the wisdom principle. Traditionally you offer cake.
At the inner level, you’re inviting that principle to be
alive and well in your being. You’re willing to prac-
tice in order to nurture your ability to know when
you’re awake and when you’re falling asleep and to
bring yourself back to the wakefulness of the pres-
ent moment.
In the lojong teachings, the approach is that the
best way to use unwanted circumstances on the path
of enlightenment is not to resist but to lean into
them. Befriending emotions or developing compas-
sion for those embarrassing aspects of ourselves, the
ones that we think of as sinful or bad, becomes the
raw material, the juicy stuff with which we can work
to awaken ourselves. The four practices are the best
of methods for overcoming resistance, the best of
methods for transforming bad circumstances into the
way of enlightenment.
108 Overcoming Resistance