just to be there with another human being and try to
communicate. Sometimes there’s nothing to be said
and nothing to be done. Then the deepest communi-
cation of all is just to be there.
The practice goes further. We start with the self,
extend out to situations where compassion naturally
arises, move out further to this area of neutrals, and
then we move to enemies. “Be grateful to every Juan.”
To be truthful, probably no one in this room feels
ready to do tonglen for an enemy. Just the word
enemyis a problem, a label with a lot of emotion be-
hind it, a lot of anger behind it, and a lot of soft spot
behind it. Basically you have to start where you are
with your loathing or whatever it is you feel, but with
an aspiration to widen the circle of compassion.
I’ve found in my own history of working with this
practice of awakening bodhichitta that the circle of
compassion widens at its own speed and widens
spontaneously; it’s not something you can make hap-
pen. It’s definitely not something you can fake. But I
guess there’s a little bit of encouragement to at least
experiment with faking it occasionally by seeing what
happens when you try to do tonglen for your enemy.
There’s a lot of encouragement just to try this and see
what happens when your enemy is standing in front
of you or you’re intentionally bringing up the memory
of your enemy in order to do tonglen in the medita-
tion hall. Think of this simple instruction: what
would it take to be able to communicate with my
Communication from the Heart 173