Compassionate action, compassionate speech, is
not a one-shot deal; it’s a lifetime journey. But it
seems to begin with realizing that when Juan or
Juanita is getting to you, pushing every button, it’s
not as simplistic as just eating it, just becoming
a worm, “Okay, let them attack me.” On the other
hand, it’s not as easy as just saying, “I’ll get him.” It’s
a challenge. This is how the koan appears in every-
day life: the unanswerable questions of our lives are
the greatest teachers.
When the great Indian Buddhist teacher Atisha
went to Tibet, he had been practicing the lojong
teachings for some time. Like most practitioners, he
had the feeling of being haunted by the fact that
there are blind places that you don’t know about. You
don’t know that you’re stuck in certain places. So he
valued the Juans and Juanitas in his life tremen-
dously because he felt they were the only ones who
got through to him enough to show him where his
blind spots were. Through them his ego got smaller.
Through them his compassion increased.
The story goes that Atisha was told that the peo-
ple of Tibet were very good-natured, earthy, flexible,
and open; he decided they wouldn’t be irritating
enough to push his buttons. So he brought along
with him a mean-tempered, ornery Bengali tea boy.
He felt that was the only way he could stay awake.
The Tibetans like to tell the story that, when he got
to Tibet, he realized he need not have brought his
Be Grateful to Everyone 83