Drive all blame into one

# 3.2.1 Drive all blame into a single source

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The source in this case is the self-centeredness and grasping ego.

This ego is the blame for all suffering. If there is but one thing learn from Lojong training, this is it. Our sense of a selfhood is our downfall and holds us back from eudaemonia.

Zennists would say "Eat the blame."

Ego-clinging is the reason fir all my problems and disturbances. Stop ego clinging and problems fade away. More ego clinging equals more problems. It is cheaper and easier to drop ego clinging than it is to "fix" problems. Dropping ego clinging is the ultimate "fix". The perfect fix. The superior "fix".

Don't apply blame on outside circumstances. This self-centered ego comes from the feeling that we are most important. All suffering in the world comes from self clinging. Look at our own egoistic mind and see it is the cause of all suffering. Self cherishing.

More ego = less understanding in relationship

Less ego = more understanding in relationship

This point is to looking deeply at blame. What flavor is it? Consider that there is no one to blame and the mind is grasping at trying to make a self to hold up in contrast to something else separate. We blame because we're self-centered. Blame helps the mind create division. It is this blaming mind that needs purging. This is the one! Stopping self-centeredness equals stopping blaming! Blame is the self-cherishing attitude. At least it is a dumb hobby.

## Life is Tough. Here Are Six Ways to Deal With It - Lion's Roar

> Because you will have realized that because you are alive and not dead, because you have a human body and not some other kind of a body, because the world is a physical world and not an ethereal world, and because all of us together as people are the way we are, bad things are going to happen. It’s the most natural, the most normal, the most inevitable thing in the world. It is not a mistake, and it isn’t anyone’s fault. And we can make use of it to drive our gratitude and our compassion deeper. - Norman Fischer

https://www.lionsroar.com/life-is-tough-six-ways-to-deal-with-it-march-2013/

This relates to how we can get caught in situations and act out of fear, anger, confusion, and ego. An antidote for this is to breath in and have an open awareness. Two modes of operation - aspiration and action. Sometimes we are positioned to be an actor and sometimes we are an aspirant. Recognizing this powerful and hopeful. At different times and in different situations, when we have the power of presence that is centered on being present, giving, connecting, we empower the actor in us in a healthy way. Sometimes situations are too strongly charged for us to have this power of presence. Rather than getting caught in the tsunami we can breath in and choose to be an aspirant, to aspire to connecting with the moment. We don’t have to have answers, we don’t have to make some dramatic action. We can just hold an aspiration until we can develop the ingredients for action.

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