A few days ago I had the privilege of being a guest teacher at the amazing community of the San Francisco Dharma Collective. The course that I was a part of, taught by Eve Ekman and Chandra Easton, is an exploration of the Seven-Point Mind Training stemming from the teachings of Lama Atīśa and complied into a coherent text by Geshe Chekawa.
An especially exhilarating point for me was that the mind-training instruction that I was to cover—known as slogan #50—pertains to the stability of our practice. It is usually translated as either “Do not be swayed by external circumstances” or “Do not rely on outer conditions”, and in the meeting (available below as a video) we covered both of these potential interpretations.
In this video, I’m quoting Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok’s instruction:
རང་ཚུགས་མ་ཤོར། གཞན་སེམས་མ་དཀྲུག།
Don’t lose your own path. Don’t disturb the minds of others.
And here are some additional explanations of this point, one from Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, and one from Dr. Alex Berzin:
Do not be swayed by external circumstances
Jamgon Kongtrul’s commentary: Have no regard for conducive or adverse conditions, strong or weak health, wealth or poverty, good or bad reputation, troubles or absence of troubles. If conducive conditions come about, train the mind right then. If conducive conditions are not present, then work on the two bodhicittas right then. In a word, don't be concerned with your situation or other factors; never let go of your practice of mind training.
— (From The Great Path of Awakening: A Commentary, translated by Ken Macleod and published by Shambhala Publications)
Do not rely on external circumstances
Alex Berzin: Whatever happens, we need to work on our attitudes. If we wait until we’ve got the perfect conditions to practice, then most likely we’ll be waiting forever. One great Tibetan master said that when things go well people show a spiritual face, but when things are bad, they show their true faces. Everything’s nice and easy when things go smoothly, but when the situation turns sour, many people get depressed and go out and get drunk, instead of turning to their practices. Regardless of how things are going, we need to be steady in our practice.
Nagarjuna said that we can’t be just picked out of samsara like fish are pulled out of the water by fishermen. Great lamas and Buddhas can’t just pull us out of our difficult situations, but they can help and inspire us. They can’t snap their fingers and, all of a sudden, our selfishness and problems disappear. Rather, we need to stand on our own two feet and put the effort in ourselves. If we do nothing and just expect our guru to do it all, then nothing will happen.
— Full commentary available on Study Buddhism