Lojong: How not to be tedious
Feb. 21st, 2012 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabrinamariFirst, train in the preliminaries.
Commentary: The preliminaries are also known as the four reminders. In your daily life, try to: (1) maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life. (2) Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone. (3) Recall that whatever you do, virtuous or not, has a result; what goes around comes around. (4) Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will suffer. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.
Lojong slogan 1, 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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This is my thinking: if you forget every other lojong card you have read on this blog (poor you!) remember this one.
It basically covers everything.
1. Be nice to all the precious humans, yourself included.
2. You are not here forever, so do something useful with this time.
3. If you act from reflexive pain and fear, striking out at the precious humans, including yourself, you will suffer. So please use some of your time to master your urge to do that as much as possible.
4. Get over yourself and stop obsessing. No matter how you choose to obsess ("I am bad! You are bad! Want, want, want! Don't want, don't want!") you will be miserable.
You will also make everyone else around you miserable in the process. So please grow up.
That's about it.
Commentary: The preliminaries are also known as the four reminders. In your daily life, try to: (1) maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life. (2) Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone. (3) Recall that whatever you do, virtuous or not, has a result; what goes around comes around. (4) Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will suffer. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.
Lojong slogan 1, 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]
****
This is my thinking: if you forget every other lojong card you have read on this blog (poor you!) remember this one.
It basically covers everything.
1. Be nice to all the precious humans, yourself included.
2. You are not here forever, so do something useful with this time.
3. If you act from reflexive pain and fear, striking out at the precious humans, including yourself, you will suffer. So please use some of your time to master your urge to do that as much as possible.
4. Get over yourself and stop obsessing. No matter how you choose to obsess ("I am bad! You are bad! Want, want, want! Don't want, don't want!") you will be miserable.
You will also make everyone else around you miserable in the process. So please grow up.
That's about it.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-21 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-21 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-22 12:57 am (UTC)"That's about it."
Date: 2012-02-22 02:28 am (UTC)