31. Don’t react on impulse to critical remarks

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

Traleg Kyabgon writes,

This slogan relates to our anger and the impulsive responses we make when we are completely filled with aggression. Its immediate concern is the ways we lash out at others over derogatory remarks made about us. Words carry enormous power. We must be sensitive to how we express ourselves and resist the temptation to follow our impulses and jump to conclusions about what others say. We should not think our ears are neutral receptors, whose sole purpose is to receive information in an unadulterated fashion. We often hear what we want to hear, or even what we are afraid of hearing, because our receptivity is so intermingled with our fears, desires, and expectations. The very idea that someone said something disagreeable is enough to make us angry. These days we are constantly confronted with phenomena such as road rage, where every little aggression, imagined or not, compels us to become physically or verbally abusive.

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

Avalokitesvara Padmapani: Bodhisattva of Mercy Bearing a Lotus, c. 1000s. Nepal. Bronze with gilding, pigment, and semiprecious stones; overall: 62 cm (24 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art