When people first come into Dharma, they quite naturally think that the source of their problems is their external circumstances. This is what our delusions have been telling us since beginningless time, so of course they think that. Perhaps this was our story as well.

I remember once when I was in Geneva, there was a homeless guy who came to the center and he asked what we were all about and if we could help him. We explained that we can do nothing to help him with his external problem, but we can help him solve his internal problem. He replied, “what good would that do, even if I change my mind, I’m still going to be on the street, so that doesn’t help me.” Then he left. While that may be an extreme example, there are perhaps traces of this logic in many of us. We are convinced our problem is our external circumstance, and so fail to see the value of Dharma, so we never get serious about practicing it.

But when we came to our very first General Program class, we almost certainly received some variant of the teachings on inner peace as the true cause of happiness, how we find happiness from a different source. The logic for this is simple: happiness or suffering are states of mind, therefore their causes must come from within the mind. If we check, when our mind is peaceful, we are happy even if our external circumstance is terrible; and if our mind is not peaceful, we are not happy even if our external circumstance is ideal. This shows that our happiness does not depend upon our external circumstance, but instead depends upon our mind. Therefore, if we want to be happy, we need to train our mind – find happiness from a difference source, from within. Delusions function to destroy our inner peace and virtues function to cultivate it, so the name of the game is abandon all our delusions and cultivate every virtue until eventually we are happy all the time, in this life and in life after life. These teachings likely changed our life and began our Dharma practice.

We also no doubt received the teaching on the distinction between our outer problem and our inner problem with the example of our car breaking down. Normally, when our car breaks down, we think “I have a problem.” Geshe-la explains no, when our car breaks down, our car has a problem. Our problem is our deluded mental reaction to this event. The car breaking down is our outer problem, our mental unhappiness about it is our inner problem. We need a mechanic to solve our outer problem, and we need Dharma to solve our inner problem. All that of course is true, but we can sometimes become extreme with even that teaching. I know I did.

We have also all received the teachings on how it is a misuse of Dharma to use it for worldly purposes, especially the tantric teachings. Like using $500 bills for toilet paper or for lighting a fire. I became a purist with this, thinking it is somehow wrong to use Dharma to solve our external problems – a misuse of the teachings. I thought I just needed to accept the adversity and transform it into the path; and to do otherwise was somehow non-Dharma. I remember there was a time in the early 2000s when a particular very senior teacher was teaching it was wrong, for example, to take medicines or receive normal medical care if we had the ability to transform our sickness or pain into the path. We should push ourselves to our limit. Yeah, we know the teachings on patient acceptance say take the aspirin and then practice acceptance while we wait for it to take effect, but our pride and misunderstanding told us that teaching was for beginners. We are an advanced practitioner, so if we can transform it we should and not take the aspirin. Complete nonsense and in total contradiction with what Venerable Geshe-la teaches.

Those who have been reading my thoughts on line for some time no doubt know that Dorje Shugden is my favorite Buddha. I solve basically all of my delusions with my reliance upon him. My deepest wish genuinely is to make progress along the path. So I request him to arrange whatever conditions are best for my swiftest possible enlightenment. If the difficult situation changes, great; but if it doesn’t, then I accept this is what I need for my path. It may suck for my worldly concerns, but it is what I need for my spiritual progress, so I accept the difficulty as what his omniscient wisdom is arranging for me. Since I know it is perfect for my training, I can be happy with it, even if it is difficult. I see how it is good for my path, so I focus on that. This is wonderful. But it can also be taken to an extreme. I know I did. I started to think it was somehow wrong to change my external circumstances. I just needed to rely on Dorje Shugden, and if he didn’t change the external circumstance, then it must be what I needed, so I thought it was almost a betrayal of my faith in him to try to change my circumstance.

These errors in my thinking transformed my Dharma practice into some form of sado-masochism. The sign I was a good Dharma practitioner was just how much pain I could endure, a modern ascetic. I could even develop forms of pride in my ability to endure so much. It also helped contribute to the martyr complex I developed – I needed to stick around in suffering situations, be willing to sacrifice myself for the sake of supposedly “helping” others. Perhaps this is also your story to an extent.

I don’t want to publicly go into the details, but about a year and a half ago, I realized the first level of my mistake. If there was something I could do externally to change my circumstance so it wasn’t so miserable, I should do so and there is no fault in doing so. Indeed, it became a bodhichitta imperative that I do so. While at one level, this is obvious – Geshe-la does advise us to do so if we can – it was actually quite revolutionary for me to actually do so because I had fallen into the extremes explained above.

But I still thought it was somehow wrong to actually use the Dharma to change my external circumstance. Sure, it is OK to use external means to change my external circumstance, but surely it is a misuse of the Dharma to use it to change my external circumstance. I kept a strict firewall: external methods to solve external problems; Dharma to solve inner problems. But this too is an extreme. The Dharma actually teaches all sorts of methods for solving our external problems. To refrain from using them because we are some purist or we think doing so is for beginners (and our pride thinks we are an advanced practitioner) is just dumb. The teaching say if there is something we can do to change our circumstance, we should do it. It doesn’t just say if there are external things we can do, we should do them; it says if there is anything we can do, we should do so. So there is no fault in also using Dharma methods to solve our external problems.

For example, Venerable Geshe-la teaches various purification practices, like Vajrasattva, to purify our negative karma. So when negative karma is ripening, it’s perfectly OK for us to engage in our Vajrasattva practice to try purify that karma so it is less bad. Likewise, he teaches the practice of the Great Mother for dispelling obstacles. Sure, nothing is inherently an obstacle and with Dorje Shugden’s blessings we can view it as perfect for our spiritual training, but there is also nothing wrong with saying it sure would be better if I didn’t have these difficulties. So dispel away without thinking you are doing something wrong by doing so. Likewise, he teaches all sorts of methods for increasing our merit, such as making mandala offerings. Amitayus practice is all about increasing our merit, lifespan, and realizations. We struggle because we lack merit, so accumulate merit with the hope of improving your circumstance. Look at the dedication prayers in Chapter 10 of Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. There is no reason we cannot pray in the same way. These are all things we can do to improve our external situation and they are all taught by Venerable Geshe-la. Surely there is no fault in using them. They too are things we can do to change our external circumstance, so we should do them.

Of course we should try do so with increasingly pure Lamrim motivations, and not out of attachment or aversion. There are all sorts of initial scope, intermediate scope, and great scope reasons to improve our external circumstance if we can. So we should strive to do these Dharma methods for changing our external circumstance for increasingly pure Dharma reasons.

Likewise, if after using all of these Dharma methods to try to solve our external problems the external situation remains unchanged, then we can practice patient acceptance, faith in Dorje Shugden trusting whatever is happening is what we need for our path, and so forth. But we should not refrain from using these Dharma methods for solving our external problems thinking it is somehow wrong to do so.

Obvious conclusion you might say? Yes, in many ways that is true. But for some reason, it took me 30 years of Dharma practice before I realized it to be true. I was trying so hard to be the perfect Dharma practitioner who never misused the teachings that I in fact wound up rejecting some of the Dharma Venerable Geshe-la taught us. I share all this in case there are others who have been making similar mistakes as I have. And perhaps also to help others not go down the mistaken roads I have. If there is something you can do about it – externally or internally – DO IT! Without guilt, without shame, and unapologetically, do it. As it says on the tattoo I recently got, “sorry not sorry, namaste bitches.” 🙂