Welcome to the study guide for the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, one of the core texts of the Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Though it was written by a 14th-century Tibetan monk, Togme Zangpo, we still study it centuries later and halfway across the world because it continues to speak directly to our experience.
If you’d like to explore the study guide, I recommend starting here with the brief orientation. This website is in blog format so there’s no table of contents per se, but it’s easy to navigate once you get going.
14. To repay slander with love / how to use disgrace on the path
If someone slanders me and spreads the word, / Maligning me throughout the universe,
To pay them back I fill my heart with love, / Extolling their good traits and character:
This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
verse 14 audio (click where the “play” button should be)
Once again, as in verses 12 and 13, Dilgo Khyentse begins his commentary by reminding us of the law of karma. “If someone defames and disgraces you, that is simply the result of having criticized and dishonored others in the past, especially bodhisattvas. Instead of feeling angry with such people you should feel grateful to them for giving you the opportunity to purify your past misdeeds.” This is a go-to remedy for the impulse to anger and retaliation when any kind of adversity strikes.
This verse corresponds to the worldly concern of fame versus disgrace. As long as we care what others think of us, we will be sensitive about our reputation and reflexively defend ourselves. Dilgo Khyentse tells two stories of practitioners who, rather than defend themselves publicly, took blame for negative actions they didn’t commit. In both cases the situation was eventually resolved, though we may not be able to count on that; the practitioners remained calm and matter of fact without knowing the outcome.
13. To repay injury with acceptance / how to use suffering on the path
Though I’ve not done the slightest thing that’s wrong, / Without a cause someone cuts off my head.
To generate compassion in my heart / And take upon myself all their misdeeds:
This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
verse 13 audio
Contemplation based on Ken McLeod‘s commentary: “Drop any concern for justice and fairness. These are ideals, ideas that your patterns easily twist and shape to their own ends. Practice goes nowhere if you follow this path. You are soon lost in interpretation, conceptual thinking, unacknowledged prejudice and bias.”
What does Ken mean by this, and do you think he is right? Should we ever intervene in situations to combat unfairness or abuse? If so, how can we do it without compromising our practice?
Homework: Be vigilant for the feeling that you are being treated unfairly. Catch it as soon as it arises, analyze the situation according to the verse 13 commentaries, and apply the remedy.
12. To repay theft with generosity / how to use loss on the path
If someone driven by intense desire / Steals all my wealth or instigates the theft,
To dedicate to them from all three times / My wealth, good deeds, and merit, everything:
This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
audio of verse 12
Bodhisattva Boot Camp begins!
For an overview of this section of the 37 practices, verses 12-19, read this. And with verse 12, we wade right into the quicksand.
Contemplation: Can you recall an instance where someone stole something from you, large or small, material or metaphorical? Perhaps your home was broken into and completely cleaned out, as in the verse. Perhaps it was a smaller or less concrete loss: your car or bicycle, your wallet or credit card, a precious object, a financial scam, someone cutting in front of you in traffic or stealing the parking space you were waiting for, someone else got the promotion or award you felt you deserved, someone used your idea and didn’t give you credit. What was your reaction at the time? How does it feel now?
In the bodhisattva boot camp verses, Togme Zangpo places us directly in dire situations designed to elicit our deepest habitual reactivity. Fortunately, he also provides the key in each situation to liberate ourselves from the corresponding habitual pattern and from the confusion and suffering of the karma that results from reinforcing it. According to Dilgo Khyentse, this set of verses is divided into several specific subsets.
Four things you do not want to happen (verses 12-15):
We’ve had a couple of weeks off while Chodron was traveling. Tomorrow, October 19, we’ll reconvene (live from Texas!) to complete our study of practice 11: to exchange our own happiness for others’ suffering. This is the crux of bodhisattva practice, and learning how to do this is the reason we are studying the 37 practices. All the rest of the practices follow from this. For the translation and audio of verse 11, click here.
In our first week on verse 11 (audio September 21), we reviewed Dilgo Khyentse’s commentary. Please read it at least two or three times before we move on to bodhisattva boot camp next week, and take it to heart, as it holds many keys to understanding and traveling the path of bodhisattva practice and complete awakening.
According to Dilgo Khyentse (pages 98 and 106), in practice 10 we cultivate aspiration bodhicitta, the wish for all beings to be happy and to be liberated from the confusion of samsara, which marks the beginning of the Mahayana path to full awakening (rather than the foundational but partial awakening for ourselves alone of verses 8 and 9). In practice 11 we set out on the path of action bodhicitta (aka application bodhicitta, aka engaged bodhicitta) by training in how to begin to bring this aspiration to realization through the practice of tong len, taking and sending meditation. Yes, meditation falls under the heading of action bodhicitta!
11. To exchange my happiness for others’ suffering
The source of every single suf-fer-ing / Is wishing for my happiness alone,
While focusing on others’ benefit / Gives rise to buddhahood, awakening.
Because of this to genuinely trade / My happiness for others’ suf-fer-ing:
This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
Verse 11 audio above.
For an overview of action bodhicitta, verses 11-30, visit here.
Meanwhile, you are here: Now that we have generated aspiration bodhicitta (verse 10), the wish to bring all beings to happiness and liberation, Togme Zangpo directs us to the specific practices of the Mahayana path, beginning in verse 11 with training in the basic underlying transaction that informs all the activities of body, speech, and mind of a bodhisattva: exchanging our happiness for others’ suffering through the practice of tong len, taking and sending. This will be the main tool in our bodhisattva toolbox, applicable to everything that arises in our experience from now on, and we need to hone it daily on the cushion (or chair) so it will be handy and sharp when we need it. (More on that in verses 12-19.)
My mothers, each and every sentient being, / Since time without beginning cared for me.
How can I be happy while they’re suf-fering? / I must get to work and set them free.
To cultivate the mind of full awake-ning: / This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
Verse 10 audio above. Audio for verses 8-10 is here.
With verse 10, we expand our two basic motivations for dharma practice — to gain freedom from suffering by refraining from harm to others, and to attain complete liberation because even the apparent happiness and pleasures of samsara don’t last and are suffering in disguise — to include all beings. This is the final and highest level of motivation for practice, the Mahayana or universal motivation, and the one from which the rest of the path unfolds.
Who are all these beings I am resolving to liberate? According to the traditional formula for arousing bodhicitta that we recite at the beginning of each teaching, they are “all sentient beings, whose numbers fill the extent of space.” How big is space? It is said to be infinite. This is a vast scope of intention!
Meditation: Let your attention come to rest, naturally or by following a few rounds of breathing, and then, as you breathe out, let your awareness relax to fill all of limitless, empty space. Rest like that for as long as you wish, and then:
Contemplation / Meditation: Imagine this vast, limitless space completely filled with sentient beings, each of whom has been like a loving mother to you in a previous lifetime. Envelop them all in your heartfelt love, wishing happiness for each and every one. Rest in that feeling of love pervading space for as long as you wish.
Like drops of dew upon each blade of grass / The three realms’ happiness evaporates.
In contrast, the supreme and highest state / Of liberation doesn’t ever change.
To strive in all my efforts just for that: / This is the way a bodhisattva trains.
Verse 8 audio above. Audio for verses 8-10 is here.
So…. in verse 8 we begin to practice the dharma in order to become free from the intense, outright sufferings of the three lower realms, which result from harmful actions motivated by the corresponding poisons of anger (hell realms), desire (hungry ghost realm) and ignorance (animal realm).
The motivation of verse 8 is the essential foundation for any progress on the path, and it’s important not to gloss over it. But the point of verse 9 is that as we begin to progress along the path, we realize that freedom from outright suffering isn’t enough — the kind of happiness, pleasure, and comfort samsara has to offer even in the higher realms of humans, gods, and not-quite-gods is in fact the three types of suffering in disguise. At the very least, the highs of samsaric happiness don’t last very long (this is the all-pervasive suffering of conditioned existence, that it is deteriorating moment by moment). At worst, they turn at some point from pleasure to pain (the suffering of change — our old friend, outright suffering, e.g., Hurricane Harvey, August 2017).
With this realization comes the second, middle level of motivation: to attain freedom not only from suffering but also from the entire cycle of confusion that is samsara —the good, the bad, and the ugly. In this verse, Togme Zangpo instructs himself (and us) to direct all efforts in this life toward “the supreme and highest state of liberation.” Yep, he said all!
