“Abandon poisonous food” and “Don’t make gods into
demons” are warnings that only you know whether
what you are doing is good practice (“gods” or “good
food”). Anything could be used to build yourself up
and smooth things over and calm things down or to
keep everything under control. Good food becomes
poisonous food and gods become demons when you
use them to keep yourself in that room with the doors
and windows closed.
Another slogan that concerns compassionate action
is “Work with the greatest defilements first.” Devel-
oping loving-kindness for yourself is the basis for
compassionate communication and relationship.
The time is now, not later. The greatest defilement is
what you consider to be the greatest obstacle. This
slogan is suggesting that you start where you feel
most stuck. Making friends with that will begin to
automatically take care of the smaller obstacles.
Because the larger obstacles like rage or jealousy
or terror are so dramatic, their vividness itself may be
a reminder to work with the practice of tonglen. We
may so take for granted the multitude of minor daily
irritations that we don’t even think of them as some-
thing to work with. To some degree they are the hard-
est obstacles to work with because they don’t reveal
themselves. The only way you know that these are
arising is that you feel righteous indignation. Let
righteous indignation be your guide that someone is
Compassionate Action 153