how you experience your world. In fact, it will trans-
form how you experience the world. What you do for
yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for
others, you’re doing for yourself. When you exchange
yourself for others in the practice of tonglen, it be-
comes increasingly uncertain what is out there and
what is in here.
If you have rage and righteously act it out and
blame it all on others, it’s really you who suffers. The
other people and the environment suffer also, but
you suffer more because you’re being eaten up inside
with rage, causing you to hate yourself more and
more.
We act out because, ironically, we think it will
bring us some relief. We equate it with happiness.
Often there is some relief, for the moment. When
you have an addiction and you fulfill that addiction,
there is a moment in which you feel some relief.
Then the nightmare gets worse. So it is with aggres-
sion. When you get to tell someone off, you might
feel pretty good for a while, but somehow the sense
of righteous indignation and hatred grows, and it
hurts you. It’s as if you pick up hot coals with your
bare hands and throw them at your enemy. If the
coals happen to hit him, he will be hurt. But in the
meantime, you are guaranteed to be burned.
On the other hand, if we begin to surrender to our-
selves—begin to drop the story line and experience
what all this messy stuff behind the story line feels
Start Where You Are 45