The next slogan in Lojong is another very comprehensive one that pretty much subsumes the whole Buddhist path: "Practice the five strengths, The condensed heart instructions." What are the five strengths? They are determination, familiarization, seeds of virtue, reproach and aspiration. Determination refers to being very steadfast in your vow to practise training your mind. Sometimes we can be a bit cowardly and say: "well, I'll work with my mind tomorrow, when I am not so tired." But that does not work--then it will never happen. I notice how this excuse has started to creep in my practice recently: to feel like waiting with practising more until I am less busy. That will probably take many years so better start practising now.
The second strength is familiarization: nothing is easy until you get used to it. Now we are so used to worrying about all our hopes and fears--hoping for fame, fear of insignificance, hoping for praise, fear of blame, and so on, that that is very easy for us. And it makes us often very tense. I did not notice this, until a few days ago I started my vacation by taking a road trip from Manali to Leh. This is a pretty "bone-shaking" journey, so once we finally arrived in Leh at 22:30 after being in the car from 5 am, and having crossed passes with heights of 5300m, I noticed my jaw was completely clenched. This was probably especially due to the last few hours where I was seriously worried about whether we were even going to make it to Leh! In the last few days I have been working on consciously unclenching my jaw, and I notice the difference it makes to my meditation!
The third strength is my favorite one: "seeds of virtue." This refers to never letting go of any opportunity to do something positive, even if it is very small. Sometimes I can be very ambitious, but what I find encouraging about this strength is the focus on just keeping it small. You don't have to make it very special: even just smiling at someone can make a difference in their day. I have been following the daily compassion program from the free app from Being Bodhi, and this very much makes you familiar with that. During the crazy (but beautiful!) ride from Manali to Leh, also thinking about this and just spending some time wishing well in my mind helped me to come out at the other end.
The fourth strength is reproach: catching ourselves and acknowledging it when we do something wrong, but also not getting stuck in that. Just learning from the mistake and owning it. The fifth strength is aspiration: this is a more traditional part of the Buddhist religion, which has aspiration prayers. I personally often have trouble connecting to these prayers, but one beautiful way to consider the meaning of these prayers is that we often with our lack of wisdom do not really know what to pray for, and these prayers are help from the buddhas in what to ask for so it is really beneficial. Anyway, for now I think I will just simply stick with cultivating seeds of virtue, one little bit at a time...
The second strength is familiarization: nothing is easy until you get used to it. Now we are so used to worrying about all our hopes and fears--hoping for fame, fear of insignificance, hoping for praise, fear of blame, and so on, that that is very easy for us. And it makes us often very tense. I did not notice this, until a few days ago I started my vacation by taking a road trip from Manali to Leh. This is a pretty "bone-shaking" journey, so once we finally arrived in Leh at 22:30 after being in the car from 5 am, and having crossed passes with heights of 5300m, I noticed my jaw was completely clenched. This was probably especially due to the last few hours where I was seriously worried about whether we were even going to make it to Leh! In the last few days I have been working on consciously unclenching my jaw, and I notice the difference it makes to my meditation!
The third strength is my favorite one: "seeds of virtue." This refers to never letting go of any opportunity to do something positive, even if it is very small. Sometimes I can be very ambitious, but what I find encouraging about this strength is the focus on just keeping it small. You don't have to make it very special: even just smiling at someone can make a difference in their day. I have been following the daily compassion program from the free app from Being Bodhi, and this very much makes you familiar with that. During the crazy (but beautiful!) ride from Manali to Leh, also thinking about this and just spending some time wishing well in my mind helped me to come out at the other end.
The fourth strength is reproach: catching ourselves and acknowledging it when we do something wrong, but also not getting stuck in that. Just learning from the mistake and owning it. The fifth strength is aspiration: this is a more traditional part of the Buddhist religion, which has aspiration prayers. I personally often have trouble connecting to these prayers, but one beautiful way to consider the meaning of these prayers is that we often with our lack of wisdom do not really know what to pray for, and these prayers are help from the buddhas in what to ask for so it is really beneficial. Anyway, for now I think I will just simply stick with cultivating seeds of virtue, one little bit at a time...
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