Start Where You Are

wanted circumstances into the path of enlighten- ment. By following it, we can transform all that messy stuff that we usually pu ...

6 Start Where You Are T here are two slogansthat go along with the tonglen practice: “Sending and taking should be practiced alt ...

how you experience your world. In fact, it will trans- form how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing ...

like—we begin to find bodhichitta, the tenderness that’s under all that harshness. By being kind to our- selves, we become kind ...

and begin to feel what’s left. We can begin to feel the energy of our heart, our body, our neck, our head, our stomach—that basi ...

about nonduality of self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the ...

work with by learning how to be more gentle, how to relax, and how to surrender to the situations and peo- ple in our lives. Hav ...

People everywhere feel pain—jealousy, anger, being left out, feeling lonely. Everybody feels that exactly the way you feel it. T ...

pleasure. When we begin to breathe in the pain in- stead of pushing it away, we begin to open our hearts to what’s unwanted. Whe ...

origin of suffering, which is fixation, the tendency to hold on to ego with a vengeance. You may have noticed, when you become a ...

ing at that very moment. The main point is that the suffering is real, totally untheoretical. It should be heartfelt, tangible, ...

You can bring all of your unfinished karmic busi- ness right into the practice. In fact, you should invite it in. Suppose that y ...

it destroys the whole mechanism of ego. So you breathe in. Then, you breathe out sympathy, relaxation, and spaciousness. Instead ...

to have it. It doesn’t make your own rage any greater; it is just rage, just fixation on rage, which causes so much suffering. S ...

In tonglen practice, you have the chance to own that completely, not blaming anybody, and to ventilate it with the outbreath. Th ...

forwardly without complication: old people or people who are ill or little children, or people who have been kind to you. When h ...

practice moves to people you actually hate, people you consider to be your enemies or to have actually harmed you. This expansio ...

7 Bringing All That We Meet to the Path T oday’s slogan is“When the world is filled with evil, / Transform all mishaps into the ...

fire alarm rings and confusion erupts, we feel irri- tated and upset. It’s all opportunity for practice. There is no inter- rupt ...

wisdom, kindness, and sense of humor?” That’s a much greater challenge than blaming and hating and acting out. How can we help? ...