Allan Walles - 7 points.PDF - Seven Points of Training the Mind - Tonglen - Sharmik

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL DAVID MURPHY

COMPASSION, IT WOULD APPEAR, is easier said than done. All the

world’s great spiritual traditions exhort us to be kind, and yet judging by

the state of our world, genuine compassion is rare. We have plenty of great

thoughts about compassion, but how much are we actually doing about it

moment by moment, day by day?

A system of practices that would upset our usual way of doing things and

encourage compassion would seem to be in order. In fact, without such prac-

tices, a tradition like Buddhism, committed as it is to meditation, might easily

lead to a private striving for peace, and many of us who practice Buddhism

might easily fall into the trap of self-perfection.

Apparently Buddhist practitioners from long ago experienced this very

problem, and at some point, a system developed within the Mahayana tra-

dition to counteract ego’s tendency to convert whatever it encounters into

its own territory. Like a family of viruses, this system of teachings, known

in Tibetan as lojong , or mind training, attacks ego’s immune system and the

myriad defenses it throws up to prevent us from experiencing a moment of

openness and warmth.

There are many different kinds of lojong, but in this forum, the panel-

ists discuss the form of lojong best-known in the West, as laid out in The

Seven Points of Mind Training . There are several theories about who exactly

was responsible for these teachings, but it is widely believed that they were

brought to Tibet when the great Indian yogi and scholar Atisha Dipankara

traveled there in 1042 at the invitation of the Tibetan rulers. One of Atisha’s

poems describes an arduous sea journey he made to Sumatra and Java to

receive lojong training from the renowned teacher Serlingpa (Dharmakirti),

who is said to have resided at Borobudur. These teachings on developing

enlightened attitude were passed on to many students and were eventually

written down in the twelfth century by Chekawa as a series of aphorisms, the

form that survives to this day. In the nineteenth century, Jamgön Kongtrül

the Great wrote a concise commentary that has become one of the primary

sources for lojong teachings.

The mind training teachings have two main components. The ﬁ rst focuses

on recognizing absolute, or ultimate, bodhicitta (literally, “awakened heart

or mind,” or, emphasizing its aspirational quality, “the thought of enlight-

enment”). Ultimate bodhicitta is our basic nature, which is pure awareness.

Through contemplative practice, the practitioner lets go of attachment to

phenomena as being solid and unchanging, as expressed in the injunction

“Regard all dharmas as dreams.” This series of contemplations ends with

the prescription “In post-meditation, be a child of illusion.” In other words,

we are asked to have a childlike faith in the quality of ultimate bodhicitta

and to rest in the illusory phenomenal display we encounter in all of our

undertakings. Softened by such naiveté, we act freshly, rather than seeking

to recreate a familiar home for ourselves.

The second part of the mind training involves the cultivation of relative

bodhicitta. This practice recognizes that in all our interactions we draw on

an arsenal of means to solidify our position: blaming, self-congratulation,

false modesty, competitiveness, possessiveness, and a host of others. Yet each

time we seek to secure our position, we are also vulnerable, which leaves the

possibility of openness. This is where mind training operates.

For example, if we are about to denigrate someone for all the problems they

have caused us, the phrase “Be grateful to everyone” may arise in our mind. As

a result, a moment of bodhicitta could emerge. For a moment, ego dissolves and

Forum:

The Lo jong

Mind Training

j ng

Mind Training

Practices

Mind Training

Practices

JUDITH LIEF IS THE EDITOR OF

TRAINING THE MIND AND CULTIVATING LOVING-KINDNESS ,

CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA’S COMMENTARY ON THE SEVEN POINTS OF

MIND TRAINING . SHE IS AN ACHARYA, OR SENIOR TEACHER, IN

THE SHAMBHALA BUDDHIST TRADITION.

KEN MCLEOD TRANSLATED THE GREAT PATH OF AWAKENING,

JAMGÖN KONGTRÜL’S COMMENTARY ON LOJONG, AND IS THE

AUTHOR OF WAKE UP TO YOUR LIFE . HE IS THE FOUNDER OF

UNFETTERED MIND IN LOS ANGELES, WHERE HE TEACHES

BUDDHIST MEDITATION AND PRACTICE USING A CONSULTANT-

CLIENT APPROACH.

B. ALAN WALLACE WROTE A COMMENTARY ON LOJONG

ENTITLED THE SEVEN-POINT MIND TRAINING AND IS A

TEACHER AND TRANSLATOR OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM. A FORMER

MONK ORDAINED BY THE DALAI LAMA, HE RECENTLY FOUNDED

THE SANTA BARBARA INSTITUTE FOR THE INTERDISCIPLINARY

STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

FALL 2005 | 38 | BUDDHADHARMA

compassion takes up the space that is left. Rather

than simply telling ourselves that we need to be a

good boy or a good girl, the teaching embodied in

the slogan can counteract our tendency to cling,

right on the spot, where the rubber meets the road.

The archetypal practice of cultivating relative bodh-

icitta is tonglen , the practice of sending and taking,

where we take in all negativity and send out all that

is nourishing and life-giving. It reverses the basic

direction of energy that supports ego.

No English term adequately captures the nature

of the “sayings” that form the backbone of the

seven-point mind training. Chögyam Trungpa

Rinpoche chose the term “slogan” to describe

these pithy phrases that enjoin us to act, but others

ﬁ nd the association with advertising and commer-

cialism misleading. Whatever we call these apho-

risms, they have a power to arouse compassion on

the spot in a way that no amount of good inten-

tion has been able to accomplish. Perhaps these

teachings and practices can even reach beyond the

community of committed Buddhist practitioners to

help a troubled world, or perhaps they require a

Buddhist context to function. Our panelists differ

on this question.

BUDDHADHARMA: What does lojong mean?

KEN MCLEOD: Although lojong is often translated

as “mind training,” the meaning of the term in

Tibetan is closer to “reﬁ ning‚” rather than train-

ing. That puts a different slant on it.

ALAN WALLACE: I would agree. The term most com-

monly translated as “mind” from Sanskrit is citta ,

which is rendered as sem in Tibetan. Here the word

for mind is lo in Tibetan and mati in Sanskrit. It

doesn’t refer to mind in general; it refers more to

attitude. Lojong, then, is largely a matter of refram-

ing our perspective on the phenomena and events

that arise before us. We perceive them from a fresh

perspective. So, rather than taking the usual tack of

trying to transform our external circumstances, we

shift and reﬁ ne our way of viewing, experiencing,

and engaging with whatever reality presents itself

to us from moment to moment.

KEN MCLEOD: Lojong is counterintuitive in the sense

that it’s opposed to our ordinary way of relating to

the world. It is intended to create friction between

our habitual patterns and the experience of the

—Barry Boyce

BUDDHADHARMA | 39 | FALL 2005

present moment. This friction generates heat to

burn up our habituated patterns.

Mind training may also be rubbing against

a very strong tendency in modern civilization,

rooted in evolutionary biology and a lot of mod-

ern psychology, of reifying the self, promoting the

rugged individual notion of the separate, indepen-

dent self. Buddhadharma does run right into the

face of that.

JUDITH LIEF: Lojong can take us through a three-

step process. First, we move from our ancient

habit of putting our own interests above every-

thing else to the provocative thought of putting

others’ interests somewhere on our horizon.

Then, we can move to putting others ahead of

ourselves. Finally, we can transcend that alto-

gether. It’s not simply replacing a this-that ori-

entation with a that-this orientation; it’s going

beyond this and that altogether.

The real rub, the real friction, is egolessness:

ego-of-self and ego-of-other are equally limited

views of reality. Ego-of-self is the sense of self-ﬁ xa-

tion and fascination, clinging to a notion of who

we are as something solid that can be separated

out from other aspects of reality. Ego-of-other, or

ego-of-phenomena, is taking what we perceive,

all of our experiences, our particular mood of the

moment and every thought, and solidifying that

into “other.” We estrange ourselves from the basic

fabric of reality when we let our mind have a bias

in either direction. Lojong is designed to remove

that estrangement.

BUDDHADHARMA: The mind training tradition seems

only to have been carried on in Tibet. Does that

mean it is a Vajrayana practice?

KEN MCLEOD: Jamgön Kongtrül says that lojong

stands ﬁ rmly in the sutra tradition and has some

links to the Vajrayana tradition. In my own work

with students, I sometimes use it as a bridge into

Vajrayana because it does have an element of

transformation of experience. But philosophically

it’s solidly rooted in the Mahayana tradition.

BUDDHADHARMA: Can it also be a practice that can

work for a broad spectrum of practitioners?

JUDITH LIEF: One of the reasons that mind training

is such a marvelous body of teachings is that it

can work for people at all sorts of levels of under-

standing and familiarity with buddhadharma. A

danger can arise, though, if you don’t have some

understanding of emptiness. The lojong sayings can

be perverted into moral credos, and tonglen can

become a kind of martyrdom, like your stereotypi-

cal long-suffering mother ﬁ gure: “Oh, don’t worry

about me, darling. I’ll take it on.” It is important

to present the background carefully, so that people

understand that the point is that the ﬂ ow of energy

is not being held anywhere by anyone. Rather, one

is working with an energetic reversal that goes

beyond our usual sense of virtue, of who’s good

and who’s bad.

Once we overcome that misapprehension, we

ﬁ nd that the practice is very earthy, practical, and

relevant. One can work with even one of the slo-

gans in many different ways, and at many different

levels of understanding, and ﬁ nd it helpful across

the entire spectrum.

Lojong is a matter of

reframing our perspective

on the phenomena

and events that arise

before us. Rather than

taking the usual tack

of trying to transform our

external circumstances,

we shift our way of

engaging with whatever

reality presents itself.

—Alan Wallace

ALAN WALLACE: In general, we are driven by self-

grasping, so our natural inclination is certainly not

to take in the negativity of the world and give away

everything good in our lives. Quite the contrary.

Lojong runs right in the face of the inclinations

that have kept us in samsara for a long time.

BUDDHADHARMA: When people are ﬁ rst introduced to

lojong, they often have a hard time with the notion

that self-interest isn’t really the ground of life.

ALAN WALLACE: It is said that the dharmakaya

is the perfection of the Buddha’s self-interest,

rangdön in Tibetan. The sambhogakaya and the

nirmanakaya are the perfection of the Buddha’s

other-interest, or shendön . It is not the case, then,

that the buddhadharma entails absolutely turn-

ing your back on any of your own aspirations,

your own wish to be free of suffering, to achieve

enlightenment and focus absolutely only on other

people. That would be a weird distortion of the

Buddhist teachings. Rather, what we’re coun-

teracting is the self-centeredness that prioritizes

one’s well-being over that of everyone else, espe-

cially where one’s interests seem to be in conﬂ ict

with others. But our rangdön, our own aspira-

tions, are part and parcel of the buddhadharma

all the way to enlightenment.

BUDDHADHARMA: Do you need a teacher to guide

your practice of lojong?

ALAN WALLACE: As a Hindu yoga teacher once told

me, “It’s better to have a good book than a bad

teacher.” If one can find a qualified teacher of

lojong, there’s no question that’s best, as it is for

learning virtually any other skill. But if there are

no teachers around, I would say it would be better

FALL 2005 | 40 | BUDDHADHARMA

to pick up a good text on mind training and follow

that as carefully as one can.

Whether you have a teacher or not, I feel one

important element is required. Just as Vajrayana

has its root system deeply embedded in the

Mahayana, so does the Mahayana tradition have

its root system deeply embedded in the early teach-

ings of the Buddha. Mind training is not an intro-

ductory teaching, or at the very least, it would

be a very steep step to be making at the outset.

For the lojong teachings to make much sense, they

need to rest on the fundamental framework of the

four noble truths and the basic constituents of the

practice: sila , samadhi , and prajna ; that is, ethics,

meditation, and wisdom.

immediate way to get in touch with compassion.

Therefore, I’m not so sure that it can’t be used

as an introduction. If it is presented as a natural

expression of innate compassion, people can con-

nect with it quite easily and quite deeply. Lojong

can take them right to the heart of bodhicitta, the

intention to be awake. It can allow one to be com-

pletely awake to all aspects of one’s experience in

order to correct our basic imbalances, imbalances

that involve the whole world. The practice of ton-

glen, sending and taking, has that kind of power.

ALAN WALLACE: Putting tonglen into a secular con-

text can be helpful, but certainly lojong is more

than the practice of tonglen. I don’t see how one

could properly work with the meaning of bodhi-

citta – the achievement of perfect enlightenment of

a buddha for the sake of all sentient beings – with-

out having a sense of who the Buddha is, what

the four noble truths are, and so forth. These are

not isolated meditative practices. They come to us

as very theory-laden, textured, multifaceted disci-

plines of practice. I don’t see how they really make

any sense without the whole package.

JUDITH LIEF: I never present lojong without present-

ing at least some preliminary ground of shamatha-

vipashyana. You need to let the mind settle and rest

with uncertainty – get down to the bare bones. It

helps to have a sense of the logic of the sutrayana,

and without a basic meditation practice, lojong

can easily become just a way to be goody-goody.

KEN MCLEOD: I’d like to offer a little different per-

spective from what Alan and Judy just said. What

I’ve found in talking about lojong, and particularly

taking and sending, is that for many people it is an

JUDITH LIEF: I’ve certainly presented tonglen as a

very practical thing to do, separated out from the

context of lojong. For example, it’s very helpful

BUDDHADHARMA | 41 | FALL 2005

We fear openness,

the lack of reference

points, particularly social

reference points and

connections. Taking the

perspective of absolute

bodhicitta – trusting

in an awareness that is

no thing – can be

very intimidating.

—Ken McLeod

as an applied practice in working with health care

professionals, who are dealing with death and

dying on a regular basis. They don’t need much

background, and it opens up an incredibly awak-

ened, tender experience for people. It’s very useful,

but I agree that it isn’t the same as doing the full

lojong practice.

In my experience, you need the view, the medi-

tation practices, and then a whole way of life that

goes along with that. Those three facets are pro-

foundly interrelated, and integrating all three con-

stitutes the practice of buddhadharma.

KEN MCLEOD: I have to confess, I balk a little bit

at the phrase, “Don’t confuse that with buddha-

darma‚” as if there is some thing which is bud-

dhadharma. Rather than saying to people, “This

is the path,” I’ve come to help them discover their

own path by using the tools and perspectives and

the context that I’ve been fortunate enough to

receive. We may simply have a different orienta-

tion toward teaching and training, rather than a

substantive difference about what the dharma is.

ALAN WALLACE: Just the same, one can teach shamatha

outside of the whole framework of the buddhad-

harma. People of all different types of belief systems

ﬁ nd these decontextualized meditative practices very

helpful. Yet, I remember someone asking the Dalai

Lama years ago about the legitimacy of taking some

Buddhist meditative practices out of the context of

Buddhism and using them to reduce stress, without

really acknowledging to the people who practiced

them that these were Buddhist practices. The Dalai

Lama’s response was that since the whole point

of buddhadharma is to alleviate suffering, if you

decontextualize some of the practices and they alle-

viate suffering, that’s wonderful. But then he added,

“Don’t confuse that with buddhadharma.”

BUDDHADHARMA: You all have said that these teach-

ings have a certain direct appeal, and yet there’s

quite a lot of depth and profundity here. The

ultimate bodhicitta slogans at the beginning of

the seven-point mind training, for example, can

be quite challenging. Investigating “the nature of

FALL 2005 | 42 | BUDDHADHARMA

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