This slogan focuses on six qualities — patience, yearning, excitement, compassion, priorities and joy — and how they can be misinterpreted. More generally, this slogan instructs us to see how we twist things so that our avoidance of reality is considered to be a virtue rather than a fault. We are continually tempted to misinterpret teachings designed to soften our obsession with self so that instead of reducing self-cherishing, we add more fuel to self-absorption and distractedness.
An undercurrent that runs through this slogan is the strong pull of selfish motivation. The Lojong slogans go against the grain and threaten our cozy cocoon of self-satisfaction, so we try to figure out ways to live a spiritual life without having to give up anything. We long for spiritual growth, but don’t want to change, we twist the teachings to fit our personal agenda, we start a spiritual practice then drop out, we pay lip service, but our heart really lies with protecting our self-centred delusions.
The first three categories — patience, yearning and excitement — are quite straightforward. Misinterpreted patience is being patient with the difficulties of daily life, but not patient with our rate of spiritual growth. Misinterpreted yearning is to have constant yearning for more money, more pleasure and more security, but to have very little yearning to train the mind, develop a spiritual practice or cultivate loving-kindness. Misinterpreted excitement is to find mindless entertainment and the endless pursuit of wealth exciting, but not be excited about the study and practice of our chosen spiritual path.
The fourth category, misinterpreted compassion, is more provocative. Misinterpreted compassion means to feel compassion for the hardships faced by people who have similar social, cultural and spiritual beliefs as us, but not to feel compassion for people outside our community by demonizing them as enemies. According to this slogan, true compassion is not based on picking and choosing, and it is not based on sorting people into who is worthy of our compassion and who is not.
The fifth category, twisted priorities, could also be called the challenge of scheduling. Somehow, we always manage to find time in our schedules for what entertains us or advances our self-interest, but find it difficult to find time for spiritual study and practice.
The sixth and last category, twisted joy, means to take more delight in seeing someone whom you view as a competitor suffer than you take in seeing them successfully overcome obstacles through wholehearted spiritual practice.
These six categories are examples of the methods that we use to disguise ego-gratification as virtuous activity. Most of us are very good at this.
Suggested practice: Start with the misinterpretation of priorities. List out your main activities for a week, and calculate how much time you spend on each category, such as work, sleep, TV, study, practice and socializing. What does this tell you about your priorities? What would need to shift to free up a little time for spiritual study and practice?
This column is a long series of short essays exploring the meaning of the Lojong Slogans. It is inspired by the work of Judy Lief.
Kuya Minogue is the resident teacher at Creston’s ZenWords Zen Centre. She can be reached at 250-428-3390.