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The purpose of this meditation is to generate the sincere wish to abandon self-cherishing.
I began by making the appropriate preparations for meditation, and then started where I left off yesterday, reinforcing my intention to abandon self-cherishing. As I became more familiar with the intention I wondered – if self-cherishing really is the cause of all my problems, and if I abandoned self-cherishing, all my problems would disappear, why on earth am I not putting all my effort into abandoning it immediately. Why is it taking so long?
It seemed to me that I perceive a self that is inherently existent, and through countless lifetimes of familiarity, I have an instinctive wish to grasp at it as inherently existent, and to cherish it, because that’s what you do with an inherently existent self. I need to have a stronger understanding of emptiness so that the grasping will fade and the cherishing of self will make less sense, and be easier to abandon.
I focused on the need to abandon self-cherishing because by doing so I will overcome all my problems. I reached a firm conclusion – I will strive to abandon self-cherishing because it is the cause of all my problems. I tried to keep my mind centred on that thought for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings understand that all their problems are caused by self-cherishing and strive to abandon it, realise emptiness, and attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to remember my determination throughout the day.
The purpose of this meditation is to develop the sincere determination to abandon self-cherishing because it contracts my previous meditations and leads me away from happiness and enlightenment.
I began by making the appropriate preparations for meditation.
I then started by defining self-cherishing as an attitude which says that I am the most important person and that my happiness and freedom are more important than anyone else’s. This is based on my grasping at the appearance of an inherently existent self – a truly existent self separate from everyone else.
This view is a complete contradiction of my previous meditations where I established that the appearance of friends, enemies and strangers is deceptive, and that far from being separate from them, they have been my very kind mothers in the past. I have established that they and I are equal, and that I should work for their benefit as I work for my own. Self-cherishing is in direct opposition to these views.
I can ask myself – which is the most beneficial to believe? Clearly, it is most beneficial to abandon self-cherishing as a mistaken and very harmful attitude.
On this basis, I repeated to myself ‘I must abandon self-cherishing’ until I had a firm determination to do so. I then focused on it through the rest of the meditation. When the object faded, I renewed it by remembering the negative qualities of self-cherishing.
Dedication
May all living beings recognise the negative qualities and mistaken nature of self-cherishing, and abandon it completely, and quickly become enlightened beings for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will look at my own behaviour and that of others, and when I see self-cherishing at work, I will make a point of identifying if clearly to myself, and renew my determination to abandon it.
The purpose of this meditation is to generate a very strong wish to abandon self-cherishing because it is the cause of all my problems.
I began by making the appropriate preparations for meditation, and revisited my meditation of yesterday, where I understood that self-cherishing poisons my actions and makes them negative. It causes me to create negative karma which goes into my karmic reservoir like poisoning a well.
I brought this image back in today’s meditation, and thought about how self-cherishing kills me again and again. My actions contaminated by self-cherishing are like poison which causes me suffering both now and in the future. My negative karma and tendencies sabotage my attempts to become free from samsara, and my wish to free all living beings from samsara.
Instead of becoming a liberated being, free from the cycle of death and rebirth, I am trapped within it – self-cherishing kills me again and again.
I focused on this enemy – so much more potent than the most fearsome worldly enemy. Even the most fearsome worldly enemy can only kill me once, but self-cherishing will kill me again and again unless I can extinguish it from my mind.
With this understanding I repeated to myself – I must overcome my self-cherishing. It was the object of my meditation, and I held it for the rest of the session. When it faded, I went back to the contemplation, and renewed the object.
Dedication
May all living beings understand the full potential of the enemy of self-cherishing, and strive to overcome it for the sake of all living beings.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to recognise self-cherishing in my thoughts and actions, and overcome this terrible enemy.
The purpose of this meditation is to see clearly the disadvantages of self-cherishing.
I began by making the appropriate preparations for meditation, and then settled down to my practice.
I began by remembering that self-cherishing is a completely self-centred attitude. We think that we are the most important, and that our happiness is the most important.
I thought about my personal situation at the moment. I find myself dwelling on when things have gone wrong in the past, and I have made mistakes and let people down. I also find myself looking to the future and worrying about my job and whether I am making the most of my life. If I let my mind keep thinking about these things, I feel pretty unhappy. I am upset and disappointed with myself about my actions in the past, and I am anxious about all the bad things that could happen in the future.
But when I think about the self-cherishing that is operating in my mind, I can see clearly that it’s all ‘me, me, me’. The bad, useless me from my past. The unskillful and hopeless me who won’t be able to provide for his family or manage in the future. I ignore my good achievements and my skills and good qualities, and I fall into a small, trapped and helpless state of mind.
I looked at self-cherishing and I saw clearly how it makes me unhappy. Because I grasp so tightly onto a solid, independent, inherently existent self, I only want the best for it. If things aren’t absolutely the best, then I have let this ‘self’ down. My self-cherishing makes me depressed about the past and anxious about the future, but does not give me any way of transforming myself in the present.
I looked at this self-cherishing, and its effects, and I developed the simple wish to abandon it. It is completely unhelpful. It has no good qualities. It isolates me and makes me feel small and impotent. It is a suitable object to be abandoned.
I focused on this wish to abandon my self-cherishing for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings recognise the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and strive to abandon it, and become enlightened beings as quickly as possible.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to recognise when self-cherishing is most active in my mind, and simply make the determination to abandon it so that I can be free from its harm.
The purpose of this meditation is to look into the disadvantages of self cherishing.
I began by thinking about how an inherently existent ‘I’ appears vividly to me all the time, and how I instinctively and unquestioningly assent to its reality.
Thinking that my I is inherently existent, and completely independent from all other phenomena, I focus on it, and fail to see others. This can cause me to feel isolated and lonely. This is a horrible consequence of self-cherishing, and I focused on it as my object of meditation. I was not upset by this object, but I definitely developed the wish to abandon self-cherishing if this is what it leads to.
Dedication
May all living beings quickly abandon self-cherishing, and swiftly progress to the state of enlightenment.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to remember the consequences of being too focused on my ‘inherently existent I’.
The purpose of this meditation is to generate a lovely feeling of cherishing all other living beings, and then to consider what this means in light of reliance upon my Spiritual Guide.
I began by making the appropriate preparations, and then started to think about the advantages of cherishing others. By cherishing others I will develop my cherishing love and my wishing love for others. I will develop strong compassion for others, and from there I will develop strong bodhichitta. This will enable me to attain enlightenment, and will enable me to free all living beings from their sufferings.
I thought of the poem ‘Eight Verses of Training the Mind’ where it says
With the intention to attain
The precious supreme goal
That surpasses even the wish-granting jewel
May I constantly cherish all living beings
The ‘ultimate supreme goal’ is enlightenment itself. In the past there were actual wish granting jewels, which had the power to give the owner any happiness or possession they wished.
We still have them in this world now.
They are called ‘winning lottery tickets’.
With a winning lottery ticket, of say £27 million, like the Euromillions rollover at the weekend, you could do pretty much anything any human could do in this world. But like the wish granting jewels of ancient times, the money will disappear when we die, and in our next life we will have nothing.
I thought about these points over and over again. It seemed like cherishing love was the starting point of a process which would make me happier and happier, and would result in others being happier and happier. This happiness is pure and everlasting – it will last for life after life until I attain the pure happiness of enlightenment for the benefit of all.
I focused on this feeling of radiating cherishing love for all living beings, and mentally bathed in its beauty for a while.
I then thought about what this all means in terms of reliance upon a Spiritual Guide. It is fair to say that without Dharma, I too would be wishing to win the lottery. I would see it as my only way to fulfil all my wishes. But thanks to my Spiritual Guide, I know there is something even more precious than the Euromillions jackpot. Something that I can attain through my own effort rather than relying upon luck. I can attain pure happiness not only for myself, but for all living beings.
I thought of how fortunate I am to have met my Spiritual Guide, and to be able to follow his instructions to engage in cherishing love for others. I made the determination to cherish others completely, and once again generated a lovely feeling of radiating cherishing love for everyone – their happiness and freedom are the most important thing to me. I focused on this for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings will the ultimate lottery – become a qualified disciple and find a qualified Spiritual Guide who will guide them along the path of cherishing to the ultimate supreme goal.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will feel my cherishing love radiate towards all living beings constantly.
The purpose of this meditation is to examine the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and to contemplate our conclusions in light of the emptiness of phenomena.
I began by developing a strong wish to meditate well, and then moved on to breathing meditation. I imagined that around me were all the living beings of the six realms in human form, and in front of me were the countless enlightened beings. They were glowing in golden light, and smiling at us all with great kindness. I imagined we were all in Buddha’s pure land, and completely at peace.
I dissolved the world and my body into light, and then brought my attention into my heart where I mixed my mind with my guru’s mind, and after a while of enjoying a very peaceful feeling, moved on to the main meditation.
I started by thinking about how, in this context, self-cherishing is essentially our belief that our needs and our wishes are more important than anyone else’s. In fact, self-cherishing distorts our surroundings so much that it shows us a world and a context where it is easy to believe that our needs and wishes are the ONLY ones that matter.
When I am under the sway of self-cherishing, I find myself viewing others as simply means to my own selfish ends. I don’t see them as people at all. I just see them as things to use to get me some pleasure or possessions. How shallow! How despicable! Self-cherishing beguiles me with convincing arguments, and blinds me to the consequences that would ensue if I let it run free.
I thought about what it would be like to have no self-cherishing – to see that my ‘self’ was empty of inherent existence and did not exist as it normally appeared. If I could realise this, I would see that there is no need to cherish myself at the cost of others, because there is no self to cherish! What would I do instead of cherishing my self? The only things around to cherish would be other living beings. The same living beings that I previously used as pawns in my self-cherishing games – only now instead of seeing them as means to a selfish end, I can see them as living beings whom I can help. It would be clear that my duty and obligation would be to offer them help and happiness.
I thought about how pure my mind could be, if it were not for the foul pollution of self-cherishing.
I dwelt on this, and developed the sincere wish to be free from self-cherishing and all its faults. I focused on this for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings see the faults of self-cherishing, and overcome its distorted presentation to attain perfect enlightenment.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to see others as beings to whom I should offer help and happiness, and abandon my dark self-cherishing, which would lead me along paths of suffering and desolation.
The purpose of this meditation is to generate a good understanding of the problems caused by self-cherishing, and to try to meditate on this understanding with good concentration.
I began by recognising the sufferings of samsara, and how living beings drowning in samsara’s ocean thrash around harming themselves and others. I resolved to meditate well so that I can bring samsara to an end as quickly as possible.
I then began by bringing my mind into my heart, purifying it with black and white breathing meditation, and then focused on a particular image that came to mind.
I thought about how distractions seem to be very big and attention grabbing things. Once a distraction has arisen in our mind during meditation, it seems to take over and undetectably lift our attention away from our chosen object.
I wondered what better way I could conceptualise distractions. It seemed to me that I should really think of distractions as being like a tiny pebble rolling down the side of a massive mountain. If the mountain was capable of feeling it’s ‘skin’ it would be almost completely oblivious to the movement of a tiny pebble. But even so – the mountain does not have a consciousness that allows it to feel its ‘skin’. It is simply massive, stable and still. I tried to imagine my mind as being massive, stable and still, and completely undistractable by the movement of distracting thoughts. I settled on this idea for a long while, before moving on to the main meditation.
I started by thinking about a Facebook ‘conversation’ I had yesterday, where I was directly insulted by the most offensive comment I think I have ever read online – and that’s saying something, I can tell you, given the things I have read over the years. I thought about the person who wrote it. He was obviously in great distress and pain, to have wished such misfortune upon me. He was clearly invested in the subject of our exchange, and found my viewpoint so unacceptable that he was unable to prevent himself writing the comment. But the pain it could have caused could have been serious. I was untroubled by the comment, but if I had responded with anger, his pain would have increased even more. Even without that escalation, he was clearly in great distress.
I thought about the situation as it related to self-cherishing. It seemed to me that self-cherishing not only makes our ‘self’ seem supremely important, but also all the things that we value. So if something we value is attacked, it is as if we ourselves are being attacked. Essentially, the more we ‘value’ something with self-cherishing, the more vulnerable we make ourselves to pain. It is like we spread a layer of our own skin over our object of concern, and when it is attacked, it feels like our own skin on our own body is being lacerated. No wonder we react so strongly!
I thought about this and it became clear how self-cherishing causes us to experience manifest mental pain, and I focused on this for the rest of the meditation. I generated a sincere disgust at how self-cherishing operates, and a wish for all living beings to be free of it. I meditated on this for the rest of the session.
Dedication
Many all living beings recognise the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and quickly turn to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha for temporary and ultimate refuge.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to watch my mind for self-cherishing, and instead of caring for people and issues through self-cherishing, I will care for them with wisdom and compassion.
PS
The final ironic twist to this story is that the person who insulted me had actually misread my comment. He thought that I was disagreeing with him. In fact, we were both of the same view. Such is the danger of self-cherishing, that it can make us wish such harm on even our friends 
The purpose of this meditation is to generate seriously think about what harm self-cherishing does, and then to consider what this means in light of Bodhichitta.
I began my making the determination to to meditate on the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and move towards destroying samsara.
I then moved on to some breathing meditation and when my mind was calmer, and then moved on.
I started by thinking about how self-cherishing ruins my life. It is what causes me to give in to temptations, what makes me eat what I shouldn’t eat, say what I shouldn’t say, and do what I shouldn’t do. It robs me of my self respect, and pushes enlightenment further and further away from me. I focused on these problems caused by self-cherishing, and developed a real wish to remove it from my mind.
After this, I thought about what this means in terms of Bodhichitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the benefit of all. Self-cherishing stops me reaching my goal - it harms me and it harms all living beings. I brought my attention back to the disadvantages of self-cherishing for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings recognise the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and through this, attain the precious Bodhichitta and enlightenment.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will dwell on the disadvantages of self-cherishing in my life.
The purpose of this meditation is to understand the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and then to see what this means in terms of the practice of giving.
I began with breathing meditation, slowing my mind and finally bringing it so a halt, and enjoying the feeling of stability and stillness.
I then thought about self-cherishing. It is an attitude which puts our own happiness and freedom above others. It causes all our problems. Our self-grasping believes our ‘self’ to be truly existent, and as a consequence we see a difference between our self and others. Our self-cherishing then cherishes this self as the most important thing. We then identify things that we believe are the causes of our happiness and freedom, and seek to protect them as if they were our own body. Hence grown men shoot little girls in the head, and believe they are justified in so doing – what a demon this self-cherishing is!
I thought about all the harm we do due to the distortion of reality caused by self-cherishing, and it seemed like self-cherishing was at the centre of a black galaxy, and all the swirling black stars around it were my delusions. As my self-cherishing grows, my delusions become stronger and more numerous, but if I reduce and then destroy my self cherishing, all my other delusions will reduce in intensity and eventually drift off into nothingness.
There is a way to overcome my self-cherishing, but I must be constantly aware of the harm it produces before I can develop the determination to destroy it completely. Therefore, I settled my attention on the negative qualities of self-cherishing, and how it distorts my reality so that it seems reasonable for me to engage in negative actions and to harm others. I looked at this mind for the rest of my meditation, and felt thoroughly disgusted.
I then thought about the practice of giving. The practice of giving means to happiness and love to others with a joyful mind – forgetting all about our self. It is going in completely the opposite direction of self-cherishing and is based on the correct mind of cherishing others. I realised that as long as I have even a trace of self-cherishing, my practice of giving will be contaminated. This reinforced my wish to remove this disgusting attitude from my mind. I returned to my meditation on how rotten this attitude really is, and the harm it causes ourselves and others.
Dedication
May all living beings overcome the first difficulty of identifying their self-cherishing, and through this awareness, reduce and finally vanquish their delusions altogether, for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will look for evidence of self-cherishing in my self, and observe how my mind is unpeaceful and unsettled when self-cherishing is strongly manifest.
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