goals for others can be aggressive—really wanting a
success story for ourselves. When we do this to oth-
ers, we are asking them to live up to our ideals. In-
stead, we should just be kind.
The main point of “Be grateful to everyone”—the
“dig”—is that you want to get rid of the situations
that drive you most crazy, the Juans and Juanitas. You
don’t want to be grateful to them. You want to solve
the problem and not hurt anymore. Juan is making
you feel embarrassed, or degraded, or abused; there’s
something about the way he treats you that makes
you feel so bad that you just want out.
This slogan encourages you to realize that when
you’ve met your match you’ve found a teacher. That
doesn’t necessarily mean that you shut up and don’t
say anything and just stand there breathing in and
out, although that might be exactly what you do. But
tonglen is much more profound than that. It has to
do with how you open in this situation so that the
basic goodness of Juan or Juanita and your own basic
goodness begin to communicate.
Something between repressing and acting out is
what’s called for, but it is unique and different each
time. People have the wisdom to find it. Juan and
Juanita have the wisdom, you have the wisdom,
everyone has the wisdom to know how to open. It’s
inherent in all of us. The path of not being caught in
ego is a process of surrendering to situations in order
to communicate rather than win.
82 Be Grateful to Everyone