An appropriate Lojong for the day
Feb. 20th, 2012 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabrinamariWhichever of the two occurs, be patient.
Commentary: Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.
Lojong slogan 42, The Compassion Box, Pema Chodron
[59 Buddhist Teachings on Living Life with Fearlessness and Compassion, translated by the Nalanda Translation Committee, with commentary by Pema Chodron]
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I think this one is about keeping your center regardless of whether you encounter good fortune and sweetness or sadness and loss. Either way, you fully feel it, you learn from it, you see whatever it has to give you, and then you move on, still open to the world around you as it is.
The trick is not to get fixated in an unhealthy way on either on sorrow or joy. Too much fixation on sorrow makes you a constant drain on those around you and too much obsession with joy makes you insensitive to the very real pains of others.
Neither alone is good; some of both is necessary to make a whole human being.
It also makes me think of a metaphor someone used to explain why it was equally problematic to get swept up in either fame or ignominy: "Whether you're going up or down on a ladder, it's still pretty shaky."
Yeah. Better to have both feet on the ground. You can keep your footing much more easily that way.
Commentary: Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.
Lojong slogan 42, The Compassion Box, Pema Chodron
[59 Buddhist Teachings on Living Life with Fearlessness and Compassion, translated by the Nalanda Translation Committee, with commentary by Pema Chodron]
****
I think this one is about keeping your center regardless of whether you encounter good fortune and sweetness or sadness and loss. Either way, you fully feel it, you learn from it, you see whatever it has to give you, and then you move on, still open to the world around you as it is.
The trick is not to get fixated in an unhealthy way on either on sorrow or joy. Too much fixation on sorrow makes you a constant drain on those around you and too much obsession with joy makes you insensitive to the very real pains of others.
Neither alone is good; some of both is necessary to make a whole human being.
It also makes me think of a metaphor someone used to explain why it was equally problematic to get swept up in either fame or ignominy: "Whether you're going up or down on a ladder, it's still pretty shaky."
Yeah. Better to have both feet on the ground. You can keep your footing much more easily that way.
