like—we begin to find bodhichitta, the tenderness
that’s under all that harshness. By being kind to our-
selves, we become kind to others. By being kind to
others—if it’s done properly, with proper under-
standing—we benefit as well. So the first point is
that we are completely interrelated. What you do to
others, you do to yourself. What you do to yourself,
you do to others.
Start where you are. This is very important. Ton-
glen practice (and all meditation practice) is not
about later, when you get it all together and you’re
this person you really respect. You may be the most
violent person in the world—that’s a fine place to
start. That’s a very rich place to start—juicy, smelly.
You might be the most depressed person in the world,
the most addicted person in the world, the most jeal-
ous person in the world. You might think that there
are no others on the planet who hate themselves as
much as you do. All of that is a good place to start.
Just where you are—that’s the place to start.
As we begin to practice shamatha-vipashyana
meditation, following our breath and labeling our
thoughts, we can gradually begin to realize how pro-
found it is just to let those thoughts go, not rejecting
them, not trying to repress them, but just simply
acknowledging them as violent thoughts, thoughts of
hatred, thoughts of wanting, thoughts of poverty,
thoughts of loathing, whatever they might be. We
can see it all as thinking and can let the thoughts go
46 Start Where You Are