Essential Lojong (eBook)

Mind Training / Attitude Transformation

Terry Conrad (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
110 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-2831-0 (ISBN)

Infos

The Lojong is like a summary of the entire buddha dharma, the refined, boiled down, encapsulation of the path of awakening. The Lojong begins with the Four Facts of Life, also know as The Four Thoughts to Turn the Mind to Awakening. The fact that life is difficult, the fact that most of our difficulties we cause ourselves; the fact that this precious human life is our best and only opportunity to awaken to who and how we already are; and the fact this life is short and like all things it too will come to an end whether we're ready or not. The promise of awakening accurately reflects the fact that we already have everything we need to do so, everyone, everybody, already has everything we need. Awakening is at hand. The challenge for thousands of years has been, how can this be done? And for thousands of years we've learned a method that offers success. It's not necessary to abandon our family and move into a cave, to live in a foreign country, or even give up a religion; awakening is seeing things as they are, whatever they are. This is the natural wisdom potential in everyone.

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Waking up is hard to do, awakening to our true nature is both natural and not. It's natural to desire happiness and wellbeing, to have peace of mind free of anxiety and worry. The desire for freedom is natural, to be free of delusion, confusion, and suffering, to have loving relationships, filled with empathy, and compassion. Life is difficult, all of us suffer loss, illness, and the death of loved ones, we are all of a kind in our life experiences and the expression of this is Kindness. In the face of difficulties it's often the case we feel we're a victim, that life is unfair, the others are unfair. The ancient dharma teachings are offering us the remedy for human suffering in the form of spiritual practice, learning to recognize the wisdom that difficulties and suffering are offering us. The awakened mind is no longer defined by life experiences; free of the conditioned assumptions, expectations, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes that tend to define the sense of a self, and instead an open unconditional view of things just as they are, not what we might otherwise want them to be. This view of reality is not reserved for just a precious few living in some remote place removed from the world, this view is available to each and every one of us regardless of where we live, what we do, how or who we think we are. Happiness cannot be dictated, legislated, or regulated, happiness and wellbeing are our birthright and available to us in this very moment, if we are open and available to it. There are two conditions, first there must be a clear intention to make our wellbeing and the wellbeing of others our top priority. Two, we recognize, have faith, that everything we need to awaken is already fully present within us, a mind of Awareness and a heart of Virtue, what we call Bodhichitta. In the world of spiritual practice the buddha dharma is a bit unique, though we're asked to have faith in the deepest qualities of who and how we are, there are no beliefs in anything or anyone supernatural, reality, just as it is, is already fully complete, wise, and present. Some effort is required, dedicating ourselves to become fully literate in a path that has proven to be one hundred percent effective for nearly three thousand years through study, contemplation, and meditation. Teachers, teachings, books, podcasts, YouTube videos, retreats all make the dharma more available to more of us than at any time in history. Cultivating a dailyish time and place to study, to reflect, and to meditate is the tried and true skillful means of awakening to who and how we already are whether we're in a prison or a palace. Sincere and honest spiritual practice is the cause of happiness and wellbeing. The beauty of the Lojong is the brevity and pithiness of the Seven Parts and Sixty Slogans that invite us, allow us, to realign our conceptual view of the world and ourselves with greater integrity and wholeness. Like the facts of life the Slogans dissolve the bias, prejudice, negativity, and preferential judgments that have obscured the wisdom of everything we experience.

Textauszug

Part I

1). First, train in the Foundation of the Path:

The Four Thoughts to Change the Mind

1. The precious human opportunity Nirvana - Freedom

No one or anything else can Practice for me, it is only this brief and precious human existence that allows me to realize Bodhichitta

2. The suffering struggle Ducca - dissatisfaction

A moment of difficulty is the opportunity to recognize the conditioned attitudes of liking, disliking, and ignorance - Habits of attachment and aversion

3. Karmic patterning Karma - mental Habits

Everything experienced arises from the interconnected and interdependent confluence of causes and conditions; whatever we’re thinking, feeling, saying, or doing today will be the cause of tomorrows’ happiness or sorrow

4. Impermanence Dharma - innate Wisdom

Everything thought, felt, and perceived is a continuous dynamic arising and dissolving in the basic space of Awareness; All phenomena is in a continuous state of change

COMMENTARY for PART I

“The mind is malleable. Our life can be greatly transformed by even a minimal change in how we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world. Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time.”

Venerable Matthieu Ricard

The Four Thoughts reflect one of the earliest teachings of the Buddha on The Four Noble Truths in a slightly different order. The Four Thoughts are a guide for us to frame reality more accurately, like four facts-of-Life, the skillful means to recognize how we cause ourselves to suffer.

The Four Thoughts are a Mahayana summary of the original Four Noble Truths, guiding us to train the mind beyond self-centered constructs and recognize how a worldview conditioned by Life experiences distorts reality causing us to suffer. The basis of Buddhist teachings for all the traditions, schools, and lineages is to train the mind in integrity with reality, free of delusion and confusion.

Precious Human Life ~

The Promise of Awakening, Free from Suffering

Human beings are the only Life form we know of with the opportunity, or maybe the need, to spiritually mature and awaken. Reflect upon the variety of Life forms in this world, from viruses to critters that number in the billions. Human Life is precious because the opportunity to awaken is rare. Most other Life forms are stuck in the cycle of eating, sleeping, working, and procreating; humans have the capacity to awaken to the power of AwarenessVirtue, to realize Bodhichitta.

Imagine you’re a poor sailor working on a ship lost at sea ending up on a remote island whose beaches are made of fine grains of gold and silver and pebbles are precious gems. You live there for several years until one day while out fishing a passing ship picks you up and takes you to a strange land where, after a very long and difficult journey, you finally make your way back home. How many times do you wish you’d put a few of those pebbles in your pocket to bring with you? Wouldn’t the material difficulties of your Life be so much less?

Human Life is precious because we have a brief time to recognize the Wisdom of everything we experience, we have the rare and precious opportunity to spiritually mature, right now !

To mature physically we stay healthy, to mature intellectually we read, travel, engage with others, and take an interest in the world. We mature emotionally by facing difficulties, learning to work skillfully with hurt, disappointment, irritation, and frustration. Growing up spiritually takes conscious work, practice, the effort of study, contemplation, and meditation. If we take our Precious Human Life for granted without realizing the incredible opportunity to awaken, we and others can be worse off for our being alive.

What a waste!

Why else are we here?

Is there any purpose at all in our Life?

Or just here to eat, shit, work, and die?

~ So many outer conditions have come together for us to live in a universe and world where the Buddha and all the enlightened ones have undergone enormous obstacles to become enlightened.

~ How fortunate, to live in a country with access to the Buddha’s teaching through qualified masters guiding us on a path of Awakening.

~ How fortunate, to find a connection with teachings and the promise of Awakening. motivating us to practice

~ How fortunate, the opportunity to realize Bodhichitta, innate Wisdom and Compassion, free of self-cherishing.

~ How fortunate, to have the intelligence and a sound body allowing us to learn what it means to practice.

The odds against Life being so precious are enormous, imagine how many living beings there are in the universe, all the critters, bugs, and beings existing on just this planet. Of these, reflect on how few are human beings with the ability to pick up a book and read it with comprehension. Of these, how few can learn the liberating dharma teachings, have access to qualified teachers, and the personal freedom to practice? Of these, how few of us make the effort to practice, to meditate properly allowing meaning into every moment of our Life. Human Life, an opportunity to Awaken without anything or anyone else doing it for us. The Buddha Dharma offers a framework for reality, the ability to observe conditioned physical, mental, and emotional patterns causing self-cherishing and delusion, and to Awaken to the reality of Bodhichitta.

No one else is responsible for my freedom, no one else can respond to what I experience, I alone am able to observe and respond to what Life offers me. There’s a phrase not often heard “The Rarity of Cause,” meaning how rare it is for us to have the karmic tendency to hear and practice the liberating dharma teachings. Yes, we all have the potential to realize spiritual maturity and awakening, but it doesn’t mean we will, learning a practice allowing this opportunity is extremely rare.

The likelihood of Life taking such a dramatic shift for the better without engaging in spiritual practice is slim. Like the stranded sailor it’s up to me to recognize the opportunity I have in this moment to see everything I experience, even difficulties, as a precious jewel of Wisdom.

The Suffering Struggle ~

The historic Buddha, like so many sages throughout history, sought to understand human Nature. He questioned, how can a person living a life of luxury and privilege feel worry, fear, anger, and disappointment, while someone with the barest essentials of food and shelter can feel happiness, even joy? The truth of suffering is universal, in a million subtle or powerful ways we feel mad, bad, sad, irritated, disappointed, frustrated, isolated, loneliness, shame, guilt, regret, remorse, anger, resentment… the list goes on. Everyone experiences hurt, illness, aging, and ultimately death. Every day we suffer the hurt of loss, physical discomfort, disappointment, alienation, worry, or fear; why is this so afflictive to some and not others?

The Outer causes of suffering are situations or events, natural disasters, the loss of loved ones, accidents, illness, anything outside of us or beyond our control.

The Inner causes of suffering are Habits of attachment and aversion, liking and disliking, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, preferences, attitudes, assumptions, expectations, negativity, judging, and comparing all conditioned by adventitious Life experiences without benefit of inquiry. By failing to recognize how mental and emotional attitudes cause us to suffer, they remain our condition.

The Innermost cause of suffering is ignorance, ignoring, or being unaware of the emptiness nature of mind, the Wisdom nature of everything we experience.

Traditional Buddhist teachings speak of the three afflictive states of mind causing us to suffer, attachment, aversion, and ignorance. Mental and emotional Habits of attachment and aversion, liking disliking, and indifference arise as preferences. Desire, wanting something or someone to be different, is a pernicious form of ignorance as the desire or need to be right, in control, to know more than someone else.

Ignorance doesn’t recognize Bodhichitta as our true Nature, the capacity to unconditionally love others.

When I awakened all beings awakened

The Buddha

Life is difficult, we seek peace-of-mind, happiness, well-being. The good news of the dharma is happiness is possible through introspection and insight, the willingness to see our part in how we feel. Practice allows us to recognize how physical, mental, and emotional Habits of negativity cause us to suffer. Because mental and emotional attitudes are Impermanent, like everything else, they change, transform, and dissolve with time and insight, offering us the opportunity for emotional and spiritual maturity, Freedom, the deep personal Freedom no one can offer or take away from us.

Three Types of Suffering ~

Cyclical Suffering - Clinging, grasping, holding on

We cause ourselves to suffer from attachment, wanting things to stay the same, or aversion, wanting anything to be different. Wanting something to be different...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.12.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-2831-0 / 9798350928310