Cherishing Others as Supreme

The Heart of Mind Training

There is a man in eleventh-century Tibet who almost never smiles. His students know this about him. Visitors remark on it. He sits in his small monastery in the Penbo district, teaching a handful of close disciples, and his face carries a gravity that people find unsettling. They call him "the Mournful One."

He smiles only twice in his entire adult life.

The first time, he is sitting before his mandala offering -- the arrangement of precious substances that represents the entire universe offered to the buddhas. A tiny mouse appears and begins tugging at a turquoise stone placed on the mandala. The turquoise is too heavy for the little creature. It struggles, strains, cannot budge it. Then it squeaks -- a tiny, urgent sound -- and a second mouse comes running. One pushes from behind while the other pulls from the front, and together they drag the turquoise away.

That makes Langri Tangpa smile.

Why this, of all things? Perhaps because in that moment of cooperation between two tiny beings, he saw something he spent his whole life teaching: that we need each other. That nothing of value is accomplished alone. That even a mouse understands what we, with all our sophistication, so often forget -- the way forward is together.

Geshe Langri Tangpa (1054--1123) composed the Eight Verses of Training the Mind, one of the shortest and most potent texts in all of Tibetan Buddhism. Eight stanzas. You can memorize them in an afternoon. You could spend a lifetime trying to live them.

The lineage behind these verses is remarkably short and direct. The great Indian master Atisha brought the lojong instructions to Tibet in 1042, having received them from his own teacher, the Sumatran master Serlingpa. Atisha passed them to his heart disciple Dromtonpa, who transmitted them to Geshe Potowa. Potowa gave them to Langri Tangpa. Only three generations separate these verses from Atisha himself. The teachings arrived in Tibet as "ear-whispered" instructions -- private, intimate, given only to those ready to receive them. Langri Tangpa was the one who distilled them into their most concentrated form.

And what is the essence of mind training? It is a profound reorientation -- perhaps the most radical one a human being can undertake. Right now, if we are honest, we cherish our own welfare above everything else. "My" comfort, "my" reputation, "my" happiness -- these come first, and everyone else falls somewhere behind. The lojong teachings ask us to reverse this entirely. Not gradually, not halfway, but completely. The true enemy, they say, is not outside. It is the self-cherishing thought itself -- that relentless inner voice that insists on placing "me" at the center of every situation.

The Eight Verses provide the method for dismantling this enemy, one verse at a time. The first seven verses cultivate relative bodhicitta -- the compassionate aspiration and method of the path. The eighth verse turns to absolute bodhicitta -- the wisdom that sees through the illusion of a solid self. Together, they form a complete path, from the very first step to the threshold of liberation.

Verse 1: The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel

By thinking of all sentient beings As more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel For accomplishing the highest aim, I will always hold them dear.

The very first line of this text asks you to do something extraordinary. It asks you to look at every being you encounter -- every single one, without exception -- and recognize them as more precious than the most valuable object in the universe.

In Buddhist cosmology, the wish-fulfilling jewel -- the cintamani -- is an object of almost unimaginable worth. It can grant any worldly desire: wealth, health, power, pleasure. Kings wage wars over it. Beings in the god realms possess it effortlessly. It is the ultimate symbol of abundance.

And Langri Tangpa says that every sentient being is worth more.

Why? Think about it this way. The wish-fulfilling jewel can only grant mundane aims. It cannot produce buddhahood. But sentient beings can -- and must -- because they are the indispensable condition for the entire path. Without other beings, there is no one to be compassionate toward. Without others, patience cannot be cultivated because there is no one to test it. Without others, generosity is meaningless because there is no one to give to. Without others, the bodhisattva vow itself -- to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings -- has no object and no content.

The Dalai Lama, who recites these verses daily and considers them among the most important teachings he has received, puts it in terms that cut right through our usual way of thinking. He calls it "wise selfishness." If you genuinely want to serve your own deepest interests, he says, the most effective strategy is to prioritize others. Not because it is morally superior, not because someone told you to, but because it is simply how happiness works. Fulfillment comes as a byproduct of altruistic effort, never as the result of self-centered grasping.

He has also observed something that anyone can verify through their own experience: the moment you think of others with a sense of caring, your mind widens. When self-focus narrows your thinking, even minor problems feel overwhelming -- a traffic jam becomes a catastrophe, an offhand remark ruins your afternoon. But when you are genuinely motivated by concern for others, the same problems shrink to their actual size. Not because they have changed, but because the mind holding them has expanded.

There is a deeper teaching here as well -- one that connects to the very foundations of the Mahayana. In the Buddhist understanding of beginningless rebirth, every being has at some point been your mother, your father, your dearest friend. Every being has at some point cared for you with fierce, selfless devotion -- feeding you from their own mouth, protecting you with their own body. The stranger on the street, the insect on the windowsill, the person who annoys you most -- all of them have loved you in lives you cannot remember. As Patrul Rinpoche reminds us elsewhere, even the tears we have shed over our many lifetimes would fill an ocean vaster than all the oceans of this world.

Recognizing this, how could you not hold them dear?

The practice of this verse is not a single act but a continuous orientation. "I will always hold them dear" -- not just when it is convenient, not just when they are kind to you, not just when you are sitting on your meditation cushion. Always. At the supermarket. In an argument. When someone cuts in front of you. Every encounter with another being becomes an encounter with something more precious than any jewel you could ever find.

Verse 2: Regarding Oneself as the Lowest

Whenever I'm in the company of others, I will regard myself as the lowest among all, And from the depths of my heart Cherish others as supreme.

If the first verse establishes the value of others, the second addresses the obstacle that prevents us from actually living that way: our own pride.

The instruction is stark. Regard yourself as the lowest among all. Not as a performance of false modesty, not as self-deprecation, not as a strategy to win people's sympathy. From the depths of your heart.

Now, this is easily misunderstood, and it is worth taking a moment to be clear about what Langri Tangpa is and is not saying. The Dalai Lama clarifies that this practice does not mean abandoning self-confidence or healthy self-esteem. It does not mean letting people walk over you or believing yourself to be worthless. It means something far more radical and far more specific: dismantling the exaggerated sense of self-importance that constantly compares you to others and insists on coming out on top.

Watch what happens the next time you enter a room full of people. Notice how quickly the mind begins its sorting: Who here is more successful than me? Who is less? Who do I need to impress? Who can I dismiss? This is the machinery of pride, and it runs almost continuously, silently shaping every interaction. When you are convinced of your own importance, you have no space to receive from others. You are like a full cup that cannot be filled. You are closed.

By regarding others as supreme, something opens up. You become gentler, more curious, more genuinely interested in the person in front of you. You create the internal conditions for real receptivity -- the kind that allows learning, connection, and love to flow.

There is a beautiful story about Dromtonpa, Atisha's chief disciple and one of the most realized masters of his generation. When visitors arrived at his monastery, Dromtonpa -- this great teacher, this lineage holder, this man who could have sat on a throne and commanded reverence -- would get down and perform the most menial tasks for them. He cleaned their shoes. He prepared their meals. He served them with his own hands.

This was not a show for the benefit of onlookers. It was not a technique. It was the natural expression of a mind completely free from arrogance -- a mind that genuinely found more joy in serving than in being served. Dromtonpa had nothing to prove to anyone, and so he was free to do anything for everyone.

Consider your own experience for a moment. When you feel superior to someone -- because of your education, your practice, your intelligence, your social position -- notice what happens inside you. The mind contracts. It becomes hard and judgmental. You start looking for confirmation of your superiority and evidence of their inferiority. You are, in that moment, building a prison for yourself out of comparisons.

Now recall a time when you felt genuinely humble -- not humiliated, but humble. Perhaps you were in the presence of a great teacher, or witnessing something so beautiful it dissolved your sense of self for a moment. Notice how that felt. Spacious. Soft. Open. That is the quality Langri Tangpa is pointing to.

The phrase "from the depths of my heart" is the key to the entire verse. This is not about surface-level politeness or good manners. It is about a genuine transformation of how you hold yourself in relation to every being you encounter. The moment you meet another person -- any person, regardless of their status, their appearance, their behavior -- the practice is to shift from the habitual stance of "How do I compare?" to the revolutionary stance of "How can I serve?"

These two verses together form the foundation of everything that follows. Verse 1 says: others are infinitely precious. Verse 2 says: and you are not more important than any of them. With these two recognitions firmly in place -- not as ideas you agree with, but as convictions that shape your actual behavior -- the rest of the mind training practices become possible. Without them, every subsequent instruction will be quietly distorted by the self-cherishing mind, which has a remarkable talent for hijacking even the most noble aspirations and making them about "me."