Start Where You Are

The Big Squeeze

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Shakyamuni Buddha. Just before the moment of his
enlightenment, all of the external circumstances
came to try to sway him in the form of the daughters
of Mara. (Mara symbolizes the ways we have of look-
ing for alternatives to being where we are.)
Just before he was enlightened, every kind of idea
occurred to the Buddha. It was as if every challenge
in the book came up. On that evening what was dif-
ferent was that he simply held his seat, opened his
heart to whatever might arise, didn’t shut down, and
was fully there. Lest you feel bad about yourself, not
being swayed by external circumstances as a total ex-
perience is called enlightenment.
The slogan “Don’t vacillate” very much goes along
with not being swayed by external circumstances.
Whatever arises, you can keep your heart open. Be-
yond that, you can see shutting down or closing off as
an opportunity to wake up. Spinning off when things
are painful or pleasant presents an opportunity to
practice lojong. You have good instructions on what
to do with pain, breathing it in, becoming more inti-
mate and making friends with it; you have instruc-
tions on what to do with pleasure, sending it out,
giving away what you are most unwilling to lose. In
this way we can begin to know the pain of others and
wish for others to have happiness, using the joy and
pleasure of our lives not as problems but as tools for
benefiting others.
The Big Squeeze
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The next slogan is “Don’t expect applause,” which
means “Don’t expect thanks.” This is important.
When you open the door and invite all sentient be-
ings as your guests, and not only that, but you also
open the windows, and the walls even start falling
down, you find yourself in the universe with no pro-
tection at all. Now you’re in for it. If you think that
just by doing that you are going to feel good about
yourself, and you are going to be thanked right and
left—no, that won’t happen. More than to expect
thanks, it would be helpful just to expect the unex-
pected; then you might be curious and inquisitive
about what comes in the door. We can begin to open
our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting
anything back. We just do it for its own sake.
On the other hand, it’s good to express our grati-
tude to others. It’s helpful to express our appreciation
of others. But if we do that with the motivation of
wanting them to like us, we can remember this slo-
gan. We can thank others, but we should give up all
hope of getting thanked back. Simply keep the door
open without expectations.
There is also a slogan that says “Don’t misinterpret.”
Don’t impose the wrong notion of what harmony is,
what compassion is, what patience is, what generos-
ity is. Don’t misinterpret what these things really are.
There is compassion and there is idiot compassion;
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The Big Squeeze

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there is patience and there is idiot patience; there is
generosity and there is idiot generosity. For example,
trying to smooth everything out to avoid confronta-
tion, not to rock the boat, is not what’s meant by com-
passion or patience. It’s what is meant by control.
Then you are not trying to step into unknown terri-
tory, to find yourself more naked with less protection
and therefore more in contact with reality. Instead,
you use the idiot forms of compassion and so forth
just to get ground. When you open the door and in-
vite in all sentient beings as your guests, you have to
drop your agenda. Many different people come in.
Just when you think you have a little scheme that is
going to work, it doesn’t work. It was very beneficial
to Juan, but when you tried it on Mortimer, he looked
at you as if you were crazy, and when you try it on
Juanita, she gets insulted.
Coming up with a formula won’t work. If you invite
all sentient beings as your guests while just wanting
harmony, sooner or later you’ll find that one of your
guests is behaving badly and that just sitting there
cheerfully doing your tonglen and trying to cultivate
harmony doesn’t work.
So you sit there and you say, “Okay, now I’m going
to make friends with the fact that I am hurting and
afraid, and this is really awful.” But you are just trying
to avoid conflict here; you just don’t want to make
things worse. Then all the guests are misbehaving;
you work hard all day and they just sit around, smok-