Report 44

• train wholeheartedly
• abandon all hope of results

Katharine found this great video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gt_z72hkH0  -- when I watch it, it makes me want to train wholeheartedly, and yet abandon all hope of results :). 

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Had an interesting encounter with "train wholeheartedly" at a Tibetan retreat center.  Someone had hung signs throughout the little place where we were sleeping -- "Abandon poisonous foods" on the refrigerator, "Do not wait in ambush" in the hallway and "Train wholeheartedly" on the bathroom mirror.  When first arriving, I felt quite peevish about the the signs ("Do not hang signs in ambush" is what I wanted to add).   But on the 4th or 5th day, rather unexpectedly, there was a shift in feeling about "Train whole-heartedly" -- I think I finally noticed the whole-heartedly part.  It started to mean something like from the heart, allowing the heart to be the center rather than the relying so heavily on the self.   It started to sound like joyousness, rather than drudgery. 

Train wholeheartedly and abandon all hope for results have started to feel like almost the same slogan.  I think there's something tentative about my approach to practice and to life; letting go of hopes for results is a way of releasing certain fears and anxieties so that it is more possible to join in.  

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Just read Zen's report and the questions at the bottom caught my eye...  Occurs to me that this is part of the cleverness of lojong -- that there is a "wrong way" to understand these slogans, but it's partly because they can be understood in obviously wrong ways that they can be so helpful -- helps remind us to look again to see how we're taking in the world, what kind of mind is getting exercised, etc. 

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There was an opportunity to keep in mind the lojong advice over the last couple of days which I failed spectacularly.  One ordinary but overlooked (by me) way of understanding "take all the blame yourself" is just as a way to stop hoping/waiting for someone else to give you the desired restitution. Why do I wait before offering politeness and respect myself?

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Thinking again about the masochism -- I'm not sure it's what Katharine was talking about, but it reminds me of those times when I don't know how to practice except by throwing myself against the windowpane until I'm too exhausted to go on (a form of abandoning hope).  "There was an invisible wall?  No wonder I didn't see it, officer..."  It's funny how often the invisible wall continues to be me / myself.