Last post’s discussion of tonglen (taking suffering and giving love and wisdom) is not a complete practice for most of us who do not realize emptiness. Realizing emptiness requires accumulating massive amounts of merit. We do this by cleaning up our junk. Thus, we return to emotional hygiene, recognizing anger, jealousy, and pride and transforming them into tolerance, appreciation, and humility. Furthermore, we clean out the selfish junk by practicing the six perfections of generosity, ethics of no-harm, tolerance, diligence, concentration, and wisdom. Enough work for a lifetime, or two or three.
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We all know and experience physical and mental pain
The Buddha was very sophisticated when teaching about compassion, and about everything. He taught there are different gradations of suffering, or dukkha. Superficially we all know and experience physical and mental pain. A little hidden […]
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Transforming ignorance into wisdom
Forgiving takes a heavy load off our chest. We feel light as a feather. Practicing gratitude opens the heart. We feel that everything sparkles. Countering anger with tolerance brings ease and understanding. We feel relaxed. […]
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Different dispositions
The Buddha taught many different teachings often from different angles. We all have different dispositions and periods in our lives when we are more or less receptive. Please take all these teachings as complementary. Try […]