Stop Biting the Tail You're Chasing

May 28, 2018
Anyen (Living and Dying with Confidence) details the Tibetan Buddhist practice of lojong, or mind training, in this helpful book for meditators. By training the mind to recognize the power of emotional attachment, Anyen wishes to show how “ root of all unhappiness is self-cherishing.” At the core of self-cherishing is an unhealthy attachment to the hope for permanence and an idea of the self, he writes. Anyen’s antidote is threefold: to train the mind to detach emotions from identities and see the former as sources of information, to understand that the nature of everything is empty and illusory, and then to break out of old habitual patterns of emotional and physical behaviors. One is “fully responsible” for dealing with one’s emotions and emotional reactions, he writes, and lojong practice is the way to begin recognizing, applying, and persevering with that responsibility. Although he offers some basic meditation instruction, Anyen recognizes that such training initially seems impossible and invokes the spiritual qualities of Tibetan masters and bodhisattvas to inspire readers to work slowly toward the benefits of practice. While Anyen’s book may tread familiar ground, it is a skillful, well-structured, and accessible introduction to the practice of lojong that will appeal to novices of Buddhist meditation.