Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche translated today’s Lojong slogan as “Abandon Any Hope of Fruition.”[1] Most other Lojong commentaries translate this slogan with simpler language such as “Give Up Hoping for Results”.[2] I don’t know if Trunga Rinpoche meant to recall the Divine Comedy, but this translation seems to allude to the inscription at the entrance to Hell: “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”. Perhaps he was intending to give the slogan a greater resonance for his Western audience.
The Lojong slogan itself comes in the sixth (of seven) section of the slogans. These specify a variety of commitments on how generally to comport oneself in the world with self-control and moderation.
The sense of this slogan is first, don’t hope for results/fruition from one’s Lojong practice, but also from one’s efforts in general. Lojong is a set of mind training techniques to develop one’s’ understanding of, and living of, Emptiness. It is in fact a technology, but one that short circuits instrumentality.
As discussed in my previous post, Heidegger points out that the move from craft based technology to modern technology involves a move from Revealing to Enframing. The mental technology of Lojong preserves the Revealing function, but adds what we might call a Deframing function. Modern technology Enframes even its makers, Humans, into its Standing Reserve. Lojong however is a technology that deconstructs, Deframes instrumentality itself freeing us from the hope and fear of results/fruition.
Lojong is a piece of Tibetan Buddhism. Robert Thurman has called the synthesis that is Tibetan Buddhism an “Inner Modernity” that created a rationalized “technology of life, death and reincarnation”.[3]
That is to say, the science of letting it go.
[1] Trungpa, Chogyam Training the Mind, Shambhala Publications
[2] Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche Enlightened Courage Snow Lion Publications (translated by Padmakara Tranlation Group)
[3] Thurman, Robert Essential Tibetan Buddhism Castle Books (p.37-40),
