Normally we (I) try push the hurt away as soon as we feel the slightest discomfort. We cover it up, distract ourselves, run away from it, and we even misuse Dharma to repress it.

We deny, deny, deny. We deny we are hurting. We deny we have delusions in our mind. We deny we have infinite negative karma on our mind. We deny we are in real danger of falling into the lower realms. We deny we are trapped in a cycle of contaminated rebirth, convincing ourselves that somehow, just because we are a Dharma practitioner, it means we are exempt from samsara’s suffering and we will somehow wind up in the pure land or with another precious human rebirth even if we haven’t actually built the necessary refuge and realizations within our mind.

We are mostly indifferent to the plight of others, they are just strangers passing us on the street; but even for the few we do care about, we repeat all the same mistakes we do towards ourselves with them. Deny, deny, deny.

The magnitude of the horror of samsara – for both ourselves and for others – remains mostly abstract and intellectual, and when we do confront its fears, we have countless defense mechanisms so it doesn’t really touch our hearts. We jump straight to the reassuring thoughts of, “well, I’ll be OK; my cat will be OK; my kids will be OK.” Says who? It’s just way too much to let it all in, so we intellectualize it if we think about it at all.

VGL says we need to “feel others pain as keenly as our own.” Are we prepared to do that? Really let their pain into our hearts? Let the totality of the hurt of all of samsara into our hearts? It is inconceivably vast and we feel we will be crushed like a bug if we dare do so. But this is where we need to go.

We have to give ourselves permission to feel our hurt. To let it into our heart, let it pass through us, allow ourselves to feel it, not just cover it up or repress it or intellectualize it.

We need to do the same with other’s suffering. Compassion is a mind that “cannot bear” the suffering of others. While a peaceful mind, it nonetheless feels the hurt of others as keenly as our own. Are we ready to do that? Really ready to do that and let that hurt in? Allow ourselves to feel it to the point where we simply cannot bear it anymore?

That takes such tremendous courage. And faith. And a rock solid mind of patient acceptance. And deep experience with the lojong teachings of transforming adverse conditions into our heart. And a clear awareness of the sky-like qualities of our Buddha nature. And emptiness, understanding that the samsara we normally see does not exist. We need to feel ourselves as inseparable from our Guru at our heart and Dorje Shugden at our back. So many necessary conditions before we can do that.

By analogy, it is not that different than Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Devil basically said, “are you really ready for this?” And Jesus basically said, “bring it on,” and then the we all know what followed.

I’m not saying that is what will happen to us, not at all, but that is the mind we are talking about – a mind willing to let it all in, to take on the suffering, delusions, and negative karma of all living beings.

Of course we need to start small and gradually expand, be skillful, not take on more than our capacity allows, and all the other things about practicing skillfully. We of course need to do all that. But we need to be clear-eyed that this is where we are going. This is where we need to go. We need to let it in. Eventually all of it.

When we do, we will feel – in our hearts – the urgency of the Lamrim. Our renunciation will be almost instantaneous. Our compassion will be so strong, we simply won’t be able to remain in samsara even if we wanted to. It will simply be too much to bear. Our appreciation of our precious human life, our Guru, the path he has provided us, and the Ganden Oral Lineage instructions will bring us to tears.

All of our petty concerns and preoccupations will fall by the wayside. We will find clarity of purpose, iron will of determination, and – despite it all – joy knowing by some miracle we have found not only the doorway out but a method by which we can bring countless living beings with us. And nothing can stop us from completing the path if we never give up. We have a clear shot, we just have to go for it and never look back. We won’t want to.

In short, the Dharma will touch our hearts. We will have finally found our object of meditation. We will reverse what Geshe-la calls in Mirror of Dharma our sad situation.

Let it in.