Bob Schwartz

The year 2024 presented challenges. The new year will too.

Some of the challenges were and will be individual and personal, some shared and public.

In the past year, I thought more and more about compassion. For a while I bemoaned what I perceived to be a lack of compassion on the part of other people, lots of other people. But late in the year, I began to see that cultivating compassion could only begin with me. Fortunately, I discovered a thousand-year-old Buddhist practice known as lojong, aimed at doing just that.

One of the many points of the practice concerns how to deal with adversity, including enemies. Many are familiar with the suggestion of Jesus to “love your enemies.” This goes one stop further, with the suggestion “Be grateful to everyone.” Everyone, including those who do harm.

“Be grateful to everyone.”

This is a very profound statement. One of our primary tasks in this training is to get rid of anger and hatred. If we disperse these emotions, a great deal of suffering will vanish along with them. When we feel grateful, it breaks down anger and we cannot continue to feel hate. That is why this slogan is so effective. It is not difficult to be relaxed and forgiving when conditions are harmonious. However when things go wrong and we feel abused or under stress, we tend to be hostile. Dwelling on our hurt stirs up our aversion and the whole experience becomes totally negative. This can be avoided if we remember the positive potential in the situation.

The adversities that other people bring us are gifts, not betrayals. Disappointments try our patience and compassion. If our lives are completely sheltered and blessed, we have no friction to use as raw material in our practice. We will never conquer our ego if we are spared from every single upset and provocation. Atisha was known to travel with an attendant who was terribly bad-tempered. The man was irritable and very rude to everyone. People could not understand why a kind and wise teacher like Atisha permitted this nasty man to accompany him on his travels and they asked him how he put up with it. Atisha answered that the man was his “patience tester” and very precious to him.

Our efforts to generate compassion are always in connection with other people and our progress depends on these relationships. The people we live and work with and who share our lives are the sentient beings for whom we seek enlightenment. They are also the means of acquiring wisdom and patience on the way to enlightenment. Rather than feeling insulted or victimized by those who have been unkind to us, we bear the discomfort and feel thankful towards it.

Suffering so often comes from not being able to find the good in things and being critical. If we can be positive about whatever comes, we cling less to the world and are less wounded by bad experiences.

Mind Training (Lojong 13), Ringu Tulku Rinpoche

Aside from whatever personal situations arise, it is certain that in 2025 many people will be affected, frustrated, angry or outraged by developments in public life. It will be difficult to treat the people responsible for those policies with kindness or gratitude.

In the case of those who suffer because of those policies, we can do what we can to help relieve that suffering.

In the case of those who cause that suffering, being grateful to them is the last thing on our minds. But when we treat it as an opportunity to develop our wisdom and patience, that is something to be thankful for.

Happy New Year!