No Time To Lose

No time to lose – a timely guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva
PEMA CHODRON

From the Buddhist point of view, human birth is very precious. Shantideva urges us to contemplate our good situation and not to miss this chance to do something meaningful with our lives. We have intelligence, the availability of teachers and teachings, and at least some inclination to study and mediate. But some of us will die before the year is up, and in the next five years, some of us will be too ill or in too much pain to concentrate on a Buddhist text, let alone live by it. Moreover, many of us will become distracted by worldly pursuits – for two, ten, twenty years or the rest of our lives – and no longer have the leisure to free ourselves from the rigidity of self-absorption. In the future, outer circumstances such as war or violence might become so pervasive that we won’t have time for honest self-reflection. Or, we might fall into the trap of too much comfort. When life feels so pleasurable, so luxurious and cozy, there is not enough pain to turn us away from worldly seductions. Lulled into complacency, we become indifferent to the suffering of our fellow beings.
The human birth is ideal, with just the right balance of pleasure and pain. The point is not to squander this good fortune.


When we get hit hard, we look outward and see how other people also have difficult times. When we feel lonely or angry or depressed, we let these dark moods link us with the sorrows of others. We share the same reactivity, the same grasping and resisting. By aspiring for all beings to be free of their suffering, we free ourselves from our own cocoons and life become bigger than “me”. No matter how dark and gloomy or joyful and uplifted our lives are, we can cultivate a sense of shared humanity.

When we have our emotional upheavals, there is no need to indulge in them. For they are like clouds in the sky, ephemeral and fleeting. When we understand that, we don’t have to feel stuck or definitely believing that they are all “me”. It is just weather, it will pass.

Most of us want to share what we’ve understood with others. Yet in trying to do this, we see even more clearly the work that still needs to be done on ourselves. At some point, we realise that what we do for ourselves benefits others, and what we do for others benefits us.

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Let’s say you’re stuck in grasping or craving; you know that you collect and hoard, that you panic when something is taken from you or you have to let it go. How do you work with unreasonable attachment, for your own sake and for the happiness of others?

One way to would be to cultivate generosity. We aspire to give away something we’re attached to; we train our fearful mind to let go. And in time to come. The ability to really give away will come. If we equate “giving” with “freedom from craving” then we become more eager to act, even if it causes some pain.

According to the teachings, there are three types of generosity, three ways of helping others by giving of ourselves.
The first kind is giving of material things.
The second is giving the gift of fearlessness. We help those who are afraid. If someone is scared of the dark, we give them a flashlight; if they’re going through a fearful time, we comfort them; if they’re having night terrors, we sleep next to them. This may sound easy, but it takes time and effort and care.
The third kind drives away darkness of ignorance. Although no one can eliminate ignorance but ourselves, still, through example and through teachings, we can inspire and support one another.
The inconceivable wish to help all sentient beings always beings with oneself. Our own experience is the only thing we have to share. Much of our realisation comes from the honest recognition of our foibles. The inability to measure up to our own standards is decidedly humbling. It allows us to empathize with others’ difficulties and mistakes.

Most of us living in cities with homeless people do this. We come up with a plan – like giving to the first person who asks us – in hope of relieving our guilt for the rest of the day. Of course, giving in this way is beneficial, but we could definitely stretch further. When we give money to homeless men or women we could aspire them to be free of all their pain. We could aspire to extend our own comfort and happiness to them and to homeless people everywhere.

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Harbouring hatred toward anyone produces an anguished frame of mind. We remain in this hellish state for ages equal to the moment of our wrath – in other words, for as long as we hold on to our hatred, instead of letting it go.

Virtuous thoughts, on the other hand, bring happiness. Instead of separating us and making feel more cut off and afraid, they bring us closer to others.
If someone insults you, you may long to retaliate, but you know this won’t benefit anyone. Instead, in the very grip of wanting to get even, you can say to yourself ‘may the rage that I feel towards this person cause both of us to be liberated.

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Prostration overcomes arrogance. We don’t have to hang on to our accomplishments or good fortune. We can afford to be humble and bow down to those who embody wisdom, those courageous ones who worked hard so that the teachings still remains alive today.

2nd prostrations connect us with our own sanity. In the presence of an extremely open and compassionate person, we can feel these qualities unfold in ourselves. Some seemingly separate person or object of veneration can awaken the clarity and freshness of our mind. As a gesture of respect, love and gratitude to those who show us basic goodness, we bow down and prostrate.

3rd it is a way to overcome resistance and surrender our deeply entrenched neuroses and habits. Each time we bow, we offer ourselves: our confusion, our inability to love, our hardness and selfish ways. It’s like opening our hands and saying “with this gesture I willingly acknowledge how stuck I am. I surrender it all to the vast and compassionate heart of bodhichitta. Until attaining the essence of enlightenment, I take refuge in awakened mind.”
With all these in mind, we prepare ourselves to experience the heart of bodhi.

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Confession

Whenever we do something we wish we hadn’t, we give it our full compassionate attention, rather than hiding our mistakes from ourselves and others, we forthrightly declare them. By acknowledging them to ourselves we avoid self-deception. In certain circumstances we may also declare them to someone else, as witness to our wise intention.
To see how clearly we strengthen or weaken crippling patterns we have to bring them to light.
Is it enough to acknowledge my regrets to myself? It does help but not enough to completely dissolve self-deception. It allows us free ourselves of a burden of shame to start afresh. To lay aside our neurotic crimes and move forward without guilt. We connect with the openhearted tenderness of regret.


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Long after our friends and foes are gone, we still carry the imprints of our positive and negative reactions. Our habitual patterns remain in place long after the objects of our attachment and aversion cease. The problem is not our friends or foes, per se. The problem is the way we relate to them or to any external circumstances. What habits are we strengthening when we get enmeshed in our attachments and aversions?

It is futile to get worked up about those who, just like us, live fleeting, momentary lives.

Understand that everything we do has consequences, and they won’t always be comfortable. Each day, we’re either strengthening or weakening negative patterns. But as Trungpa Rinpoche once said” Karma is not a punishment; it is the consequences that we’re temporarily stuck with. We can undo it by following the path.”

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For those who spend their lives learning to relax with groundlessness death is liberating. But if we live our lives trying to hold on to this brief and transient existence, we’re going to be scared, very scared, when we die. Death is the ultimate unknown that we are forever avoiding; it’s the ultimate groundlessness that we try to escape. But if we learn to relax with uncertainty and insecurity, then death is a support for joy.

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If we spend our lives searching for outside help – through looking good, shopping therapy, addictions and so on –we will look for something to hold on to when we die. When we find ourselves seeking help with panic-stricken eyes, we’ll discover too late that this habitual response will not help. So in what do I seek refuge?

Even though we can’t possibly hold on to anything, clinging remains one of our strongest habits. Useless though it may be, we devote much of our energy to grasping at that which is elusive and impermanent. In this present moment, there is nothing left of the past but memories. Our nostalgia for the good times, our fear of the bad times: that’s all that’s really left. Instead of getting hooked further by nostalgia and fear, we can simply acknowledge these tendencies and question the intelligence of continuing to harm ourselves for the sake of such transient concerns.

What are our criteria for telling friend from foe? A friend might be the cause of emotional upheavals and negative habits, while a so-called foe might profit us immensely. It is often when someone hurts us that we have a breakthrough in understanding. Friends and enemy are common concepts; but it’s hard to say who will help or hinder the process of awakening.

It is extremely difficult to resist the seduction of habits, even knowing how unsatisfying the end results will be. We persist in the same old patterns which illogically hold out the promise of comfort. To rid ourselves of inevitable suffering, it’s crucial to acknowledge on the spot how we repeatedly get hooked. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche refers to it as “nausea with samsara”
Having fully acknowledged past and present actions, Shantideva wholeheartedly aspires never again to be deceived by the false promise of addictions and rote responses. By cleaning the slate, he creates the opportunity for his basic sanity to emerge.

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Rejoicing

Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will. Each of us has this soft spot: a capacity for love and tenderness. But if we don’t encourage it, we can get pretty stubborn about remaining sour.

I have a friend who, when he begins getting depressed and withdrawn, goes to a nearby park and does this practices – directing your attention to strangers, just wish them all to be happy and well- for everyone who walks by. He finds this pulls him out of the slump, before it’s too late. The tricky part is getting out of the house, instead of getting in to the seduction of gloom.
When you rejoice, you will encounter your soft spot as well as your competitiveness and envy. Sitting on a park bench and wishing well for others is relatively easy to do but when good fortune befalls those we know better esp. those we dislike, it can give us an up-close look at our jealousy.
When we realised that uglier side of ours, our usual response would be that we blew it but this isn’t necessarily the case. We should rejoice as much in seeing where we’re stuck as we rejoice in our loving-kindness. This is our opportunity to understand what others are up against when they do the same, generating compassion for others. For their sake and ours, we can let the storyline go and stay present with an open heart and we can rejoice that we’re even interested in such a fresh alternative.

Shantideva rejoices in those who long to place all beings in the state of bliss and in those of us who even glimpse such an expansive aspiration and commit to training our minds. Likewise he rejoices in those actively engaging in relieving suffering for the benefits of all.
The reference to all beings may sounds unreasonably vast but really, it’s just a way of looking out at the world to see if there’s anyone we detest, anyone we fear or can’t stop resenting. To include all beings seriously challenge our usual tendency to choose whom we like and dislike whom we wish to see prosper or fail. These old habits die hard. So, while holding the intention to benefit all beings excluding none we take one step at a time.

The practice of rejoicing overcomes jealousy and competitiveness. This is accomplished by heightening our unbiased awareness of those very qualities we wish to deny.

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Overcoming the transient ‘me’

The practice of dedicating merits overcomes self-absorption. Instead of hoarding good fortunes, we give it all away – to specific people or to sentient beings everywhere. Accumulating merits depends on letting go of our possessiveness altogether with an attitude of letting whatever happens happen. We aren’t’ collecting anything for ego to hold on to; it’s quite the opposite. The main point is to not hold back for fear of ending up with nothing yourself.
The journey to enlightenment is a continual process of opening and surrender, to overcome clinging and the “I want, I need” of self-absorption. It’s as close as we can come to giving up everything that’s “me” or “mine”.

Shantideva vows to surrender the three main bases of self-importance: attachment to possessions, body and merit. The Tibetan word for attachment is shenpa, describing the feeling of getting hooked, a non-verbal tightening or shutting down.

Possession evokes shenpa all the time: we’re afraid of losing them, breaking them or never getting enough. It doesn’t have to do with the things themselves. To get hooked in this way is completely unreasonable, as if the objects of our desire could provide security and lasting happiness. Nevertheless, shenpa happens. It’s that sticky feeling that arises when we want things to go our way.

Our bodies also provoke shenpa. This manifests in various ways. It’s the anxious feeling that’s triggered by our health, our appearance, our desire to avoid physical pain e.g our willingness to help others may fall apart at the slightest discomfort. This body is a precious vessel, our ship for reaching enlightenment. But if we were to spend all of our time painting the decks, we’ll never leave port and this brief opportunity will be lost. Moreover, our body, like everything else, is impermanent and prone to death and decay. Perhaps it’s time to see it for what it is and stop strengthening our shenpa.

But perhaps the most difficult to give up is our merit. Can you imagine willingly letting go of your good fortune? Would you be able to relinquish your good qualities, pleasing circumstances comforts, and prestige so that others may be happy? It means letting go on the most profound and difficult level even our clutching to security and the illusions of certainty would go.
Imagine the civil rights workers who, for the greater good, entered into dangerous situations, they know they will be the butt of mockery, be beaten, insulted and perhaps killed. We can draw inspiration from Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Aung San Suu Kyi and Gandhi to name a few.

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Awareness

When we’re young, we have a natural curiosity about the world around us and a motivation to learn, as well as a fear of becoming like some of the older people we see: stuck in their ways, with closed minds and no more spirit of adventure. It’s true that as some people get older, they begin spending more time in pursuit of comfort and security. But Shantideva is passionately determined to keep his youthful curiosity alive, He aspires to continually stretch his heart beyond his cocoon, he wants to grow in flexibility and enthusiasm. The bodhisattva path is not about being a “good” person or accepting status quo. It requires courage and a willingness to keep growing.

Attentiveness is a significant component of self-reflection. By paying attention when we feel the tug of shenpa, we get smarter by not getting hooked.

When to apply attentiveness? When bodhichitta arises before we make a commitment, after we‘ve made a commitment; when relating with the cause and effect of karma or consequences of our actions; and finally when we are seduced by our kleshas – which is a strong emotion that reliably leads to suffering. It may also be translated into neurosis, afflictions or defiled emotions. In essence, kleshas are dynamic, ineffable energy, yet it’s energy that easily enslaves us and causes us to act and speak in unintelligent ways.

If you ever had the impulse to be generous and then changed your mind, chances are you were influenced by greed or attachment. Shantideva asked himself: what would be the outcome of taking a vow to benefit all beings and then failing to maintain it?
Reneging on the bodhisattva vow doesn’t mean sometimes not feeling up to the task, it means opting for your own comfort and security on a permanent basis. Having made the commitment, there is no question we will sometimes feel inadequate and doubt our ability to be of benefit. These temporary lapses should be expected. But if we decide to let the bodhichitta spark go out, if we repress our appetite for challenge and growth, the consequences will be sad indeed. Bodhisattva is said to be like a golden vase, very valuable yet easy to mend when broken. We can renew our bodhichitta commitments at any time. Inherent in the vow is kindness for our human frailty and the encouragement that it’s never too late to start fresh.
But of cos, if we continually renew and break our commitments, we will long be barred from progression along the bodhisattva path although not for forever.

The Buddha’s blessings shine upon us without bias. But three attitudes prevent us from receiving a continual flow of blessings.

1) as a full pot with a mind full of opinions and preconceptions. We already know it all. We have so many fixed ideas that nothing can new can affect us or cause us to question our assumptions.

2) a pot with poison, with a mind so cynical, critical and judgmental that everything is poisoned by this harshness. It allows no openness and no willingness to explore the teachings or anything else that challenges our righteous stance.

3) as a pot full of holes with a distracted mind. Our body may be present but our thoughts are lost thinking of our dream vacation or what’s for dinner that we are deaf to what’s being said.
Nothing will improve unless we become intelligent about cause and effect.

There is a repeating pattern to our behaviour that we somehow seem to miss. When we’re challenged, our habitual reactions are especially predictable: we strike out or withdraw, scream or weep, become arrogant or feel inadequate. These strategies for seeking security and avoiding discomfort only increase our uneasiness. But they seem addictive; even though results are unsatisfactory we use them again and again. Attentiveness functions like a guardian who protects us from repeating the same mistakes and strengthening the same patterns. We can catch ourselves getting hooked and avoid being swept by shenpa.
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When we are comfortable it’s relatively easy to open your hearts to another’s suffering. But in states of intense misery, it’s very difficult. If we are starving and someone gives us a bowl of rice, do we share with someone else in the same boat? Because of our fear of starvation and death, we might find this extremely difficult. When we’re enmeshed in misery, we just want relief from our pain. That’s the message: when suffering is intense, it’s harder to think of others and harder to access bodhichitta. If we have a good birth, cherish it for it may not be so easy next time.

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Kleshas: aggression, cravings, ignorance, jealousy, arrogance, pride and all their offspring. From moment to moment we can choose how we relate to our emotions. But habitual reactions can be strong and long-standing, making it difficult to choose intelligently. We don’t intentionally choose pain but we may just do what’s familiar, which isn’t always the best idea.
1) We can be enslaved by our kleshas. This insight alone would undercut their power if we were attentive to it. Emotional reactivity starts as a slight tightening. There’s the familiar tug of shenpa and before we know it, we’re pulled along. In just a few seconds, we go from being slightly miffed to completely out of control. Nevertheless we have the inherent wisdom and ability to halt this chain reaction early on. Just as we are about to step into a trap, we can at least pause and take some deep breaths before proceeding.
2) We welcome kleshas. They are familiar and give us something to hold on to, and they set off a predictable chain reaction that we find irresistible. When we realise we like our kleshas, we begin to understand why they have such power over us. Hatred can make us feel strong and in charge. Rage makes us feel even more powerful and invulnerable. Craving and wanting can feel soothing, romantic and nostalgic: we weep over lost loves and unfulfilled dreams. It’s painfully and deliciously bittersweet. Ignorance is comforting: we don’t have to do anything; we just lay back and don’t relate to what’s happening around us.

Each of us has our own way of welcoming and encouraging the kleshas. But we need to realise that they harm us in order to be able take actions. Self reflection is impt here and do not indulge. For example, when you are about to say something mean or indulge in self-righteousness or criticism, just reflect on the spot: if I strengthen this habit, will it bring suffering or relief? Based on your own experience, answers these questions yourself.

Shantideva warned us not to be naïve with the kleshas. We cannot afford to be ignorant of their powers but to be attentive and get to know them better. Being ignorant about emotions only makes matter worse while feeling guilty and ashamed does the same. Struggling against them is equally nonproductive. The only way to dissolve their power is with our wholehearted, intelligent attention so that we can connect with the underlying energy and discover their insubstantial nature.

It will be difficult at first as we withdraw from our habitual response but our lives become increasingly more relaxed and free in the end. Its take courage and perseverance.
We build up fantasy worlds in our mind, causing kleshas to escalate, then like awakening from a dream, we discover this fantasy has no substance and the kleshas have no basis.

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Taming the mind

Many of us have the tendency to start things and then get distracted. Our minds jump from one thing to another and our bodies follow. In this age of multi-tasking, Shantideva’s instructions to start something and pursue it to the end is radical: calm the mind to doing one thing at a time! Afflictions will not multiply if you are fully present and you can test it out yourself.

Shantideva says we can waste a lot of time distracting ourselves with mindless chatter. Very easy to talk but very difficult to talk mindfully.
We should not doodle too because the reason we doodle is because we aren’t very interested in being present. This is basic mindfulness training; to do away with meaningless distraction or dunzi we can waste a whole life with dunzi.

Mindfulness: from time to time we take a fresh look at what’s going on with our body and our actions. Without being critical or proud about what we observe, we simply pay attention to what we’re doing. It can be helpful to create certain times to practice mindfulness in a undistracted way, being alert to any tendency to get too tight or too loose. There are times for tight practice but there is also the need for warmth and awareness of one’s environment. When it is appropriate to look around and be friendly, one should just do that. If someone comes along wounded you don’t walk by with downcast eyes. If a child tickles you, you’re not so serious that you can’t laugh. The point of this training is to not be distracted by our conditioned responses but instead see clearly what needs to be done and act accordingly. Tame your mind without losing your sense of humor.

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Vigilance

Instructions for deescalating klesha by “remaining like a log”
Emotional turmoil begins with an initial perception – a sight, sound though –which gives rise to a feeling of comfort or discomfort. This is the subtlest level of shenpa. Energetically there is a perceptible pull, like a want to scratch an itch. This initial tug of “for” or “against” is the first place we can remain as steady as a log. Just experience the tug and relax into the restlessness of the energy, without fanning this ember with thoughts. If we stay present with the rawness of our direct experience, emotional energy can move through us without getting stuck. Of course, this isn’t easy and takes practices.

The second chance is when our thoughts are underway but haven’t gained momentum. By interrupting the thoughts before we get worked up, we diffuse the intensity of emotions. Emotional intensity can’t survive without our thoughts, so this is a pivotal instruction.
Still we can let the storyline go even after emotional heat has started to rise.
Lastly is before we take the fatal step of speaking or acting out.

When you feel the sting of an insult, for example, you don’t have to magnify it with your thoughts or buy into a storyline that works you into a rage. Just acknowledge the thoughts and let them fade away.
The practice of “remaining like a log” is based on refraining, not repressing. With this practice, it can be helpful to gently breathe in and out with the restlessness of the energy. This is a major support for learning to stay present.

We tend to get provoked by childish people’s quarrelling. The energy of negativity is very seductive and draws us in. Shantideva’s instruction is to diffuse the charge by reflecting on why people do what they. People who quarrel are slaves to their emotions. They don’t choose to get angry and yell, but like all of us, they get overwhelmed by their kleshas and carried away. If we too get caught in the negative undertow, doesn’t that put us in the same boat? Thus when others get snared, we treat them lovingly, just as we’d want to be treated in the same predicament. Without being condescending or disapproving, we realise our sameness and communicate from the heart. We can also make too big a deal about doing things right. Identifying oneself as the virtuous one can be a problem. Make no big deal about the doer, no big deal about what’s being done and no big deal about the result.

This body will eventually waste away and decays no matter how much health food or vitamins we consume, Old age and death are inevitable so that is no need to be too attach to the body. You and it are separate entities. Regard the body as a short-term rental: take care of it and keep it clean but not to the point of absurdity. Treat your body with respect but not with a sense of ownership.
So why continue pampering our bodies when we know they will surely stop functioning? The real problem here is self-importance. Obsessing about how we look and feel wastes precious time and cause us to lose touch with the difficulties of others. If you’re able to do, you should pay this body due remuneration but draw a line about how much time you spend at the gym. Taking pride of our appearance is alright. Upliftedness is a way of expressing our human dignity while obsession is a way of wasting our life.

Rejoicing in the good qualities of others takes us out of self-centeredness and expands our views of the world. This is a way to gather virtue, which helps us as much as others. But often we have difficulty accepting compliments. We gather virtue when we can accept praise straightforwardly, without getting all puffed up or refusing to believe it. We gather virtue by letting ourselves be touched by someone else’s appreciation of our good qualities.

The bodhisattva’s acts aren’t limited to rigid moral guidelines. We do whatever inspires people to help themselves and whatever it takes to remove suffering.


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Working with Anger

Because striking out in anger can become a habitual response to stress and discomfort, Shantideva passionately encouraged us to unwind this old habit rather than continue to strength it. There are times, Dalai Lama said, anger is appropriate but hatred is never justified. Anger can be motivated by compassion by hatred is always accompanied by ill will.

To work with anger, you need to work on patience.
When we are angry about something, most of us think about it feverishly; we can’t sleep at night or find any peace of mind.

First, get in touch with how anger feels in your body. We don’t’ usually pay attention to the physical anguish anger causes. Sensitize yourself to that pain can motivate you to work more eagerly with aggression.

Another practice is to do it during mediation. Replay the whole scene and pay attention o your feelings and thoughts. Are they obsessive and repetitive? Do they fuel your grudges and judgments? Breathe in and out gently with the feeling of anger as your focus of your meditation. Do not move away from it by repressing or acting it out. Just get to know it and lessens the sense of struggle.
Also, stay with your soft spot. Below anger is a lot of tenderness which most of us quickly cover over with hardness of anger. It can keep you from exploding and destroying everything in sight.

What triggers anger? According to Shantideva, it’s getting what we don’t want and not getting what we desire. When we heavily invested in our likes and dislikes, tiny reactions can escalate into violence and war. When we’re afraid of getting stuck with something we don’t want or deprived of what we need, our thoughts come in as reinforcements and escalate our anger and pain.

There are three categories of patience:
1) patience that comes from reframing our attitude toward discomfort.
2) patience that comes from understanding the complexity of situation
3) patience that comes from developing tolerance.

Even when you refrained kleshas from escalating by not acting out or interrupting the thoughts, the energy needs to be dissipated and we need patience in that even though it may be uncomfortable.


No matter who behaves improperly, enemies of friends, don’t get heated up and opinionated. Be calm and practice patience, in this case, by reflecting on the fact that they do what they do is not so obvious. It arises from a variety of causes and conditions.

Until we start working with our mind, we are ruled by our emotions. They take us over until we’re no longer in control. When we get angry with others, we could remember that, just like us, they do what they do for complex reasons, not the least of which is being controlled by their emotions. At times, we may feel completely justified in being hateful. Yet when someone harms us, we might ask ourselves this: why aren’t we just as enraged by failing branches. If we reply that “the harm that person caused me is intentional,” we might want to question our logic. For all of us, unpleasant feeling arise uninvited and quickly pull us in. If we don’t see it happening, we won’t refrain from acting out, and inevitably we’ll cause harm.

A neutral even such a falling branch can result in various reactions: an emotional explosion, relaxation, or even laughter. Our response depends on how we’ve worked with our emotions up to that point. We don’t set out to be angry, and likewise anger doesn’t set out to be experienced. But when causes and conditions come together, we impulsively get caught up and swept away. Patience, Shantideva infers, is the antidote: in particular, the patience that comes from having sympathy for the complexity of our current situation.

We don’t have to spend a lifetime building up a case about the wrongness of our emotions. In this very moment, we can work with our mind and develop patience.

Tolerance: develop tenderness for the human predicament and if that is not possible, at least realise that anger increases our sufferings.

Hostile words are merely sounds coming out from someone’s mouth. If they were in a foreign language, we wouldn’t even react. But because of our past history and present state of mind, we interpret these sounds in a way that causes us to fly into rage. Perhaps we resent hostile words because we fear that if people dislike us, they may prevent us from acquiring the possessions and wealth we desire. But this, Shantideva acknowledged, doesn’t make sense because when we die, we will leave all our property behind, only karmic consequences will keep us steady company. So it is wise not to strengthen negative propensities, no matter what their justification.

We might claim we need the wealth in order to do virtuous deeds. We try to justify retaliating against those who would keep us from getting rich. But Shantideva makes it clear that our negative actions far outweigh any wholesome deeds we might perform in hope of gathering a bit of merit. We could always use dharma logic to justify our anger: I am angry because Mary is harming herself. When she slanders me, look at the painful consequences she creates for herself! Such an argument might make us feel quite virtuous. But Shantideva replies” In that case, why don’t I see you getting angry about Mary’s bad karma when she slanders someone else?” Perhaps we feel we could justify anger if someone harms the teachings or sacred images but Shantideva disagrees. The Buddhas themselves would not get upset; in fact they would only feel compassion. So how can we presume to get self-righteous on their behalf?

Shantideva’s instructions on how to cool off:

To remove the tinder of wanting things our way.

When we look closely at our mind’s attachment, we can see they don’t hold together with our storylines. When it comes to the fiery flames of hate, we could cool them down by acknowledging obssessive thoughts and letting them go.
In meditation we recognise when our mind wanders and simply return to being present. To facilitate this process, we can label the thoughts “thinking”. This technique gently and objectively dissolves the stream of habitual chatter and its underlying beliefs.
It is painful to refrain from anger; it takes courage. When the hook of shenpa is strong, we long to talk indignantly among our friends, to yell at our foes and to fuel the anger with our thoughts. But the pain of refraining is well worth it – it allows us to calm down and avoid the pains of hell.


Developing patience when enemies are praised.
It isn’t easy when someone else gets the compliments – or job, perks or lover –we want. We can’t pretend it doesn’t get to us. When the talents of others are being praised Shantideva asks, : why O mind, do you not find joy, likewise, in praising them?

There are 4 joys of practicing patience
1) patience is stainless
Compared to happiness: when we achieve happiness, our gain is intentionally or unintentionally someone else’s loss. It’s not that we are malicious or in any way at fault. That’s just the way it is. However, patience is stainless; no one loses and everyone gains.

2) it brings happiness. It isn’t always instant and sometimes it is the great relief of lessening our burden of rage. Just being able to pause and relax instead of retaliating gradually brings unshakeable well-being. We find that very few people provoke us and the world is a friendlier place.

3) it is praised by buddhas. In the most profound sense, this means it brings us closer to our buddha nature or basic goodness

4) it enables us to communicate sanely. It allows us to be heard and is thus the perfect way of winning others. We can our messages across because no one feels threatened or accused.

Sometimes we’ve had enough of hearing about the virtues of patience. On some level we might buy it but on a gut level we prefer the conventional logic: what about me? Why shouldn’t I feel envious when others get all the praise? Why shouldn’t I feel left out, lonely, or miserable when they’re the ones surrounded by friends? Samsaric reasoning says that someone else is going to get all the happiness, not me. Shantideva’s rebuttal may not be easy to grasp but worth considering: not practicing patience is like not paying wages or returning favours. In general, people won’t like us very much; in terms of our kleshas, strengthening meanness and jealously won’t bring us any happiness. No matter how we look at it, we lose.

When praise is heaped upon your merits,
You’re keen that others should rejoice in them.
But when the compliment is paid to others,
Your joy is oh so low and grudging.

How can we say that we want others to get enlightened when we don’t even want them to get compliments? Again, justifying resentment or feeling guilty about it stifles the bodhi heart.
When rewards are given to those we feel are unworthy, we can let it destroy our peace of mind or let it go.

When we obliviously rant on about others’ good fortune – how come they got the job? The pay increase? The winning lottery ticket – we forget it may be due to their previous virtuous actions. Our resentment and gossip won’t bring us positive results.

Things that we think will make a significant difference in our lives – fame, praise, status, a new house, the partner of our dreams – don’t seem to remove unhappiness for very long. After the immediate gratification, we’re usually back we started.
This simple truth rarely penetrates even with clear-cut evidence to the contrary, we continue to relying on possessions, relationships, reputation, or wealth to significantly alter our state of mind, No matter how successful we are at getting what we want, it won’t increase our life span, long-term contentment, or merit. Expecting lasting happiness from a shift in outer circumstances will always disappoint us.

Why is it futile to continually seek confirmation –

Praise and compliments disturb me
Sapping my revulsion with samsara
I start to covet others’ qualities,
And thus all excellence degenerates.

1) we become dependent on praise and compliment, relaying on the whims of other people’s opinions to feel good about ourselves.
2) If we do manage to become esteemed and respected, we might start believing this feel-good state is equivalent to lasting happiness. We might kid ourselves into thinking we don’t have any more foibles to work on, not even humility.
3) Our envy of others’ good qualities increases. We may think we no longer need compliments, but watch out! When the praise we’ve gotten used to goes to someone else, envy kick in.

Those who give us a hard time, who are difficult to be around or who constantly blow our cover are the very ones who show us where we’re stuck. Troublemakers show us things we don’t want to see. They show us how we get trapped and continually create our own sorrow.

______________
Heroic Perseverance

Trungpa Rinpoche encouraged us to lead our lives as an experiment, a suggestion that has been very important to me. When we approach life as an experiment, we’re willing to try it this way and that way because, either way, we have nothing to lose.
For Trungpa Rinpoche, his enthusiasm enabled him to accomplish an amazing amount in his life. When some things didn’t work out, Rinpoche’s attitude was “ no big deal”. If it’s time for something to flourish, it will; if it’s not time, it won’t.
The trick is not getting caught in hope and fear. We can put our whole heart into whatever we do but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we’re setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.
There may be no time to lose, but not to worry, we can do it.


From a conventional point of view, the practices of equality appear foolish. Whoever suffers should take care of him or herself. This rationale makes sense from our ordinary perspective:I’ll take care of me and you take care of you. Shantideva use the analogy of the body. The hand will protect the foot from harm. If we accept this as reasonable, why would we dismiss the idea that separate beings could also relate as parts of a whole?
This kinds of interdependent thinking makes perfect sense, When we don’t take care of one another, I suffer, you suffer the whole world suffers.

even if it is logical, it may not be true

Freakonomics- A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
- Steven D Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

1) Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.

There are basically three types: economic, social and moral. Understanding them allows us to know how the world work.

2) The conventional wisdom is often wrong

Even when it sound plausible with data doesn't make it true. Events in the past may only muscle in the effects some time much later in the future. take a step back and consider.

3) Information is valuable commodity but less so in modern world. Any expert use that as his/her advantage to serve their own agenda.

---it is hell of a book to read :)

忘了。。

若执着此生 则非修行者
若执着世间 则无出离心
若执己目的 则失菩提心
若执取生起 则失（无）正知见

Random :)

As seen in a dog's diary:
>
> 8am - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite!
> 9am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite!
> 10am - Oh Boy! A walk! My favorite!
> 11am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite!
> Noon - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite!
> 1pm - Oh Boy! The yard! My favorite!
> 3pm - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite!
> 4pm - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite!
> 5pm - Oh Boy! Mom! My favorite!
> 7pm - Oh Boy! Playing ball! My favorite!
> 9pm - Oh Boy! Sleeping in master's bed! My favorite!
>
>
> As seen in a cat's diary:
>
> Day 183 of my captivity... My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat,while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture.
> Tomorrow I may eat another house plant. Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded and must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair -- must try this on their bed.
>Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm, not working according to plan.
> There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.
> I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return.He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured.
> But I can wait; it is only a matter of time...

Work with Unpredictability

fr Speed of Dark
(Elizabeth Moon)

I remember being afraid of water, the unstable unpredictable shifts and wobbles in it as it touched me. I remember the explosive joy of finally swimming, the realization that even though it was unstable, even though I could not predict the changing pressure in the pool, I could still stay afloat, and move in the direction I chose to go. I remember being afraid of the bicycle, of its wobbly unpredictability, and the same joy when I figured out how to ride out that unpredictability, how to use my will to overcome its innate chaos. Again I am afraid, more afraid because I understand more - I could lose all the adaptations I have made and have nothing - but if I can ride this wave, this biological bicycle, then I will have incomparably more.

The Heart Suffers

The Alchemist
(Paulo Coelho)

During one of these conversation, the driver told of his own life.

"I used to live near El Cairum, " he said. "I had my orchard, my children and a life that would change not at all until I died. One year, when the crop was the best ever, we went to Mecca, and I satisfied the only unmet obligation of my life. I could die happily and that made me felt good.
"One day, the earth began to tremble, and the Nile overflowed its bank. I was something that I thought could only happen to others, never to me. My neighbors feared that they would lose all their olive trees in the flood, and my wife was afraid that we would lose our children. I thought that everything I owned would be destroyed.
"The land was ruined and I had to find some other way to earn a living. So now I'm a camel driver. But that disaster taught me to understand the word of Allah: people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.
"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our lives or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."

..one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. "Even though I complain sometimes," it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a person and people's heart are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasure that might been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because when these things happen, we suffer terribly."

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless night.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse that the suffering itself. And that no heart had ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of that search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart. "When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day had been luminous, because I've known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

..." Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's heart, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, towards its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them - the path to their destinies, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.
"So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts."

"Why don't people's hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?" the boy asked the alchemist.

"Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer."

The Adventure Of The Married Couple

The Adventure Of The Married Couple
(1958) Italo Calvin


THE FACTORY-WORKER Arturo Massolari was on the night shift, the one that ends at six. To reach home he had to go along way, which he covered on his bicycle in fine weather, and on the tram during the rainy, winter months. He got home between six-forty-five and seven; in other words, sometimes before and sometimes after the alarm clock rang to wake Elide, his wife.

Often the two noises - the sound of the clock and his tread as he came in - merged in Elide's mind, reaching her in the depths of her sleep, the compact early-morning sleep that she tried to squeeze out for a few more seconds, her face buried in the pillow. Then she pulled herself from the bed with a yank and was already blindly slipping her arms into her robe, her hair over her eyes. She appeared to him like that, in the kitchen, where Arturo was taking the empty receptacles from the bag that he carried with him to work: the lunch box, the thermos. He set them in the sink. He had already lighted the stove and started the coffee. As soon as he looked at her, Elide instinctively ran one hand through her hair, forced her eyes wide open, as if every time she were ashamed of that first sight her husband had of her on coming home, always such a mess, her face half-asleep. When two people have slept together it's different, in the morning both are surfacing from the same sleep, and they're on a par.

Sometimes, on the other hand, it was he who came into the bedroom to wake her, with the little cup of coffee, a moment before the alarm rang; then everything was more natural, the grimace on emerging from sleep took on a kind of lazy sweetness, the arms that were lifted to stretch, naked, ended by clasping his neck. They embraced. Arturo was wearing his rainproof wind-cheater; feeling him close, she could understand what the weather was like: whether it was raining or foggy or if it had snowed, according to how damp and cold he was. But she would ask him anyway: "What's the weather like?", and he would start his usual grumbling, half-ironic, reviewing all the troubles he had encountered, beginning at the end: the trip on his bike, the weather he had found on coming out of the factory, different from when he had entered it the previous evening, and the problems on the job, the rumors going around his section, and so on.

At that hour, the house was always scantily heated, but Elide had completely undressed, and was washing in the little bathroom. Afterwards he came in, more calmly, and also undressed and washed, slowly, removing the dust and grease of the shop. And so, as both of them stood at the same basin, half-naked, a bit numbed, shoving each other now and then, taking the soap from each other, the toothpaste, and continuing to tell each other the things they had to tell, the moment of intimacy came, and at times, maybe when they were helpfully taking turns scrubbing each other's back, a caress slipped in, and they found themselves embracing.

But all of a sudden Elide would cry: "My God! Look at the time!" and she would run to pull on her garter-belt, skirt, all in haste', on her feet, still brushing her hair, and stretching her face to the mirror over the dresser, hairpins held between her lips. Arturo would come in after her; he had a cigarette going, and would look at her, standing, smoking, and every time he seemed a bit embarrassed, having to stay there 'unable to do anything. Elide was ready, she slipped her coat on in the corridor, they exchanged a kiss, she opened the door, and could already be heard running down the stairs.

Arturo remained alone. He followed the sound of Elide's heels down the steps, and when he couldn't hear her any more he still followed her in his thoughts, that quick little trot through the courtyard, out of the door of the building, the sidewalk, as far as the tram stop. The tram, on the contrary, could be heard clearly: shrieking, stopping, the slam of the step as each passenger boarded. There, she's caught it, he thought, and could see his wife clinging in the midst of the crowd of workers, men and women on the number eleven that took her to the factory as it did every day. He stubbed out the butt, closed the shutters at the window, darkening the room, and got into bed.

The bed was as Elide had left it on getting up, but on his side, Arturo's, it was almost intact, as if it had just been made. He lay on his own half, properly, but later he stretched a leg over there, where his wife's warmth had remained, then he also stretched out the other leg, and so little by little he moved entirely over to Elide's siGe,into that niche of warmth that still retained the form of her body, and he dug his face into her pillow, into her perfume, and he fell asleep.

When Elide came back, in the evening, Arturo had been stirring around the rooms for a while already: he had lighted the stove, put something on to cook. There were certain jobs he did in those hours before supper, like making the bed, sweeping a little, even soaking the dirty laundry. Elide criticized everything, but to tell the truth he didn't then go to greater pains: what he did was only a kind of ritual in order to wait for her, like meeting her halfway while still remaining within the walls of the house, as outside the lights were coming on and she was going past the shops in the midst of the belated bustle of those neighborhoods where many of the women have to do their shopping in the evening.

Finally he heard her footstep on the stairs, quite different from the morning, heavier now, because Elide was climbing up, tired from the day of work and loaded down with the shopping. Arturo went out on the landing, took the shopping bag from her hands, and they went inside, talking. She sank down on a chair in the kitchen, without taking off her coat, while he removed the things from the bag. Then she would say: "Well, let's pull ourselves together", and would stand up, take off her coat, put on her house-coat. They would begin to prepare the food: supper for both of them, plus the lunch he would take to the factory for his one a.m. break, and the snack to be left ready for when he would wake up the next day.

She would potter a bit, then sit for a bit on the straw chair and tell him what he should do. For him, on the contrary, this was the time when he was rested, he worked with a will, indeed he wanted to do everything, but always a bit absently, his mind already on other things. At those moments, there were occasions when they got on each other's nerves, said nasty things, because she would like him to pay more attention to what he was doing, take it more seriously, or else to be more attached to her, to be closer, comfort her more. But after the first enthusiasm when she came home, his mind was already out of the house, obsessed with the idea that he should hurry because he would soon have to be going.

When the table was set, when everything that had been prepared was placed within reach so they wouldn't have to get up afterwards, then came the moment of yearning that overwhelmed them both, the thought that they had so little time to be together, and they could hardly raise the spoon to their mouth, in their longing just to sit there and hold hands.

But even before the coffee had finished rising in the pot, he was already at his bike, to make sure everything was in order. They hugged. Arturo seemed only then to realize how soft and warm his wife was. But he hoisted the bike to his shoulder and carefully went down the stairs.

Elide washed the dishes, went over the house thoroughly, redoing the things her husband had done, shaking her head. Now he was speeding through the dark streets, among the sparse lamps, perhaps he had already passed the gasometer. Elide went to bed, turned off the light. From her own half, lying there, she would slide one foot towards her husband's place, looking for his warmth, but each time she realized it was warmer where she slept, a sign that Arturo had slept there too, and she would feel a great tenderness.