
46. Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.
This slogan and the following one refer to the Five Strengths, a potent condensed teaching about how to live and die. In this slogan, they offer us encouragement in how live our precious human life:
- Strong Determination: Life is practice. Practice is life. I am ceaselessly motivated to awaken Basic Goodness in myself and others and to be of benefit to all beings.
- Familiarization: I am familiar with the Dharma, so everything becomes a reminder of the path. I learn to live with awareness and sanity.
- Seed of Virtue: I don’t take a break from letting even the most difficult of circumstances wake me up.
- Reproach: I do my best to let go of ego clinging and transform it into presence.
- Aspiration: I continually aspire to infuse my whole life with these practices. In the traditional practice of Lojong there are also three specific aspirations:
- May I save all sentient beings;
- May I remember two-fold bodhicitta; and
- May I practice two-fold bodhicitta.