those misinterpretations.