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teachings referred to as
lojong. Lojong includes
the meditation practice
of tonglen, which involves
breathing in the pain of
others (or ourselves) and
breathing out healing
and compassion. It also
includes a collection of
fifty-nine traditional Tibetan Buddhist maxims from
an old text called Seven Points of Training The
Mind.
Chodron helps to seat
each ancient teaching
into the context of our
day-to-day interactions,
showing that they are
just as timely as ever. We
are not at all alone in our
struggle to become more
compassionate (or even
just feel more sane). These
challenges have been
faced over the centuries
and millennia by everyone else who has sought
to live more harmoniously
with themselves and others. And the teachings to
respond to them are simultaneously accessible, yet
very deep and - if we are
willing - profoundly destabilizing to the ego, allowing us to live in greater
fullness and presence for
ourselves and others.
Chodron makes the case
that no matter what we
feel about ourselves and
where we are at, it is a
good place to begin. We
could be an angry drunk, a
neurotic procrastinator, a
compulsive liar. We could
be the worst person in the
world, and that would be
a good and “juicy” place
to start. Instead of rejecting the things in ourselves
we don’t like, we can find
honesty and compassion
in relation to them, allowing us to learn to be
honest and compassionate with others who share
these traits we may wish
would just disappear.
With great kindness and
understanding, Chodron
articulates the intense discomfort we may have as
we come to see the gap
between our ideals and
our reality - something
that is refle