Dealing with life's difficulties: Nos 2&3

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Here are the second and third mind-training slogans (lojongs) from the 'Lion's Roar' article in October about dealing with what life throws at us - the good, bad and frankly bewildering. 

Contributed by a group member         

                                                ****                            

2. Drive All Blames Into One

Drive all blames into one means that you take full responsibility for everything that arises in your life. Your reaction may be  : This is very bad, this is not what I wanted, this brings many problems. The questions to ask may be : What am I going to do with it? What can I learn from it? How can I make use of it for the path?

Your answer maybe that you do have the strength and the capacity. Drive all blames into one is a tremendous practice of cutting through the long human habit of complaining and whining, and finding on the other side of it the strength to turn every situation into the path. Here you are. This is it. There is no place else to go but forward into the next moment. Repeat the slogan as many times as you have to.

                                                ****          

3. Be Grateful to Everyone : this is very simple but very profound.   Did you grow the food that sustains you every day? Did you make the car or train that takes you to work? Sew your clothing?  You need others every single day, every moment of your life. Thanks to others and their presence and effort you have the things you need to continue, and you have friendship, love and meaning in your life. Our dependence on others runs even deeper. Where does the person we take ourselves to be come from?

Apart from our parents’ genes and their support and care, and society and all it produces for us, there’s the whole network of conditions and circumstances that intimately makes us what we are. Where do our thoughts and feelings come from? Without words to think in, we don’t have anything like a sense of self, and we don’t have the emotions and feelings that are shaped and defined by our words. Without the myriad circumstances that provided us the opportunities for education, for speech, for knowledge, for work, we wouldn’t be here as we are.

The idea of an independent, isolated, atomised person is impossible, Cultivate every day this sense of gratitude.If you feel grateful for what is possible for you in this moment, no matter what your challenges are, if you feel grateful for what is possible for you in the moment, no matter what your challenges are, if you feel grateful that youare alive at all, that yu can think, that you can feel, that you can stand, sit, walk, talk - if you feel grateful, you are happy and you maximise your chances for well-being and for sharing happiness with others.

                                                 ****