Sometimes people get very nervous when they hear or read Dharma being expressed in ways not explicitly articulated by VGL. Often people will say things like, “where does VGL say that,” or “you are creating confusion,” or worse they will make accusations that you are inventing your own lineage.

I understand these concerns, there are many legitimate issues that need to be navigated carefully. As modern Kadampas we need to 100% ground everything we do in what VGL has taught us. His words are perfect and were meticulously selected, so putting things a different way can lead to confusion, especially if we are wrong in how we put it. And we certainly are not qualified to create our own lineage and don’t want anybody to rely upon us over the one and only Guru of our lineage for all time – Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka.

But it is an extreme to think the meaning of Dharma can only be expressed with VGL’s exact words or formulations. It is an extreme to be a Dharma parrot. For example, he didn’t speak French or Spanish or Mandarin, yet our books are all translated into these languages. Translating Dharma has been an essential component of how the lineage gets passed on through the generations, such as the great Tibetan translators who went to India, learned Sanskrit, and sent the Dharma back.

Translating Dharma is not just from one world language to another, but occurs at a micro level all the time – for example, how we would explain the Dharma to a transgender scholar from Harvard might be different than to a die hard so-called football hooligan from Manchester. How we explain it to a grandmother might be different than to a young monk. We each live in a different linguistic circle where ideas and meanings are coded in different words, so it is entirely normal that the meaning of Dharma will be expressed differently in different contexts. Not only is this not something to be feared, it should be embraced as how we make the Dharma available to all the myriad different types of being in this world.

Indeed, VGL warns about this in Clear Light of Bliss where he explains “In the teachings on the four reliances, Buddha gives further guidelines for arriving at an unmistaken understanding of the teachings. He says: Do not rely upon the person, but upon the Dharma. Do not rely upon the words, but upon the meaning. Do not rely upon the interpretative meaning, but upon the definitive meaning. Do not rely upon consciousness, but upon wisdom.” He goes on to say, “If we understand these four reliances and use them to evaluate the truth of the teachings we receive, we will be following an unmistaken path. There will be no danger of our adopting false views or falling under the influence of misleading Teachers. We will be able to discriminate correctly between what is to be accepted and what is to be rejected, and we will thereby be protected against faults such as sectarianism.”

In other words, what matters is not the exact words we use, but whether the meanings our words transmit are pure Dharma. The meaning is unchanging all the way back to Buddha, but how that meaning gets expressed will vary over time and from one micro-cultural corner to another.

VGL explained when he first taught Modern Buddhism at a Summer Festival that our job is to “attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.” He went on to explain he has given us the pure Kadam Dharma, but we know modern life. Our job therefore is to attain this union. This is how we make the Dharma available to everyone in this world and pass it on to future generations. The Dharma is not just the words he uses, it is the meanings he is transmitting. If we get stuck just using his words, fearing any formulation he didn’t explicitly use, we risk not only obstructing the Dharma from spreading far and wide in this world, but also falling into the extreme of sectarianism, or worse having the lineage die prematurely.

Our job is to emulate VGL’s example. A huge part of his example is he took the pure meanings of Je Tsongkhapa as taught in ancient Tibet and then repackaged them in a way that the people of the modern world could accept and understand. Atisha did the same in his time. VGL helped separate what was culturally ancient Tibetan from what is pure Dharma and then presented it in a way that can be understood and practiced by the people of the modern world. We must do the same and continually do so generation after generation – always remaining entirely loyal to the pure meanings of our Spiritual Guide, free from the extremes of inventing our own lineage and restricting ourselves to being a Dharma parrot of his words.

This is true even at the level of our own individual meditations. Listening to Dharma is understanding our guru’s words. Contemplating the Dharma is making that understanding our own – in other words, putting it into our own words that transmit that meaning perfectly within our own mind. Sharing the Dharma is then either sharing our understandings in our own words or – even more advanced – translating those meanings into words that other people can understand based upon where their minds are at.

But please don’t misunderstand. Of course VGL’s words are unbelievably precious and what we need to ground all of our Dharma understandings in. We should absolutely memorize his words. At one point, he suggested we memorize all of Joyful Path and Modern Buddhism. I would absolutely love to do that. Becoming familiar with and memorizing his words is the essential foundation for the wisdom arising from listening (or reading). Without that, we can’t even get to the next wisdom, namely the wisdom arising from contemplation. My only point is we should not stop at just memorizing his words, we need to go deeper still and then also put his words into our own words without losing the meaning at all. Then, we need to learn how to put these meanings into words others can understand, again without losing the meaning at all. So everything we are normally saying, and then further. It’s not either/or, it’s both.

Yes, I agree, we need to be very careful. There are many pitfalls, traps, and dangers here. But these risks cut in both ways – both the risk of transmitting wrong understandings, creating confusion, or inventing our own lineage and of becoming a Dharma parrot, obstructing the Dharma from spreading far and wide, becoming sectarian, or causing the lineage to die prematurely. As with all things, our job is to try find the middle way.