Lojong Slogan 9: In all activities train with slogans

Pretty much anything we do can be joined with slogan practice. If you study and memorize the slogans, you will find that slogans appropriate to the occasion will pop up on their own. You can find ways to remind yourself, as well. You could keep a set of slogan cards on your desk, which you could buy or create in your own style. You could read and study the many commentaries on the practice.

Once you understand the underlying point—to increase loving-kindness and concern for others and to decrease self-absorption and ego fixation—you can make up our own slogan. One suited to where you feel most stuck.

Slogan practice is practical. It applies to everything that we do. There is guidance for meditation practice as well as for all the hassles of daily life. Slogan practice applies to the times when we drop our guard, and we see where we are really coming from. It applies to how we are, as opposed to how we think we should be. The point of mind training is not to smooth everything out, but to work with what is not smooth. It is to work with what is challenging, embarrassing, intense, and confusing. Slogan practice is an uncovering process. It includes everything! In whatever we do, it is possible to flip our perspective from self to other.

~Judy Lief

We have been using this technique all the time, throughout our practice. Particularly in Dharmic environments, whenever we have a wall we post the slogans in order to remind ourselves of them.

The point is to catch the first thought... The idea is that in catching the first thought, that first thought should have some words.

In this case, whenever you feel that quality of me-ness, whenever you feel "I" - and maybe "am" as well - then you should think of these two sayings:

[1] May I receive all evils; may my virtues go to others.

[2] Profit and victory to others; loss and defeat to myself.

...

It takes quite a lot of effort because it is a big job. That is why it is called the Mahayana [big vehicle], it is a big deal. You cannot fall asleep when you are driving on this big highway...

~From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa

Use Sayings to Train in All Forms of Activity

All the time, repeat these or other suitable sayings and cultivate these attitudes vigorously. From Shantideva:

• While their evil ripens in me, May all my virtue ripen in them. From the oral advice of the Kadampa tradition:

• I offer all gain and victory to the lords, all sentient beings.

• I take all loss and defeat for myself. From Gyal-se Tokme's teachings:

• While all the suffering and evil of all sentient beings ripens in me, May all my happiness and virtue ripen in them.

~From The Great Path of Awakening : An Easily Accessible Introduction for Ordinary People by Jamgon Kongtrul, translated by Ken McLeod.

In All Activities Train With Words

In this final verse of the second point, we are encouraged to recite phrases in accord with the practice of taking and sending, particularly when we are alone. For example, Sechibuwa suggests the words, "May the suffering of all sentient beings be drawn to me." Keep in mind that this means "be drawn to my own self-centeredness, that it may be vanquished." Another example he offers is, "By my joy may all beings experience joy." The point of uttering such words is to saturate the mind and the heart in these thoughts for the cultivation of relative bodhicitta.

~Excerpted from: The Seven-Point Mind Training(first published as A Passage from Solitude: Training the Mind in a Life Embracing the World), by B. Alan Wallace.

Practice Every Activity by These Words.

Whatever we do, we should always practice according to these teachings. Whether we are sleeping, eating, walking, or meditating, we can maintain the practice of giving happiness and taking on misery. No matter what else we are doing, we are always breathing, so we can always continue the meditation in conjunction with the breath from our heart.

The correct motivation for every action is essential. For instance, we should not eat merely to satisfy our hunger. Rather, by remembering that this action is also a method of helping other beings, we should feel that we are eating in order to maintain strength, prolong our life, and thereby be able to fulfill our aspiration of benefiting others. In this way eating becomes a part of Mahayana practice. In fact, all our daily activities can be worthwhile if we use them with a similar motivation.

If we are now young and in good health, we should use our energy for inner development so that one day we may be in a position truly to benefit others. If we have the opportunity to meditate, we should not waste our time on frivolous activities. If a businessman from a country where there are few consumer items visits another country where such things are available, he should buy as many he can while he is in that favorable situation. If he returns home empty- handed he will have missed his opportunity and will continue to lack what he needs. Similarly, if we fail to take Dharma instructions to heart, the time we have spent hearing or reading them will have been wasted.

~Excerpted from Advice from a Spiritual Friend by Geshe Rabten and Geshe Dhargey translated by Brian Beresford

In All Your Actions, Train Yourself With Maxims

An example of these maxims would be: 'May the evil deeds of others ripen as my suffering; may all my virtuous acts bear fruit as others' happiness.' This is what the Kadampa masters always used to recite. It is good to repeat such verses in the post-meditation period. Moreover, praying like this will be even more beneficial before a precious object like the Jowo Rinpoche in Lhasa or in the presence of the Lama. If we do so, Bodhicitta is sure to grow in us and therefore we should devote much time and energy to this practice.

~From Enlightened Courage, by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.