Part I: Dealing Constructively with Sensitivity Issues

• 1 Identifying Sensitivity Imbalances

  • What Is Sensitivity?

  • Exercise 1: Identifying Sensitivity Imbalances

    • Forms of Hypersensitivity

      • Balanced and hypersensitive alternatives

    • Manifestations of Insensitivity

      • Forms of insensitivity

• 2 Quieting the Mind and Generating Care

  • Feasibility of Improvement

  • Required Skills

  • Meditation

  • Basic Approach

  • Order of Practice

  • Rational and Intuitive Approaches

  • Abbreviating the Training

  • Posture

  • Initial Procedures for Each Training Session

  • Procedure for Each Part of an Exercise

  • Concluding Procedures for Each Training Session

  • Nonlinear Progress

  • Creating a Quiet, Caring Space

  • Exercise 2A: Quieting the Mind

  • Exercise 2B: Generating Care

• 3 Imagining Ideal Sensitivity

  • Qualities Suggested by the Enlightening Networks

  • Forms of Sensitive Response

  • Qualities of Mind and Heart

  • Exercise 3: Imagining Ideal Sensitivity

    • Feeling Balanced Sensitivity Toward Someone in Person and Toward Ourselves

• 4 Affirming and Accessing Our Natural Abilities

  • The Necessity for a Pragmatic Means

  • Buddha-Nature

  • Basis, Pathway, and Resultant Levels

  • Acknowledging Our Network of Positive Force

  • Appreciating Our Network of Deep Awareness and Our Ability to Be Inspired

  • Exercise 4: Affirming and Accessing Our Natural Abilities

• 5 Refraining from Destructive Behavior

  • The Need for Ethics

  • Definition of Destructive Behavior

  • Ten Destructive Actions

  • Motivation for Ethical Training

  • Exercise 5: Resolving to Refrain from Destructive Behavior

• 6 Combining Warmth with Understanding

  • The Necessity for Joint Development of Warmth and Understanding

  • Taking Others Seriously

  • Being Unafraid to Respond

  • Taking in All Information

  • Acting Straightforwardly

  • Refraining from Offering Unwanted or Unneeded Help

  • Exercise 6: Five Decisions for Combining Warmth with Understanding

Part II: Uncovering the Talents of Our Mind and Heart

• 7 Shifting Focus from Mind and from Ourselves to Mental Activity

  • Integrating Mind and Heart

  • Mind Is Not Some Physical Entity in Our Head

  • Mind as the Ever-changing Experience of Things

  • Individuality of Experience

  • Mind as an Unbroken Continuum

  • General Definition of Mind

  • Significance of the Definition of Mind for Sensitivity Issues

  • Exercise 7: Shifting Our Focus from Mind and Ourselves to Mental Activity

• 8 Appreciating the Clear Light Nature of Mental Activity

  • Mental Activity as Clear Light

  • Four Types of Clear Light Nature

  • Nothing Can Affect Mind's Fourfold Clear Light Nature

  • Relevance of Clear Light to Issues of Sensitivity

  • Exercise 8: Appreciating the Clear Light Nature of Mental Activity

• 9 Accessing the Natural Talents of Our Mind and Heart

  • Clear Light Talents

  • Natural Concern to Take Care of Someone

  • The Relation Between Concern and Appearances

  • Natural Warmth and Joy

  • Exercise 9: Accessing the Natural Talents of Our Mind and Heart

• 10 Applying the Five Types of Deep Awareness

  • Basic Description of the Five Types of Awareness

  • Mirror-like Awareness

  • Awareness of Equalities

  • Awareness of Individualities

  • Accomplishing Awareness

  • Awareness of Reality

  • The Five Types of Deep Awareness as an Integrated Network

  • Exercise 10: Applying the Five Types of Deep Awareness

Part III: Dispelling Confusion about Appearances

• 11 Validating the Appearances We Perceive

  • Statement of the Problem

  • Confirming the Conventional Validity of What We Sense

  • Validating the Deepest Fact of Reality According to the Self-Voidness Position

  • Validating the Conventional and Deepest Facts of Reality According to the Other-Voidness Point of View

  • Accepting the Conventional Facts of Reality That We Validly Experience

  • Rejecting the Appearances That Contradict the Deepest Facts of Reality

  • Exercise 11: Validating the Appearances We Perceive

• 12 Deconstructing Deceptive Appearances

  • The Need for Deconstruction Methods

  • Focusing on Life's Changes

  • Past and Future Lives

  • Raising Awareness of Parts and Causes

  • Using the Image of Waves on the Ocean

  • Three Forms of Compassion

  • Developing Compassion for Ourselves to Avoid Overreacting to Slow Progress

• 13 Four Exercises for Deconstructing Deceptive Appearances

  • Exercise 12: Visualizing Life's Changes

  • Exercise 13: Dissecting Experiences into Parts and Causes

  • Exercise 14: Seeing Experiences as Waves on the Ocean

    • Dispelling Nervous Self-Consciousness with Others

    • Becoming More Relaxed With Ourselves

  • Exercise 15: Combining Compassion with Deconstruction

Part IV: Responding with Balanced Sensitivity

• 14 Adjusting Our Innate Mental Factors

  • Ten Mental Factors That Accompany Each Moment of Experience

  • The Spectrum These Innate Mental Factors Encompass

  • How These Factors Function During Moments of Insensitivity

  • Exercise 16: Adjusting Our Innate Mental Factors

    • Focusing These Factors on Others and on Ourselves

    • Gaining a Balanced View of Others and of Ourselves

• 15 Unblocking Our Feelings

  • Differentiating the Various Aspects of Feelings

  • Feeling Some Level of Happiness or Sadness

  • Ridding Ourselves of Upsetting Feelings That Block Sensitivity

  • Overcoming Alienation from Feelings

  • Serenity and Equanimity as the Container for Balanced Feelings

  • Components of Sympathy

  • Feeling No Sympathy

  • Overcoming Fear of Unhappiness When Feeling Sympathy

  • The Relation Between Love and Happiness

  • Training to Respond to Problems with Nonupsetting Feelings

  • Exercise 17: Accepting Suffering and Giving Happiness

    • Helping Others and Ourselves to Overcome Insecurity

• 16 Making Sensitive Decisions

  • Feelings, Wishes, and Necessity

  • Reasons for Feeling Like Doing Something and Wanting to Do It

  • Choosing Between What We Want to Do and What We Feel Like Doing

  • Doing What We Need to Do

  • Alienation from What We Want to Do or What We Feel Like Doing

  • Decision-Making

  • Not Identifying with What We Want to Do or Feel Like Doing

  • Not Knowing What We Want to Do or Feel Like Doing

  • Feelings and Intuition

  • Compromising Our Preferences for Those of Others

  • Saying No

  • Exercise 18: Making Sensitive Decisions

Part V: Advanced Training

• 17 Grasping at Mind's Natural Functions for Security

  • Statement of the Problem

  • Seven Natural Mental Functions That We Grasp for Security

  • A Linguistic Scheme for Identifying the Forms These Problems May Take

  • Exercise 19: Identifying the Syndromes of Grasping at Mind's Natural Functions for Security

    • Grasping or Fearing Physical Activity

    • Grasping or Fearing Verbal Expression

    • Grasping or Fearing Sensory or Mental Experiences

    • Grasping or Fearing Expression of Warm Concern

    • Grasping or Fearing Expression of Energy

    • Grasping or Fearing Rest

    • Grasping or Fearing Expression of Pleasure

• 18 Relaxing Triplistic Appearances of Mind's Natural Functions

  • Dispelling Insecurity through Deconstruction

  • Exercise 20: Relaxing Triplistic Appearances of Mind's Natural Functions

    • Physical Activity

    • Verbal Expression

    • Sensory or Mental Experience

    • Expression of Warm Concern

    • Expression of Energy

    • Rest

    • Expression of Pleasure

    • Feeling Comfortable with Others and with Ourselves

• 19 Dispelling Discomfort at the Eight Transitory Things in Life

  • Eight Transitory Things in Life

  • Deconstructing Dualistic Appearances of Receiving or Giving Any of the Eight

  • Exercise 21: Dispelling Discomfort at the Eight Transitory Things in Life

    • Receiving or Giving Praise or Criticism

    • Receiving or Conveying Good or Bad News

    • Being the Recipient or Agent of Gains or Losses

    • Receiving or Fulfilling Expectations and Demands

    • Being the Recipient or Agent of Things Going Well or Poorly

    • Avoiding an Emotional Roller Coaster When Directly Relating to Someone

    • Avoiding Emotional Extremes When Relating to Ourselves

• 20 Dissolving Disturbing Emotions into Underlying Deep Awareness

  • Naivety

  • Arrogance and Stinginess

  • Longing Desire and Clinging Attachment

  • Jealousy

  • Anger

  • Worry and Complaint

  • Exercise 22: Dissolving Disturbing Emotions into Underlying Deep Awareness

    • Dissolving Naivety into Mirror-like Awareness of Reality

    • Dissolving Arrogance into Equalizing Awareness

    • Dissolving Stinginess into Equalizing Awareness

    • Dissolving Longing Desire into Individualizing Awareness

    • Dissolving Clinging Attachment into Individualizing Awareness

    • Dissolving Jealousy into Accomplishing Awareness

    • Dissolving Anger into Mirror-like Awareness of Reality

    • Dissolving Worry into Individualizing Awareness and Caring Concern

    • Dissolving Complaint into Accomplishing Awareness of Reality

    • Overcoming Loneliness and Resolving Conflicts

    • Dislodging Low Self-Esteem

  • Epilogue

Bibliography

• Major Tibetan, Sanskrit and Pali Sources Consulted

• Recommended Reading

Preface

• Preface to the First Edition

• Preface to the Second Edition