Free Download | The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care

The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care Rhythms, Routines, and Home Remedies for Natural Healing Discover the best way to care for yourself with a free self-care download from The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care by Kate O’Donnell. Embrace Ayurveda to become a more integrated, whole, and healthy version of yourself. With this offering you will learn basic Ayurvedic principles, discover evening practices to nurture sleep, and learn seven new recipes to support your body through times of stress, illness, poor digestion, and recovery. Uplift your physical health and state of mind with this free offering! Access and download the pdf here. Related Books

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Flux of Flowers: Notes on Love

Notes on Practice, Love, and Social Action Excerpt from The World Comes to You Love 1 By love, I don’t mean just between people—I mean a love for invention, architecture, neighborhoods, water, whales, soil, technology, farmers, etc. I’m talking about a love that doesn’t leave anything out. When we look deeply at the physical world, all we find are relationships. So we need to take care of those relationships because that’s what you are. Did you think you were something else? How do we cultivate a life where we don’t make ourselves separate from things? In doing so, we stop seeing them as “things.” We stop turning ourselves into things, and others into things. We have to go to a place deep within. Otherwise you end up running around. Which is really just trying to get other people to love you. But trying to get other people to love you is actually the biggest obstacle to itself because it blocks other people from really being allowed to see you—because you don’t know who you are since you’re running around. All of this is a way of talking about love. Love 2 In relationship, we can’t help but relate the other person to images we have of how things should be. We want them to meet our unconscious images of what a relationship looks like, of mutual duties and responsibilities, of entrance and exit lines. But nobody can ever fit that image—it’s impossible. Over time a person starts to break through the image as they move toward us, and we have to enlarge our view of the other, and that’s when relationship begins to happen. But what tends to occur is that we stick to our assumptions, we tighten up around our image of them, and they’re also working with their image of us, so there are these two image makers creating images of each other, trying to do whatever they can to hold on to the image of the person. And we depend on each other’s image making. We like the image they offer of ourselves, and they like the image we offer. And we’re not fully ourselves. To really be able to appreciate the differences, rather the similarities, between ourselves and others means a plurality of stories and images can exist simultaneously. Then we can allow our definitions of ourselves to be fluid and flexible and responsive and creative. Then it’s possible to be two together and not to be one. What we call one is really the difference between two people, not their summation. Miles Davis and Chet Baker both play trumpet and there’s nothing interesting about that fact. What’s interesting is that Miles Davis and Chet Baker play so differently within the same genre, with the same instrument, in the same cities and halls and theaters, with the same audiences sometimes, but one is Miles Davis and one is Chet Baker. Why can’t we do our relationships like this? Where we really celebrate each other’s differences, in a way that’s not just political affect or a good new-age feeling, is via a commitment to freedom. I start to feel free when I work to guarantee a space where you can be free. It can be hard to relate to people who are in their eccentric selves because they don’t operate within an idiom that we’ve created for them, they don’t fit, and in their not-fitting there’s samadhi. The not-fitting is oneness, it is intimacy, and the opposite scenario, where we’re just relating inside this small world of what’s the same as us, is merger, is codependence. It’s ultimately dangerous because it shrinks our world and our hearts and our bodies. We have a child who is autistic. His therapist, whose focus is fostering dynamic relationship building, uses a technique to harness attention, to encourage our son to visually reference us, and him. The technique involves doing something unexpected. The first time the therapist visited our home and was introducing us to the approach he uses, he stopped mid-stair and fell slowly into the wall. His body went rigid, his eyes were still. Carina and I thought for a moment that he’d had a stroke. We nearly panicked! He explained after that what he’d done was to (dramatically) force us to check in, to reference the situation. He was demonstrating a way of interrupting our expectations to harness our awareness. He got our attention by doing something out of the ordinary. The space that this opens is the possibility for anything, or anyone, to exist. Love 3 The problem with being dissatisfied is not that you’re dissatisfied; the problem is everything that you add onto it. I like to call this dukkha-dukkha, or suffering about suffering. In other words, the problem with a sense of lack isn’t that you feel that you’re missing something, it’s that you’re trying to fill it. Because the self is actually an impermanent empty phenomenon that is constructed moment to moment, there is always going to be the experience of lack, because it’s not built on anything. So when we’re clinging as a self, we’re always going to experience this sense of being dissatisfied. Sometimes we feel this and sometimes we don’t, but it is built into human life. Instead of being freaked out when it shows up, we could instead say hello. Your life is so precious because it’s so fragile. Like animals whose lives are dependent on so many factors in the ecosystem, we too are dependent on so many contingencies. We forget this because we just turn on a tap for water; if survival is easy and accessible, we can forget that our life is so fragile. And it’s changing. It’s changing all the time and there isn’t anything that flows with change except for love. Love is the fluid quality that can work with impermanence. Love is water. Put another way, if you were a good Buddhist academic, you might see love as the integration of emptiness and compassion. Whatever you think exists never exists the way you think it does. On the other hand, this generates a sense of openness toward experience because you don’t know what it is—perhaps this is the key in relationship: remembering that you don’t know who the other person is. They hardly know themselves! They’re trying to figure out who they are too. Maybe the best thing we can do in our relationships so that love shows up is to not depend on other people to be who we think they are. (Even though this is impossible.) Love 4 We try so hard to feel pleasure and minimize pain. And if you hold on to something too tightly, love has no room to breathe. I learn this every day. Grasping is the enemy of intimacy. Letting go of grasping is another way of talking about love. Love is what arises in the absence of grasping. I think of this as an embodied love. I cannot define what love is, but I can use the term to describe awakening. Awakening is the practice of loving something so deeply that it inspires action without grasping. First, though, we need to stop and get calm. Without a calm inner body, love is frenetic, sticking to things, personalizing, holding on for dear life. Can you fall in love without clinging? I don’t know. But I think a deeper experience of love happens in relationship when there is an absence of clinging. Sometimes we confuse the clinging with the love. But we experience a deeper kind of love when it comes from the background rather than when we try to shape it in the foreground. It starts in the morning when I sit still. I explore feeling the breath without sculpting it in any way. I hope I can be a father and a husband in the same way. To be with others allowing them room to be who and what they are, to change, to grow or cut their hair, to gain or walk away from a job, to express their frustrations or offer something I didn’t know I needed. People surprise us. People are so unexpected. You can never know someone fully. You can never fully know yourself. To live in accordance with how things really are means carving a life out of what is changing, what is unreliable, what will fail us. When Carina and I met, it took three months for me to hold her hand in public. I was so dismantled by my separation some years earlier that my arms and hands didn’t yet know how to embrace again, especially on the sidewalk, in the light of day, where things seem more real than at home in private. I wanted my relationship to stay private. I’d say this to Carina and the look on her face was always a mixture of sad and patient. She knew there was deep care there and knew it would take time for me to find confidence again. Her patience made room for hand holding, but it took a while. Whatever mess you find yourself in is just another site of practice. Nothing about this is average. Look, the blooming lotus flower. Look, the hardened heart. Look, the pain in my chest when I inhale into that old image of my lover dying, my father getting ill, the job I didn’t get. Practice says yes, I can be intimate with that. Love ∞ We are all going to die. Or, knowing one another is very precious. At the moment of death the only thing that really matters is the condition of your heart. Our lives are so short and that’s the amazing thing about the world. It doesn’t last. Our bodies are wondrous because they’re vulnerable. Our relationships are profound and difficult and joyous and tragic because we’re vulnerable and our relationships don’t last Share Related Books Michael Stone (1974–2017) was a prominent and innovative Buddhist teacher, yogi, psychotherapist, and author. He was the founder and director of the Centre of Gravity Sangha, a community of yoga and Buddhist practitioners based in Toronto, and he taught widely and had a large international following. Learn more.

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Herbal Remedies for Radiant Health | Free Download

Natural Woman ENTER YOUR EMAIL TO RECEIVE YOUR 5 FREE HERBAL REMEDIES FROM NATURAL WOMAN. Plant medicines are a woman’s ally to achieve optimal health; they bring balance and nourishment to daily life and can reduce or eliminate symptoms of physical and emotional distress. Download 5 free herbal remedies and start 2020 off with a healthy immune system, restful sleep, proper digestion, and an herbal soak to keep on hand for anxiety, depression, or fatigue. Two recipes also come with child-friendly modifications for parents and caregivers. Dr. Leslie Korn brings over forty years of experience in numerous herbal traditions and healing modalities, offering timeless wisdom. Support a healthy body, mind, and spirit with recipes using common and easy-to-obtain herbs. Email Address * First Name *     *You are agreeing to receive promotional messages from Shambhala Publications. You may unsubscribe at any time. Share

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Accessible Yoga Exercise

The following is an excerpt from Accessible Yoga By Jivana Heyman Finding the Essence of a Pose Asana (the Sanskrit word for yoga pose) is just one part of yoga, but it’s an important part, and it can be made accessible to everyone who is interested. The question everyone has is, “How do I start? How do I find a way into a practice that seems so physically challenging?” The answer is to start where you are. When you consider practicing a new yoga pose, it’s easy to look at the “full expression” of the pose and think, “I’ll never be able to do that.” The fact is, the full expression of a pose—or an advanced variation—isn’t actually better than any other variation. Remember, peace of mind is the goal of yoga, and physical ability does not correlate to peace of mind. Someone who is strong and flexible is not necessarily more peaceful. To practice yoga, we need to understand the relationship between its physical practices and the subtle practices such as relaxation, breathing, and meditation. In fact, in yoga, more subtle is more powerful. Asana practice creates an opportunity for the mind to get quiet, but your ability to quiet your mind is not the result of how “advanced” the pose you’re doing is; it’s actually the result of how focused you are. It’s not what you do, but how you do it. My first yoga teacher, Kazuko, also happened to be a master of the Japanese tea ceremony. She showed me how the seemingly simple act of making a cup of tea can be turned into an art form and a spiritual practice. It wasn’t the complexity or difficulty of making the tea that made it special. On the contrary, it was the simplicity of the practice and the ability to stay completely focused in the present moment that was key. The same is true in yoga. This present moment awareness can also help us find that balance between stretching and straining in our practice. Pushing too hard in asana and practicing variations that are too advanced can move us away from the goal of yoga. Similarly, giving up and thinking, “I’ll never be able to do that pose” misses the point. For example, think of Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana), where you lie facedown on the ground and raise your head, neck, and chest. If you look at images of Cobra Pose on social media, you’ll probably think, “Forget it!” This is a shame because it is one of the poses that offers benefit for almost everyone. So what can you do? If you can’t get down on the floor, does that mean you can’t practice Cobra Pose? No, because there are endless variations of this asana, including practicing in a chair, kneeling, standing, or lying in bed. In fact, there are as many variations of Cobra Pose as there are people practicing it. So the way to start practicing a new pose is to consider, “Why do this practice, and what are the benefits?” Cobra Pose has many benefits, but let’s focus on two main ones. It is great for posture, since it strengthens the upper back and moves the spine in the opposite direction of our normal slouching position. It is also a heart-opener, which means it expands the area of the chest around the heart and allows us to expose our emotional heart to the world. Try It: Creating Cobra Pose First, think of the energetic movements of Cobra Pose, including expanding the chest and strengthening the upper back. How can you create the experience of the pose where you are right now? Begin by trying to experience Cobra Pose in your mind. Imagine lengthening your spine and creating a gentle arch in your upper back and neck. Then see if you can experience it in a very gentle way in your body by slowly moving into that shape and expanding the area around your heart. These can be micromovements that are barely visible to the eye. Notice all the sensations you experience in your body; notice what your breath is doing. Then rest and notice how you feel after practicing that pose. The moment after you do a practice is very important. Always take a moment after each pose to notice how you feel: what changed physically, emotionally, and mentally? Ways to Adapt Use Props Using props may be the most important way that we can make asana accessible. I know that in some public yoga classes the use of props can be discouraged, or there may be a stigma related to props that keeps people from using them. However, props offer so many benefits that it’s challenging to think of reasons not to use them! Props can support our efforts to find the essence of the asana. First we ask, “What am I working toward experiencing in the pose? What muscle groups need to lift and are working in the pose, and what muscle groups are releasing and relaxing in the pose?” It can take time to find this yourself. First, let’s consider some of the reasons to use props and how they can support, and even deepen, your asana practice. Props Can Raise the Floor Our favorite prop, the ground, is an essential element of asana practice. Every time you practice on a mat, you use the ground as a partner in your practice. It offers support, resistance, and even a massage to the internal organs. Most yoga practitioners don’t realize they are already using props when they practice on the smooth floor of a yoga studio, the grass of a park, or the sand of a beach. They also don’t realize they’re using a prop—a yoga mat—to help with grip and stability. To assist in making asana more accessible, it can be helpful to raise the floor to us rather than always reaching down toward the floor. This is also the purpose of a chair or a bed—they bring the floor to us. Related Books Try It: Practice Chair Mountain Pose Sit tall in a chair and notice the position of your thighs. If your knees are lower than your hips, try placing a folded blanket under your feet to make your thighs parallel to the floor. In this way you are raising the floor to your feet rather than lowering your feet to the floor. If your knees are higher than your hips, try placing a blanket under your buttocks to sit higher. Share Jivana Heyman, C-IAYT, E-RYT500, is the founder and director of Accessible Yoga, an international non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings for people of all abilities and backgrounds. Accessible Yoga offers two Conferences per year, which focus on community-building and education, as well as a popular Ambassador program and Accessible Yoga Trainings. Jivana is co-owner of the Santa Barbara Yoga Center and an Integral Yoga Minister. For over twenty-five years Jivana has specialized in teaching yoga to people with disabilities with an emphasis on social engagement. Find out more about Jivana's work at www.accessibleyoga.org. Learn more.

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Q&A with Leslie Korn of Natural Woman

Herbal Remedies for Radiant Health at Every Age and Stage of Life Leslie Korn Answers Our Top 10 Questions About Plant Medicine and Natural Woman Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, is a licensed clinician specializing in mental health nutrition, herbal medicine, and integrative medicine for mental health and the physical symptoms of traumatic stress. Her book, Natural Woman, is a go-to herbal sourcebook that gives women the tools to thrive throughout their lives, with remedies using common herbs and plants to support a healthy body, mind, and spirit. How did you first begin learning about herbal remedies? I was fortunate to travel to the jungle of Mexico, where there was no doctor, at the age of 20. That was where I discovered plant medicine. I was even more fortunate to get sick with so many things that I turned to the local herbalists and curanderas, my neighbors and the women who became my friends and colleagues, and they shared with me their knowledge of plant medicines. Together we started a health center that we ran for over 25 years. 2. What is the role of woman as herbal healer? It is said that it wasn’t the apple that Eve ate (our first woman healer of the Judeo Christian religion) but Amanita Muscaria, which led her to experience the goddess within and introduce Adam to self awareness. Women are natural explorers, adventurers, tasters, and testers. In all cultures around the world women are herbalists and shamans, gathering and preparing foods for healing. Wherever we live and work we continue to share our wisdom as healers. 3. Are plant medicines safe? Yes, plant medicines are very safe. It is very rare that there are problems with using plant medicines. However, let’s explore the rare circumstances in which one needs to be aware and careful. Because plants are medicinal they have the power to interact with pharmaceutical medications or nutrients. So one should explore these interactions in advance of adding in medicinal plants. Occasionally people can be allergic to certain plants or have a reaction if applying some oils topically to the skin. Overall we approach herbs and plants as we do everything for our self care: we explore options, understand our individuality, and research possible side effects. 4. How is plant medicine different from modern-day pharmaceuticals? Many modern-day pharmaceuticals are actually rooted in plant medicine. Many discoveries in the plant world led to development of these medications. However most of the time an "active substance"—believed to be the major compound effecting a physical or mental change—was identified with its potency enhanced and often synthesized. While this often leads to positive effects, it also often causes harmful side effects. In contrast, nature has given us plants that combine many active substances and co factors that work together to create change that, like nature, is slow but sure, and rarely has side effects. 5. Are there herbs that combat anxiety and depression? Yes, there are many effective herbs that have the benefit of avoiding the side effects of pharmaceuticals. Some of my favorites are kava for anxiety; the combination of valerian, hops, and passionflower for anxiety, stress, and sleep; and St. John’s wort for depression. Another gentle-giant herb is skullcap, known for helping reduce anxious depression. Rhodiola extract is a wonderful energizing and mood-boosting substitute when I want to reduce my coffee intake. 6. What is your go-to general health recipe for someone just starting to explore natural remedies? I love to start by making herb teas for relaxation and even foot baths. Chamomile is a favorite. I add it to a smoothie to help me sleep. I have a recipe in the book called a Cherry Chamomile Smoothie that combines the benefits of chamomile and cherries to aid sleep. It's safe for people of all ages and also yummy as a bedtime snack. 7. What are the top three herbs or plants that everyone should have in their medicine cabinet? Gee, that’s like asking the top 3 foods in your fridge! Well, if I had to choose, I like chamomile, peppermint, and roselle. They all function in different ways. Chamomile will reduce pain, soothe a belly ache, and help you relax and sleep. It’s a beverage and a medicine that is safe for all ages. Peppermint will energize you, relieve a headache, and aid digestion. Drinking peppermint tea after a meal helps reduce gas and aids digestion. Inhaling a little essential oil if you have a headache or feel fatigued helps as well. Roselle is less commonly known. It is rich in vitamin C, is bright red and thus an antioxidant. It is a beverage that can be drunk hot or cold, added to smoothies, and is well known to reduce coughing. All three plants taste delicious and can be used as teas and in foods and are safe for children and adults. 8. Do you have a ritual that you always do to close out each year? It’s time to gather friends and family close and celebrate the darkening of the light as we look inward. For these occasions, I prepare a special elixir or cordial, which can be found in Natural Woman. Cordials are made with fresh plants, and elixirs are made with dried herbs. The word cordial refers to the heart—think of being cordial to someone. The holidays are a perfect time to share cordials. I love a fennel licorice cordial; during our celebrations we can over do it with too much food or varieties. This is a warming cordial for the winter months, yet also soothing and stimulating for digestion. It opens the heart (it also quiets heart burn!) and is a perfect drink to share. Plus it's medicinal, so children can taste a few drops if they wish. 9. What do you see in the future of plant medicines? Women have had plants in our hands and pots, slathered plant pulp on our bodies, and inhaled their smoke for our minds and spirit since our arrival on earth. Plant medicines will continue to guide us toward greater health in our lives physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We recognize the limitations and side effects of pharmaceuticals and this requires that we revisit and embrace the wisdom of our ancestors and bridge that with the knowledge we have garnered in the 21st century. 10. What do you hope people will take away from Natural Woman? My hope is that women of all ages will learn about how plant medicines can be incorporated into daily life for prevention and also to help or heal many types of distress and illness. At the same time, plants give us culinary and sensory pleasure, and provide a path by which we can explore our deepest hopes and dreams as individuals and in community. Share Related Books Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, served as a Fulbright scholar on traditional medicine, a Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School, and a National Institutes of Health–funded research scientist in mind/body medicine. In 1975, she founded the Center for Traditional Medicine, a public health clinic in rural indigenous Mexico that she directed for over twenty-five years. Her website is drlesliekorn.com. Learn more.

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Help New Mothers Thrive | Free Download

The Fourth Trimester Cards ENTER YOUR EMAIL TO RECEIVE YOUR 10 FREE CARDS FROM THE FOURTH TRIMESTER CARD DECK. Help new mothers thrive with The Fourth Trimester Cards! The postpartum time can be one of bonding, restoration, and health, yet many new mothers feel isolated and lonely as they learn to care for a new baby. The Fourth Trimester Cards are designed as an easy-to-use resource for new mothers and the people who love them. Each one shares essential tools for healing the body, balancing the emotions, finding support, and strengthening relationships from Kimberly Ann Johnson—a birth doula, postpartum care advocate, and single mom. Download 10 free cards now for yourself or to share with your daughters, sisters, and friends as we support new moms during this sensitive time. Email Address * First Name     *You are agreeing to receive promotional messages from Shambhala Publications and Kimberly Ann Johnson. You may unsubscribe at any time. SHARE

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The Importance of the Ornament of Mahayana Sutras

One of the Five Maitreya Treatises—the five texts imparted to Asanga by the bodhisattva Maitreya—the Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras (in Sankrit the Mahayanasutralamkara, often shortened to Sutralamkara) presents explanations of bodhisattva motivation, meditation, conduct, and fruition as expounded in the Mahayana sutras as well as demonstrating the superiority of the Mahayana.  In English, the verses fill about 130 pages. Quite simply, the Sutralamkara is one of the most important texts in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions and is immensely important for practitioners and scholars to know intimately. So just what is this text which is quoted everywhere but few have read? Mipham Rinpoche, paraphrasing Asanga's brother Vasubandu's student Sthiramati, says that this text: . . .explains all the profound and extensive practices of the bodhisattvas, which can be summarized under three headings: what to train in, how to train, and who is training. The first of these, what one trains in, can be condensed into seven objects in which one trains: one’s own welfare, others’ welfare, thatness, powers, bringing one’s own buddha qualities to maturity, bringing others to maturity, and unsurpassable perfect enlightenment. How one trains is in six ways: by first developing a great interest in the teachings of the Great Vehicle, investigating the Dharma, teaching the Dharma, practicing the Dharma in accord with the teachings, persevering in the correct instructions and follow-up teachings, and imbuing one’s physical, verbal, and mental activities with skillful means. Those who train are the bodhisattvas, of whom there are ten categories: those who are of the bodhisattva type, those who have entered the Great Vehicle, those with impure aspirations, those with pure aspirations, those whose aspirations are not matured, those whose aspirations are matured, those with uncertain realization, those with certain realization, those who are delayed by a single birth, and those who are in their last existence. We have two translations of this text which both include the extensive and illuminating commentary by Mipham Rinpoche who based his long work on Sthiramati's famous commentary. The first, The Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sutras, was translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee includes the annotations by Khenpo Shenga, who derived them often directly from Vasubandu's commentary.  You can read our interview with Dharmachakra's Thomas Doctor which includes a short discussion of this text.     The second is The Feast of the Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group.  Ths has a very helpful introduction orienting the reader and giving important context.  It is also full of very helpful notes throughout.   Here is the translator from Padmakara, Stephen Gethin,  explaining the text.   It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this text in the Tibetan tradition. It was first translated from Sanskrit to Tibetan in the 8th century, at the time of Padmsambhava’s residence, by his disciple Kawa Peltsek. Atisha later taught it when he came to Tibet and refers to it repeatedly throughout his works.  Gampopa references it in his Jewel Ornament of Liberation. The great Sakya master Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub refers to it repeatedly in his Three Visions: Fundamental Teachings of the Sakya Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Virtually all the great masters of all the Tibetan traditions studied this work and its commentaries in depth. In short, the Sutralamkara has been central to the training of hundreds of thousands of practitioners and scholars and remains today a core component of all the curriculums in monasteries and shedras. Below are a few more examples showing just how fundamental it is and some ways it is used in later Buddhist literature. And these are a small sampling—this text appears everywhere. Jamgön Kongtrül brings it forth in his 10 volume Treasury of Knowledge. As an example, in Book Eight he relates how it is a core part of the Kadampa tradition, particularly the training in meditation. He then traces its lineage from Atisha's disciple Drontompa to Potawa to Langri Tampa and onwards to Tsongkhapa and into the present-day Gelug curriculum. He also uses it to prove the validity of the Mahayana. Tsongkhapa and into the present-day Gelug curriculum. He also uses it to prove the validity of the Mahayana. Tsongkahapa discusses the text throughout his Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path, the Lam Rim Chenmo. He uses it in the chapters for how to rely on a teacher; refuting misconceptions about meditation; on explaining the origin of suffering and emotions; the nature of the path leading to liberation, precepts and perfections; the paramita of perseverance, the perfection of wisdom, the gathering of disciples; and the various chapters on calm abiding meditation. Longchenpa refers to it throughout his works as pointed out repeatedly in Tulku Thondup's The Practice of Dzogchen. It appears also in the recent translation of Longchenpa's Finding Rest trilogy.  Dudjom Rinpoche brings it into his History of the Nyingma School throughout The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, in which he calls it the text that teaches “the integration of conduct and view.” He also refers to it repeatedly in A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom when he is explaining the nature of the six perfections. The most comprehensive work on the Nyingma tradition, the multi-volume masterwork by Choying Tobden Dorje, The Complete Nyingma Tradition, also extensively references it. In Brilliant Moon, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche relates how he and his brother received the instructions on the text. He also brings it up repeatedly in Heart of Compassion, his discussion of the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva; the power and strength of love; the perfection of wisdom; and the role emotions play to "destroy oneself, destroy others, and destroy discipline." He also mentions it in his biography of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, using phrases describing the nature of bodhisattvas to show how the latter was one. In his commentary on the 9th chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva that appears in The Center of the Sunlit Sky, the great Kagyu master Pawo Rinpoche—the student of the 8th Karmapa and teacher to the 9th—devotes thirteen pages to the Sutralamkara explaining how the text proves the validity and authenticity of the Mahayana.

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The Fruit of Tenderness | An Excerpt from Training in Tenderness

Benefiting Others When we carefully and diligently water our seed of tsewa, applying all the wisdom and skillful means we can gather, that seed will eventually grow into a magnificent tree bearing abundant fruit. This is the third metaphor in Chandrakirti’s homage to the tender heart. The fruit manifests as an ever-increasing desire and ability to benefit others. We can benefit beings in many ways—physically, emotionally, mentally—and we should always take advantage of any opportunity we have to help others. But the greatest benefit of all, the one we should set our sights on, is to help others awaken completely to the inexhaustible tenderness of their own hearts. When we can help people achieve their full potential of tsewa—when their tsewa reaches the stage where it flows with the power and grace of Niagara Falls—we have benefited them in the profoundest way possible. To achieve our full potential to benefit others in this way, we first have to do whatever it takes to open our own heart, further and further. As my mother used to say, “You have to make your heart so big you could hold a horse race inside of it.” When your heart is as big as it could possibly be, big enough to hold deep love for every sentient being in the universe, then you have reached the full blossoming of your enlightened nature. Because you have shed every remnant of self-clinging, your mind is completely and forever free of delusion. There is nothing to obscure your understanding of how beings suffer and how their minds can be transformed. Like the Buddha, you have reached a state where you can be the perfect guide for others. The greatest benefit of all, the one we should set our sights on, is to help others awaken completely to the inexhaustible tenderness of their own hearts. Becoming a Guide This doesn’t mean that you will be able to bring others to enlightenment without their own effort being involved and regardless of all other conditions. As it is said, even the buddhas can’t transport sentient beings to higher states of happiness as if tossing up a pebble. Everyone has their own impediments and their own karma. Even the most perfect guide can’t intervene in someone else’s karma and rearrange their life for them. If that were possible, it would already have happened for all of us, because the buddhas and bodhisattvas have no greater wish than to bring all beings to enlightenment. Reflecting on this will give us a more realistic idea about what we can do to benefit others. If fully enlightened beings are limited in this way, how much more limited are we at this stage? We have to come to terms with the fact that we can’t immediately help others to the degree and in the way we would like. On the other hand, there is a lot we can do, even when our tsewa is still impeded and our heart is not nearly as open as it will be one day. Just in itself, expanding our own tender heart brings benefit to others. By cultivating impartial, free-flowing warmth, we automatically orient ourselves to be in favor of anything that enhances the well-being of others and against anything that causes them suffering. The heart of tsewa naturally and continually expresses wishes on others’ behalf. We can’t see, in any obvious way, how and when these wishes actually benefit other beings, especially those who are far away. Nonetheless, our wishes do support them, especially when we wish for them to experience tsewa in their own lives, to be able to express their own warm heart and to receive that tenderness from others. When we think about beings who are undergoing great suffering, it is natural to feel helpless. For example, what can we do for a refugee family that has just crossed the Mediterranean on an overcrowded rubber boat and is now facing a precarious future? We could wish for these people, who have lost everything and gone through such a dangerous ordeal, to meet kind people, to find a nice home, and so on. These are certainly good wishes to make, but whether they come true will also be based on many other factors that will take a long time to play out. On the other hand, we can simply open our heart to them and wish for them to have an abundance of love and warmth in their lives and in their minds. We can further wish that this love gives them the resilience to overcome their challenges—the strength, ability, and resourcefulness to do what is necessary to live well. Just in itself, expanding our own tender heart brings benefit to others. Offering Merit I believe that this kind of wish has an immediate effect. It is similar to when you tell someone, “I’m thinking about you.” When you’re going through a difficult time, knowing that someone is thinking about you touches you and gives you strength. It makes you feel supported. Of course, in the case of the refugees, they’re not aware of our well-wishes. Even so, when we express love to people who are beyond the reach of our communication, there is some transmission of the energy of our tsewa. They do receive it, and it does make a difference. When we send tsewa to any beings in this world, near or far, human or nonhuman, our warm, purely positive energy touches them. It gives them more resilience to make it through whatever they have to endure and to overcome their karma sooner rather than later. When we make such a connection to other beings, they are no longer alone, no longer lost somewhere in the abyss of samsara, untouched by love. We have the ability to send others positive energy because we have accumulated a store of positive karma in our mindstream. Whenever we do anything on behalf of others, we sow a seed of positive karma that remains latent in our consciousness until the right conditions appear for it to ripen. First, the effect appears in our mind, and then it shows up in our external world. For example, when we act generously, we develop an internal feeling of wealth that is then reflected in our external world as increased abundance. In Buddhist terminology, this positive karma is known as “merit.” We accumulate merit whenever our physical deeds, our speech, or our thoughts are oriented to the welfare of others. In other words, we accumulate merit when our body, speech, and mind are in sync with tsewa. If we use the merit we have accumulated to satisfy the self that we cling to out of delusion, our store will rapidly diminish, and our heart will become tighter and tighter. This is because focusing on the singular, isolated self is the antithesis of tsewa. The positive actions we have done in the past will continue to bear their fruit, but if we don’t continue to keep our heart open to others, we will only accumulate negativity. Our precious merit will be wasted on pleasant experiences that are fleeting and ultimately meaningless. Therefore, the best thing we can do with our merit is to offer it freely for the benefit of others. Whenever you do anything meritorious, no matter how small, you can make a conscious wish that the positive energy from your action will have a vast effect, like an acorn growing into a giant oak tree. This is not a farfetched idea when we contemplate the interconnected nature of all things. Everything we do or even think has endless, rippling repercussions. For this reason, we don’t have to feel helpless about benefiting others. We always have something to give. By sending your merit to others, you are not losing anything yourself. On the contrary, the more merit you offer to others, the more your heart opens; the more your heart opens, the more positive your actions become; the more positive your actions become, the more merit you accumulate and are able to offer. If we know how to work with merit, it becomes an infinitely self-replenishing fuel that will eventually take us and others all the way to enlightenment. When we dedicate our merit to others, however, we need to believe that it actually reaches them. This requires faith because we can’t literally see the results of our wishes. We don’t know how or when the effects take place. It is said that only the buddhas can see the vast workings of cause and effect. We who have a more limited view of karma can only trust that our merit is helping others, without knowing all the specifics. Having such trust is a much more positive attitude than thinking we can’t be making a difference for others unless we can see how cause and effect are operating on a physical level. That is an extremely limited vision of what we can do. Closing down to that kind of limitation is also philosophically narrow-minded, for how is it essentially different from thinking that nothing in the world exists beyond what we can see with our own eyes? If we know how to work with merit, it becomes an infinitely self-replenishing fuel that will eventually take us and others all the way to enlightenment. The Power of Thought We are often skeptical about the power of thought. This is strange because we are always struggling with our own thoughts. Most of us are more scared of our own mind than of anything else. We’re scared of our anger, our reactions, our confusion. To be scared of them, we have to believe that they are powerful. Yet at the same time, we can be so skeptical about the power of our good wishes and compassionate thoughts on behalf of others. Even if miracles happen as a result of our prayers, we can keep insisting on our skepticism, finding other explanations. This is how we tend to undermine our strength and get caught up in low self-esteem. Your body is limited in where it can go and be. You may spend all day within the walls of your workplace and all night within the walls of your house. And within those walls, there are few other sentient beings. But your mind and heart have no boundaries. Our connections with others are not limited by walls. Nor are our responsibilities limited to those we see in our daily lives. It is true that we may have more immediate responsibilities to our families and those who directly depend on us, but if our bigger vision is bodhichitta, the wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, then our responsibility is to all beings. While taking care of those who are close to us, we need to open our heart further to those outside of this small circle. In this life, we have a close karmic connection to some beings, while the overwhelming majority we never see or have any contact with. But if we keep in mind that all beings are identical in wanting to be happy and free from suffering, we can diminish our habitual distinction between near and far. In this way, we can keep strengthening and expanding our feeling of being connected to everyone suffering in samsara, until our longing to benefit others becomes so powerful that it overshadows all our self-centered or narrow-minded wishes. As your heart opens and your actions become more and more oriented to the benefit of others, you will accumulate tremendous merit that you can harness for the purpose of benefiting individuals, groups of beings, and eventually all sentient beings. You should also dedicate your merit for your own enlightenment, so that you may swiftly become the perfect guide to help others realize their innate, selfless, tender heart. By directing your positive karma in these ways, you will automatically create connections and situations in which you will be able to benefit others in the future—if not in this life, then in future lives. You will lay the groundwork for being able to bring all beings, one by one, to the full realization of their enlightened nature. This is the magnificent fruit of tsewa. Related Books Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche is the founder of Mangala Shri Bhuti, an organization established to foster the practice of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. His previous books include Light Comes Through, It’s Up to You, and The Intelligent Heart. Find out more about the author here.

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