Author: Kadampa Ryan

A Pure Life: Abandoning Intoxicants (In particular alcohol and marijuana)

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part nine 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.

One of our Mahayana precepts is to abandon intoxicants.  This includes drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or taking drugs.  This is often one of the toughest ones for us to follow.  The object of this vow is obviously any intoxicant, whether it is legal or not.  Some people ask the question whether caffeine counts, after all it is highly addictive and many people relate to it no differently than other drugs.  And if coffee is an intoxicant, then aren’t all of the centers and festivals and World Peace Cafes constantly encouraging others to break their Pratimoksha vows?

Some people don’t like the answer I am about to give, but I will give it anyways.  Yes, I think caffeine can be considered an intoxicant.  I think nothing is really an intoxicant from its own side and everything can be an intoxicant for us depending on how we relate to it.  Sugar is not an intoxicant from its own side, but if we adopt an addictive attitude towards it, then for us I would way it is and likewise should be brought under control.  Likewise, many people get addicted to porn.  This is a very common addiction in the modern world, especially with the ease of access on-line.  This too can be a form of intoxicant for us depending on how we relate to it. Whether caffeine, sugar, and porn would be considered intoxicants as far as the Pratimoksha vows are concerned is debatable, but strictly speaking probably not. Should we nonetheless consider abandoning addiction to things a worthwhile goal on precepts day about abandoning intoxicants? Sure, why not.

Some objects, like cigarettes, alcohol and drugs are in a somewhat different category because their express purpose is to alter our mind.  This is the main point.  If we understand that our problem is our mind and alcohol and drugs help us change our mind, then can’t we argue that with them we are at least solving the right problem?  From one perspective, I guess we can say that.  But it is still a completely wrong thought.  Yes, we need to change our mind, but we need to change our mind with our mind.  We can think of our mind as like a muscle.  The more we exercise it, the stronger it gets.  The more we become dependent upon other things to change our mind, the weaker that muscle becomes.  Ultimately, we need a very strong mind.  Further, alcohol and drugs function to render our mind uncontrolled.  Our goal is to make our mind controlled.  So these things may change our mind, but they do so in a way that makes our mind more uncontrolled, and thus they take us in the opposite direction of where we want to go.

Let’s talk about alcohol

Alcohol in particular generally just makes us stupid.  The reason why alcohol is so dangerous is it primarily functions to undermine our inhibitions.  Our inhibitions are often what hold us back from engaging in negativity.  If we harbor in our heart a good deal of negative impulses, then when we consume alcohol, it erodes those inhibitions and our negativity is given free rein.  We all know stories.  Now, some people say that there is nothing wrong with being an occasional social drinker, especially if is done in moderation.  It is true that it is less bad, but that does not necessarily make it good.  It is true that it is good to be social, but how will you grow more as a person, by using the crutch of alcohol or doing the deep inner work of overcoming those delusions which prevent you from being a socially engaged person?  I am now a diplomat and I attend quite a number of social gatherings where virtually everyone is drinking.  I walk around with a glass of water or even orange juice in my hand.  At first, I hated these gatherings because I have never liked parties.  But I forced myself to learn how to become socially engaged, to let go, relax, and have a good time.  I learned how to be able to have a good conversation easily with anybody.  The secret to this is not complicated:  take a genuine interest in what others have to say.  Everyone has a lifetime’s worth of experiences waiting to be tapped, and all you need to do is be interested in finding out what they have to say.  Usually people only want to talk about themselves anyway, so it is not difficult to get the conversations started, and what you will find is because you have all of your mental faculties about you, you are better able to cherish the other person and occasionally pepper the conversation with some wisdom. 

Other people object saying having a glass of red wine every day has been medically proven to be good for your health.  I am not a doctor, so I cannot say whether this is true or not, but let’s just assume it is.  My question is simple:  isn’t moral discipline also good for your health?  Let us take a wild exaggeration of the benefits of drinking a glass of wine every day and say it adds 10 years onto your human life.  Surely that is extraordinary, is it not?  Surely that is enough justification to do it.  But every time we engage in the practice of moral discipline we create the substantial karmic cause for a rebirth in the upper realms, for example as a human.  If we assume an average lifespan of 80 years, what extends our experience of human life more, the 10 years or the 80?  And, just to take this a little further, if you practice this moral discipline every day from age 21 to 80, then that is 21,535 instances of moral discipline, each one of which creates the cause for at least another human rebirth of say 80 years, then keeping this vow will extend our experience of human life by 1,722,800 years!  Do the math.  Logic doesn’t lie. 

Let’s talk about marijuana

Some people agree that drinking alcohol just makes us stupid and taking hard drugs is just too dangerous, but they then ask what about marijuana?  People who have smoked almost all agree that it makes them more mellow and often gives them insights which are very similar and profound like what we realize with the Dharma.  There are also a great number of medical studies about the health benefits of this drug.  Let us face it, a very high percentage of Dharma practitioners have smoked pot in the past. 

Here the case is much harder, but still it is not worth it.  Why?  First, just as alcohol functions to undermine our inhibitions, marijuana functions to undermine our desire to do anything other than more marijuana.  This is true and anybody who has smoked knows what I am talking about.  Conventionally, people usually all agree that people who regularly smoke have less ambition and drive than they used to.  Whenever free time arises, their first impulse is to light up.  As we know from the lamrim teachings, desire is everything.  All of the lamrim meditations are ultimately about building up within us an unquenchable desire for liberation and enlightenment.  Marijuana deflates our desires, and the more we smoke the less we desire anything else. 

Second, if we are even slightly prone to psychiatric disorders, marijuana is downright dangerous.  When I was in Geneva, there were three different practitioners who were mentally completely normal prior to smoking marijuana, but they had latent potentials for psychiatric disorders, and after smoking regularly for a period of time, they all three developed very serious psychiatric issues, so much so that all three of them have spent a fair amount of time in mental hospitals.  We do not know what latent potentialities we have lurking under the surface, and smoking could activate them.  Perhaps we have smoked a few times without a problem and therefore think we are immune to this problem.  But we never know if we are just one joint away from tripping over some invisible karmic wire we did not know was there.

Third, marijuana is a gateway drug.  It is like crossing the Rubicon, and once we have done so, the other drugs that before we said we would never even consider trying suddenly no longer seem that different.  Marijuana seems to be OK, perhaps Ecstasy, opium, or a little blow might be OK too.  Geshe-la explains in the teachings on delusions that the easiest way to stop delusions is to do so early before they have gathered up steam.  Once we allow them to run a little bit in our mind, they can seemingly take on a force of their own and become unstoppable in our mind.  It is the same with drugs.  Just as they say it is easier to attain enlightenment once we have become a human than it is to become a human if we have fallen into the lower realms, so too it is easier to avoid marijuana now than it is to avoid using other drugs once we have started using marijuana. 

Finally, sometimes people object saying that when they smoke marijuana it gives them deep insights into the Dharma, so how can that be bad.  Perhaps it is true that when we smoke up, suddenly emptiness makes sense.  We see all the connections between the different Dharma teachings.  Such experiences can quickly and easily be used to justify doing it some more “for valid Dharma reasons.”  So again, just like with the health benefits of drinking a glass of wine every day, let us assume for the sake of argument that there are deeper insights to be had by smoking marijuana.  Once again, my question is simple:  isn’t having a precious human life also good for gaining spiritual insights?  Every time we practice moral discipline for spiritual reasons, we create the karmic causes for an entire precious human life.  So what gives us greater opportunities to gain spiritual insights, 80 years worth of a precious human life or a few hours each week for 80 years?  And this is setting aside the fact that there are diminishing returns.  Perhaps the first time we get high we feel the subtle vibrations of the cosmos, but do we get that same feeling the 20th time we get high?  Eventually, it starts to do very little for us.  So again, let us assume you smoke once a week for your whole life.  By taking this vow, you will train in this moral discipline 3,120 times (assuming you are 20 and live until you are 80).  3,120 actions of moral discipline translates into 3,120 precious human lives or another 249,600 years’ worth of precious human existence.  What will give you the opportunity to gain greater spiritual insight, 250,000 years’ worth of precious human life or a few random insights from being high?  Again, math does not lie.

The final thing I want to address is the situation of what happens if despite all of the above, we are ready to take the Pratimoksha vows for everything except this one related to intoxicants.  We just can’t bring ourselves to do it.  Should we hold off on taking the vows?  Normally, Geshe-la teaches that we generate the intention to one day keep all our vows purely and that is good enough. So by that logic, the answer would be we should take the vows and then gradually work with all of them until we can keep them better. But for technical reasons I don’t fully understand, apparently we can’t follow this logic with our pratimoksha vows.

So should we not take the Pratimoksha vows at all then if we find ourself in this situation? I would say there is nothing stopping us from formally taking all the other Pratimoksha vows as clear, absolute moral disciplines, and then we take the one at the level of intention of working gradually with the vow until one day we can keep it perfectly too. Have we taken Pratimoksha vows in this way? Technically no, but we’ve taken something very close to them. So there is no reason to not do this. It makes absolutely no sense to refrain from all moral discipline just because you cannot do one act of moral discipline perfectly.  How is that any better? 

Now it is true that we cannot take all of the Pratimoksha vows except the one regarding intoxicants, we need to work with all of the vows, but we can work with each one at different levels according to our capacity.  Just as Buddha skillfully encouraged the butcher to no longer kill animals at night, so too we can skillfully promise to refrain from taking intoxicants in some circumstances, such as never do so while alone.  Or not on Tuesdays, whatever.  Start somewhere, and then gradually expand the scope.  What matters is that mentally you understand the value of moral discipline and you maintain the intention to one day keep even this vow purely.  It is better to get incomplete benefits from imperfect Pratimoksha vows than it is to get no benefit from no Pratimoksha vows.  So don’t let this wrong understanding prevent you from getting started on the path of improving your moral discipline.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Build the five Buddha families within your mind

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, Vows, commitments and daily life

The nineteen commitments of the five Buddha families

It is very important to keep our Tantric commitments purely.  If we do, and on this basis we practice the generation and completion stages, we can attain Buddhahood in this life; but if we break our vows and commitments we create immense obstacles to our spiritual development.

As was mentioned earlier, our vows and commitments are the essential methods by which we practically bring our own actions in line with our spiritual intentions.  Each vow is like a road sign that points in the direction of enlightenment.  If we follow all the road signs of the refuge vows, we can maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our Buddhist practice in this or our future lives; if we follow all the road signs of the pratimoksha vows, we create the causes to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our path to liberation; if we follow all the road signs of the bodhisattva vows, we maintain the continuum of our path to enlightenment; and if we follow all the road signs of our tantric vows, we maintain the continuum of our Tantric path and we will swiftly attain enlightenment.  Just as the Dharma books have a “condensed meaning of the text” we can correctly view the vows and commitments as the condensed meaning of the various paths. 

In the Lamrim teachings, it says our chances of finding the Buddhadharma in any given life are about the same as a blind turtle at the bottom of an ocean the size of this world who rises to the surface only once every 100,000 years who manages to put his head right through a golden yoke floating on the surface.  I did the math once, and this is something like once every 640 billion lifetimes.  Finding the Tantric path is rarer still.  It is said only the 4th, 11th and last of the 100 Buddhas of this fortunate aeon will teach Tantra.  If we assume an aeon is 1 million years (I think it is much longer, but this is long enough to illustrate the point), and we assume that the Dharma of any given Buddha lasts about 5,000 years, it means the probability of Tantric teachings even being around when the turtle raises its head is only 1.5%.  This translates into our finding the Tantric path only once every 42.5 trillion lifetimes!  But miraculously we have found it in this lifetime.  If we do not want to wait another 42.5 trillion lifetimes to find it again, it would be advisable to keep our tantric vows purely in this life.  Doing so enables us to beat the odds and maintain the continuum of our tantric practice until we attain the final goal. 

Keeping commitments is the best means to attain success in our generation and completion stage practices.  It is the very life of Tantric practice.  When we keep our Tantric vows and commitments, we plant on our mind the karma which will ripen in the form of Tantric realizations.  Our practice of moral discipline plants the seeds, our actual practice of generation stage and completion stage function to ripen those seeds.  Even knowledge of these vows is like being given the secret code that enables you to unlock the mysteries of the universe.  Nothing is more important, and we should consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to even have the opportunity to know of these, much less have the opportunity to put them into practice.

The 19 commitments of the five Buddha families are the very methods by which we acquire the five completely pure aggregates of a Buddha.  At present we impute our I onto our five contaminated aggregates (form, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness).  These are essentially our contaminated body and mind.  The only reason why we experience the sufferings of a samsaric being is because we impute our I onto samsaric contaminated aggregates.  If instead we imputed our I onto the pure aggregates of a Buddha, we would experience the eternal bliss of enlightenment.  We already have an “I”, but the question is how do we generate qualified five pure aggregates that we can then identify with?  The answer is through our practice of the 19 commitments of the five Buddha families. 

These will now be explained in detail over the next several posts.

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of patience

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 37 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of patience
So that even if every single being in the three realms,
Out of anger were to abuse me, criticize me, threaten me, or even take my life,
Undisturbed, I would repay their harm by helping them.

Geshe-la explains in How to Solve our Human Problems, “Patience is a mind that is able to accept, fully and happily, whatever occurs. It is much more than just gritting our teeth and putting up with things. Being patient means to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are. It is always possible to be patient; there is no situation so bad that it cannot be accepted patiently, with an open, accommodating and peaceful heart.” This definition is worth memorizing. The perfection of patience is engaging in the practice of patience with a bodhichitta motivation.

There is no virtue greater than patience and there is no evil greater than anger. Thus, if we were to take only one thing as our main practice, it should be abandoning anger and practicing patience. Because we live in degenerate times, the causes of suffering and adversity are growing. As a result, our opportunities to practice patience are increasing as well. Patience is the cause of great beauty. We may wonder why we want beauty? Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that beauty creates the causes for others to be pleasantly disposed towards us, to naturally generate faith in us, and to wish to be around us. All these help us to become a more qualified spiritual guide capable of leading many living beings along the path. Patience is also one of the most profound causes of inner peace. If we are able to accept whatever happens, then our mind remains peaceful all the time. A peaceful mind is a happy mind.

Anger is like a communicable disease that remains in this world and spreads like wildfire. When one person gets angry, they hurt others, those people in turn get angry, they then hurt others and so forth. Further, when we express anger and frustration, such as on social media, we are likewise inciting others to also get angry and generate such negative minds. Some families have deep currents of anger. There may be for example one extremely angry person in a family who then infects everyone else in the family with anger, and that becomes the only way they know how to deal with problems that arise in life. It could take many decades of difficult inner work to undo the destructive effects of growing up in an angry home. But if we apply effort to eliminate anger, we can put an end to the lineage of anger in our family. And create a new lineage of patience within our family that continues for generation after generation.

Our ability to accept difficult circumstances depends primarily upon our ability to transform them into the path to enlightenment. If we know how to transform adverse circumstances into the path, then when they arise, they will not be a problem for us, rather they will be an opportunity. This only works, however, if our primary motivation is to make progress along the spiritual path. If our worldly desire to never encounter adversity is stronger than our spiritual desire to make progress along the path, even if we know how to transform adverse conditions into the path, it will not matter and things will still be a problem for us. But if our motivation is primarily spiritual, and we possess experience on how to transform adverse conditions into the path, then nothing will be a problem for us and there will be no basis for anger.

For me, I resolve about 90 to 95% of my otherwise anger-provoking problems through my reliance upon Dorje Shugden. With a motivation to make progress along the path, I request Dorje Shugden with faith to arrange the perfect conditions for my swiftest possible enlightenment. I then am able to accept whatever subsequently arises as the perfect conditions he has arranged for me. This faith will open my mind to receive his blessings to be able to understand how and why whatever has happened is perfect for my spiritual training. I will know what I need to do and be motivated to do it. In this way, nothing is a problem for me, and there is no basis for generating anger.

Happy Tara Day: May there be the auspiciousness of her presence

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

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

Offering the mandala

When we make a mandala offering, we imagine the entire universe is transformed into a pure land.  The highest offering we can make is one of our practice. For me, a mandala offering is a promise that we will work for as long as it takes before we actually transform the world we normally see into the pure land we are offering.  We will not stop until all living beings have been delivered to the pure land.  Geshe-la explains in many places that mandala offerings are one of the best methods for attaining rebirth in a pure land.  If we are offering to deliver all living beings to a pure land, we create countless karmic potentialities to attain a pure land ourselves.  Just as Tara was born from the tears of the protector of the three worlds, and arose to tell Avalokitshvara to not worry, she would help him; in the same way, when we make a mandala offering, we are telling Tara to not worry, we will help her.  We share the same wish to lead all beings to the pure land, and we promise to work towards that aim.

Requesting fulfilment of wishes

O Venerable, Blessed, Compassionate Mother,
May I and all countless living beings
Quickly purify the two obstructions, complete the two collections,
And attain the state of complete Buddhahood.

All living beings have Buddha nature.  This means that if we purify our Buddha nature of everything that is not enlightened, our natural Buddhahood will emerge.  In some respects, we don’t need to construct our Buddhahood, we just need to uncover it.  Our very subtle mind, once completely purified, transforms into the enlightened mind of a Buddha.  There are two obstructions on our very subtle mind – our delusions and their imprints.  Every action creates four karmic potentialities:  a tendency similar to the cause, an effect similar to the cause, a ripened effect, and an environmental effect.  The first is a tendency to generate delusions again – basically our bad mental habits to respond in deluded ways.  These are our delusion obstructions.  The other three are the imprints of our past delusions, also known as obstructions to omniscience.  They are so called because they ripen in the form of ordinary appearances – things appearing to exist from their own side.  Another way to think about this is there are two types of karma: contaminated and non-contaminated karma.  Contaminated karma is of two types:  negative and positive.  Negative karma ripens in lower rebirth and positive karma ripens as upper rebirth in samsara.  Non-contaminated karma, or pure karma, ripens as a pure rebirth outside of samsara.  To close the door on lower rebirth, we need to purify all of our negative karma.  To close the door on our personal rebirth in samsara, we need to purify all of our negative karma and all of our delusion obstructions.  To attain full enlightenment, we need to purify all of our contaminated karma.  Tara can accelerate the rate at which we do all of this. 

The two collections refer to the collection of merit and the collection of wisdom.  The collection of merit arises primarily from our practices of the vast path (all of the Lamrim meditations up to bodhichitta), and the collection of wisdom arises primarily from our practices of the profound path (specifically the meditation on emptiness).  According to highest yoga tantra, the collection of merit also includes generating the very subtle mind of great bliss that we use to meditate on emptiness.  Once we have completed the collection of merit, we attain a Buddha’s form body. Once we have completed the collection of wisdom, we attain a Buddhas mind, or truth body. The union of these two is full enlightenment. Since Tara is the Buddha of Lamrim, she can help us complete both collections. Understanding this, when we recite this verse, we generate a strong wish to rely upon Tara understanding she can help us from where we are now all the way to full enlightenment.

Throughout all our lives before we reach Buddhahood,
May we attain the supreme happiness of humans and gods;
And so that we may accomplish the omniscient mind,
Please quickly pacify and eliminate all interferences,

It is said that it is easier to attain enlightenment once born human than it is to attain a human rebirth if we have been reborn in the lower realms. There is no guarantee we will attain enlightenment in this lifetime. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that we do not fall into the lower realms. If we do, there is a danger we may not re-find the spiritual path for countless eons. All of the beings who we would have otherwise been able to help if we had attained enlightenment earlier will have to continue to suffer for all that time. Not to mention the fact that we ourselves will have to experience all of the sufferings of the lower realms. Sometimes we think generating fear of lower rebirth is a meditation for beginners. We want to engage in higher meditations, and indulge ourselves in the fantasy that we are somehow exempt from lower rebirth. Geshe-la explains in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that the main reason why we have not yet generated qualified refuge is because we lack fear of lower rebirth.  If we do not have even qualified refuge, it goes without saying we have no chance of gaining higher realizations. Geshe-la further explains we should be as terrified of lower rebirth as we would be if we were trapped in a circle of fire. Understanding this, we should generate a very strong fear of lower rebirth and then, with faith in Tara’s ability to protect us from lower rebirth, we request her protection. In dependence upon this, if at the time of our death we remember Taro, she will bless our mind and we will avoid lower rebirth, and remain in the human and god realms until we reach Buddhahood.

Evil spirits, hindrances, epidemics and sickness,
As well as the various causes of untimely death,
Bad dreams, ill omens, the eight fears
And all other forms of danger.

Samsara is a dangerous place.  In the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Geshe-la says Samsara is like a vast ocean of suffering and at any point we can be eaten by the sea monsters of the Lord of Death.  We never know what sea monster may arise and pull us down into the deep ocean of suffering.  Even if we avoid death for awhile, we are nonetheless buffeted by the violent waves of suffering.  There is no safety anywhere in samsara.  Nobody saw the Coronavirus coming, but in a very short period of time, it changed everything.  It is just a question of time before we wind up with some incurable sickness.  Tara can protect us from all of these dangers.  How?  First, by generating faith in her, we open our mind to receiving her blessings which prevent the negative karma already on our mind from ripening.  Second, she can help us purify our negative karma directly, much in the same way Vajrasattva can.  And third, if adversity does strike (which is inevitable), she will bless us with the wisdom to know how to transform it into causes of our enlightenment. 

May all mundane and supramundane collections
Of good fortune, happiness, goodness and excellence increase,
And may every beneficial purpose without exception
Be effortlessly and spontaneously accomplished.

Supramundane collection, I believe, refers to spiritual collections as opposed to worldly ones.  Normally we differentiate between worldly vs. spiritual, the former referring to things of this life and the latter referring to our future lives.  For example, if we engage in our spiritual practice for the sake of this life, it is said to be worldly; but if we are training for the sake of our future lives, it is said to be spiritual.  In other contexts, supramundane refers to virtues attained by superior beings – those who have attained a direct realization of emptiness.  Regardless, this verse clearly calls for all good things to increase.  When we rely upon Tara, for us, it will be an increasing time when spiritual development comes easily, even if for the world it remains a degenerate time, when bad things come effortlessly.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Do not wish for gratitude

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not wish for gratitude. 

When we help someone, we should not expect anything in return.  If we do, we turn the kindness into a sham.  We should direct all our efforts exclusively for the benefit of others, ideally with a bodhichitta motivation.

The difference between a kindness and a contract is whether we expect anything in return.  Since our primary goal is to create good karma for the future, we actually don’t want anything in return because we know we will then have burned up a portion of the good karma we worked so hard to create.  We do not have to formally ask for something in return for us to implicitly be requesting it.  I personally think the best form of kindness is the anonymous kind, because then we know we are not doing so for the sake of getting something in return. 

It is very rare for anybody to be kind to others without expecting something in return.  And when this something doesn’t come, we then find others to be very ungrateful and we begin to regret our acts of kindness.  We feel justified in at least wanting a thank you from others, and we are quick to condemn others when it doesn’t come.  Where do all these ungrateful people come from?  Our own past ungratefulness.

It is especially hard to not wish for gratitude when we have really gone out of our way to help somebody, and they nonetheless criticize us and even sometimes get mad at us for not helping them out correctly.  Gen-la Losang tells the story about how he was at Manjushri center and he was not on kitchen clean up duty.  It was at night, and he went down to the kitchen to get an apple and he saw that the kitchen still hadn’t been cleaned up since dinner.  So being the kind bodhisattva, he then proceeded to clean everything up.  Just as he was finishing, the person who was supposed to clean up the kitchen came down, and frustratedly said to Losang, “you missed a spot!”  That is when, Losang said, he knew he still had some work to do on giving selflessly. 

This sort of experience happens to us all the time.  We may help some people a tremendous amount, such as our children or our partner, and despite all that they still get mad at us.  When we are working hard and we need some help, they don’t lift a finger to help us.  They may be generally upset or going through a difficult time, and they project onto us that it is our responsibility to make them feel better, and when we fail to do so, they get mad at us.  Why are people so unreasonable with us?  Because this is how we have been with others in the past.  It is very easy for us to become frustrated at these people and resentful about how despite all that we do for them they still get mad at us.  But if our objective is to accumulate good karma for the future, we realize it is better this way.  We are learning how to give unconditionally.  We are not using up our virtuous karma on them expressing gratitude to us now.

Even though we should not expect gratitude, we should nonetheless always make a point of being grateful for what others have done for us.

When we are growing up, it seems entirely normal to us for our parents to do everything for us, and when they don’t, we feel let down and betrayed.  But the reality is nobody owes us anything.  The fact that anybody does anything for us should be welcomed as an act of extreme kindness.  But as we grow older and become parents ourselves, we realize it is not our parents that owe us anything, it is we who owe our parents for all that they have done for us.  Of course, everybody’s circumstance is different, but we should make a point of doing everything we can to look after our parents when they become older.  They were there for us when we needed it most, it is only normal that we are there for them when they need it most.

We should likewise make a special point of being grateful to all those who have taught us in some way.  The reality is we don’t know how to do anything on our own.  Everything we are able to do comes from the kindness of somebody else teaching us.  Even the things we have learned on our own ultimately come from the kindness of others because somebody taught us the skills we relied upon to be able to learn the thing on our own, for example even something as rudimentary as knowing how to read what is written.

Usually due to our inappropriate attention on what the person is not doing, we are unable to develop gratitude for what they have done.  Our resentment about the other person not living up to our expectations of what they should have done for us prevents us from developing gratitude for what they have done.  What good does this do anybody?  Our lack of gratitude for what they have done doesn’t exactly encourage the other person to do more for us, and even if it did, we would, in effect, be emotionally blackmailing the other person into giving us more.  We don’t want that karma on our mind.  Such an ungrateful attitude poisons our relationship with the other person, and frankly transforms us into an ungrateful jerk.  In contrast, being grateful is always well received.  When we are grateful for what others have done for us, they naturally want to do more for us. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Realizing we lack nothing

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not be unstable. 

Normally when we experience good fortune, we become overly excited and dance around in an absurd manner, and when we experience bad fortune we become completely depressed very quickly.  This precept advises us not to behave like that.

The fundamental reason why we are unstable is because we still believe there is such a thing as “an externally good” thing and “an externally bad” thing.  In reality, nothing is good or bad from its own side, rather they become so in dependence upon the mind with which we engage them.  When we engage things with our mind preoccupied by the eight worldly concerns, then of course some external things are seen to be ‘good’ and others are seen to be ‘bad.’  But we don’t have to view things in this way, in fact it is advisable that we don’t.  Why?  Because if we have such an outlook, we can’t be happy all the time.  We will go up; we will go down.  If instead we view all situations through the optic of the opportunity they afford us to develop our inner qualities, such as love, compassion, patience, wisdom, etc., then there is no such thing as a “bad” situation.  Every situation is equally good, just in different ways.  This is true freedom, the ability to go anywhere with anybody doing anything, and it is all equally good. 

The foundation of mental stability is the mind of contentment.  Normally, we always feel like we are lacking something or that we need something in particular.  This mind makes us unhappy all the time, even when we have pretty much everything.  We may long for a particular job, finally get it, and once we have it, we see the next horizon and can’t be happy with what we have.  We are always looking for a better home, a better job, a better partner, a better smart phone, whatever.  This mind of perpetual discontent is particularly destructive to our spiritual training.  No matter how many instructions we may receive, we never feel like we have what we need.  We always feel like we are lacking something, so we are always searching but never finding.  With such an outlook, we never get down to serious practice.

The mind of contentment is actually very easy to develop:  simply choose to be happy about what you do have, not unhappy about what you don’t have.  Everything can always be better than it is, and everything can also be much, much worse.  So if we have a mind of discontent, we will always be unhappy no matter what we have.  There will always be a basis for thinking how things could be better.  In contrast, if we can learn how to be happy with what we have, and this becomes our new mental habit, then we can be happy in every situation.  Every situation from its own side is equally neutral, it is our attitude towards it that determines whether we are satisfied or not.

One of the most liberating mental states a living being can experience is the mind that feels it lacks nothing.  If practitioners of old could be content with a cave, why can we not be content with our modern apartments?  No matter how much or how little we have, if we experience these things with the mind of contentment, we will always enjoy everything.  It is particularly empowering to realize in our spiritual life that we lack nothing.  When we feel we lack something we need to attain enlightenment, we don’t fully engage with our practice, and we spend our time trying to plug the perceived gap.  But when we realize we lack nothing and indeed have everything we need, then the only thing that remains to do is start practicing.  When you think about it, it is nothing short of a miracle that we have created the karma to literally lack nothing we need to attain enlightenment.  All the conditions have been gathered together, and if we push through, our enlightenment is guaranteed.  Our appreciation for the infinite kindness of our spiritual guide for providing us all these conditions literally pushes us to tears.  Our effort becomes effortless.

To not be unstable also explains how we can be of real benefit to people.  Virtually everyone around us is riding the wild waves of samsara, being buffeted up and down by their changing circumstances.  As a result, nobody has any reliable poles of support that they can hang on to to provide some stability in their life.  A Kadampa finds their stability within their own mind.  Because they know how to keep their mind stable, they are able to remain stable and calm in all circumstances.  When everyone else is freaking out, they remain unflappable.  Such a person is a real resource in any community, especially when times become particular chaotic or troublesome.  We become an immutable vajra in the world, unmoved, unchanged, undisturbed no matter what happens.  People know that if they remain close to us, then they can benefit from the stability of our mind.  This stability acts like the calm in the eye of a hurricane, a safe anchorage undisturbed by the waves.  This is in many ways the greatest gift we can provide others.

Happy Protector Day: Fulfilling our Heart Commitment to Dorje Shugden

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 8 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

Commitment, fulfilling, reliance, and appropriate substances,
Outer, inner, secret, attractive, and cleansing offerings, filling the whole of space,
I offer these to the entire assembly;
May I fulfil the heart commitment and restore my broken commitments.

This refers to an offering of our practice of the Heart Commitment of Dorje Shugden.  What does this mean?  It means to not be sectarian with our spiritual practice.  If we are sectarian in our practice, it will bring the Dharma into disrepute and it will create many problems for people being able to practice the path that leads to enlightenment, so it is very important for us to not be sectarian.  Gross sectarianism is when one tradition claims to have a monopoly on the truth and all the other traditions are wrong.  Many wars and much suffering have taken place due to this.  Subtle sectarianism is when we mix and match different traditions together.  Here, instead of saying one tradition is better than another in a general sense (as in gross sectarianism) we are saying that individual instructions from one instruction are better than individual instructions from another. 

To avoid sectarianism, Geshe-la encourages us to ‘following one tradition purely without mixing, while respecting all other paths as valid for others.’  Buddhas emanate many Buddhist and non-Buddhist paths depending on the karmic disposition of beings.  Different people will respond to different instructions, and so we are happy for anybody to follow any authentic spiritual path. 

This can be understood with an analogy of being trapped in a burning room.  If we were trapped in a giant burning room and there were many doors out, what would we do?  We would find the door closest to us and head straight out.  We would not start towards one door, then change to another, then change to another still because that keeps us trapped in a room.  We would not head towards the average of two doors because that would bang us straight into a wall.  We also would not judge other doors as being wrong for somebody else who is standing right next to it, instead we would encourage them to go out the door closest to them.  In the same way, if we are all trapped in the giant burning room of samsara and there are many different spiritual doors out, what do we do?  We find the one that is karmically closest to us and we head straight out.  We do not follow one path, then another, then another because then we complete none of them and remain in samsara.  We do not mix together two different traditions because this amalgam of our own creation does not lead to an actual door out.  We do not tell people who are closest to the door of another spiritual tradition, such as a Christian, that they should abandon their Christian path and follow our Kadampa path, instead we encourage them to go out through the emergency exit closest to them.  If somebody criticizes our practices and says that their practices are superior, we should not become defensive.  We can just say, ‘I am happy for you that you feel you have superior practices.  I hope you enjoy them.’ We then continue to do what seems best for us.  This avoids all problems.

So what is the Kadampa door?  It can be summarized in one sentence:  “relying upon guru, yidam and protector, I practice the path of Lamrim, lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra.”  If we are doing this, if we have chosen this as our path and we are following it purely without mixing while respecting all other paths as valid for others, then we are keeping our heart commitment to Dorje Shugden.  Taking such a commitment is our personal choice.  Nobody can force this on us, we do so voluntarily.   This is not a commitment of the empowerment, it has to be something from our own side we decide to do.

One of the core principles of the NKT is while respecting all other traditions, to follow one tradition purely without mixing.  This is an extremely vast subject.  Venerable Geshe-la (VGL) explains in Ocean of Nectar that we need to be careful when introducing the subject of emptiness to those who are not ready because doing so can lead to great confusion.  I would say even more so, we need to be careful when introducting the subject of following one tradition purely without mixing, as this is a special spiritual instruction that can easily give rise to much confusion and doubt, including thinking that such an approach is closed-minded, anti-intellectual and sectarian.  The attached document attempts to explain the rationale behind this instruction so that people can be happy with putting it into practice. 

Following one tradition purely without mixing – October 2020Download

To provide you with a snapshot, the attached document is organized as follows:

  1. References within VGL’s teachings on this advice
    1. On following one tradition purely without mixing
    2. On sectarianism
  1. The mind with which we examine this question
  2. How to understand this instruction
  3. Rationale for the spiritual advice to follow one tradition purely without mixing
    1. Considering valid reasons
    2. Contemplating useful analogies
  4. Refutation of objections to not mixing
a.      Objection 1.  We can gain a better understanding of a subject when explored from multiple perspectives
b.     Objection 2:  We can gain a higher and deeper understanding of universal truth through synthesizing multiple systems of thought.
c.      Objection 3 :  All religions say the same thing, just with different metaphors and means.  So what is the problem with me studying and reading other traditions.  Does that not also take me in the direction of enlightenment ?
d.     Objection 4:  OK, I agree we should not mix traditions.  I am 100% committed to VGL, I know what we are all about and I don’t want to mix.  So what is the problem with me reading other sources ?
e.      Objection 5:  But I do not have freedom because I cannot be an NKT teacher or officer of an NKT center if I still want to go to other things.  So I am not free to choose.
f.      Objection 6:  But it can be argued that just because one is in a relationship with somebody else does not mean that they cease to be friends with other people and other women.  In the same way, it is not mixing or violating my commitment to my spiritual path by reading other books, etc., as long as I am clear as to who is my Spiritual Guide.
g.     Objection 7: But we are Buddhist, so everything depends upon the mind.  Reading other sources is not from its own side mixing, it depends upon the mind with which we do it. 
h.     Objection 8:  Come on !  Certainly you are exaggerating to say it is a fault to even read or be exposed to teachings from other traditions.  Don’t be so paranoid !
i.       Objection 9:  It still seems very closed-minded to be so categorical in shunning anything that is non-NKT.
j.       Objection 10:  OK, even if I agree with all of the above, certainly it is more skilful to say nothing, since people will misunderstand and leave the Dharma as a result of this misunderstanding.
k.     Objection 11:  OK, I agree, something needs to be said.  But why do you have to do it in such a foreceful way. 
l.       Objection 12:  OK, point taken.  But what makes an action skilful is whether the action does not undermine the faith of the other person when you engage in it.
m.   Objection 13:  OK, fine !  Just tell me what I can and cannot do.
n.     Objection 14:  If that is the case, then why do different teachers have different policies and standards on this one ?
o.     Objection 15:  But how does your standard compare to that of the NKT as a whole ?  Are you more strict ?
p.     Objection 16:  Wait a minute !  I can understand why there would be an issue with Tibetan Buddhism in general, but certainly it is not a problem with Mt. Pellerin.  After all, their teacher was also a student of Trijang Rinpoche, he is friends with VGL, and they are Dorje Shugden practitioners.  Are they not basically a Tibetan version of us, and we are a Western version of them ?  So their teachings can help improve our understanding of VGL’s teachings.  We are all talking about the same thing, so there is no mixing going on.  So it should be OK.  It seems we should at least make an exception with them.
q.     Question 17:  OK, I understand all of this and it makes sense.  How practically then are we to implement all of this at the center given the sensitivities involved ?

In the next post, I will continue to explain verse by verse my understanding of the meaning of the Dorje Shugden part of the sadhana.

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of moral discipline

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 36 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of moral discipline
By not transgressing even at the cost of my life
The discipline of the Pratimoksha, Bodhisattva, and Secret Mantra vows,
And by gathering virtuous Dharmas, and accomplishing the welfare of sentient beings.

Moral discipline is the primary cause of higher rebirth. The perfection of moral discipline is engaging in moral discipline with a bodhichitta motivation. Every time we engage in an action of moral discipline motivated by a spiritual determination, we create the cause for some form of higher rebirth. If we do so with an initial scope motivation, we create the cause to be reborn in the upper realms. If we do so with the motivation of renunciation, we create the cause to attain liberation from samsara. If we do so with a bodhicitta motivation, we create the cause to attain full enlightenment.

There are many different types of moral discipline. The one we practice most frequently and find the most difficult is the moral discipline of restraint. For the most part, the habits of our mind tend to move in a negative direction. When we observe this, we can consider the karmic implications of acting upon our negative tendencies. Realizing that we do not want to go down that road, we make the decision to not listen to and not follow our negative tendency. And instead, we choose to listen to and follow our Dharma wisdom encouraging us to go in the other direction.

It is very important that we make a distinction between the practice of the moral discipline of restraint and repression. Because we are desire realm beings, we have no choice but to do whatever it is that we desire. Repression is when we want to engage in the negativity, but then think we shouldn’t and therefore we use “will power” to stop ourselves. This can work for a little bit, but our desire remains to engage in the negativity, and eventually this desire will grow and grow until eventually we give in. The practice of the moral discipline of restraint, in contrast, actively dismantles our negative desires by recognizing that in fact we do not want to go down that road and we do not want to follow the bad advice our negative tendencies are giving us because we understand the karmic consequences of doing so. We consider the karmic benefits of practicing moral discipline, and therefore want to do that instead. In short, we change our desires. When we do this, we are not repressing, but we are in fact practicing the moral discipline of restraint.

Sometimes people feel very guilty when they observe how often their mind looks to move in a negative direction, for example wishing to steal, wishing to lie, wishing to harm, and so forth. They can then develop guilt and self-hatred and become very discouraged thinking that they are accumulating all sorts of negative karma and they cannot stop themselves. This is wrong. Just as we need an annoying person to practice patience and we need those in need to practice giving, so too we need negative tendencies in order to practice the moral discipline of restraint. The fact that a negative tendency arises is not the creation of new negative karma, rather it is the exhausting of existing negative tendencies similar to the cause that remain on our mind. It only becomes a new action of negativity if we assent to the validity of the negative tendency and choose to follow it. If instead, at that time, we dismantle our negative desires, cultivate virtuous desires, and then act upon those, we are practicing the moral discipline of restraint. If over the course of an hour we have one hundred negative tendencies wishing to engage in some compulsive negative behavior, but each time we managed to dismantle that desire and choose to not follow it, we just created the causes for attaining one hundred precious human lives. Far from creating a host of negative karma, we just won the spiritual lottery.

The most important moral discipline we have is maintaining our vows and commitments. Breaking our vows causes us to lose the spiritual path. Maintaining our vows creates the causes to remain on and re-find the spiritual path in all our future lives. The reason why we need to take vows is because the tendencies of our mind move in the wrong direction. If we could maintain all our vows perfectly, we would not need them. It is because the natural tendencies of our mind are to move in opposite directions that we are given the vows to provide us with an opportunity to redirect the trajectory of our mental continuum. Keeping our refuge vows creates the causes for us to re-find the Buddhist path in all our future lives without interruption until we attain enlightenment. Keeping our pratimoksha vows creates the causes for us to find a path to liberation in all our future lives without interruption. Maintaining our bodhisattva vows creates the cause to re-find the Mahayana path, and maintaining our tantric vows creates the cause to re-find the Vajrayana quick path to enlightenment. If we are able to maintain the continuum of our Dharma practice between now and our eventual enlightenment, then our eventual enlightenment is guaranteed, and we will not suffer too much along the way. Thus, simply making the decision to apply efforts to maintain our vows and commitments is the same as essentially guaranteeing our enlightenment. Seen in this way, we can understand there is nothing more important in our life than our vows and commitments.

Sometimes people relate to their vows as a restriction of their freedom. They want to do things, but all their vows and commitments prevent them from doing so. This way of thinking is exactly backwards. The truth is as long as our mind is under the influence of delusions, we know no freedom. We are forced to do whatever it is our delusions require of us. The only way to truly become free is not to indulge in whatever our delusions want, but rather to overcome all our delusions. A mind that is free from all delusions is truly free – in fact, it is liberated.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Defeating our greatest enemy

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not get angry. 

If someone behaves in an unpleasant manner towards us, we should not respond with anger. Cultivating this attitude is one of the best ways of gaining peace for ourself and others.  If everyone practiced training the mind, everyone would love everyone, and so there would be no basis for war or conflict.  If there is to be real universal peace, Dharma must flourish throughout the whole world.

There is no more destructive delusion than anger.  Anger destroys all our relationships, it burns up all our merit, and it throws us into the deepest of hells.  Anger destroys our peace of mind, so even if we get what we want, we still can’t enjoy it or be happy.  Anger causes us to lose respect for us, so even when we have something useful to contribute, they reject what we have to say out of hand.  Our anger engenders rebellion against whatever we ask.  People naturally resist somebody who is angry, and this can become the habit of our relationship with somebody.  Even when we are not angry at the other person, because we have done so in the past, they resist what we have to say even when we are requesting something entirely reasonable.  Anger causes others to fear us and want to flee us.  Angry people often find themselves abandoned by all those that they know and love.  When our anger doesn’t work to get what we want, we feel like we have no choice but to escalate our anger until we do, and suddenly we find ourselves to be an abusive person.  In the short-run, we may win compliance because the other person has no choice, but the first opportunity they have they will either run away or try get us back.  This leaves us trapped in a dynamic where we must continue to inflict harm on and invoke fear in the other person, otherwise they will attack us back.  We spend our time disgusted with all those around us, hurling insults at those we see on television, brewing inside.  We sometimes lose control completely and find ourselves acting like a raging lunatic.  We are unable to form stable and close relationships with others, because as soon as they see our darker side, they want to have nothing to do with us.  Anger is the root of all war and conflict in this world.  How many people have been injured or killed by anger?  How many children have been emotionally shattered by their parent’s uncontrolled rage?  No good has ever come from anger, and no good ever will.  Its only function is to harm.

We should recall that the main point of training the mind is great compassion, and that anger is the opponent of compassion.  Anger is a mind which mistakenly identifies something external as a cause of suffering, and then seeks to harm or destroy that.  Love and compassion are the opposite of anger.  Love wishes that the other person be happy, compassion wishes that the other person be free from all harm and suffering.  Wishing to harm and wishing to free others from harm are exact opposites.  Anger is rooted in two principal mistakes.  The first, is it thinks the external thing is an actual cause of suffering, when in reality our experience of any object depends only upon the mind with which we experience it.  The second is it thinks the other person is “not us,” they are somehow separate from us, when in reality we are all equally waves on the same ocean.  When the false duality between ourselves and others falls away, it becomes just as impossible to harm another person as it would be to harm ourselves. 

We usually get angry at those who we see as harming us in some way.  We feel that if we get angry at them, we will deter them from harming us again.  If we succeed in deterring them, they will still wish to harm us but be unable to, so their resentment will only grow and they will bide their time until they can.  If we don’t succeed in deterring them, then we invite immediate retribution as they strike back at us.  Sometimes we encounter people who themselves are angry people and for whatever reason do what to harm us.  When this happens, we should ask ourselves, “why is this person angry at me?”  Quite likely we have done something to cause them to get angry, so we should try to make immediate amends.  If we are unsuccessful, then we should view this other person as a karmic echo of our own past anger towards others and take it as a powerful reminder that if we don’t want people harming us in the future, we need to stop getting angry at others now.  Finally, we need to realize that the person who is behaving unpleasantly towards us has no control over their actions but are a slave to their delusions and anger.  When our anger is active in our mind, we have no control over our behavior.  Others are the same.  Delusions function to render our mind uncontrolled, we become a puppet on the strings of our delusions.  Very often we will say or do things while we are angry that we later regret when we calm down.  Others are no different.  When somebody gets angry at us, we should realize it is not them talking, it is their delusions.

If we want to get angry at something, we should direct our anger against our own and others’ delusions.  They are the real enemy; they are the real cause of all harm.  We should blame the person’s delusions, not the person themselves.  Indeed, we can view the other person as the victim of their delusions, and in the future, they will have to suffer the karmic consequences of their actions.  We should adopt the view of Buddhas, who love everyone and have compassion for them seeing that they are trapped and tormented by their delusions.

Vows, commitments, and modern life: Avoiding arrogance

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not be boastful.  

Our purpose in training the mind is to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all, therefore it is quite inappropriate to become conceited and boast to everyone what we are doing.

Those who suffer from pride, such as myself, often become very attached to what other people think of them.  Our sense of self-confidence and self-worth is based on an inflated perception of how great we are.  When others don’t share the same “exalted view” of us, then it threatens our self-narrative, and so we quickly become defensive.  Ultimately, of course, arrogance and pride are a reflection of deeper-seated insecurity.  Since we don’t want to confront that, we try get everyone else to likewise think we are so wonderful.

When we apply for jobs, we exaggerate our past accomplishments.  When we tell stories of particularly difficult situations we have dealt with, we almost always make it out worse than it really was.  We lie about our grades in school to our friends, we overstate the success we have enjoyed in our extra-curricular activities.  Especially among our Dharma friends, we put on a show of how we are free from delusions and are such a great Dharma practitioner.  

If we check, the implicit conclusion of much of what we say when we are with others is how we are better than those we are talking about.  Many, many, conversations among work colleagues revolve around telling stories about how stupid our co-workers, clients, or bosses are.  Every time we point out the faults of somebody else, what we are implicitly trying to say is that we are better than the person we are criticizing.  There is a very perverse logic in the world that thinks, “if I can criticize something good that everybody else likes, then it means I am even better.”  Rich people are praised for their “discriminating taste,” which essentially means they can’t be happy with anything but the very best of everything.  Why would we want to be like that, when the actual meaning of this is we are unhappy most of the time because rarely do we get the best of anything.  We see this dynamic all throughout our society:  criticizing famous people, disliking popular movies, judging those who eat fast food when who amongst us does not occasionally like a good burger!  Pride is so ridiculous, it can take any small personality characteristic we might possesses, and then use that as a basis for thinking we are better than everyone else.

Very often prideful and boastful people are not satisfied with knowing themselves that they are the best at everything they do, but they do not rest until everyone else agrees they are the best.  When somebody doesn’t agree, our mind is suddenly filled with an exhaustive list of all the faults of this insolent person!

Besides being absurd, what are some of the problems with such an attitude?  First, as a general rule, the more boastful we are with others, the more they dislike us and want to knock us down a peg or two.  Second, as a general rule, truly great people don’t talk about how great they are, they simply quietly do their thing.  Third, it feeds our dependency on what other people think of us, thus making us feel increasingly insecure.  Fourth, we close the door on ourselves of being able to ask for help from others, including our Dharma teachers.  I remember I used to be very attached to whether or not my Dharma teachers thought I was a great practitioner, so I actually didn’t want to go talk to them about what problems and delusions I was having because to do so might threaten their vision of me.  This makes our going for refuge impossible because we can’t admit we need help.  Fifth, pride in our contaminated aggregates makes renunciation, bodhichitta and our Tantric practice impossible.  It is only by coming to terms with the hopeless nature of our samsaric condition that we can make the decision to leave, become a Buddha and train in identifying with the pure aggregates of the deity.  Sixth, and worst of all, it makes it impossible for us to learn from anybody.  If we think we are better than others, we feel we have nothing to learn from them.  If we aren’t learning, how can we possibly progress along the path?