1: To study, contemplate, and meditate
This precious human life’s so hard to find, / Its freedoms and resources like a boat
To navigate samsara’s endless sea / And set myself and other beings free.
For that, without distraction, day and night / To study, contemplate, and meditate:
This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
Verse 1 chanted 3x. (Click where the “play” button should be.)
A recording of each class (except the first one) is linked at the bottom of each post, and also via the 37 practices link in the blogroll (right column of this page). I sometimes forget I’m being recorded. 🙂 Any errors are all mine. The classes are taught by Zoom so there may be imperfections in some recordings due to technical glitches or temporary noise from a participant’s surroundings. Just like life.
Overall structure of the 37 practices: I mentioned in the prelude that the 37 practices both serve as a lam rim (step-by-step guide to the path) and fall within the traditional class of instructions known as mind training (lo jong). The root text, by Gyalse Ngulchu Togme Zangpo, is very concise: 37 verses with a couple of extras at the beginning and end, fitting entirely within 11 pages in Dilgo Khyentse‘s commentary, The Heart of Compassion. (The rest of the book consists of Dilgo Khyentse’s commentary on each verse plus some introductory chapters and quite useful appendices, notes, and index.)
Interspersed with other topics, you will now find, in progress, starting in June 2017, a study guide for a class I’m teaching on the classic text 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva by Gyalse Ngulchu Togme Zangpo. I’m posting materials here for those who miss a class and for anyone else who is interested.
Why study a text written centuries ago in a culture that had very little in common with the sophisticated, technologically-oriented lifestyle of 21st-century Westerners? 1) Frankly, human nature doesn’t seem to have evolved all that much, if any. We still face all the same problems Togme Zangpo did. 2) This very concise root text is a complete guide to the step-by-step path of awakening to our full potential as human beings, aka a lamrim, like The Jewel Ornament of Liberation; PLUS a mind training text like the Seven Points of Mind Training (see Jamgon Kongtrul’s Great Path of Awakening) and Shantideva’s A Bodhisattva’s Way of Life–ALL THIS in just 37 short verses plus a couple of extras at the beginning and end. But wait–there’s more!
In recent years, this heron (or maybe several, but I’ve always seen just one at a time) has regularly hung out by the koi pond in Richmond’s Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. Visitors pay their quarter and toss in a handful of pellets, the fish surface for their breakfast, et voila: the heron breakfasts, too. Herons are usually quite shy, but this one is now savvy enough to stay put when a visitor appears with pellets, and today it got quite close and followed me around. I cleverly threw my pellets on the opposite side of the path from where the heron was poised to strike, so it had to go back and forth, which is a slow process for a heron on foot, and the only breakfast served while I was there was to the koi.
As a Buddhist, I feel I can’t prefer fish over herons or vice versa–they all have an equal desire to live and an equal need to sustain themselves. But I always try to err on the side of not contributing to anyone’s immediate peril.
The Buddha taught that disturbing emotions, such as anger, fear, jealousy, and attachment, are not to be denied or suppressed but recognized, felt, owned, and thoroughly processed. That process can take time and needs to be respected, but in the meantime, we can do significant harm to ourselves and others if we let strong emotions, especially anger in all its forms, govern our words and actions. Learning to see beyond a disturbing emotion, even in the midst of feeling it, allows us to act effectively, with clear focus and constructive compassion, and without collateral damage.
OK, the title is a trick–as we know, compassion and wisdom are complementary, and in the end of course there is no difference between them at all. Buddhahood, enlightenment, full awakening is the ultimate development of both, and they are ultimately undifferentiable, like any qualities we may ascribe to the nature of mind for the purpose of discussing it. Buddhahood is sometimes likened to a bird with two wings–both wings have to function fully for flight to take place.
I hear a lot about the importance of engaged Buddhism, putting compassion into action, not thinking it is enough to sit on our cushion or chair and meditate. Sometimes there seems even to be an implication that sitting on the cushion is indulgent compared with being up and about to help others in active ways. Why waste time in solitude when so many are suffering?
“There is no problem other than the thought.” –Lama Norlha Rinpoche
When I was running a household and raising my daughter, I eventually learned to streamline the more mundane aspects of my life, such as housework and meal preparation, with the help of an online housekeeping maven who emphasized the importance of having household routines—things you do automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis without thinking about them.
I can think of two situations in life when it’s painfully obvious that ego-clinging is counterproductive. The first is in dealing with very young children. The second is in dealing with dementia. In neither case will you ever win an argument using fact or reason, and when you fail and it feels frustrating, who is it that suffers? It’s not me…it’s my ego-clinging!
The Buddha pointed to ego-clinging as the root source of all our suffering, but do we really know what it is or how to recognize it? Who is this mysterious shadow lurking behind our every thought and action, spoiling every otherwise perfect experience?
Equanimity is a quality of our Buddha nature, along with love, compassion, and joy—something we all possess in our innermost being, though sometimes we have to work hard to locate it underneath the surface turbulence. The word equanimity in English comes from the Latin aequus: equal or even, plus animus: mind, spirit, character. It is defined as calmness of mind; composure, especially under tension or strain; or evenness of temper. Among the dictionary synonyms: composure, calm, peace, poise, serenity, tranquility, coolness, imperturbability. You get the picture.
I’ve discovered this week that an excellent test of equanimity is the sudden appearance of a bat in one’s home.
“Mind is empty. You can change your thoughts.” –Lama Norlha Rinpoche
We are taught in the Seven Points of Mind Training, “Be grateful to everyone,” and “Rely all the time on a joyful mind.” How can we put this into practice when all around us things are constantly going wrong and people continue to behave in ways that disregard or harm us?