Stop Biting the Tail You're Chasing: Using Buddhist Mind Training to Free Yourself from Painful Emotional Patterns

Description

How to be free from bondage to your emotions- a practical and powerful Buddhist teaching for training the mind to be content in any circumstance. Are emotions our friends or our enemies? It can seem like they're usually one or the other, depending on whether their content is pleasant or unpleasant. But the Buddhist practice of lojong (mind training) is a way of letting go of attachment to both "positive" and "negative" emotions--and this doesn't lead to a kind of emotional lethargy. On the contrary, it leads to profound insight and to compassion for all, uninhibited by our habitual reactions. The methods of lojong presented here are superbly practical tools that you can use to relieve your own suffering and to extend that relief to others. It's a lifelong process, but with gentle and consistent effort at it, we can experience the joy and happiness that results from liberating ourselves from the torrent of emotional conflict. That newly discovered freedom can then in turn be shared with everyone we encounter in the course of our daily lives.

ANYEN RINPOCHE is a Tibetan master of Dzogchen meditation as well as a seasoned scholar. He has taught extensively in Tibet, China, and throughout Southeast Asia, Japan, and North America. He is founder of the Orgyen Khamdroling Center, Denver, CO, with a shedra (college) for Westerners. ALLISON CHOYING ZANGMO is Anyen Rinpoche's personal translator and a longtime student of both Rinpoche and his root lama, Kyabje Tsara Dharmakirti. She has either translated or collaborated with Rinpoche on all of his books.

"There is no better way to bring intelligence, sanity, and love into the world than moving away from fixating on the self, and instead, working for the well-being of others. In Stop Biting the Tail You're Chasing, Anyen Rinpoche and Allison Choying Zangmo present us with a fresh, insightful, and engaging look at the most essential, practical, and potent instructions on how to do just that-the lojong or mind training teachings. I think you will find this book a great guide on how to move through the world with joy and grace." -Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, author of The Logic of Faith and The Power of an Open Question "The lojong teachings on working with destabilizing emotions are Tibet's great gift to a world in desperate need of them. In Stop Biting the Tail You're Chasing we hear the wise and patient voice of Anyen Rinpoche, fully immersed in these teachings as only a Tibetan tulku can be, along with his longtime collaborator, Allison Choying Zangmo, kindly speaking to us about how to apply this wisdom to our contemporary lives. Though the teachings are subtle and profound, this is a simple, accessible, and inspiring discussion. This is a book I will read again and again."-Norman Fischer, poet, Zen priest, author of Training in Compassion, and co-author of What Is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind "Stop Biting the Tail You're Chasing interweaves timeless wisdom from the greatest masters in Mahayana Buddhism with both Anyen Rinpoche's and Khandro Allison Choying Zangmo's own experience and advice, allowing western, English readers the opportunity to access these teachings and apply them directly to their lives. We are grateful to them for these efforts and especially to Rinpoche for dedicating himself to this cause." -Sangye Khandro, Light of Berotsana, teacher and translator "This volume is a treasure of profound Buddhist teachings on the trainings of the mind, lojong, that transmute every moment of our lives into true sources of benefit to oneself and others. I pray that we may all put them into practice."-Tulku Thondup, author of The Heart of Unconditional Love "By training the mind to recognize the power of emotional attachment, Anyen wishes to show how '[the] 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. 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."-Publishers Weekly "Stop Biting the Tail You're Chasing offers a myriad of mind-training tools for relieving our suffering, extending that relief to those around us, and experiencing and sharing joy."-Lion's Roar