Not recollecting the view of emptiness. 

If we have some understanding of the view of emptiness as taught in the Chittamatra or Prasangika schools and we remain for a day without recollecting emptiness, with the motivation to neglect Vajradhara’s speech, we incur a root downfall.

This vow, of course, does not mean if we go a day without thinking about emptiness we incur a downfall, rather the meaning is we have the express motivation to neglect Vajradhara’s speech and we choose to not remember.  I try keep a picture of Geshe-la on my desk so that I see it.  Knowing he is there helps me remain a good boy!  But sometimes our delusions get the better of us and we want to do something we know we shouldn’t.  At such times, we try to avoid thinking about the fact that he is with us.  We don’t want our remembering the Dharma to ruin our fun.  For some, it will be drinking or smoking, for some it will be indulging in pornography or sweets, for some it will be when we are really angry at or jealous of somebody, or maybe we just think we need some “me time.”  Our delusions convince us that following them is the way to go, and we choose to forget the Dharma so that we can follow them.  We all do this from time to time, or at least I do.

Recalling emptiness protects us from this.  The vows and commitments are not laws written by Buddha where we will be punished if we break them.  It is not like that at all.  The vows and commitments are rather simply a description of what works and what doesn’t given that everything is a dream.  A correct understanding of emptiness establishes karma, and a correct understanding of karma establishes emptiness.  If a little toy boat is placed on top of the water in a fish bowl, making a wave in any direction will eventually find its way back to the boat.  You can’t disturb the waters anywhere without it eventually disturbing the stability of the boat.  Such is the nature of our empty karmic existence.  The vows and commitments explain how to avoid disturbing the empty waters of our mind, violating them creates waves.  It is no different than the laws of physics, it is just how things work.  Just as regardless of whether or not we believe in the laws of physics, they will govern our reality; so too whether or not we believe in the laws of karma and emptiness, they will govern our experience.  When we recall emptiness, we know if we kick the dog we are kicking ourselves.

Nagarjuna said for whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.  Everything is a karmic dream.  Right now, due to our past deluded actions, we have created a nightmare for ourselves called samsara.  But because it is a karmic dream, if we change our actions we can change our karma, and therefore change our dream.  Our Tantric practices are, in the final analysis, powerful methods for reconstructing our karmic dream from a world of suffering into a pure land.

We ourselves currently appear to ourselves to be an ordinary being trapped in samsara.  There is only one reason for this:  we assent to ordinary appearance.  Due to the ripening of contaminated karma, there is an appearance to our mind of ourselves as an ordinary being.  This is just an appearance, but we have a choice whether to assent to this appearance or not.  If we assent to this appearance as being true, then we create new contaminated karma which will ripen in the future in the form of a new contaminated appearance.  We also create the tendencies to assent to ordinary appearances when they do appear, and finally we suffer because our inner peace is disturbed by this deluded thought of believing in the appearance of samsara.

If we choose to not assent to this appearance as being true, in other words we see it as a lie or as an illusion or as a mistaken appearance, then the power of that appearance is cut.  It appears, but it has no power to disturb our mind.  It is little different than remembering the scary movie can’t hurt us, it is just light being projected onto a screen.  It is little different than consoling a child after a nightmare telling them it is just a dream and the monster can’t hurt you.

It is not enough, however, to simply not assent to ordinary appearance.  We also have the opportunity to karmically construct a new, pure dream.  We generate with our imagination a pure world, and with our wisdom and faith we assent to this pure world as being true.  Not inherently true, since nothing is inherently true, but epistemologically true.  Epistemology asks how truth is established.  Truth can only be established either on the side of the object or the side of the mind.  There is no third possibility.  All philosophical schools with the exception of the Prasangika school (and its cousins) seek to establish truth on the side of the object – the object is somehow objectively true.  The Prasangikas thoroughly refute this possibility by showing nothing exists on the side of the object at all.  But then, if taken too far, we can fall into an extreme of nothingness.  For Prasangikas, truth is established on the side of the mind.  If the subject mind is a valid mind, then the object known by that mind is said to be valid.  If the subject mind is a non-valid mind, then the object known by that mind is said to be not valid.  A mind that realizes the union of karma and emptiness is a valid mind, so all objects known to that mind are likewise valid.  If we check, there is no other way of establishing truth than this.

When we generate ourselves, others, our world and our environment as the pure land we then train in assenting to that appearance as being valid and true – not objectively true, but conventionally true.  For an imputation to be valid the name, aspect, nature and function of an object all need to align.  Calling a shovel a car doesn’t make it a car, but calling the basis of imputation of a car a car is valid because the name, aspect, nature and function are all in alignment.  So first we generate a valid aspect, nature and function of the self-generation, and then we impute our name, or our “I” onto that, saying “I am Heruka” or “I am Vajrayogini.”  The correct aspect is the visualized self-generation as described in the sadhanas, the nature of the emptiness of our mind of bliss and emptiness in the aspect of the self-generation, and the function is to ripen and liberate all beings.  On this valid basis, we can impute Heruka or Vajrayogini.

When we do this, we create a new karma which will gradually kamrically reconstruct our dream from a world of suffering into a living pure land, and we can do this for both ourself and for all living beings.

Relying upon malevolent friends.

We incur this downfall by allowing ourself to come under the influence of people who criticize the Three Jewels or our Spiritual Guide, who harm the Buddhadharma, or who interfere with the spiritual practice of many living beings.  Mentally we should develop love and compassion for such people, but we should not become too close to them physically or verbally.  We also incur this downfall if we have the power to help such people through pure wrathful actions but we do not attempt to do so.

On the one hand, it is true there are no external enemies, there are only the internal enemies of the delusions.  It is likewise true that we are advised to love all living beings without exception, view others as being without faults, etc.  But this does not mean we pretend there are not those who conventionally appear to have a clear intent to harm us, criticize our tradition, harm the Buddhadharma or otherwise interfere with the sincere practice of others.  Of course, as Geshe-la said, love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies, but this does not mean we don’t correctly identify a threat as a threat and conventionally respond accordingly.

People who criticize the three jewels or interfere with the faith and practice of others are creating a terrible negative karma for themselves.  Most criticisms of other paths occurs because people fail to realize the simple maxim of “different strokes for different folks.”  The diversity of mental dispositions is almost infinite, so it is only natural that there will be many different ways of presenting the spiritual path.  Just because one spiritual path works for us does not mean it is the best spiritual path for everybody.  Likewise, just because our chosen path says one thing does not mean every other path is wrong if it says something different.

The heart commitment of Dorje Shugden is to “follow one tradition purely without mixing, while respecting all other paths as valid for those who follow them.”  In other words, we have our bread, you have yours, let’s all get along and respect one another.  If somebody practices differently than we do, we should be happy for them if they have found a path that works for them.  But there is no need whatsoever to put down, criticize or judge the spiritual choices of another.

While we may realize this to be the correct attitude, others may continue to criticize us, our teachings, our Spiritual Guides, and they may engage in all sorts of speech whose express purpose is to interfere with the spiritual path of others.  Of course the other person will internally justify their actions on the grounds that they are saving others from what they consider a bad tradition, but this just belies their failure to understand different paths will work for different people, and that is perfectly OK.

Unless we have a valid reason for doing so, it is best to simply avoid contact with such people.  The reasons for this are as follows:  First, when we associate with anybody, unless we are careful with our mind, we naturally become socialized into the views of others.  If we hang out with people who routinely engage in negativity, we will start to do so as well; if we spend time with our Sangha friends, we will become more like them; if we engage with people who are critical of our spiritual practice, we will come to share their views.  Second, if we try refute their wrong views about our spiritual practice, then they will feel the need to respond to our refutations.  Thus every time we speak with them, all we really do is create the causes for them to create further negative karma for themselves by engaging in divisive speech.

But sometimes we can’t avoid such people.  At such times, our first task is to not allow ourselves to be adversely affected by their speech or their actions.  This is not an easy thing to do.  When we encounter their wrong views, we need to confront the doubts that arise within our own mind.  If we do not resolve our doubts, they will just fester and grow like a cancer, eventually devouring our spiritual life.  We should seek out Sangha friends we trust and have faith in, and with them try work through our doubts and see things differently.  Likewise, we should constantly request wisdom blessings so as to be able to cut through all doubts.

The only reason why it is painful to hear harsh things said about our Spiritual Guide or our tradition is because we still have unresolved doubts.  When all of our doubts have been fully and effectively resolved (which is different than repressed), then we will have no difficulty hearing anything and it won’t disturb our mind at all.  The more doubts we resolve within ourselves, the more capable we are of safely interacting with those with hostile intent without falling under their influence.

One very common occurrence is when we ourselves start making the exact same mistakes as our “adversary,” just in different ways.  Nine times out of ten, whoever is accusing somebody of doing something is most likely doing that same thing themselves.  Venerable Tharchin said, “just as rejoicing creates the causes for ourselves to become that what we rejoice in, so too criticizing others out of delusions creates the causes for ourselves to become that which we criticize.”  It takes tremendous wisdom, a very clear compassionate motivation and great inner strength for this not to happen.

If we possess such strength, then we will have the ability to engage in “pure wrathful actions” against those who are criticizing our tradition.  Our motivation for doing so is to protect the other person from creating negative karma for themselves, and to protect others so that their faith is not destroyed.  But we must be careful, because if we are unskillful, we can very easily defeat ourselves where we tell ourselves we are acting “wrathfully” but in reality we are driven by anger.  If this happens, the benefits of our actions are completely destroyed.  We accumulate negative karma, cause the other person to retaliate also out of anger, and cause others to lose faith in us because we are seen as a hypocrite.

None of this is easy.  This is a very advanced form of practice.  If we currently lack the ability to do this perfectly, it’s OK.  What matters is that we try, check our mistakes, learn our lessons and try better next time.  Eventually, we will get there.

Abandoning emptiness. 

Success in Tantra depends upon understanding emptiness.  If we do not yet understand the Prasangika view of emptiness, we should at least study and meditate on the Chittamatra view.  If we completely stop trying to develop or improve our understanding of emptiness we incur a root downfall.

In the scriptures it says we to attain enlightenment we unite the bliss of Tantra with the emptiness of Sutra.  The emptiness explained in the Sutras and the emptiness explained in the Tantras is exactly the same, namely the lack of inherent existence.

In the teachings on emptiness, we are led through a series of different philosophical schools, which effectively form a ladder leading to the highest view of the Madhyamika Prasangika school.  In the beginning of our contemplations on emptiness, it is not necessary to familiarize ourselves with the different tenets of the different philosophical systems.  It is better to get a general understanding of our final destination – namely the emptiness of inherent existence – and then later when we our understanding becomes a bit more stable we can dive into the “debates” we find between the different schools in the Sutra texts.

Some people develop rather negative reactions to these debates.  They either become discouraged because they understand none of them, or they reject the debates as nothing more than intellectual masturbation.  In reality, if we are training in emptiness correctly, we will naturally find ourselves with some of the views and questions of the lower schools.  Only when we identify within ourselves the doubt, view or question of the lower schools will the Prasangika refutation of that wrong view function to move our mind.  We actually hold, often at very deep levels, virtually all of the wrong views refuted by the Prasangikas.  But if we don’t connect the refutation with the wrong views to our own thinking, such debates will be a purely intellectual exercise.

Despite this, we should still somewhat early in our study of emptiness (say after having been in the Dharma for a few years), take the time to read through the debates in Meaningful to Behold and in Ocean of Nectar so we are at least familiar with the broad contours of the debates.  It is a bit like when you first arrive at University and they give you a tour of the library.  You don’t read all the books in any detail, but you are given a general overview of what all is there so that when you do need a particular book, you know where to find it.  Venerable Tharchin explains that wrapping our minds around the meanings of these debates is a systematic method for breaking down all of our wrong views about the nature of reality.  By working through them, we gradually fine tune our understanding until it is correct.  It is only by meditating on correct meanings that we will actually generate within our mind a wisdom realizing emptiness that can function to remove the two obstructions.

To keep things simple, though, we can think of things developing in four stages.  The initial stage is our ordinary view that grasps at everything as being somehow objectively real, existing completely independently of our mind.  We think the world is out there, waiting to be observed by our mind, and our mind has no role whatsoever in bringing these objects into existence.  The second stage would be realizing everything is the nature of mind.  Every appearance is like a wave on the ocean of our mind, but we still grasp at our mind as existing inherently.  This is roughly speaking the Chittamatrin view.  The third stage is realizing the Sutra Prasangika view which sees all things as mere appearance, like a dream, like a hologram, like an illusion.  The only thing that is there is a mere appearance of something being there.  The appearance is not real, it is a “mere” appearance, and nothing more.  The fourth stage is the Tantra Prasangika view which asks the question, “what is the conventional and ultimate nature of the mere appearance?”  The answer is the conventional nature of the appearance is the very subtle mind of great bliss itself, and the ultimate nature of the mere appearance is the emptiness of the very subtle mind in the aspect of the appearance.   We continue to meditate until we realize the non-duality between the conventional and the ultimate.  It feels as if “the emptiness of my very subtle mind of great bliss appears as all things.”  When we attain this state, we know directly and simultaneously all phenomena of all three times and we become a fully enlightened being.

The interesting paradox is our practice when we are beginners (viewing all things as a dream) and our practice when we are very advanced in our training is the same.  It is the middle part where we systematically deconstruct all of our wrong views until we are left with only a correct understanding of emptiness.  It is for this reason that a true meditation master can teach profound topics like emptiness simultaneously to an audience of brand new beginners and very advanced practitioners and all in the audience can marvel at the beauty of it all.

Abusing our body.

To practice Secret Mantra we need a strong and healthy body because if our bodily strength decreases our drops will also decrease, and then it will be difficult for us to generate spontaneous great bliss.  For this reason, if we deliberately cause the strength of our body to decrease motivated by the thought that the body is impure, we incur a root downfall.  Instead of regarding our body as impure we should generate ourself as the Deity.  We also, obviously, incur this downfall if we decide to commit suicide.

It is said that beings who have taken rebirth in certain pure lands actually pray to be born human so that they can practice Tantra.  In order to practice Tantra, in particular completion stage of highest yoga tantra, we need a bodily basis that includes channels, drops and winds.  A human body has such things, the wisdom bodies of light beings have in certain pure lands do not.  There are, however, some pure lands such as Keajra, where we have the necessary bodily basis to practice highest yoga tantra.  This is why it is such a good idea to strive to take rebirth there.  Then we get all of the benefits of being born in a pure land and all of the benefits of being born human at the same time.

The reason why we want to generate bliss is not because it feels good (although that’s a nice side benefit), but rather because only the very subtle mind of great bliss can mix indistinguishably, like water mixing with water, with the very subtle object emptiness.  To attain enlightenment, we need to purify our mind of the two obstructions – the delusion obstructions and the obstructions to omniscience.  Delusion obstructions are, quite obviously, the delusions we generate such as attachment, aversion and ignorance.  The obstructions to omniscience are the karmic imprints of our past delusions.  Venerable Tharchin explains that karmic imprints are like tiny vibrations on the fabric of our very subtle mind.  When karmic imprints ripen, the amplitude of these vibrations increases more and more, giving rise to mental winds, currents, thoughts and eventually appearances.

The way we purify the two obstructions is by realizing directly the emptiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss.  When we do so, it functions to smooth out all of the contaminated karmic vibrations until our mind is completely pure and without obstruction and we attain full, irreversible enlightenment.  To realize directly the emptiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss, we must first make it manifest.  To make it manifest, we need to cause all of our inner energy winds to gather, absorb and dissolve into the indestructible drop at our heart.  Right now, due to aeons worth of wrong actions, our subtle body through which our inner winds flow is a tangled mess.  The purpose of most completion stage meditations and the body mandala meditations is to heal our subtle body, so that the winds may flow freely into the heart.

While we need a human bodily basis with channels, drops and winds to train in this way, we don’t actually train with the subtle body of our ordinary selves.  Rather, we first generate ourselves as our Highest Yoga Tantra Yidam and then we imagine that the completely pure subtle body of the deity is the same nature as our ordinary subtle body.  Or more specifically, we imagine that our ordinary subtle body transforms into the completely pure subtle body of the deity.  Just as all Tantra is a process of bring the result into the path, so too our body mandala and completion stage meditations can be thought of as bringing the result of our completely pure subtle body into the path.

Understanding the relationship between our ordinary body and our practice of Tantra, we see how important it is to keep our ordinary body healthy and full of vitality.  Eating well, exercising, getting adequate sleep, etc., are all aspects of our Tantric training.  We should do what is required to maintain a strong and healthy body, especially as we grow older.  But eventually, sickness and old age catch up to us.  We shouldn’t view that as a problem, but simply the evolution of our karma.  But we should take heart in how many active and healthy seniors there are, and we should strive to create the causes to have a similar future.

Revealing secrets to an unsuitable person.  We incur this downfall by knowingly teaching Secret Mantra to those who have not received a Tantric empowerment.  Without the empowerment, it is impossible to attain results.  If someone practices without an empowerment, and they achieve no results, they might conclude that Tantra does not work. To understand the wisdom of this vow, we need to be clear on why Tantra does not work without an empowerment.  The reason is simple:  without a seed, no matter how much water, sunlight and fertilizer you add, a plant will never grow.  Receiving the empowerment is like the planting of the seed.  We all possess the seed of enlightenment within our mind, it is our Buddha nature.  But the seed of the tantric path of a given deity is the special blessing we receive during the empowerment. The karma for being able to encounter the path of Tantra is so rare and precious that we must be very careful.  It is entirely possible that others may have only one karmic seed on their mind to meet such teachings, and if we are unskillful we can wind up causing others to burn up such karmic seeds, reach wrong conclusions, and then not encounter the Tantric path again for aeons.

By the same token, we shouldn’t go to the other extreme of depriving people of access to the Tantric path out of our own fear of making a mistake.  The story is told in the Lamrim of the man who saw a live fish fall from a fishing cart, and instead of letting it die, he compassionately put it in the pond close by.  Unfortunately, though, this fish then proceeded to eat all of the other fish in the pond.  When the local fishermen discovered what happened they proceeded to kill the fish the man tried to save.  So while his intention was good, the end result of his action was in fact not beneficial.  Some people hear this story and mistakenly conclude that until they “know for sure,” it is better to not try help.  This is the wrong conclusion from this story.  Given the information that the man had at the time, he made the right decision to try save the fish.  He cannot be faulted for having tried.  However, the story shows why we need to gain the omniscient wisdom of a Buddha, because only then will we not make such mistakes.  In the meantime, we continue to try our best to help people in whatever ways we can.

When we make mistakes, we should humbly acknowledge them, learn from them, and try do better next time. I don’t always succeed at following my own principles, but what I try do is the following:  I try to only give Dharma when people ask for it and I think their minds are sufficiently open to receive it in a positive way.  When talking about Tantra, I explain “about” Tantra, but not “how to do it.”  So it is OK to discuss the benefits of Tantra and the general theory of how it works, but not good to discuss how people actually do it unless they have received the empowerment.  When we give “Introduction to Tantra” classes at Dharma centers, this is usually the fine line we try to walk.

Some people will misinterpret our “holding back” on explaining to them how to do it, thinking we are withholding explanation of some secret Dharma that is only available to those elite and privileged few who pay extra money and show extra commitment.  I can understand why people might misinterpret things in that way, but it is not the case.  Our motivation for practicing this vow, like all the others, is love and compassion for the welfare of others.

Scorning the Dharma of Sutra or Tantra.

If we criticize any teaching of Buddha, claiming that it is not the word of Buddha, and if someone else hears our criticism, we incur a root downfall.  This also teaches that Tantric practitioners must respect Sutra teachings because Sutra is the foundation for all Tantric realizations.

It is unfortunately all too common for different religious traditions to criticize one another.  Human history is replete with wars fought and lives destroyed as a result.  The root of this problem is a lack of understanding of emptiness.  If two religions say contradictory things, and both religions grasp at their being an objective truth, then one of them must be wrong or both of them are wrong, but both can’t be right.  The zealots then get into all sorts of heated discussions about who is right and who is wrong, both claiming to have the monopoly on the truth.  Meanwhile, neutral observers to these religious disputes conclude, “all religious people are nuts!”

If we understand emptiness, all of these problems go away.  Virtue can be arrived at in a variety of different ways depending upon the karmic dispositions of the different followers.  For some, a Christian presentation will work; for others, a Jewish presentation; for others a Muslim presentation, and so forth.  All valid religions point in the same direction, but their presentation and explanation differ.  This difference is not a problem, it is a gift of all of the holy beings.  As a result, different people can be touched by different words that move them.  Someone who doesn’t grasp at objective truth can say, “your teachings work for you, my teachings work for me, and even though they seem contradictory, this is not a problem at all.  You have your bread, I have mine.”

Our heart commitment to Dojre Shugden is to “follow one tradition purely without mixing, while respecting all other traditions as valid for those who follow them.”  On the surface, this can seem like a contradictory statement.  If we are following only one tradition, aren’t we implicitly rejecting all others, and thus becoming sectarian?  No, not at all.  We are not rejecting these other traditions for other people, we are just saying we drink a different cup of tea.  Our choice of one tea does not in any way imply other teas are less good in some universal sense.  Rather it just says, “for me, this is what I like.  You order what you like, and we all can be happy for each other.”

The analogy I like to give is of a burning room.  Imagine you are in a giant burning room, and there are many different doorways out.  What should you do?  You should find the doorway nearest you, and head straight out.  You don’t head towards one door, then another, then another, because then you remain forever in the burning room.  You don’t head towards the average of two doors, because then you bang into the wall.  You don’t head towards all doors simultaneously, because then you will be split in many directions at once.  No, you find the door nearest to you, and you head straight out.  Your choice of one door doesn’t in any way deny the validity of any of the other doors, and if you see your friend closer to a different door, you encourage them to head out the door closest to them.  This is exactly what the flight attendants ask us to do in the event of an emergency.

In exactly the same way, if you find yourself trapped in the burning room of samsara, and there are many different doors (spiritual paths) out, what should you do?  You should find the one that is karmically nearest to you, and head straight out.  The one karmically nearest to you is the one that speaks to you most clearly, the one that moves your heart the most, and the one that seems complete (in other words, it actually leads out).  You don’t follow one path, then another, then another, because then you never get out.  You don’t follow the average of two paths because that doesn’t lead to a door out.  You don’t follow all paths simultaneously because that spiritually splits you into many parts.  No, you find the path that karmically is closest to you and you head straight out.  Your choice of one path doesn’t in any way deny the validity of the other paths. If you see your friend karmically closer to another path, say Christianity, then you encourage them to follow their path sincerely and purely.  We each follow our own path, and even if they seem to be heading in opposite directions, in reality they all lead us out of the same burning room.

It is terribly negative karma to criticize another spiritual tradition.  Why is that?  Because when you do so, you destroy the faith of another person in what is otherwise a perfectly valid path.  If that path works for them, meaning it is helping them become a better person, then to sabotage that is to destroy that person’s spiritual life.  They might wind up losing faith in all paths and reject spirituality altogether.  Crises of faith are extremely painful things, and ultimately our criticism is based solely on our delusion finding fault in something that encourages virtue.  If we were sick with a cold, do we go around and sneeze in other people’s faces?  No, we cover our mouth and turn the other way because we don’t want to get other people sick.  In the same way, if we have a critical attitude towards the spiritual path of another, what gives us the right to go in there and start sneezing our critical attitude in everybody’s faces?  We might self-righteously claim we are protecting these poor innocent people from being misled down wrong paths.  But can we honestly say we know the minds of others to know that this other path is not exactly what they need?  Who made us the spiritual police?  How does our attitude make us any different than Spanish Inquisition?

The correct attitude is to rejoice in the virtue of others, regardless of whether what motivates it is the teachings of our tradition or something else in complete contradiction with our tradition.  Even if it seems a very goofy and esoteric system of belief, if the end result is people acting in more virtuous ways, more loving ways, more compassionate ways, more wise ways, then let people be.  Even when others criticize us, our teachers, our traditions, we should never retaliate in kind.  We should never criticize their spiritual teachings.  We can say, “your teachings work for you, mine work for me, let’s all respect one another and co-exist peacefully and in harmony.”  Conflict comes when everybody has to hold the same view.  Harmony comes when everyone can hold their own view, and nobody tries to impose their view on anybody else.

Giving up aspiring or engaging bodhichitta.

This downfall is the same as the last root downfall of the Bodhisattva vows.  Since bodhichitta is the foundation of all Tantric practice, if we abandon bodhichitta we incur a root Tantric downfall.

At a very simple level, our Tantric practice is the logical conclusion of our Sutra practice.  The “quintessential butter” that comes from churning the milk of Sutra is the mind of bodhichitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the benefit of all living beings.  Our Tantric practice explains how, namely by changing the basis of imputation of our “I” from that of an ordinary, samsaric being to that of the completely pure body and mind of our deity.  Then, in completion stage, we purify the subtle body of that self-generated deity, enabling all of our inner winds to gather and dissolve into our central channel at our heart, giving rise to the very subtle mind of great bliss.  We then meditate on the emptiness of that mind, gradually uproot all of our delusions and their imprints, and finally become a Buddha.  In short, Sutra gives us the goal of becoming a Buddha, Tantra gives us the means for accomplishing this goal.  Without bodhichitta, our Tantric practice will still be beneficial, but it won’t be powerful enough to carry us through all of the Tantric grounds and paths.  Without bodhichitta, there is no enlightenment, even if we practice Tantra for many aeons.

Our Tantric practice also greatly reinforces our Sutra practice, and in particular our bodhichitta.  Venerable Tharchin explains the key to generating effort is to see clearly how the practices work to produce their given results.  When we understand the inner mechanism by which the practices work, we generate great confidence in them, and as such, he says, “effort becomes effortless.”  Tantra shows us very clearly how it is actually possible to become a Buddha.  We see exactly what is required and how the practices we have been given will work to take us through all the required steps.  Seeing this, the accomplishment of our bodhichitta wish transforms from being a “wouldn’t that be great if I could become a Buddha” to “if I do XYZ, I can indeed become a Buddha.”  This supercharges our bodhichitta.  In this way, Sutra and Tantra mutually reinforce one another.

Kadam Bjorn said whether we are successful or not in overcoming our delusions depends almost entirely upon whether our desire to be free from our delusion is greater than our desire for the object of our delusion.  He gave the example of a drug addict.  A drug addict will only overcome their addiction when their desire to be free from addiction is greater than their desire for using the drug again.  It is the same with overcoming our addiction to samsara.

In the same way, he said, our ability to transform attachment into the path with our Tantric practice depends almost entirely upon whether our desire to be free from attachment is greater than our desire for indulging in the object of our attachment.  If we lack this, then if we attempt to transform attachment into the path with our Tantric practice, all we will really do is misuse the Dharma for worldly, deluded purposes.  There are many reasons why we might want to become free from our attachment, such as our wish to be happy in this life, our wish to avoid lower rebirth or our wish to escape from samsara.  But the supreme reason for wanting to do so is bodhichitta, our wish to become a Buddha capable of leading all beings to enlightenment.  Attachment to the things of samsara prevents us from leaving it; but once we see through the lies of our attachment, nothing can stop us from walking straight out of samsara, and then leading all others to do the same.  When we consider the fate of all living beings, it becomes easy to see how it is far more important to lead them to freedom than it is to enjoy a couple of moments of contaminated pleasure.

We should never underestimate the power of attachment to kidnap our Tantric practice.  Anyone who received teachings from ex-Gen-la Samden would agree that his teachings were some of the most sublime ever given within the tradition, in particular his teachings on patient acceptance from Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  This was a man who had deep experience of Dharma.  Yet even he got fooled by his attachment.  His attachment kidnapped his understanding of Dharma, and led him down a path of misinterpreting the teachings.  It may seem unthinkable how somebody so realized could do something so wrong, but we think that only because we underestimate the cunning power of delusions and the subtle strength of our sexual attachment.  I have said it before, delusions killed the holy being that was Gen-la Samden.  If they can kill him, they can make mince-meat out of us.

But qualified bodhichitta, however, would protect us from making such mistakes.  Obviously breaking our vows and causing others to break their vows does not bring us closer to enlightenment, and it certainly doesn’t help lead others to the same state.  He had the opportunity to be the next guru of the lineage, but he lost it all due to the deceptiveness of delusion.  Being an advanced practitioner will not protect us, only deep and stable realizations of renunciation and bodhichitta will.

Abandoning love for any being.

We incur this downfall by wishing for someone to experience suffering, or by strongly deciding never to help someone.

In daily life, we have countless instances when we wish for others to experience suffering.  For example, we could be happy when our rival co-worker gets in trouble, we could be happy when our business’s competitor goes bankrupt, we could be happy when those who are critical of us gets criticized by somebody else.  Basically, we generally dislike many people, and when samsara’s inevitable sufferings befall them, we become happy.

Venerable Tharchin says when we rejoice in the suffering of others, we create the causes to have that same suffering befall us.  He gives the example of those rejoicing in September 11^th, or those rejoicing when we bomb them back.  He said, even reading the newspaper can be a dangerous pastime if we are not careful with our mind.

Why is wishing for somebody to experience suffering so bad?  For the simple reason it is 100% opposite of our love, compassion and bodhichitta.  It moves in the exact opposite direction.  Love wishes for people to be truly happy all of the time, compassion wishes others were completely free from every trace of suffering, and bodhichitta is a mind that takes personal responsibility for fulfilling the wishes of our love and compassion.  The problem is this:  the tendencies in our mind are overwhelmingly negative.  It is very easy to generate negative thoughts and it takes considerable effort to generate virtuous ones.  Psychological studies have shown that negative opinions spread 10 times easier than positive ones.  Most political campaigns are about assassinating the character of the other candidate, as opposed to laying out a positive platform for the future.  Why?  Because negativity works.  When we allow our mind to indulge in these sorts of negative thoughts, we can say that our mind takes at least 10 steps backwards.  Then, we need 10 genuinely good and virtuous thoughts just to get back where we started.  We see how hard it is to generate virtue, it is foolish to set ourselves back in such a way.

This vow also advises us to never decide to not help somebody else.  If we are to attain enlightenment, our love and compassion need to be universal, encompassing all living beings without exception.  Every living being was once our kind mother.  Every living being shares the same wish as we do to be happy all of the time.  Every living being suffers from samsara, just like us.  There is no valid basis for treating any of them differently.  Ultimately, every living being is a wave on the ocean of our mind, part of us, and we are part of them.  We are all cells in the body of all living beings.  Understanding this, to not help somebody else is to not help part of ourself.

Life is so much simpler when we just decide we will help everyone in every way we can.  Why hold back?  Why help some and not others?  No need to calculate, no need to manipulate, no need for a quid pro quo, we just help unconditionally.

But we of course need to use our wisdom.  Sometimes the best way we can help somebody else is to not help them, but instead to let them do it on their own.  This is the helping of not helping, but it is still helping the other person.

In particular, we should make a concerted effort to love and help those who harm us.  It is easy to help those who are kind to us, but if we really want to move our mind we need to actively try help those who harm us.  If somebody criticizes us, repay them with a compliment.  If somebody harms us, help them.  Geshe-la says love is the nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.  It does so both conventionally and ultimately.  Conventionally, when we consistently love people no matter what they do to us, we eventually win them over and they no longer view us as their enemy.  Ultimately, somebody is only an enemy if we impute “enemy” upon them, but when we love them they become an “object of love,” not an enemy.

In short, wish others only the best.

Criticizing our vajra brothers and sisters.

All those who have received a Tantric empowerment from the same Spiritual Guide are varja brothers and sisters, irrespective of whether they received the empowerments at the same time.  If we criticize them with a bad motivation we incur a root downfall.  If, however, our varja brother or sister has broken their Tantric vows and we criticize him or her, we do not incur an actual root downfall.

Within the modern Kadampa tradition, we view all of our empowerments as being granted by Geshe-la, even if it might appear to be some Resident Teacher or Gen-la sitting in front of us.  So even if we received the empowerments from one teacher and somebody else within our tradition received them from somebody else, we are still both receiving them from Geshe-la, and so are Vajra brothers and sisters.  Likewise, if the teacher from whom we receive the empowerment subsequently leaves the tradition or even disrobes in disgrace, it does not matter because Geshe-la hasn’t.  Actually, we go deeper than that.  We view the empowerment as being given by the living guru deity.  The living Guru is the living Je Tsongkhapa, who enters into our teachers to grant the empowerments.  But then Lama Tsongkhapa manifests himself as the deity of whom we are about to receive the empowerment, such as Tara, Vajrasattva, Heruka and Vajrayogini, and so forth.

What distinguishes friends from family is family endures as along as this life.  Someone may cease to be my friend, but my children and parents never cease to be my family.  For this reason, karmically speaking, we can say family is more important than friends.  What distinguishes our normal families from our vajra family is our normal families are for this life alone, our vajra family is forever.  For this reason, karmically speaking, we can say our vajra family is more important than our normal family.  Our vajra family is with us in life after life, for all our future lives.  Our vajra family shares a common project of working for as long as it takes to lead each and every being to the eternal bliss of enlightenment.

Venerable Tharchin says that the realizations of each individual practitioner is like a beacon of light within the darkness of the minds of all living beings.  Though others may not see this light with their ordinary eyes, deep down within their mind they are drawn to it like a fish drawn to light in the depths of the sea.  He said a Dharma center exists on two levels.  The outer level is the physical building, statues, meditation cushions and flyers advertising our programs.  The inner level is the collective realizations of the people who belong to that center.  If we each hold a candle, it illuminates our surroundings, but if we all put our candles together, it forms a blazing sun illuminating all around.  For this reason, he says, the most important thing in any Dharma center is not its financial accounts, but the harmony and mutual love that exists within the Sangha.  It is this harmony and mutual love that puts the light of our realizations together into a blazing spiritual beacon drawing all within our community towards the center.

This also explains why it is so harmful to criticize our vajra brothers and sisters.  When we do so, we create division within the Sangha.  We destroy the harmony and mutual love that exists, re-separating our lights.  It takes just one division to cut the intensity of the light in half.  This harms not only our Sangha, but all those who would otherwise be drawn to the center by the light of our collective realizations.  Even at an ordinary level, if people are bickering within the Sangha, it destroys the joy within the community.  Kadam Lucy said when people come to a Dharma center they should find something that they find nowhere else in the world, namely people who genuinely love, accept and support one another.  Where else in this world can we find this?  But if instead, people come and discover we are just as petty as every other group, they will leave and the door to liberation will be closed to them.

This is not to say we should pretend everything is OK and not seek to confront and resolve our differences.  Of course we need to do so.  In fact, I would say that the problems and conflicts that exist between the members of any Sangha are in fact emanated by Dorje Shugden to give us an opportunity to work through them.  It is by applying the Dharma we have learned that we can work through our differences and come to mutually love and respect one another.  Some marriages last for many decades, and some only last for a few years or months.  Why the difference?  If you speak with long-standing, successful couples they will all tell you the same thing:  they view working through their differences as an opportunity to draw closer to one another.  Short-lived couples view their differences as sources of frustration and divergence.  A Sangha lasts far longer than a few short decades, it is for eternity.  We would be wise to work diligently to create genuine harmony, free from repressed delusion.

Geshe-la says somebody who cherishes others is like a magic crystal with the power to transform any community.  May we all become such magic crystals within our local centers and within our global vajra family.