💭Psychological Strategies
Some of the best reasons to learn Tibetan have to do with learning the wealth of psychological strategies that have been useful to Buddhist practitioners for millennia. Here are the terms for some that (ChatGPT, with a bit of vocabulary help from me, thinks) are worth looking into.
🌬️ 1. Mindfulness and Awareness དྲན་པ་
Strategy: Stay present and aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Why it's powerful: This cultivates mental clarity, reduces reactivity, and helps you notice patterns before they escalate.
How it’s practiced: Through meditation, breath awareness, and moment-to-moment presence.
🧘 2. Analytical Meditation དཔྱད་སྒོམ་
Strategy: Examine your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs using reason and contemplation.
Why it's powerful: Helps transform deeply-rooted habits and delusions. Rather than suppressing emotions, you understand and reframe them.
Common topics: Impermanence, interdependence, suffering, and the nature of the self.
🧭 3. Lo Jong / Mind Training བློ་སྦྱོང་
Strategy: Use hardship and negativity as fuel for growth.
Why it's powerful: Lo Jong flips everyday difficulties into opportunities for compassion, patience, and wisdom.
Famous slogan: “Drive all blame into one” – pointing inward to take responsibility, not as self-blame, but for empowerment.
🕊️ 4. Tonglen / Giving and Taking གཏོང་ལེན་
Strategy: Breathe in the suffering of others, breathe out compassion and relief.
Why it's powerful: Counteracts selfishness and builds emotional courage. Surprisingly healing even when you're the one suffering.
Modern application: Can be practiced as a visualization for dealing with grief, burnout, or even global crises.
🔥 5. Understanding Interdependence or Emptiness སྟོང་པའི་ཉིད་
Strategy: Realize that things, including "self," are not inherently fixed — they arise dependently.
Why it's powerful: Reduces attachment, fear, and rigid identity structures. Offers spaciousness and freedom in how you relate to life.
Practice: Analytical meditation on dependent origination, or simply questioning fixed concepts like “I am always this way.”
🕊️ 6. Compassion as a Path སྙིང་རྗེ་
Strategy: Make compassion your core motivation — not just a feeling but an orientation to life.
Why it's powerful: Anchors you during personal challenges, replaces judgment with understanding, and fosters a sense of purpose.
Practice: Dedication prayers, wishing others well, and taking delight in others' happiness (muditā).
🧠 7. Working with the Five Poisons དམྱལ་བའི་མི་དགའ་བ་ལྔ་
Strategy: Recognize and transform negative emotional states — attachment, anger, ignorance, pride, and jealousy.
Why it's powerful: These are seen as distortions of basic awareness, so transforming them leads to deeper wisdom.
Approach: Label the emotion, see its nature, and gently return to awareness — not suppression, but integration.
🌈 8. Visualization Practices
Strategy: Use symbolic imagery (e.g., deities, mandalas) to embody enlightened qualities.
Why it's powerful: Visualization rewires your emotional and psychological blueprint — helps access courage, compassion, and confidence.
Examples: སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་ Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara) for compassion, སྒྲོལ་མ་ Drolma (Tara) for protection, འཇམ་དཔལ་དབྱངས་ Jampeyang (Manjushri) for wisdom.
🧘 9. Calm Abiding ཞི་གནས་
Strategy: Train the mind to be steady and peaceful through shamatha (calm abiding).
Why it's powerful: Builds concentration, reduces anxiety, and prepares the mind for deeper insight.
Stages: Progressing through increasing levels of attention and stillness.
📿 10. Karma and Cause & Effect ལས་དང་རྒྱུ་འབྲས་
Strategy: Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences.
Why it's powerful: Encourages ethical conduct, long-term thinking, and a sense of agency.
Mental shift: Instead of blaming external circumstances, you look at inner causes.