Lojong #4

#4) Self-liberate even the antidote.

Osho:
"Now please don't cling to the remedy, to the method... Methods are dangerous only if you are unaware. Otherwise they can be used beautifully. Do you think a boat is dangerous? It is dangerous if you are thinking to carry it on your head for the rest of your life, out of sheer gratitude. Otherwise it is just a raft to be used and discarded.

My approach is : use the boat, use beautiful boats, use as many boats as possible, with this awareness: when the shore is reached the boat is abandoned with no clinging. While you are in the boat, enjoy it, be thankful to it. When you get out of the boat, say thank you and move on."

Alan Wallace:
"The next verse of the root text continues on the subject of ultimate bodhicitta*, or realizing the nature of reality, as a practice during meditation sessions. The direct realization of ultimate truth is the fundamental antidote and ultimate healer of the distortions that afflict the mind. The author is saying that even this realization itself is "liberated in its own place." And here "liberated" means lacking intrinsic existence. Even the notion of ultimate truth is itself devoid of inherent existence."

*Bodhicitta - "Enlightenment Mind." Bodhicitta is the desire to win enlightenment not ultimately for oneself but for the benefit of all beings. This is a key concept within the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions with their emphasis on compassion. Many Buddhists seek to generate Bodhicitta as a means of developing compassion for all living beings without exception.

If you missed the explanation of the lojong sayings and tonglen meditation, click here.