Start Where You Are

Compassionate action, compassionate speech, is not a one-shot deal; it’s a lifetime journey. But it seems to begin with realizin ...

tea boy: the people there were not as pleasant as he had been told. In our own lives, the Bengali tea boys are the peo- ple who, ...

tieth century, kind of a crazy-wisdom character— knew the meaning of this slogan. He was living not too far from Paris in a big ...

Three days later they both came back. That night when Gurdjieff ’s attendant was serving him his sup- per, he asked, “Sir, why d ...

10 Cutting the Solidity of Thoughts I once had an interviewwith a student who began by saying, “This is all pretty depressing, i ...

story line. That’s how the training develops a gen- uine, openhearted, intelligent relationship with the whole variety of human ...

This slogan is quite a difficult one, and it’s on this subject of shunyata: “Seeing confusion as the four kayas / Is unsurpassa ...

refers to the experience that emptiness manifests in form. Nirmanakaya is the means of communication with others. The Heart Sutr ...

As we know from some of the other slogans we’ve discussed, when confusion arises, it is part of the path. When confusion arises, ...

face. You realize that the man across from you is also thinking about breakfasts because he has a resentful look on his face, wh ...

The same goes for compassion. We all have com- passion. When we remember or see certain things, we can, without any effort at al ...

really get into this one. In general, however, I’d like to encourage you to use the whole lojong and tonglen approach as practic ...

manifest in terms of tables and chairs and people and animals, and it seems so tangible, but the moment you say, “Thinking,” you ...

be done with one intention, which is that we want to wake up, we want to ripen our compassion, and we want to ripen our ability ...

11 Overcoming Resistance T he sloganof the day is “Four practices are the best of methods.” This slogan is about the four things ...

the demons. Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time. ...

money to build a retreat center or a monastery. If you give to these worthy causes, and if it’s a gesture of real generosity—if ...

Confessing evil actions. The second of the four prac- tices is to confess evil actions, or lay down neurotic actions. In Buddhi ...

ting on dark glasses, putting in earplugs, and covering ourselves with armor? Confessing our neurotic action is a fourfold pro- ...

much better that you see that you harmed somebody than that you protect yourself from that. But you only get two minutes for reg ...