My partner recently started serving in a caregiving position and we’ve been talking a lot about how she wants to show up in this role. This morning she said something like, “I want to remember that whatever happens is not about me.” This got me thinking about my experience in a chaplaincy internship when I …
This morning my partner and I practiced with Slogan 46: Observe these two, even at the risk of your life. The slogan refers to the Refuge and Bodhisattva vows one takes as part of the Mahayana Buddhist path. This slogan led me to recall my experience of taking these vows. I took the refuge vow …
This morning when I listened to the commentary for Slogan 45, This time, practice the main points, I found it a bit sparse! So I have added a bit of explanation and updated the commentary page.
Earlier this week I watched the Brad Pitt film Moneyball for the first time. While I liked the movie well enough, what really touched me was the song “The Show” performed by Kerris Dorsey, a young actor playing Pitt’s 12-year-old daughter. I loved the sweetness of her voice and the poignant lyrics. Today in our …
19. Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness. This final first difficulty slogan points to another familiar habitual pattern: deriving pleasure from the mishaps and suffering of others. The German word schadenfreude (literally “too bad joy”) pithily reminds us of this conditioning. I want to remember that joy based on the …
1. First, train in the preliminaries. In this case there are two “preliminaries:” First, maintaining an awareness of the Four Reminders; second, practicing shamatha-vipasyana (mindfulness -awareness) meditation. They are preliminaries in the sense that they are the ongoing basis of all that follows, not that they are ever finally completed. The Four Reminders is a …
20. Drive all blames into one. The “one” in this slogan is ego clinging, which is painful because being uptight all the time about myself makes me very vulnerable to suffering. Whenever I notice I am acting habitually – whether it’s blaming, wallowing in self-pity, pondering others, or any of the many other patterns described …
2. Regard all dharmas as dreams. This slogan, the first of the five absolute bodhicitta slogans, invites us to begin to experience the open, spacious quality of the mind. The word “dharmas” means our mental and physical experiences. We are encouraged to notice this paradox: despite being vivid and clear and seemingly solid, when we …
44. Train wholeheartedly. This very simple yet powerful slogan exhorts me to let everything stop my mind and open my heart. Moment after moment I can let myself live and die wholeheartedly. Original Presentation || Commentary References Point VII | Slogan 54 || CTR 108 | PC 142
3. Examine the nature of unborn awareness. In case we get too excited about regarding all dharmas as dreams and drift into fantasy and dreaminess, this slogan brings us back to simply looking at the mind. Mind is unborn because it has no discernable beginning, shape, color, texture, history or even existence. At the same …