介绍:
79 Slogan: “Practice the three difficulties”
THE THREE DIFFICULTIES are acknowledging neurosis as neurosis, doing something different, and aspiring to continue practicing this way.
Acknowledging that we are all churned up is the first and most difficult step. Without recognition that we’re stuck, it’s impossible to liberate ourselves from confusion. “Doing something different” is anything that interrupts our strong tendency to spin out. We can let the story line go and connect with the underlying energy, do on-the-spot tonglen, remember a slogan, or burst into song—anything that doesn’t reinforce our crippling habits. The third difficult practice is to then remember that we need to keep doing the first two. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.
In essence the practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of revenge or self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines. Then we feel the bodily sensation completely. One way of doing this is to breathe it into our heart. By acknowledging the emotion, dropping whatever story we are telling ourselves about it, and feeling the energy of the moment, we cultivate maitri and compassion for ourselves. Then we could recognize that there are millions who are feeling the way we do and breathe in the emotion for all of us with the wish that we all be free of confusion and limiting habitual reactions. When we can recognize our own confusion with compassion, we can extend that compassion to others who are equally confused. In this step of widening the circle of compassion lies the magic of bodhichitta training.
