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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Nonduality is the goal
Nonduality is the goal. Not just any nonduality, but one informed by emptiness. Emptiness of intrinsic existence. All our ordinary perceptions and conceptions are flavored by intrinsic existence. Thus, eventually all perceptions and conceptions will […]
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How do we practice compassion?
How do we practice compassion? The six perfections (Sanskrit paramitas) are instructions for practicing compassion. Generosity has various methods, like giving money, shelter and food, giving time, giving kindness, listening non-judgmentally, giving love, and giving […]
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Distorting reality
Imagining our early anger as a cloud that dissipates, transforming anger into tolerance, can be very effective. Yet to fully get rid of our anger, and all of our destructive emotions like jealousy, pride, greed, […]