The three principal causes are what help us to keep our heart open, to remember to exchange ourselves for others, and to communicate. They are the teacher, the teachings, and a precious human birth.

THE TEACHER. First we'll consider the teacher. In the lojong teachings the teacher is referred to as the spiritual friend, the kalyanamitra. The teacher is like a senior warrior, or a student warrior who's further along the path. It's somebody who inspires you to walk the path of warriorship yourself. Looking at them reminds you of your softness, your own clarity of mind, and your own ability to continually step out and open. Something about them speaks to your heart; you want to have a friendship with this person as a teacher. Trust is an essential ingredient: if you enter into a serious relationship with a teacher, you make a commitment to stick with them and they make a commitment to stick with you, so you're stuck together.

Lest one romanticize this relationship, I'd like to repeat something that Trungpa Rinpoche once said: "The role of the spiritual friend is to insult you." This is true. It isn't that the spiritual friend phones you up and calls you names or sends you letters about what a jerk you are. It's more that the spiritual friend is the ultimate Juan. All your blind spots are going to come out with the spiritual friend. The only difference between the spiritual friend and everybody else in your life is that you've made a commitment to stick with him or her through thick or thin, better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in death. We're not too good at keeping commitments these days; this isn't an age where commitment is honored very widely. If you enter into a relationship with a spiritual friend, you're really asking for it. Rather than the cozy, nurturing situation you might have imagined in the beginning - that the teacher is always kind and will replace the mother or father who never loved you or is finally the friend who has unconditional love for you - you find that in this relationship you begin to see the pimples on your nose, and the mirror on the wall isn't telling you that you're the fairest of them all. To the degree that anything is hidden in this relationship, you begin to see it. Spending time with Trungpa Rinpoche felt like the great expos. Often he would say very little. You'd have some seemingly enormous problem. When you finally got to talk with him, it didn't seem so important anymore. Nevertheless, you'd start to crank up the emotion, and he would just sit there and maybe even look out the window or yawn. But even if he sat there just looking and listening, you still felt exposed to yourself. Even if you were with a group and it didn't seem like you were being noticed, you felt all your awkwardness.

With a teacher you feel all the ways in which you try to con the situation, you feel all the ways in which you try to make yourself look good. You're seeing clearly what you do all the time. But you've made this commitment-one you're not going to run away from, you're not going to write off. This time you're going to stick with it. Staying there becomes like the three difficulties. When you're with the spiritual friend or even thinking about him or her, you begin to see neurosis as neurosis. That encourages you to practice the second difficulty, which is to begin to apply the teachings. And finally, you long to make that a way of life. The spiritual friend does not confirm your existence but serves as a mirror for you to see where you're stuck. The relationship encourages you to wake up.

The most important thing about the relationship with the spiritual friend is that it's basic training for how you relate to every situation in your life. It's all training for you to be grateful to every Juan, and not just the Juan or Juanita that you call your spiritual friend. So when your buttons get pushed, you begin to see that what's happening is your teacher. When your cover has been blown, you begin to see that situation as your teacher. You realize that you know what to do and can begin to relate directly with that pain and use it to relate with the pain of all sentient beings. When you feel inspired and joyful, you can share that with others and develop a sense of kinship.

THE TEACHINGS AND PRACTICES The second principal cause is the teachings and practices. You have a lot of support when you see what you do rather than turn it against yourself or try to run away from it. You have a lot of encouragement from the teachings and practices to open your heart further, to feel what's going on and not shut down, extending your openness to other sentient beings. When the mirror has just told you that you're not the fairest of them all, and you're feeling embarrassed and awkward, it begins to occur to you that there are many other people at this very moment feeling the same way. You can breathe it in for all of you. When you're feeling happy, it begins to occur to you to think of others and wish for all beings to be happy.

PRECIOUS HUMAN BIRTH. So the first principal cause is the teacher, who serves as an example and represents life itself, and who also serves as a pointed reminder to let go of holding on to yourself. The second is the teachings and the practices that actually give you tools for opening your heart. And the third cause is this precious human birth. All of us have this precious human birth. We're fortunate enough not to be starving; we're fortunate enough to have food and shelter; we're fortunate enough to hear the teachings and be given methods to wake up; we're fortunate enough to have good intelligence and the luxury to explore and question why we and others suffer.

From START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chdrn, 1994.
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.