Three objects, three poisons, three seeds of virtue.

 Alder Catkins Kaleidoscope - photographed and created by Trina Stephenson

          A kaleidoscope's tube contains a collection of small, loose objects, such as beads, confetti and bits of colored glass. Patterns are created with these objects through multiple reflections. Usually three mirrors are attached together inside the scope, creating a triangular shape with the objects at one end. Peering through the eyehole at the other end of the cylinder, a colorful mandala can be seen, formed by the reflections. As the tube is turned, the objects are rearranged in various positions; no pattern is ever exactly the same as before. The objects in our lives are the people and things we categorize: friend/asset, enemy/affliction and nobody/insignificance. Our feelings about these groups are like the mirrors; each one reflects how our emotions color our perceptions. They create the poisons of attachment (craving), aggression (aversion), and indifference (ignorance). Like a kaleidoscope's design, they create a pattern too - of behavior and thought. Instead of being helpful, these reactions become entrenched and cause suffering. As the scope creates numerous designs, so we have many habitual responses. Awareness of how our beliefs arise and result in perpetual reaction can transform the poisons into seeds. We can pause and look at what stains our viewpoint. Instead of simply reacting, we can aspire to act with compassion. Breathing in the emotion (rather than the story around it) and breathing out with tenderness, we send out a wish that all beings be free from craving, aversion and ignorance. Without an object to focus on, the emotional energy dissipates on its own.

For more information on the eighth slogan, go here.

Slogan Eight

Three objects, three poisons, three seeds of virtue.

From the Lojong for the Layperson booklet:

            Humans naturally categorize things as a method of survival, labeling some objects as beneficial and others as dangerous. But this slogan cautions us that labels may take on a life of their own. Judy Lief elucidates: “They change from being simple observations of a current situation or interaction to become unchanging definitions of the way things are. They become the world according to us.”  If we crave something, it becomes an object of attachment. If it is something we want to avoid, it becomes an object of aversion. If we could care less either way, it becomes an object of indifference. Each of these objects produces a reaction (poison) – desire, revulsion or ignorance – which leaves us feeling unhappy or desperate. But instead of blaming the object, we can take responsibility for our emotional reactions and see them as our own creation. We can realize they make our world very small instead of spacious. We breathe in and transform the “poisons.” As we breathe out, they are reformed as the seeds of virtue.

Photo: Three types of nuts, leaves and blooms on a sycamore leaf.

            I love gardenia bushes, and I've tried on multiple occasions to grow them in my yard. Unfortunately, they like moist, well-drained soil, and I live in an area where drought occurs and the soil is compacted clay. It’s similar to trying to grow something from a brick. On the other hand, I have poison ivy galore. Weed killers and pulling plants by hand are useless; the birds love the berries and just plant more. I would be quite an unhappy gardener if this was where all my energy was focused. In addition, my yard has nondescript plants like the tea olive with an unimpressive, scraggly appearance. Yet if I attend to its nearly imperceptible flowers in the fall and spring, I’ll be rewarded with a fragrance even more delightful than the gardenia’s bloom. Recently it dawned on me that indifference is quite different from detachment. It involves labeling something as so insignificant and useless, that I don’t consider it worth my attention. That kind of poison is worse than Roundup. It will keep the seeds of compassion from ever sprouting.