28. Give up all hope for results

• This is the Sixth Slogan/Instruction of Point Six, which consists of sixteen instructions.
• Point Six is “The Disciplines of Mind Training”]

Traleg Kyabgon wrote:

This slogan may sound foreign to Western ears, but it has a long history in Buddhist thinking. The lojong teachings say that whenever we become obsessed with results, we spend our time trying to manipulate the outcome of our endeavor, instead of paying attention to the activity itself. Even though we have no real idea what the result will be, we project a picture-perfect vision of our expectations into the future. This distracts us from doing the task at hand and usually ends in frustration and disappointment because the imagined result is never the same as the eventual outcome. Thus, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with what benefits we’re achieving from our mind training, but should simply focus on our practice with sincerity, for how we engage in the practice is what will determine the end result.

It’s important to have a general notion of what we want to attain, but we shouldn’t get too caught up in specifics or we’ll waste our time and energy in fantasies.

Traleg Kyabgon,  The Practice of Lojong: Cultivating Compassion through Training the Mind

Figure of a Maitreya on a Tiered Pedestal, c. 1200. Nepal. Gilded wood with polychrome; overall: 21.3 x 14.6 cm (8 3/8 x 5 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art