Happy Tsog Day: Offering Tsog to All Sentient Beings and All Buddhas

Kadampa Ryan Tsog Days

In order to remember and mark our tsog days, holy days on the Kadampa calendar, I am sharing my understanding of the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide with tsog.  This is part 23 of a 44-part series.

HO This ocean of tsog offering of uncontaminated nectar,
Blessed by concentration, mantra, and mudra,
I offer to please the assembly of mother sentient beings.
OM AH HUM
Delighted by enjoying these magnificent objects of desire,
EH MA HO
May suffering and mistaken appearance be pacified.

In this final verse, which Gen-la Dekyong said is her favorite, we make the tsog offering to the assembly of mother sentient beings. When we do so, they receive special blessings that cause all suffering and mistaken appearance to be pacified. According to Highest Yoga Tantra, the roots of samsara are ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions. Ordinary appearances are the things that we normally see, such as computers, cars, food, and so forth. All these things appear to exist from their own side, independent of our mind. Ordinary conceptions are when we mentally assent to ordinary appearances, believing that the objects exist in the way that they appear. When we free our mind from ordinary conceptions, we attain liberation from samsara. But it is only when we free our mind from ordinary appearances that we attain enlightenment. When we say, “may suffering be pacified,” we are referring to ordinary conceptions that are the root of all our samsaric suffering; and when we say, may “mistaken appearance” be pacified, we are referring to ordinary appearances that prevent our full enlightenment. In other words, after partaking of the tsog offering, we strongly believe that all living beings have now attained enlightenment. This mental action of believing that they have done so creates the karma for them to appear to do so in the future. To strongly believe something in the Dharma does not mean to strongly believe the thing we are imagining inherently exists, rather it means we engage in the mental action of believing something conventionally exists because this mental action is how we create the karma for the thing we are imagining to later appear. In this way, we can understand how engaging in the tsog offering is a method for fulfilling our bodhichitta wish to lead all beings to everlasting freedom.

Making the tsog offering to the Vajra Master

EH MA HO Great circle of tsog!
O Great Hero we understand
That, following in the path of the Sugatas of the three times,
You are the source of all attainments.
Forsaking all minds of conceptualization
Please continuously enjoy this circle of tsog.
AH LA LA HO

Here we make the tsog offering directly to our spiritual guide Buddha Vajradhara at the heart of Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang. In making the offering, we remember that Vajradhara is the source of all attainments. Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that all happiness comes through the kindness of Buddha. The reason for this is all happiness comes from virtue, and virtue arises only in dependence upon receiving blessings from Buddha. If Buddha is the source of all happiness, then certainly he is the source of all spiritual attainments which depends upon both his teachings and his blessings. When we make the offering to the spiritual guide in particular, we recall non-conceptual bliss and emptiness of all phenomena. The spiritual guide himself arises non-conceptually and we view everything that appears to our mind as manifestations bliss and emptiness. When we recite AH LA LA HO, we imagine that the spiritual guide partakes of our tsog offering through a straw of wisdom light.

The Master’s reply

OM With a nature inseparable from the three vajras
I generate as the Guru-Deity.
AH This nectar of uncontaminated exalted wisdom and bliss,
HUM Without stirring from bodhichitta
I partake to delight the Deities dwelling in my body.
AH HO MAHA SUKHA

This verse is particularly blessed. After our spiritual guide has partaken of the tsog offering, we imagine that he replies directly to us with the above words. We should strongly feel that we are in his living presence and he is speaking directly to us. With the first line, we understand that the spiritual guide is inseparable from the visual body, speech, and mind of all the Buddhas. With the second line, we recall his outer form as they guru deity – in this context he generates himself as Heruka. With the third line, we imagine that as a result of enjoying the tsog offering he generates a non-contaminated experience of exalted wisdom and bliss. With the fourth line, we recall that his motivation is bodhichitta. Sometimes we may wonder why a Buddha would need to generate the mind of bodhicitta. Aren’t they already a Buddha, so therefore why would they wish to become one? There are two answers to this doubt. First, the principle wish of bodhicitta is to lead all living beings to enlightenment, the wish to become a Buddha ourselves is simply a secondary wish or the assistant wish that enables us to fulfill our primary wish. When a Buddha attains enlightenment, they do not abandon their bodhichitta, but rather their bodhicitta continues to inform all their actions. Second, the spiritual guide generates within his mind all the realizations of the stages of the path as subtle emanations that we as practitioners can mix our mind with. He generates bodhichitta so that when we mix our mind with his we are also able to generate bodhichitta. The same is true for all the other realizations of the stages of the path. With the fifth line, we imagine that all the deities of the body mandala inside our spiritual guide’s body also partake of the tsog offering. As a result, we create a special karma for them to fulfill their function, which is to bless the subtle body, speech, and mind of ourselves. And with the last line, which means “oh what great bliss,” we imagine that our spiritual guide experiences not only himself but all phenomena as great bliss.

One of our refuge commitments is to offer the first portion of whatever we eat to the three jewels. In the eleven yogas of Vajrayogini explained in Guide to Dakini Land and Modern Buddhism, we are encouraged to recite this verse whenever we ourselves eat. This is a method for fulfilling our refuge commitment according to Highest Yoga Tantra. Since we eat many times every day, by memorizing and subsequently practicing this verse we will be able to recall our tantric practice day and night. The way to engage in the practice can be understood from the explanation above. More detail can be found in Guide to Dakini Land.

Happy Tara Day: Why we turn to Tara

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

This is the second installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.

Going for refuge

I and all sentient beings, until we achieve enlightenment,
Go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.   (3x)

Je Tsongkhapa explains the primary causes of going for refuge are fear and faith.  Fear of lower rebirth, samsaric rebirth, or solitary peace; and faith in the three jewels to provide us protection from these fears.  When we engage in Tara practice, even though the refuge prayer we recite is the same as in so many of our other practices, we should mentally generate a specific faith in Tara, understanding her function.  In particular, Tara promised Atisha that in the future she would provide special care for all of his followers.  Atisha is the founder of the Kadampa tradition, and all Kadampas take his Lamrim as our main practice.  Tara is, in many ways, the Buddha of Lamrim.  Her mantra reveals that her main function is to bestow upon our mind the realizations of the initial, intermediate, and great scope of Lamrim, thus protectingus from lower rebirth, samsaric rebirth, and solitary peace.  Viewing her as our spiritual mother and the Buddha of Lamrim, we go for refuge to her with deep faith.

Generating bodhichitta

Through the virtues I collect by giving and other perfections,
May I become a Buddha for the benefit of all.   (3x)

The way we generate bodhichitta is different for each practice we engage in, even if the words we recite are exactly the same.  Of course, our compassionate wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all living beings is the same, but the specific flavor of the bodhichitta we generate will depend upon the practice we are doing.  The difference is identified in how the practice we are about to engage in contributes to our enlightenment based on its uncommon function.  Tara helps us in ways that are different than say Manjushri or Avalokiteshvara, and so generating bodhichitta for Tara practice is different because it is informed by how she helps us.  The more clearly we understand her function, the more precisely we will understand how reliance upon her will help move us towards enlightenment, giving our bodhichitta prayers a unique Tara-like flavor.  What is Tara’s function?  She is our spiritual mother, she helps us gain Lamrim realizations, and she swiftly helps us dispel all fears.  We need a spiritual mother, the lamrim realizations, and fearlessness in order to progress swiftly towards enlightenment.  Wanting these things and understanding her power to help us attain them, we generate bodhichitta.

Generating the four immeasurables

May all sentient beings possess happiness and its causes,
May they be free from suffering and its causes,
May they never be separated from the happiness that is without suffering,
May they abide in equanimity, without feeling close to some out of attachment or distant from others out of hatred.

As with bodhichitta practice, our practice of the four immeasurables should also have a Tara-like flavor when we recite them.  To do so, we should not just generate the four immeasurable wishes in a generic sense, but we should try align ourselves with Tara’s four immeasurable wishes for all living beings.  How Tara feels and experiences these four immeasurable wishes will be informed by her own understanding of her function and how she helps people realize these four wishes.  If we are to align ourselves with Tara’s blessings, we need to not only generate faith in her, but we need to align our motivation with hers.

When Tara thinks may all sentient beings possess happiness and its causes, she does so as a spiritual mother would.  When she thinks may they be free from suffering and its causes, she does so as somebody who has the power to dispel all fears would.  When she wishes everyone never be separated from the happiness without suffering, she does so as somebody who has the power to bestow the lamrim realizations of freedom from lower rebirth, samsaric rebirth, and solitary peace would.  When she wishes everyone abide in equanimity, she does so as a mother would who loves equally all her children and wishes only that they also love each other.  As you engage in the four immeasurables, ask yourself, “how would Tara feel these wishes,” and then try to feel them in the same way she would.  This will make your practice particularly powerful and align your mind more precisely with her blessings.

Inviting Arya Tara

From the supreme abode of Potala,
Born from the green letter TAM,
You who liberate migrators with the light of the letter TAM,
O Tara, please come here together with your retinue.

Potala is her Pure Land.  Definitive Potala is the clear light Dharmakaya of all the Buddhas.  An enlightened mind is the union of the completely purified wind and mind.  The completely purified very subtle wind is the vajra body of the Buddha, and the completely purified very subtle mind is the vajra mind of the Buddha.  When bodhisattvas are progressing along the Tantric grounds, they imagine that out of the Dharmakaya their vajra body (or illusory body) emerges out of the Dharmakaya.  Their very subtle wind takes the form of a seed letter of the future Buddha they are to become.  For Tara, her seed letter is the green letter TAM.  Once a Buddha attains enlightenment, they send out countless emanations and blessings to help all living beings – these are their emanation bodies.  Taken together, this verse means from her inner pure land of Dharmakaya Potala, she emerges as her enjoyment body in the aspect of a letter TAM, which then sends out infinite light rays in all directions ripening and liberating all living beings, who then appear in the aspect of countless Taras surrounding her and the twenty one Taras.

Prostration

Gods and demi-gods bow their crowns
At your lotus feet;
O Liberator from all misfortune,
To you, Mother Tara, I prostrate.

Typically, gods and demi-gods bow to nobody thinking themselves superior to all, but when they are in Tara’s presence, they spontaneously bow their crowns out of respect a her lotus feet.  They do not do so out of fear or political loyalty, but deep respect understanding her to be the Holy Mother of all the Buddhas.  When we recite that she is the Liberator from all misfortune, we understand that she has the power to liberate all beings who are now around us in the aspect of Taras, and we imagine that all beings spontaneously bow down to her out of love and respect to her as our spiritual mother. 

The feeling this evokes for me is like in Game of Thrones with Daenerys Stormborn liberated countless slaves from their masters, and tens of thousands of them spontaneously started calling out to her as Mhysa, their liberating mother.  Tara is our Mhysa, and we imagine all living beings surrounding us feel the same loving respect. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Be the first to get the worst!

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not aim at being the first to get the best. 

If we own something jointly, we should not want to possess it all for ourselves. If we share something, we should not want the best parts for ourselves. 

Aiming to be the first to get the best is the natural tendency of this world.  The reason for this is very simple:  we live in a world where resources are finite and our desires are limitless.  We fear if we do not aim to be the first to get the best we may wind up with nothing at all.  In the workplace, the “successful ones” all seem to put the interests of themselves ahead of everybody else.  They seek the best jobs, they claim the most credit.  When it comes time to bear some unpleasant burden, they manage to maneuver themselves into a position of “management” while we are left to do all the work.  When there is cake being cut, we want the first piece; when we are waiting in line, we resent those in front of us; when we are in traffic, we cut in front of others; when there is a good seat, we try grab it before somebody else does; when we are at the supermarket, we pick the best fruit for ourselves, etc.  In short, we live our life as one giant scramble to take the last cookie in the cookie jar for ourselves, thinking it is better to have than to go without. 

A Kadampa does the exact opposite.  We strive to be the first to get the worst.  If somebody is to go without, we would rather it be us.  We volunteer for the worst jobs that everybody else tries to avoid, such as cleaning the toilets.  We take the smallest and worst piece for ourselves.  We give others credit for all successes and take the blame for all failures.  We would rather lose so others can win.  We provide for others instead of take for ourselves.

Venerable Tharchin goes so far as to say we should simply abolish from our mind any sense of “owning anything as our own.”  We should ban the thought “mine” from our mind.  Our house is not ours, it is what we provide for our family.  Our money belongs to all living beings, we are merely the present custodian managing it for their benefit.  Our body has been given away as a servant to others.  Our realizations are gained on their behalf.  We have literally given away our “self” to others, having transferred this imputation onto others.  We hold nothing back for ourselves. 

And here is the kicker:  we do all this gladly!  On the surface, the above does not exactly make for a good marketing slogan – “Become a Kadampa, get the worst of everything!”  Our reluctance to do this once again shows we have everything completely backwards. 

Why are we happy to do this?  First, because we value our future lives more than this present life, our priority in life is to store up good karma for the future, not exhaust it all now on fleeting samsaric rewards.  Second, because we realize samsara’s pleasures are deceptive, they seem as attractive to us as candy we know is laced with poison.  Third, because we have exchanged ourself with others, it is simply more important to us that others be happy than for ourself to be.  Fourth, because we have bodhichitta, we want to push ourselves to become a better person and scrupulous avoid being the first to get the best does exactly that.  Fifth, because we understand emptiness, we realize it is all a dream so there is no “best” to be had anyways.  Finally, because we are a tantric practitioner, we seek to bring the result into the path by emulated the actions of a Buddha now. 

Even in a worldly sense, avoiding being the first to get the best is simply a good life strategy.  Nobody respects the selfish, and everybody tries to knock down the arrogant.  Ghandi said his goal in life was to become the lowest of all.  Who does not hold him up as the highest of all?  Those who put the interests of others first, even at the expense of themselves, are venerated as the greatest statesmen and the world’s moral beacons.  When we start to live our life in this way, others around us begin to do the same.  Geshe-la famously says in Eight Steps to Happiness that somebody who cherishes others more than themselves is like a magic crystal that has the power to transform and purify any community.  Internally, most of our stress in life can be traced back to anxiety about getting our share and making sure we have enough.  All this vanishes when our priority is for others to get the best.  Many of the world’s externally richest people feel perpetually poor.  No matter how much they have, it never satisfies their desires and they always want more.  There is always somebody with a bigger yacht, a higher position, or a more beautiful wife. 

To be truly rich is to feel as if we lack nothing.  No amount of external possessions can ever create this feeling.  Such a feeling comes only from the internal mind of contentment.  The richest person in the world is the one who is most content with what they have, not the person with the biggest bank account.  The reality is we already have it all.  It is only our ignorance grasping at this small self we normally relate to as being “us” that deprives us from enjoying everything.  If everything is our karmic dream, all beings and all things already belong to us.  This small self is just one wave on the ocean of who we really are.  This larger us, the one that is indeed all living beings, already possesses everything, and it makes no difference who enjoys what because we are all one and the same. 

This vow does not mean we should shun wealth, position, power and so forth.  Such things are incredibly useful if used for the service of others.  But we do not need to seek them out.  If we live our life as a Bodhisattva, such things will effortlessly fall into our lap.  Our task is to simply use everything in service of others.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Misusing Dharma is easier than you think

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

 

Do not misuse Dharma. 

 

Buddha’s main aim in giving Dharma teachings was to lead all living beings to liberation and full enlightenment.  If we use Dharma exclusively for worldly gain this is misusing Dharma.  Even if we can not practice purely now, we should think “I am studying Dharma now so that in the future I can attain liberation and enlightenment.”

It is sadly not at all uncommon for us to misuse the Dharma.  To realize how, we can consider a very simple test:  are we using the Dharma to change ourself or do we try use the Dharma to change others.  If we do the former, we are using Dharma correctly, if we do the latter we are misusing the Dharma. 

There are many different ways we do this.  Teachers or administrators in Dharma centers might use the Dharma to try to manipulate or guilt trip the people in their center to do more work for the center.  The teachers or administrators might rationalize this by saying, “but I want the Dharma to flourish for the sake of all living beings, so there is no fault.”  Such an attitude reveals a lack of understanding of what it means for the Dharma to flourish.  The Dharma is an internal thing.  If people are working very hard for the external developments of temples, publicity, etc., but internally they are doing so to avoid being made to feel bad by their teachers, then there is no Dharma flourishing.  Venerable Tharchin is very clear:  he says the size of a Dharma center is determined exclusively by the collective realizations of those who attend it.  If Dharma realizations of love, patience, wisdom, etc., are flourishing in the minds of the Sangha, that center is flourishing even if externally things are a mess.  If externally everything is growing, but internally there is disharmony, frustration, manipulation and guilt, then that center is dying.  Dharma teachers and center administrators have a strong wish for the center to flourish, but sometimes it is easy for them to wind up using the Dharma to manipulate others into fulfilling their wishes and vision for the center.  This is the exact opposite of a correct attitude.  The correct attitude of a teacher or a center administrator should be “how can I help fulfill the wishes and vision of the Sangha?”  In other words, we are there to serve them, they are not there to serve us.

Another common example of misusing the Dharma is we can’t stand all these deluded people in our lives (such as the members of our family or those at work), and we try change others by forcing the Dharma onto them.  For example, perhaps our partner suffers terribly from anger and we see clearly how if they practiced patience their problem would go away.  Since we are so sick of their anger, we try get them to practice patience so that our problem of having to deal with these deluded people will go away.  We may even get in fights with people and use the Dharma as a weapon to show how everything is actually the other person’s fault and to expose the other person’s faults and weaknesses. 

A pure Kadampa doesn’t feel the slightest need to change others in any way.  The fact that others are a deluded mess suits the Kadampa just fine because such deluded attitudes give the practitioner a chance to train in patience, cherishing others, and skillful means.  Dharma is a mirror with which we can see the faults within our own mind, not a magnifying glass for scrutinizing the faults of others.  The practical reality is this:  the more we try to change others with the Dharma, the more they will reject the Dharma.  Nobody is stupid and nobody likes being manipulated.  When we feel others are trying to change us, we naturally resist them.  So it is precisely because we want others to change (for their sake) that we need to completely let go of any need whatsoever that they change.  When others know we don’t need them to change, then they will trust us that we don’t have some hidden agenda, and they will take on board what we have to say precisely because we leave them free to disregard it if they wish.

On the surface, there may seem a contradiction between our bodhichitta wish to become a Buddha so that we can lead all living beings to the same state and saying a Kadampa has no need whatsoever for others to change, the fact that they are deluded suits the Kadampa just fine.  How can we reconcile this apparent contradiction?  First, the Kadampa has no personal need for other people to change in any way, but others may have a need to change for their own sake.  Second, and more profoundly, since others are nothing more than creations of our own mind, by changing our own mind we will change the beings of our karmically appearing dream.  If we dreamt last night of a highly deluded person, where did they come from?  Who created them?  In the same way, if at work or at home we encounter a highly deluded person, where did they come from, who created them?  By purifying our own mind directly, indirectly we purify all beings.  Instead of trapping all beings in the prison of our samsaric dream, they come to abide within the bliss of our pure land.

Practically speaking, we should only give people advice if they ask for it.  If they are not asking for it, don’t give them any unsolicited advice.  We all easily can see the error in ways of the person who gets up on their soap box outside a train station and yells at all passers-by that they are sinners and will go to hell if they don’t repent.  Yet we do the same thing all the time, just in perhaps more subtle ways.  When somebody does ask us for advice, we generally should just tell stories of experiences we have had and what we learned from them.  Then, we leave the other person free to draw whatever conclusions they wish from the story as to how it might apply to their own life and situation.  It is also generally a good idea to err on the side of not giving enough good advice than giving too much of it.  Sometimes we are so eager to help that as soon as somebody asks us for advice, we then drown them in a tsunami of “our help.”  Kadam Lucy says we should be like a mother bird, who only gives little bits of Dharma to our baby birds so that they don’t choke on it.  Trijang Rinpoche said it is generally better to end a conversation before it is actually finished because this creates the cause to meet again in the future.  Finally, we should be careful to know the capacity of those we are giving advice to.  Even if we are an accomplished Dharma scholar who can give the most sophisticated and profound explanations, it is often times much more beneficial to simply say, “let go.”  As a general rule, the more complex is our advice, the less useful it is.  As with all things, keep it as simple and short as possible.

Happy Protector Day: Introduction to series

Kadampa Ryan Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Uncategorized

The 29th of every month is Protector Day, when we emphasize our reliance upon the Dharma Protector for the New Kadampa Tradition.  In order to strengthen our connection with him, increase our faith in him, and learn how to practically rely upon him, on the 29th of every month, I will explain my understanding of how to rely upon Dorje Shugden, our Dharma protector.  All of Dharma essentially has one purpose:  to bring the mind under control.  Delusions are that which make our mind uncontrolled.  For me personally, I overcome about 90% of my delusions “merely by remembering” Dorje Shugden.  In this series of posts I will explain how.

Our ability to rely upon Dorje Shugden depends primarily upon one thing:  are we a worldly being or a spiritual being.  If we are a worldly being, reliance on Dorje Shugden will not work.  If we are a spiritual being, reliance on Dorje Shugden will change everything for us – we will never be the same again.  All fear, all anxiety, all grasping will vanish.  Our mind will become smooth, balanced, flexible and peaceful all of the time. 

There is one question we need to ask ourself:  what kind of being do I want to be, a worldly being or a spiritual being?  A worldly being is somebody who is primarily concerned with securing happiness in this life.  Their actions are aimed at securing worldly happiness in this life.  A spiritual being is somebody who is primarily concerned with securing happiness of future lives.  Their actions are aimed at laying the foundation for happiness in future lives, up to the supreme happiness of full enlightenment.

It is important to understand whether our life is a worldly one or a spiritual one does not depend on what activities or job we do, rather it depends on what mind we do these activities with.  Sometimes we think that our families, jobs, vacations and so forth are necessarily ‘worldly’, but this is not the case.  They are only worldly if we engage in them with a worldly mind.  If we engage in these same activities with a spiritual mind, then they become spiritual activities and part of our spiritual life. 

What does it mean to live our life with a spiritual mind?  It means what we are looking to get out of a situation is different.  For example, I have a close friend who is a very successful businessman.  He views everything through the lens of the business opportunity.  We went to Magic Mountain together once (Magic Mountain is an amusement park with very big roller coasters, etc.).  For my friend, because he looked at things through the glasses of a businessman, what he took home from his trip to Magic Mountain was lessons in business. 

For a worldly being, what they are looking to get out of a situation is external happiness in this life.  Their actions are aimed at improving their reputation, increasing their resources, receiving praise and experiencing pleasure (and avoiding the opposite of these things).  For a spiritual being, what they are looking to get out of a situation is opportunities to train their mind and create good causes.  They view situations from the perspective of the opportunity they afford the person to train their mind and create good causes for the future.  To be a spiritual being doesn’t mean we do not care about this life, rather it means we also care about future lives.  We include future lives in our calculations for how we use today and how we use this life.

Before we can actually become a spiritual being, we have to have at least some belief in future lives.  Without such belief, it is difficult to view our life as a preparation for them.  So how can we develop some conviction, or at least some virtuous doubt, about the existence of future lives?  The definitive reason which establishes everything in the Dharma is emptiness.  Emptiness explains that all phenomena, ourselves included, are mere karmic appearance of mind.  ‘Mere’ means they are like appearances in a dream, and ‘karmic appearance’ means that these appearances arise from karma.  This life and all its appearances are just mere karmic appearances of mind that were triggered by previous minds.  The quality of our mind determines the quality of the karma activated.  Every karmic seed has a certain duration, and when it exhausts itself the appearance supported by that karma will cease.  It is just like during a dream. 

The nature of the mind is clarity and cognizing.  Clarity means our mind itself is without form, shape, color, etc.  If our mind had a color, for example, then everything that appeared to our mind would be that color.  It is because it lacks any color that it can perceive or know any color; because it lacks any form, it can know any form and so forth.  Cognizing means it has the power to know objects.  Lacking form alone is not mind – there are many things that lack form, but do not know.  Only something that both lacks form and knows is a mind.  Our mind is like a formless field of knowing.  It is like a giant container in which new karmic appearances are projected.  Think back to two hours ago.  What is appearing to our mind now is completely different.  What used to appear no longer appears at all, yet our mind itself remains clarity and cognizing.  In the same way, when the appearances of this life and this body cease, our mind itself will remain clarity and cognizing, it will just know new appearances.

If none of these ideas work for us, then it is useful to consider even if we are not sure, it is nonetheless better to live our life as if there are future lives.  Why?  If there are future lives, but we assume there are not, then we won’t be prepared for them when they come and our future will be uncertain.  It is like somebody denying that there is a tomorrow.  If there are not future lives, but we assume there are, then we will at least be able to have the happiest possible life during this life because a spiritual outlook on life is simply a happier way to relate to the world.  Why is this so?

Why is it a good idea to adopt a spiritual way of life?  Doing so can make every moment of our life deeply meaningful.  Our lives are as meaningful as the goals towards which we work.  If our goal is to lead each and every living being to the complete freedom of full enlightenment, then since this is the most meaningful goal, our life in pursuit of this goal will be felt to be full of great meaning.  We can find a true happiness from a different source – the cultivation of pure minds. 

External happiness, if we check, is really just a temporary reduction of our discomfort.   Even if it does provide us with temporary moments of happiness, we have no control over it and so our happiness is uncertain.  We feel we cannot be happy without our external objects.  In Buddhism, we have identified a different source of happiness – a peaceful mind.  If our mind is peaceful, we are happy, regardless of what our external circumstances are.  The cause of a peaceful mind is to mix our mind with virtue, such as love, compassion, etc.  When we engage in the actions of mixing our mind with virtue, we plant the karmic seeds on our mind which will ripen in the form of the experience of inner peace.  Understanding this, we have an infinite source of happiness just waiting to be tapped.  When our mind is at peace, we can then enjoy all external things, not just the ones we like.

We are all going to die, and the only things we can take with us are the causes we have created for ourself.  Everything else we have we need to leave behind.  The only riches we can take with us into our future lives are the karmic causes we have created for ourself.   When we think about this carefully, we realize that only they matter.  The rest of this life is not guaranteed to happen, but our future lives are, and they are very long.  Now is the time to assemble provisions for our future lives.  We do not know when we are going to die. 

Happy Heruka Day: Enjoying An Ocean of Bliss and Emptiness

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

Today is Heruka Day, which takes place during Heruka and Vajrayogini month (otherwise known as January), and is a special day when his blessings are particularly powerful.  Most of all, on this day we can recall his kindness and make an effort to bring him to life in our world.

Who is Heruka?

Heruka is the manifestation of the compassion of all the Buddhas.  Out of his Truth Body, he emanates himself as a complete path from the deepest hell to the highest enlightenment.  He is Keajra Pure Land, which is not some distant place but rather a different way of looking at our world.  He emanates in this world as Spiritual Guides who in turn introduce us to Keajra Pure Land.  We then begin to connect with it, and as we do, we are guided progressively to purer and purer states of mind.  Geshe-la once said the mind of Lamrim is Akanishta Pure Land – a revealing way of phrasing things, a mind as a place.  Heruka is the principal deity of Akanishta Pure Land.  Our Spiritual Guides first guide us into Lamrim (Akanishta), then conventional Keajra Pure Land through generation stage, then definitive Keajra Pure Land through completion stage.  Finally, we attain union with definitive Heruka, the omniscient mind of great bliss realizing directly and simultaneously the emptiness of all things.  Heruka is not just this final state, he is the entire path to it.  He is the compassion of all the Buddhas manifesting as the quick path to enlightenment.

My favorite description of Heruka is Chakrasambara.  As Geshe-la explains in Essence of Vajrayana:

“Another term for Heruka is ‘Chakrasambara.’  ‘Chakra’ means ‘wheel,’ and in this context refers to the ‘wheel’ of all phenomena.  ‘Sambara’ means the supreme bliss, which is called ‘spontaneous great bliss.’  Together ‘Chakra’ and ‘sambara’ reveal that by practicing Heruka Tantra we gain a profound realization that experiences all phenomena as one nature with our mind of great bliss.  This realization directly removes subtle dualistic appearances from our mind, and due to this we quickly become definitive Heruka.”

This realization is called “meaning clear light,” and Geshe-la explains in Guide to Dakini Land that if we gain this realization, we can attain enlightenment within six months.  This does not mean we can attain enlightenment in six months from the time we start practicing Heruka.  It will take a long time to gain the realization of meaning clear light, but once we do, we can attain enlightenment in six months.  Practicing Heruka is the quickest method for attaining the realization of meaning clear light.  At a minimum, through our sincere practice of Heruka in this life, if we can die with a mind of compassion and faith in Heruka, it is definite we can be reborn in his pure land.  From there, we will be able to quickly attain meaning clear light and then enlightenment.  This is our incredible good fortune. 

Recalling the Kindness of Heruka

The very heart of the sadhana Offering to the Spiritual Guide is the Single-Pointed Request, which can be understood as a prayer to Heruka as Keajra Pure Land. 

You are the Guru, you are the Yidam, you are the Daka and Dharma Protector;

From now until I attain enlightenment I shall seek no refuge other than you.

In this life, in the bardo, and until the end of my lives, please hold me with the hook of your compassion,

Liberate me from the fears of samsara and peace, bestow all the attainments, be my constant companion, and protect me from all obstacles.  

The first line reveals the vastness of Heruka.  Heruka is by nature our Guru and our Guru is Heruka.  All Tantric practices are fundamentally trainings in guru yoga – a special way of viewing the deity and the guru as inseparably one.  Saying Heruka is our Guru and our Guru is Heruka evokes different meanings, and both are true simultaneously.  Heruka is also our Yidam or our personal deity.  He is the Buddha we seek to become and our ultimate role model.  Christians ask, “what would Jesus do,” we ask, “what would Heruka do,” and we seek to do that.  Heruka is also the Daka, which here refers to the Heroes and Heroines of his body mandala.  These deities are his retinue, but also his spiritual limbs.  Heruka is also the Dharma Protector.  He manifests Dorje Shugden as the Protector of the Guru’s words.  Conventionally, Heruka appears as the totality of his Pure Land, from the HUM at his heart to the principal deity (Yidam); to the body mandala deities (Daka); to his celestial mansion, Mount Meru, and the continents (his gross body); to the charnel grounds (his perception of samsara); to Dorje Shugden’s protection circle surrounding it all transforming whatever appears into a perfect condition for the enlightenment of all beings within Heruka’s pure land.

The second line explains how we rely upon Heruka.  It begins with an understanding of both why we go for refuge to him and for how long our commitment to doing so is – namely to attain enlightenment and until we do.  Geshe-la explains Heruka’s power is only unleashed within us in dependence upon our motivation of Bodhichitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the benefit of all. 

The third line makes our reliance upon Heruka pure.  In Joyful Path, Geshe-la explains what makes our spiritual practice pure instead of worldly is whether we are engaging in it for the sake of all of our future lives or the sake of this life.  We rely upon Heruka in this life, in the bardo, and in all of our future lives.  What do we request of him?  That he always hold us with the hook of his compassion.  The ocean of samsara is vast and it is easy to get lost at sea and drown, but out of his compassion for us, he throws us a hook we can grab onto.  If we never let go, he will pull us to safety.  What is this hook and how does it appear in our life?  It primarily appears as our Spiritual Guide, but it also manifests as the Daka and the Dharma Protector. 

The fourth line reveals Heruka’s main function; or put another way, the principal benefits of relying upon him.  His aspect of the Guru functions to liberate us from the fears of samsara and peace.  Peace here refers to the solitary peace of individual liberation, which is nice for us but useless for others.  We pray to never get trapped in solitary peace but instead strive to become a Buddha who works until the end of time to free others from their suffering.  His aspect of the Yidam functions to bestow all the attainments.  Bestow is a beautiful word as it implies the giving of something precious.  In truth, we attain enlightenment by the Buddhas bestowing the realizations of their mind upon ours, like a gift.  Of course, we must do certain things from our side to open up our mind to receive these precious gifts, but by nature, our future realizations of the stages of the path are actually by nature aspects of our Yidam’s mind.  His aspect of Daka functions to be our constant companion.  In other words, the deities of the body mandala – Heruka’s retinue – are his companions who not only bless our own channels, drops, and winds, but similarly bless all living beings as they fulfill Heruka’s wishes in this world.  His aspect of Dharma Protector functions to protect ourselves and all the beings inside Heruka’s mandala from all obstacles to our spiritual practice.  Nothing is an obstacle from its own side.  Things only become obstacles when we relate to them in a deluded way.  Dorje Shugden is first and foremost a wisdom Buddha, meaning he grants us the wisdom to be able to see how whatever arises is perfect for our spiritual training.  Since his protection circle envelopes all of Keajra, from the Charnel Grounds to the HUM at Heruka’s heart, he is likewise bestowing similar wisdom blessings on the minds of all living beings.  This is why for Heruka samsara appears as the Charnel Grounds.  In the Charnel Grounds, even though conventionally horrific things appear, they are all understood and seen as powerful Dharma teachings propelling us towards enlightenment.  When we have this wisdom, when others come to us with their difficulties, we fail to even see a problem, we see only spiritual opportunity.  We then share our perspective with others, empowering them to transform their life into a joyful path of good fortune. 

For myself, I recite the Single-Pointed request with these recognitions day and night as I go about my day.  It is my daily mantra, and with every recitation, it draws me closer to Heruka.  In my meditation itself, I try to gain experience for what it feels like to be Heruka in Keajra.

Bringing Heruka to Life in our World

We can sometimes feel like Heruka is not in this world and our attainment of union with him is very far off.  Both of these perceptions are completely wrong.  Heruka is the ultimate nature of everything in this world and attaining union with him is simply one recognition away.  How can we bridge the gap between these two very different views?  Through the practice of the Eight Lines of Praise of the Father.  This is a special method for activating Heruka’s function in this world through us.  On the basis of this feeling we simply recognize ourselves as Heruka.  Through continual training in this practice, the gap between our normal perception and our enlightened perception collapses until eventually, we experience ourselves directly as Heruka in this world performing his enlightened deeds for the benefit of all.   As Geshe-la says in Essence of Vajrayana, “By sincerely reciting these praises we swiftly purify our ordinary appearances and reach Heruka’s Pure Land.”

The Eight Lines of Praise are almost like words of a magical spell, which function to invoke or activate the different functions of Heruka we are praising. 

OM I Prostrate to the Blessed One, Lord of the Heroes HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we request Heruka’s body to become active in this world.  His body is the form aspect of Keajra Pure Land.  In Keajra, every form that appears is understood as a powerful Dharma teaching by all those who behold it.  Heruka manifests as whatever living beings need to be led to enlightenment.  While Keajra Pure Land is shaped like a mountain, it’s spiritual gradient is more like a funnel.  No matter where you drop something in a funnel, it is eventually guided down into the center of the funnel.  In the same way, no matter where you find yourself in Keajra Pure Land – from the Charnel Grounds to the principal deity’s body – you are inexorably drawn towards the indestructible wind inside Heruka’s heart chakra.  By activating Heruka’s form body in our world, we are “inviting all beings to be our guests” in our Pure Land where we engage in the pleasing supreme practices of enlightenment.  We then strongly believe that whatever forms appear to the minds of any living being, they are by nature emanations of Heruka’s form body, revealing the truth of Dharma and guiding all beings towards his heart. 

In particular, when we recite this line, we can imagine that our body is Heruka’s majestic body.  Our eyes may continue to perceive the body that we normally see, but our mind’s eyes of faith see ourselves as Heruka.  In Essence of Vajrayana, it explains the symbolism of Heruka’s body.  The short version is it reveals all of the essential stages of the path to enlightenment.  Buddhas can manifest their inner realizations as forms.  The main point is we should disregard, even forget, our body that we normally see and believe that through our recitation of this line of the prayer we perceive our body to be Heruka’s body.

OM To you with a brilliance equal to the fire of the great aeon HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we invoke/activate Heruka’s speech.  In Keajra, every sound is arising from Heruka’s enlightened speech and it functions to reveal the truth of Dharma.  When we recite this, we imagine that every sound, even the rustling of leaves in the wind, is actually vajra songs teaching Dharma.  His speech burns away the ordinary conceptions and ignorance of living beings like a great wisdom fire that radiates out and burns away all delusions.  In particular, we should imagine that from this point forward all of our own speech is actually Heruka’s speech being spoken through us.  Instead of saying whatever comes to our mind, we get out of the way and let him speak through us.  If we are practicing this at the level of completion stage, we can recall that the nature of sound is wind, and so all sounds are actually the whistling of Heruka’s pure winds blowing through the world.

OM To you with an inexhaustible topknot HUM HUM PHAT

With this line we imagine we invoke/activate Heruka’s mind in our world, symbolized by his topknot.  There are two aspects of his mind in particular worth noting.  First, his mind sees all past, present, and future phenomena directly and simultaneously.  He sees everything that has been, everything that is, and everything that will be as one inseparable ocean.  This wisdom knowing the three times is extremely effective for being able to help people because we can see the karmic why they are currently facing the situations they are facing and all of the different possible futures they will experience depending upon how they respond to their present circumstance.  Heruka sees everything as currents and continuums, like spiritual winds blowing through time, not static pictures that seem arbitrary and bewildering.  Second, his mind has the power to bestow the realizations of Chakrasambara on others, in other words, his mind functions to gather and dissolve all phenomena into the ocean of bliss and emptiness.  When impure winds cease to flow, the waves of appearance subside, and the ocean of our mind settles into a blissful clarity.  Heruka’s mind naturally draws all phenomena back into this original source of all purity.  When we recite this line, we feel as if these two powers of his mind are now active.  We start to see the three times as Heruka does and we feel all phenomena settling down into the ocean of our mind of clear light emptiness.

OM To you with a fearsome face and bared fangs HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we imagine we gain Heruka’s great wisdom knowing clearly and unmistakenly what are the objects to be abandoned and what are the objects to be attained, not only for ourselves, but for all living beings.  Not being clear about this is our fundamental problem and the source of all of our suffering.  In Modern Buddhism, Geshe-la makes a clear distinction between our outer problem and our inner problem.  If our car breaks down, normally we think, “I have a problem.”  No, our car has a problem.  Our problem is our inner problem of relating to this appearance in a deluded way.  We need a mechanic to fix our car, and we need to change our mind to solve our inner problem.  Fixing our outer problem will not solve our inner problem.  If we continue to have our inner problem, we will just project it onto some other external circumstance and think now that needs to be fixed too.  Worldly beings are convinced their problem is what is happening externally, and they expend all of their energy trying to solve all of their outer problems, but no matter how many times they do, they continue to have the same sorts of problems just with different faces or different sets of external appearance.  The reason for this is they have not solved their inner problem.  Heruka’s great wisdom enables us to see clearly that our own and others’ actual problem lies within.  Once we are clear that our problem is our inner problem, then his great wisdom helps us see clearly our delusions as mistaken minds.  It is one thing to identify that we have delusions, but if we do not see why they are wrong or deceptive, we will continue to follow them believing them to be true.  His great wisdom also helps us easily know what is the correct way of looking at things that leaves our mind peaceful and calm.  We not only know the wisdom way of thinking, we actually think that way – or at least believe it to be correct, even if the winds of our mind are blowing in opposite directions. 

When we recite this line, we have this wisdom not only for ourselves but also for others.  When others talk to us, we see clearly the difference between their outer and their inner problem, and with respect to their inner problem, we know and can explain in a way they can understand the objects to be abandoned and the objects to be attained.  Traveling outer paths is accomplished through taking steps, inner paths are traveled through knowing what thoughts to believe.  The great wisdom of knowing the objects to be abandoned and the objects to be attained is like always knowing which paths to travel so that we never get lost.  It is like an inner GPS that is always set for the City of Enlightenment, and no matter where we find ourselves, we always know how to get to where we want to go.

OM To you whose thousand arms blaze with light HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line we imagine we invoke/activate countless emanations of Heruka who spontaneously burst forth from his heart of compassion to benefit living beings through acts of loving-kindness.  This line refers to how Heruka is the compassion of all the Buddhas, he is the highest yoga tantra version of thousand-arm Avalokiteshvara.  Some people wonder how Buddhas gain the ability to send out emanations.  The answer is their compassion wishing to protect all living beings from all suffering is so great, emanations naturally burst out of their hearts.  Because they realize emptiness of all phenomena, their compassion is like blowing air into the soap of their realization of emptiness producing countless bubbles of emanations.  Normally, when people come to us for help, we think, “I can’t help all of these people,” and we wish some of them would go away and stop putting so many demands on us.  But a bodhisattva thinks, “I would want to help all of these beings, but right now, unfortunately, I can’t.  That’s why I need to become a Buddha because then I will be able to be with each and every living being every day.”  We imagine that through reciting this line, we gain this ability to send out countless emanations and to be like thousand-arm Avalokiteshvara, able to help living beings in countless ways.

OM To you who hold an axe, an uplifted noose, a spear, and a khatanga HUM HUM PHAT

With this line, we imagine we gain Heruka’s ability to engage in wrathful actions, and we invoke his wrathful actions pervade the entire universe.  What are wrathful actions?  They are the ability to use force out of compassion.  They are of two types:  outer and inner.  Outer wrathful actions are when somebody is hurting themselves or others and we can stop them through using whatever power we have (physical, our position, our speech, etc.).  We do this not out of anger, but to protect the person they are harming and to protect the person committing the harm from accumulating negative karma.  Our wish is not to harm the other person, but to protect them.  Sometimes outer wrathful actions take the form of telling people the hard truths of their situation, such as they are acting like a jerk or the only reason why they are suffering is that they are jealous or attached to companionship, or whatever.  Whether our outer wrathful actions are effective depends upon whether our mind is truly free from anger and whether the other person has enough faith in us to take well what we are saying.  If either of these two conditions is not met, our wrathful actions will just be anger or they will just be self-defeating.  Inner wrathful actions are the ability to be utterly ruthless with our delusions, but kind to ourselves.  We can only successfully engage in them if we have truly differentiated between ourselves and our delusions and we have realized that renunciation is true self-love or self-compassion.  It is loving or having compassion for our true selves, our pure potential.  Inner wrathful actions of a Buddha are powerful blessings that help people see clearly the error of their ways, sometimes at an epic scale, but without inducing guilt causing the person to beat themselves up.  When we recite this line, we imagine we gain the ability to engage in such wrathful actions and we imagine we invoke Heruka to engage in such wrathful actions through the appearances of this world.

OM To you who wear a tiger-skin garment HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to Heruka’s ability to pacify anger and conflict.  There is no evil greater than anger.  Almost all of the harm in this world is caused by anger.  Hell realms are the nature of anger, and those who remain consumed by anger in life wind up taking rebirth in hell after death because that is the nature of their mind.  Anger prevents us from accepting samsara as it is, making us wish it was different.  It leads to frustrations, great and small, leaving us always internally uncomfortable, agitated, and unhappy.  Guilt is anger directed at ourself and is a major obstacle to our ability to view Dharma as refuge instead of a mirror we perceive to be judging us for all of our failures and shortcomings.  Conflict in the world ranges from large-scale wars to spats between siblings, but it leaves a wake of pain wherever it goes.  In Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe-la says the mind of cherishing others is like a magic crystal that has the power to heal whole communities.  In Toronto, he said, “love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.”  Heruka’s compassion is his magic crystal and his love is his nuclear bomb that ends all conflict.  We imagine by reciting this line, we activate this power and it functions to pacify all anger, all guilt, and all conflict, not only in our own lives but in the whole world.  We feel as if his love radiates out, pulsing peace into the world.  In Transform Your Life Geshe-la says, “without inner peace, outer peace is impossible.”  We imagine through Heruka’s blessings, we bestow inner peace on all living beings, resulting in universal peace for all.

OM I bow to you whose smoke-coloured body dispels obstructions HUM HUM PHAT

In Essence of Vajrayana, Geshe-la explains:

“In the Condensed Root Tantra it is said that just by seeing a sincere Heruka practitioner we purify our negativities and attain liberation; just by hearing or being touched by such a practitioner we receive blessings and are cured of sickness; and just by being in the presence of such a practitioner our unhappiness, mental disturbances, delusions and other obstacles are dispelled.  Why is this?  It is because the actual Deities of Heruka abide within the body of the practitioner and therefore seeing the practitioner is not so different from seeing Heruka himself.”

When we recite this line of the Praise we recall this special quality of Heruka which makes merely being in their presence a cause of liberation for others.  There are two types of obstructions – the obstructions to liberation, or our delusions; and the obstructions to omniscience, or the karmic imprints of our past delusions.  Merely being in Heruka’s presence dispels both of these, just as being exposed to the sun will melt ice cream.  When we recite this line with faith, we imagine that our Heruka body attains these qualities and when others are merely in our presence, it functions as a cause of their enlightenment – even if we are doing nothing other than watching football together.  We further imagine that Heruka’s body pervades all phenomena, and while our ordinary eyes may perceive the things we normally see, our wisdom eyes see Keajra Pure Land, which is nothing other than Heruka’s pure form body.  By being in this world, the two obstructions of all living beings are dispelled away, all ordinary appearances and conceptions dissolve, and all beings awaken into a world of pure wonder. 

Through continuously engaging in the Eight Lines of Praise, we will gradually purify our mind and samsara will gather and absorb into the clear light, like clouds into a clear blue sky.  We will feel Heruka as Keajra Pure Land become increasingly manifest and we will realize it is not far away, but actually the true nature of all things.  Having activated these eight abilities of Heruka and feeling them work through us, we will have no difficulty generating a qualified divine pride thinking we are Heruka.  As our experience with these verses deepens, the duality between ourselves and our Yidam will dissolve away until we experience union with this marvelous being.  In this way, we will fulfill all of our own and others’ pure wishes.

Heruka day is a particularly auspicious day when Heruka’s blessings are especially powerful.  The karma we create familiarizing ourselves with Heruka in our life and drawing closer to him on this day will pay dividends for aeons to come.  If we have not yet memorized the Eight Lines of Praise, today is a perfect day to do so.  Once we have learned it, we can then practice it day and night and swiftly move out of samsara and into Keajra Pure Land! 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Joyfully taking the worst jobs for yourself

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not transfer your own faults and burdens onto others. 

We should not pass on our duties or responsibilities to others or try manipulate them into doing things against their wishes.  We should also not blame others for our faults, but acknowledge them honestly as our own.

Anybody who works with others should make this vow their screen saver on their computer.  Anybody who lives with others should do the same.  In most group endeavors, be it at work or at home, the strategy of most people is to try avoid the most unpleasant tasks and to pass the buck to others when things go badly.  A Kadampa does the exact opposite.

Our attitude should be “give me the worst jobs that everybody else wants to avoid.”  We should be the first to volunteer to assume responsibility for the things that everybody else is trying to get out of.  When something goes wrong, we should be the first to assume responsibility for what went wrong, even if it wasn’t really our fault. And we should do this without the slightest trace of making ourself a martyr, such as doing things with the attitude of “well since nobody else will step up, I’ll take on this task.”  Likewise, we shouldn’t take responsibility for what went wrong with a sardonic attitude that is really saying, “I am not really at fault for this and everybody knows it, but I’ll take the blame just to highlight that everybody else is avoiding it.”  No, we should assume the hard tasks and assume responsibility in a genuine and honest way.

These Kadampa ways run completely counter to our normal way of doing things, and so quite naturally many objections arise.  The main objection that arises is, “if I do this, then everybody will take advantage of me.  I will become everyone’s favorite doormat.”  Here we need to examine “what do we want out of life.”  At the end of the day, the difference between a worldly being and a spiritual being is what they want out of life.  A worldly being seeks to maximize the amount of karmic fruit they can harvest in this life, such as being able to live a life of ease enjoying praise and good fortune.  A spiritual being seeks to maximize the amount of karmic seeds they can plant for our future lives.  The two attitudes are completely different.  If the other people at our work or at home are worldly beings, what they want is to avoid anything hard or unpleasant.  If we are a spiritual being, what we want is to plant good karmic seeds for our future.  So our assuming the hard tasks and assuming responsibility is a win-win for everyone.  They avoid the unpleasant and we create good karmic causes for our future.  Everybody wins!  There is only a tension if we give lip service to being a spiritual being, but in our heart we share the same worldly wishes for a life of ease and praise like the others.

Even at a worldly level, this objection is misplaced. If somebody at work or at home is a genuine “team player” who sincerely puts the interests of the team ahead of themselves, this person is not viewed as a doormat, rather this person is viewed with respect.  Such an attitude, if done correctly and genuinely, can completely change the office or home culture and environment from being one of grumbling and constant complaining to a high morale environment where everybody feels they are contributing to something greater than themselves.  The bodhisattva naturally and without effort becomes a leader and an example with their community.  Without saying a word, they bring out the best in others and inspire others to do better.  People from their own side will see your example, and naturally start to emulate it taking on more responsibility themselves. 

Perhaps there will be some who might take advantage of the fact that you are doing everything, and they may even come to resent you for it.  But that is their problem, not yours.  In fact, we can say that their attitude should make them an object of our compassion.  What good karma will they have in the future?  They will be like the poor animal who stored nothing for the long winter ahead.  Such a person is really there to help you improve your skillful means.  Ultimately, they feel threatened by your attitude because it exposes their wrong attitude.  Instead of making them feel guilty for what they don’t do, try help them feel good about the contributions they do make.  When people feel like their contributions matter, they naturally do more.  If we make people feel bad because they “do nothing,” it is guaranteed, they will do even less in the future.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Not offending others while being true to yourself

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

 

Do not offend others. 

This advises us to not act in ways that offend living beings, for example criticizing them, not complying with their wishes, or reciting wrathful mantras with a harmful intention.

The first task of any bodhisattva is to exchange self with others.  According to Sutra, this means to exchange the object of our cherishing from ourself to others.  The meaning of this is previously we considered our own happiness and welfare to be the most important thing and we worked diligently to try secure it.  But after exchanging ourself with others we then consider the happiness and welfare of others to be the most important thing and we work diligently to try secure it.  Clearly, if we consider the happiness and feelings of others to be important, we won’t do things that offend them.  We currently don’t like it when others offend us.  After we have exchanged self with others, we will similarly not like it when others are offended or harmed in any way.

According to Tantra, to exchange self with others means to change the basis of imputation of our “I” from the body and mind that we normally identify with to “others.”  In other words, when we look at others’ bodies and minds, we think “me.”  When we see them, we think they are ourself.  When we look at ourself, we think “others.”  In essence, we take the mere imputation “me” and impute it on all others, and we take the mere imputation “others” and impute it on what we formerly considered to be ourself.  This is a more powerful way of exchanging self with others, and is explained in detail by Shantideva in Chapter 8 of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  If we have exchanged self with others in this way, offending or harming others will be unthinkable.  We currently praise ourself all the time.  We currently do everything we can to tend to every need and wish of ourself.  When we exchange ourself with others according to Tantra, we will have a similar attitude towards others.  Offending them or harming them becomes impossible.

It is important, however, that we not misunderstand this commitment.  If our engaging in virtue, such as our Dharma practice, somehow offends or bothers others, we should not abandon our practice thinking we need to “fulfill their wishes.”  If their wishes are wrong wishes, such as wishing for us to abandon the path, then we should not go along with such wishes.  On the surface, they may become upset about this, but if we do abandon our practice to satisfy their wrong wish then we facilitate them creating horrible karma for themselves that will ripen in the future in the form of when they wish to enter the path others will emotionally blackmail them to abandon their practice.  If we go along with these wrong wishes of theirs, we are quite literally harming all living beings.  How so?  By our self not following the path, all the people who we otherwise would have helped will now no longer receive that help.  And in particular, we are harming the other person because now the possibility of the other person entering the path in the future will be blocked.  Nobody benefits.

With that being said, we should still try to be skillful.  When I first started practicing Dharma, my in-laws at the time were afraid that I had run off and joined some crazed cult.  They especially worried about this when they read all the venom on the internet related to the Dalai Lama/Dorje Shugden issue.  So they quite understandably created many obstacles to my practice, and indeed to my relationship with my then wife.  I wrote Geshe-la asking him what I should do.  He said, “You need to be skillful with what you show.  Dharma practice is primarily an internal thing.  You should not exaggerate the external.  Surely your future in-laws will not be opposed to internal qualities like kindness, patience, and love.  You need to be skillful.”  In other words, one extreme would be abandoning my practice and another extreme would be to rub it in their faces.  I can continue to do my practice as I wish, but I just don’t need to talk to them about all that I am doing and I don’t need to make too public or external of a display about it.  But internally, I can do as I wish with gusto.  Then, no problems.

Likewise, sometimes those in our life may object to our engaging in virtue.  For example, people may object we are too generous with our money or our time.  People may become jealous of our cherishing of other people, etc.  In the same way, all such wrong wishes of others should be ignored.  We do not help people by allowing them to deter us from engaging in the path. 

A Pure Life: Motivation for Series

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part one of a 12-part series on how to skillfully train in the Eight Mahayana Precepts.  The 15th of every month is Precepts Day, when Kadampa practitioners around the world typically take and observe the Precepts.

Normally we think of our vows and commitments as an afterthought at best or as chains at worst.  We have all taken our vows many times when we receive empowerments or when we engage in our daily practice, but most of us still have not started to take our practice of them seriously.  We often swing from either the extreme of not even giving our vows a second thought to the extreme of beating ourselves up with them out of guilt for all the different ways we fall short.  We swing from the extreme of over-interpreting the words “do your best” to mean “don’t even bother trying” to the extreme of thinking in absolutist terms about what they mean and imply.  We quite often view them as rules or restrictions imposed from the outside, or we view them as constraints on our having any fun in life.  To us, vows and commitments seem to restrict our freedom, but perhaps we accept we have to take them because we want to go to a given empowerment.  Perhaps for our first few empowerments, we take them seriously; but later perhaps we scarcely give it a second thought that we are retaking them or that it means something. But the reality is, perhaps most of the time we rarely think about them and we make almost no effort whatsoever to train in them.

This series of posts will attempt to reverse our attitude towards our vows and commitments, in particular with respect to the Eight Mahayana Precepts.  Instead of viewing them as restrictions on our freedom and fun, we can come to view them as an internal GPS guiding our way to the blissful city of enlightenment where the party never stops.  If we wanted to go to a particular city, we program our GPS, hit go, and start driving.  We happily follow the directions without feeling like we are being deprived of all the wonders on the side streets we could be exploring.  When we miss a turn, we usually say a curse word, but then the GPS plans a new route, and we happily continue on our way.  When we arrive at our destination, we think to ourselves, “this thing is great.  How did I ever get around without one?” 

It is exactly the same with our vows.  We want to go to the city of enlightenment (our good motivation), the Eight Mahayana Precepts are like the directions the GPS gives us along the way to keep us on our chosen route, and if we follow them happily but persistently, they will definitely deliver us to our final destination.  If we get lost or take a wrong turn, we don’t need to worry, because the GPS gives us new directions which we then follow.  No matter how lost we become, no matter how many wrong turns we make, we always know if we just keep following the directions it gives us, we will eventually get there.  It may take longer than what was originally planned (wrong turns), or there may be unexpected traffic (negative karma we need to purify), but if we just keep at it, we will get there. 

I know some people think their GPS gets upset at them when they make wrong turns.  But this is just our own anger at ourselves projecting our frustration onto the GPS voice.  But nowadays, we can program our GPS with all sorts of different voices to choose one more pleasant.  I actually know somebody whose GPS has the option of choosing the voice of a Porn Star (turn right, baby…)!  In the same way, we need to make an effort of giving the Eight Mahayana Precepts “the right voice” within our mind.  When we remember them or but up against them, we need to have them speak to us with the loving, understanding voice of our Spiritual Guide.  We need to hear him chuckle and say, “don’t worry, be happy, just try.”  The chuckle is important.  The sign that we have proper renunciation is we are able to have a good laugh at ourselves and our delusions.  It is OK and it is normal that we make a hash out of it.  When we make mistakes, we learn from them and move on.  We think beating ourselves up with guilt motivates us to do better, but it does not.  Guilt is anger directed against ourselves.  It destroys all joy in our training, and when we lose the joy, we lose our effort (effort is taking delight in engaging in our practices).  Without effort, we have nothing.  We might do our practice every day for aeons, but if we do not enjoy ourselves while trying, we actually have no effort and will therefore experience no results.  If we want, we can give the Eight Mahayana Precepts the seductive voice of Vajrayogini calling us to join her at her place! 

Our conception of freedom is completely wrong.  Freedom is the ability to choose.  But being a slave to every whim of our delusions is not freedom, it is bondage of an eternal order.  True freedom is the ability to choose to pursue what we know is actually good for us.  The Eight Mahayana Precepts run in exactly opposite of the direction our delusions want to go.  Since we are still fooled by the lies of our delusions, we think if we follow them they will lead us to happiness.  The reality is all delusions share the same final destination – the deepest hell.  They all eventually lead us to the same place, but they trick us by painting an image of an illusory paradise just over the horizon.  Duped again and again, we run towards suffering and away from true freedom. 

There are three main reasons why we should train in the moral discipline of the Eight Mahayana Precepts.  First, doing so creates the karmic causes to maintain the continuum of our Dharma practice without interruption between now and our eventual enlightenment.  Second, doing so strengthens the power of our mindfulness and alertness, which are the two most important muscles for strong concentration.  And third, moral discipline is the substantial cause of higher rebirth.  We seek the highest rebirth of all – enlightenment – but getting there is often like climbing many, many flights of stairs.  But it is a joyful climb, because the higher we go the more blissful we feel.  And it is certainly better than the alternative of falling down the stairs…

In this series of posts, I will first explain a skillful attitude to adopt towards our training in the Mahayana Precepts, then explain how we do so with a bodhichitta motivation, then I will provide a brief commentary for how to actually take our precepts on Precepts Day, and finally, I will provide some practice suggestions for how to practice to each of the Eight Precepts.  I will post these on the 15th of every month as a way of marking Precepts Day and a reminder/encouragement for people to take this practice to heart.  My hope by explaining all of this I might improve my own understanding and practice of the Precepts and then enjoy all the spiritual fruit that flows from this.  If others are also able to benefit from these explanations, then it is all the better.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Standing up to the bullies with wisdom

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

 

Do not wait in ambush. 

 We should not look to take revenge on others waiting for the best time to hurt them.

The mind of anger has one wish:  to inflict harm.  Sometimes we justify this harm on the grounds of “getting back” at the other person, other times we justify it as “deterring them” from inflicting harm on you again because they know you will strike back.  But this is completely wrong.  All we really do is guarantee that one day, when the opportunity presents itself, they will take advantage of our weakness and strike back. 

There is another way.  All bullies are the same:  they threaten if you don’t do what I want, then I will do X to you.  Because we don’t want X to happen to us, we go along with what the bully wants.  But this just keeps us forever hostage to their demands.  Instead, we do what is right, and let the pieces fall where they may.  If the other person inflicts some penalty on us for doing what is right, then so be it.  We accept this, but we do not change.  This is actually an act of great compassion.  If we allow others to manipulate us, they create terrible karma for themselves.  If we show that they have no power over us, they will eventually give up trying.  Thus, we protect them from creating such negative karma.