Being Ordinary
- Introduction
- • ★ Lojong Slogans
- Begin with the beginning
- Treat experiences as dreams
- Examine the nature of awareness
- Don’t get trapped by emptiness
- Rest in the openness of mind
- In the intervals be a conjurer of illusion
- Practice giving and receiving on the breath
- 3 Objects, 3 Poisons, 3 Seeds of Virtue
- Always train with the slogans
- Begin Tonglen with yourself
- Use misfortune as practice
- Drive all blame into a single source
- Be grateful to everyone
- Let confusion awaken and practice emptiness
- Do good, avoid evil, appreciate your lunacy, pray for help
- Every encounter suddenly becomes the path
- Cultivate a serious attitude
- Practice for death as well as for life
- There is only one point of focus
- Be true to the principled one
- Cultivate an ever-present joyful mind
- Proficiency comes when practicing even when distracted
- Always train in the 3 basic elements
- Don’t make a public display of your efforts
- Don’t speak of the faults of others
- Don’t ponder the actions of others
- Don’t save your biggest problem
- Don’t expect results
- Don’t poison yourself
- Don’t be so predictable
- Don’t be mean
- Don’t wait in ambush
- Don’t make everything so painful
- Don’t unload on everyone
- Don’t rush things
- Don’t be devious
- Don’t make gods into demons
- Don’t be complacent of suffering
- Focus on a singe intention
- Remedy obstacles with one intention
- Two activities begin the day end the day
- Be patient either way
- Observe, no matter what
- Face the three challenges
- Adopt three key elements
- Keep tract of the three key elements
- Keep the three inseparable
- Train without bias
- Meditate on your dissatisfactions
- Embrace challenges presented by circumstances
- Right now exert yourself, get it right
- Remain committed and engaged
- Be consistent in your practice
- Be wholehearted
- Find freedom through investigation and close analysis
- Be modest and unassuming
- Practice sympathetic joy
- Be even tempered
Don’t be so predictable
(30)
Don’t be so predictable in your habits of feeling, thought, and behavior. Repeatedly and blindly striving for more of what satisfies the ego. Don’t be trapped by a sense of duty to the ego. You can break out of this unhealthy cycle. Don’t keep taking the wrong medicine for the illness.
Always strive to be a servant to everyone.
If the medicine we take is unsuited to the illness we have, our condition will be all the worse. In the same way, we should apply the teachings so that they act as an antidote to our ego-clinging. Towards everyone we should consider ourselves as the humblest of servants, taking the lowest place. We should try really very hard to be modest and self-forgetting. [^@Khyentse:1993aa]
Habits are both helpful and unhelpful; wise and unwise. Wise habits push you to grow, and unwise habits are those we unconsciously establish that keep us stuck servicing the ego. It is easy to see why we want to break out of our unwise habits, but wise habits can have a dark side too if we fall asleep and perform them unconsciously, on autopilot, without even realizing we are doing what we are doing. We turn a wise habit into something rote and predictable.
See the world in the moment, not from a predictable sense of duty but responding to what is needed. This slogan admonishes a more natural response to life rather than a programmed one. Cultivate a beginner’s mind with yourself. Be more like a beginner, with many possibilities rather than the few a professional has. This slogan encourages you to stop trying to be an expert on yourself. Besides, amateurs always have more fun than professionals.
Don’t ponder the actions of others ………………………..[[201903250613]] Find freedom through investigation and close analysis ……….[[201904230512]] Don’t make a public display of your efforts ………………..[[201903230512]] Don’t make gods into demons ………………………………[[201904050528]] Don’t rush things ………………………………………[[201904030514]]
Alternate Titles
- Don’t be so predictable
- Do not maintain inappropriate loyalty
- Don’t rely on consistency
- Do not devote yourself kindly to the central object
- Do not serve the central object leniently
03-29-2019 - 5:03 AM ›[[201903290503]] → #slogans