Norman Fischer - Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

Zen Master Norman Fischer teaches a fascinatingly powerful Tibetan system of mind training with his characteristic Zen-like simplicity and artful clarity. Norman shows once again why he is one of the most admired Zen teachers in America.

Chade-Meng Tan, Googles Jolly Good Fellow, author of Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

Norman Fischer brings a fresh perspective to the profound Tibetan Buddhist manual of lojong, or mental training. With down-to-earth clarity, he applies its 59 pithy practices to the challenges of modern life. With repetition, these practices gradually change one from the inside out. His writing is direct, penetrating, and powerful, with the authenticity and impact that comes from a great teacher, as he shows readers how to develop resilience and compassion, strength with heart.

Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddhas Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

Norman Fischer has illuminated Atishas lojong slogans with the depth of his own Zen koan practice, infused with his savvy, no-nonsense heart. The result is stunninga fresh slant on Tibetan compassion teachings, making them universal and now.

Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown, Naropa University, author of Dakinis Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lojong is the Tibetan Buddhist practice that involves working with short phrases (called "slogans") as a way of generating bodhichitta, the heart and mind of enlightened compassion. Though the practice is more than a millennium old, it has become popular in the West only in the last twenty years or soand it has become very popular indeed, because its a practice that one can fit very well into an ordinary life, and because it works.Through the influence of Pema Chdrn, who was one of the first American Buddhist teachers to teach it extensively, the practice has moved out of its Buddhist context to affect the lives of non-Buddhists too.

Its in this spirit that Norman Fischer offers his commentary on the lojong slogans. He applies Zen wisdom to them, showing how well they fit in that related tradition, but he also sets the slogans in the context of resonant practices throughout the spiritual traditions. He shows lojong to be a wonderful method for everyone, including those who arent otherwise interested in Buddhism, who dont have the time or inclination to meditate, or whod just like to morph into the kind of person whos focused rather than scattered, generous rather than stingy, and kind rather than thoughtless.

NORMAN FISCHER is Senior Dharma Teacher at San Francisco Zen Center, where he was abbot from 1995 to 2000, and he is currently the director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing the Zen perspective to the world outside Zen, including to Christian and Jewish religious settings. He is a highly regarded poet and translator, and his numerous books include Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms, Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up, and Sailing Home: Using Homers Odyssey to Navigate Lifes Perils and Pitfalls.

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Training in Compassion

Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

NORMAN FISCHER

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2013

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2012 by Norman Fischer

Cover art: Photos.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fischer, Norman, 1946

Training in compassion: Zen teachings on the practice of lojong/Norman Fischer.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-2856-8

ISBN 978-1-61180-040-1 (pbk.)

1. Blo-sbyon. 2. Zen BuddhismDoctrines. I. Title.

BQ7805.F57 2013

294.3444dc23

2012028231

To my wife, Kathie Fischer, and to the memory of her father, my father-in-law, Donald W. Yockey (19202012).

Contents

This book was made possible by the work of dedicated practitioners in the Everyday Zen sangha who transcribed and edited talks I have given. These include practitioners from Montaa Despierta in Xalapa, Mexico: Alfredo Amescua, Bertha Laura Barrientos Beverido, Gina Lozano, Marcela Lozano, Porfirio Carrillo, Oleg Gorfinkel, Malu Gatti, Paula Busseniers, Eugenia Vignau, Alessandra Barzizza, Gerardo Gonzalez, and Sergio Stern; Barbara Byrum in the San Francisco Bay Area; Russ Russell in Santa Cruz, California; and Murray McGillivray in Calgary, Canada.

Times are tough. We live fast-paced lives, with considerable political, economic, and ecological upheaval, and the resultant dread, fear, and stress make life difficult for almost everyoneexcept, possibly, those who opt for self-defensive denial, which only defers the pain and probably makes it worse.

But times have always been tough. Living a human life, in a human world, on a limited planet, has always been a daunting proposition. Circling the wagons, assuming a self-centered defensive stance, has never been a successful coping mechanism, natural though the impulse may be. We are programmed by evolution in the opposite way: we are cooperating animals, deeply conditioned to be concerned for one another. Our hearts are made for loving.

Compassion and connection not only feel good and right (as all of our religious traditions teach us), they also turn difficulties into opportunitiesas we have seen so often when, in the course of the seemingly more frequent natural disasters of recent years, neighbors go out of their way to help one another. When they do, tragedy becomes inspirational. Paradoxically, life can seem more, rather than less, meaningful when our world is suddenly shattered. When we are witness to genuine compassion in the face of great suffering, we seem to transcend our difficulties. When we feel like helping, do help, and are helped, we become stronger, happier, more resilient people.

Compassion and resilience are not, as we might imagine, rarified human qualities available only to the saintly. Nor are they adventitious experiences that arise in us only in extraordinary circumstances. In fact, these essential and universally prized human qualities can be solidly cultivated by anyone willing to take the time to do it. They can become the way we are and live on a daily basis. We can train our minds. We are not stuck with our fearful, habitual, self-centered ways of seeing and feeling.

How Can We Train the Mind?

Mind, as I mean it in this book, is more than intellect. It also includes sensations, emotions, subtle senses of subjectivity, desires, aspirations, attitudes, images, concepts, perceptions, and so on. In a word, mind is consciousness, the sum total of our human experience. In this sense, mind also includes bodywe are conscious of our bodily sensations, and our emotions, maybe our thoughts too, affect us bodily and vice versa.

Most of us think of our minds, the way we are, our basic attitudes and reactions, as being fixed by our genetic inheritance and life experience. We assume that our basic feelings and reactions are simply a given, indelibly fixed in us. We can learn information and specific skills, which is why we go to school or invest in training programs. Yet our basic character remains the same. If were genetically or environmentally programmed to be angry, sad, depressed, or cheerful people, we will continue to be that way more or less throughout our lives. We are who we are.