Julian of Norwich and Other Tibetan Lamas

Within the vast corpus of Tibetan Buddhist literature is a genre of writing that stands out for its inspiration power, poignant fervor, and down-to-earth practicality, all of which have made these teachings dear to the Tibetan people for generations. I am referring to a collection of texts and their associated spiritual practices known simply as ‘lojong,’ or ‘mind training,’ which first appeared in the land of snows almost a millennium ago. ₁

With these words, scholar Thupten Jinpa begins the introduction to his translation of a collection of medieval mind training texts. This genre of literature is related in a deep and intimate way with the Tibetan Buddhist School of Kadam, a tradition of teaching and practice which is understood to have begun in 1056, when disciples of Atisa established Radreng Monastery north of Lhasa two years after their beloved Indian master had died. ₂ Lojong or mind training involves of an expansive depth of attitudinal and behavioral change – metanoia:   

[A] process of training, habituation, cultivation, and cleansing induces a profound transformation … from the ordinary deluded state, whose modus operandi is self-centeredness, to a fundamentally changed perspective of enlightened, other-centeredness. ₃

Certainly having roots in the Indian Buddhist tradition, lojong is a distinctly Tibetan expression of that tradition which “refers to specific approaches for cultivating the altruistic awakening mind,” namely, “bodhicitta.” ₄ This mind involves the dedication of all one’s “actions, life, and mental effort to becoming a fully enlightened buddha,” not for “one’s own selfish pleasure,” but in order to “benefit all sentient beings.” Indeed, the practitioner’s ‘desire for enlightenment comes from pure compassion and love for all others,” since it is “the most effective way to help all other sentient beings who are miserable and in need of assistance.” ₅  

In his teachings on developing “bodhicitta,” Geshe Lhundub Sopa clarifies the intent and the breadth of the practice. He states clearly that the “others” we are to benefit are “all sentient beings”:  

[They] need our help. They are seeking happiness, protection from suffering, and freedom from problems. It does not matter what situation they are in right now, high or low they all have some kind of misery. They want something that lasts but none of their efforts gives them what they desire. ₆

Undergirding such spiritual work is the development of “universal” or “great compassion”: “Great refers to both the object of compassion – all sentient beings – and the desire to take on the responsibility of alleviating their misery.” ₇ This work necessitates the development of “equanimity” and “impartiality,” to combat the tendency to “partiality” which expresses itself in “being attached to some, hating others, and ignoring the rest.”  Without equanimity, “our compassion and love will be discriminatory.” ₈      

A first step in developing “great compassion” is ‘having affection for all sentient beings.”  The “all” here invites an expansive compassion that is equanimous as well as kindly and warmly loving, and such compassion can be generated through meditation. ₉ One of the key practices in such meditation involves “cultivating a recognition that all beings are your mothers.” ₁₀ Practitioners of the Kadam tradition and indeed Tibetan Buddhists in general believe in reincarnation. Therefore, given the limitless number of times beings are reborn, all sentient beings have been one’s mother, father, sister, and brother multiple times. In medieval meditation methods, as Geshe Sopa explains, this belief was used to train the mind and the heart in “recognizing all living beings as your mothers through affectionate love” ₁₁

Endnotes

1. Mind Training: The Great Collection. Compiled by Shonu Gyalchok and Konchok Gyalsten. Translated and edited by Thupten Jinpa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006, page 1.
2. Radreng (or “Reting”) Monastery was founded by Atisa’s primary disciple Dromton Gyalwai Jungne or “Dromtonpa” (1005-1064). Image One below is a 2009 photo of the landscape near the site of the monastery. Photo retrieved from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Landscape_of_Tibet2.jpg
3. Mind Training: The Great Collection. Compiled by Shonu Gyalchok and Konchok Gyalsten. Translated and edited by Thupten Jinpa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006, , pages 2-3. In his 1961 book, The New Man, TM describes metanoia as experiencing oneself as “entirely changed from within.” He continues: “Our spirit undergoes a conversion, a metanoia, which reorients our whole being after raising it to a new level, and even seems to change our whole nature itself. And then, ‘self-realization’ becomes an awareness that we are quite different from our normal empirical selves. At the same time we are vividly conscious of the fact that this new mode of being is truly more ‘normal’ than our ordinary existence. It is more ‘natural’ for us to be ‘out of ourselves’ and carried freely and entirely towards the ‘Other’ – toward God in Himself or in other men – than it is for us to be centered and enclosed in ourselves. We find ourselves to be most truly human when we are raised to the level of the divine. We transcend ourselves, we see ourselves in a new light, by losing sight of ourselves and no longer seeing ourselves but God. Thus in a single act we accomplish the double movement of entering into ourselves and going out of ourselves which brings us back to the paradisiacal state for which we were originally created.” (Thomas Merton, The New Man, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961, pages 125-126.) Following “the thought of St. Bernard,” TM thus sees metanoia as a process of redemptive reversal of that “original act” through which Adam “became a little universe enclosed within himself, communicating feebly, hesitantly and fearfully with the other universes around him.” (Ibid., pages 104 and 105). In a 1942 article, that came to make a “deep impression” on TM, scholar Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) writes of metanoia: “The man who has really been ‘converted,’ i.e., turned round … will have no time to spend in punishing himself, and if he does impose hardships on himself it will not be by way of penance, but as a discipline like that of an athlete in training and in imitation of the divine poverty. On this level of reference there can be no room for remembrance of or sorrow for past errors, to which the words, ‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ are properly applicable, the ‘dead’ being the ‘old man’ who is now no more for those who can say with St. Paul, vivo autem, jam non ego [And I live, now not I] … How, indeed, should one who has ceased to be anyone either recall or regret what ‘he’ had done when he was someone? …. Metanoia is, then, a transformation of one’s whole being; from human thinking to divine understanding … To repent is to become another and a new man.” (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “On Being in One’s Right Mind,” Review of Religion, VII (1942), pages 32-40. Retrieved from the website of Studies in Comparative Religion: http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/On_Being_in_One%E2%80%99s_Right_Mind-by_Ananda_K_Coomaraswamy.aspx) In a May 1961 letter to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s (AKC) widow, TM writes that he “very much” liked “On Being in One’s Right Mind” and thought that it was “really fundamental.” In December of 1963, when he again writes to the scholar’s widow, TM speaks of his gratitude for the “deep impression” the article made on him. (Thomas Merton, The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1985, page 130 and 133 respectively. Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/hiddengroundoflo00mert/page/130/mode/2up?view=theater
4. Mind Training: The Great Collection. Compiled by Shonu Gyalchok and Konchok Gyalsten. Translated and edited by Thupten Jinpa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006, pages 2.  Professor Ulrika Roesler states that the followers of Atisa “became famous for their instructions on ‘mental purification’ or ‘mind training’ (blo sbyong, pronounced ‘Lojong’), which is meant to free the mind from attachment to the ego and generate the attitude of the ‘awakening mind’ (Skt. bodhicitta).” She also describes the lojong genre as “a Tibetan creation” with many of its “key ideas” going back to Indian Buddhist writers such as Nagarjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE) and Santideva (685 – 763 CE). (Ulrike Roesler, “The Kadampa: A Formative Movement of Tibetan Buddhism.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, pages 1 and 12 respectively: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.568 ) In an introductory overview of Atisa’s writings, scholar James Apple affirms that “one principle that pervades” much of the Indian scholar’s works is “the cultivation, increase, and full actualization of the awakening mind (bodhicitta).” Professor Apple continues, affirming Atisa’s commitment and that of his spiritual heirs: “Atisa is remembered for being the master illuminator of the awakening mind. As the famous fifteenth-century Tibetan crazy yogi Drukpa Kunle explained, ‘There is no rivaling Atisa and his sons in terms of the awakening mind.’” (James B. Apple, Atisa Dipamkara: Illuminator of the Awakened Mind. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2019, page 6.) 
5. Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 6). Geshe Sopa teaches: “The desire to free all sentient beings from misery is called compassion; the desire for all sentient beings to have permanent happiness is called universal love. When and how can you provide for the welfare of sentient beings? You cannot do it properly unless you achieve full enlightenment or buddhahood yourself. Seeing that your own enlightenment is necessary for you to be able to solve all the problems of sentient beings, you will want to accomplish it quickly for their sake. When such a strong desire arises day and night, it is called bodhicitta, meaning the mind (citta) that seeks enlightenment or Buddhahood (bodhi). (Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Peacock in the Poison Grove: Two Buddhist Texts on Training the Mind. Edited and co-translated by Michael J. Sweet and Leonard Zwilling, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001, page 265-266.)
6. Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 62.
7. Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 46.
8. Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 64. A fuller quotation of Geshe-la’s teaching: “Without equanimity we will have compassion for some sentient beings but not for others. If we try to generate compassion before mastering equanimity the result will not be great universal compassion … This is why we train the mind in equanimity.” (Ibid.)
9. Geshe Sopa affirms clearly: “[E]quanimity and affectionate love can be produced through meditation.” And he describes something of the process: [J]ust as clearing away stones readies a field for planting, equanimity removes attachment and hatred from the mind making it serviceable. However, the ground is still dry and everyone knows that seeds need water in order to germinate and grow. Traditionally in Tibet the first watering is called pouring gold because it is so crucial. To ready the mind for planting the seed of compassion, it has to be moistened by the love that finds all sentient beings attractive. Only then can we plant the seed of compassion that will grow into bodhicitta …” (Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 67.)
10. Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 67.
11. Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhpa’s Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 3: The Way of the Bodhisattva. Edited by Beth Newman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008, page 53). Geshe Sopa describes “affective love” as “a warm feeling cherishing all sentient beings … This is not a partial, biased love; it values all sentient beings equally. To generate this feeling we must first recognize that all sentient beings have all been our mother.’ (Emphasis mine. Ibid., pages 67-68)

Closed off on three sides by hills, it opened south and eastward to catch all the sunlight of the day. Only in the late afternoon, when the sun began to sink … did shadows steal across the simple little abbey built by the pioneers. Up to that moment it had been storing up light and heat all day.

TM writing on the location and the landscape of the monastery at Clairvaux [valley of light] which Bernard and his companions founded in 1115. See Thomas Merton, The Waters of Siloe. New York:  Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949. page 272.