The Practice of Lojong: Cultivating Compassion through Training of the Mind

by Traleg Kyabgon

Shambala (2007)

The word lojong is Tibetan for “mind training.” Lojong is training the mind to be intelligent in a very fundamental way, developing basic intelligence and making intelligent use of our emotional nature which leads to seeing and thinking more clearly.

We do not have the power to stop other people from doing certain things, but we do have the power to resist becoming adversely affected by the wrongs done to us by others, whether real or imagined.

This very practical book offers teachings and advice on how to cultivate compassion in our daily routines and workday: With lessons on how to maintain practice through the duration of our lives, we can keep the commitment to mindfulness by transforming adversity into awareness

Lojong is another serious and helpful book which I found through reading an excerpt in Best Buddhist Writings of 2008. I cannot emphasize enough on how one book leads to another which then leads to another and so on. It is truly the power of the reading path.

Lojong is a fine book to study for those who enjoy Salzberg’s Loving Kindness and the fine books by Pema Chodron.

by Kelly Pickerill

This isn’t a new book, of course, but Nilgiri Press has just reissued Eknath Easwaran’s Dialogue With Death: The Spiritual Psychology of the Katha Upanishad in a revised edition called Essence of the Upanishads.  This attractive edition includes a previously unpublished introduction and some minor revisions that were suggested by the author before his death in 1999.

Easwaran’s translations of the classics of Indian spirituality (the Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads) are critically acclaimed, and in this new edition, he expounds upon the Katha Upanishad, the story of the boy who asked Death himself what happens after man leaves this world.

Easwaran’s meditations on the Katha Upanishad are incredibly readable and insightful.  He uses humor and anecdote to show the importance of translating the scriptures to daily living through meditation.  The journey he relates is personal, but the lessons to be learned are universal.

Easwaran developed a method for meditation called “Passage Meditation,” the repetition of a memorized prayer or scripture from the world’s great religions.  In one of my favorite books, J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, Franny becomes dismantled during a weekend with her ivy league boyfriend when, unhappy with the insincerity she perceives in everyone around her, she begins chanting a prayer and suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown.  The book has been recognized as a depiction of the journey one takes to enlightenment, but the path Franny takes is, admittedly, somewhat brutal.  Ever since I read it, though, I’ve been curious about the practice of passage meditation, and the phenomenon that happens, Franny says, when a person prays without ceasing.  She says:

“But the thing is, the marvellous thing is, when you first start doing it, you don’t even have to have faith in what you’re doing.  I mean even if you’re terribly embarrassed about the whole thing, it’s perfectly all right.  I mean you’re not insulting anybody or anything.  In other words, nobody asks you to believe a single thing when you first start out.  You don’t even have to think about what you’re saying, the starets said.  All you have to have in the beginning is quantity.  Then, later on, it becomes quality by itself.  On its own power or something.  He says that any name of God–any name at all–has this peculiar, self-active power of its own, and it starts working after you’ve sort of started it up . . . You get to see God.  Something happens in some absolutely nonphysical part of the heart–where the Hindus say that Atman resides, if you ever took any Religion–and you see God, that’s all.”

My discovery from Best Buddhist Writing: 2008 (see this blog entry) was Ridgzin Shikpo (Michael Hookham) who began his practice in the 1950s.

In 1965, Shikpo met his principle teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, and received detailed instruction from him on the preliminary and main practice of the Dzogchen tradition. Shikpo’s emphasis is on presenting Dzogchen’s teaching in English using methods and language appropriate to Western students.

Never Turn Away is a practical book that I had to read slowly almost like a book of essays. Shikpo’s words ring with authenticity as he emphasizes the practice of openness and awareness to see the significance of our ordinary experiences. Even if we don’t know what to do or how to handle the situation, Shikpo advises us to simply turn toward the situation. The teachings of this book have a strong emphasis on working with direct experience.

Never Turn Away is divided into four sections:

1. Understanding openness through meditation and the truth of suffering

2. Mandala principles and the cause of suffering

3. Collapse of confusion and the cessation of suffering

4. Pursuit of truth and the truth of the path

All four sections are broken down and fit together with superb editing. These sections are full of techniques to help us understand out practice. Also, I found Shikpo’s full account of basic formless meditation to be most helpfully presented.

Never Turn Away does not feel contrived; It is genuine and open as Shikpo gives us his clues for facing the present.

Above: Lemuria’s Zen Section

The Best Buddhist Writing of 2008, Edited by Melvin McLeod, Shambala (2008)

I look forward each year to this collection. I have found many new books and authors to read from McLeod’s work. However, one of my enjoyments is rereading the editor’s selections from books I’ve read already. It’s interesting to see not only what authors’ books he chose but to also consider why that particular excerpt was chosen.

This year’s edition was equally outstanding and varied as the previous collections have been. Essays selected include fine pieces from Joseph Goldstein, Pema Chodron, John Daido Loori, Steve Hagen, Thich Nhat Hanh and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

My favorite piece was from Michael Carroll’s book The Mindful Leader. Rereading especially during this recession time helped me to refocus on some of his business concepts, some of which seemed like I had read too long ago.

Another nice quality of these collections is reading essays that are thoughtprovoking. You might not be drawn to read a whole book by the author but learning about new folks with different slants on things is an expanding quality of reading these annual collections. They are also edited to be very reader friendly.

Ocean of Dharma

365 Teachings of Living Life with Courage and Compassion

The Everyday Wisdom: by Chogyam Trungpa

Shambala (2008)

Trungpa published Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism in 1973. When I opened Lemuria in 1975, and touched upon Zen, Trungpa books were established and acknowledged in the middle America counter culture. His work became a staple in my bookstore and has remained as such ever since.

Born in Tibet in 1939, giving up his monastic robes and immigrating to North America in 1970 as a lay teacher. He wrote many books until his death in 1987. His understanding of the western mind made him one of the most important influences on the development of Buddhism in the west.

Over the years I’ve read, enjoyed and felt enhanced by reading Trungpa books. I haven’t read one in a while and was delighted when Ocean a small book was released this year. 365 chapter pages of Trungpa wisdom divided to be read daily. Each teaching is on living life with courage and compassion. Teachings pulled from a lifetime of his writings condensed into this page-a-day issue for internal reflection. 

I like these kind of books. Over the years I’ve gotten so much from Trungpa that reading Ocean was like finding gold without working for it. I decided to read two pages a day and have enjoyed my revisitation with the author.

Carolyn Rose Gimian, compiler, pared down Trungpa’s immense teachings to this everyday, adaptable concept. Carolyn’s understanding of this teacher’s work is evident and I thank her for her editorial work and gift of this fine little book.

Ocean of Dharma could be a good introduction to Trungpa and the greatest hits for those who enjoyed his work in the past.

From Snow Lion #261 “Discipline is not a demand but a pleasure.”

From Sacred Action #244 “We should regard everything that we do as very important, not a big deal, but very important.”

From Relating to Others #253 “We are constantly trying to work out our relation to the other. It’s like your dog meeting someone else’s dog.”