The lojong teachings of Tibetan Buddhism are slogans to guide us on our path to freedom from separateness.
Pema Chodron is quite well known for her exposition of the lojong teachings.
This particular one states, “All dharmas agree at one point.”
Dharmas here refer to the happenings in everyday life and living.
By practicing this slogan, we begin to recognize that we are not alone in our human experience and that accepting this can free ourselves from the feeling of separateness.
ALL DHARMAS AGREE AT ONE POINT
“All dharmas agree at one point” is saying that if pain arises, we can instead look out and think bigger. It can be acknowledged pain and it can become the basis of empathy. Then this is shaking up or freeing ourselves from this prison of separateness, which causes us so much pain and limits our world so much to our own hopes and fears or to those people very close to us. So it’s opening up our world, making it suddenly feel that we live in a much bigger world and we feel much more at home in this body and in this world.
– Pema Chodron from Be Grateful to Everyone: An In-Depth Guide to the Practice of Lojong
This particular teaching was very appropriate on the day that I read it because I have been not sleeping well and wondered how I would get through the day.
When I read, “…freeing ourselves from this prison of separateness,” I felt a lot better and managed to accomplish a few nice things.
How do you deal with the feeling of separateness? Does this slogan shed any ling on the subject?
Books by Pema Chodron be grateful
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Be Grateful to Everyone: An In-Depth Guide to the Practice of Lojongby One of the best ways to bring meditation off the cushion and into everyday life is to practice lojong (or mind training). For centuries, Tibetans have used fifty-nine powerful mind-training slogans as a way to transform life’s ordinary situations into opportunities for awakening. In this seven-CD … |
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