Author: Kadampa Ryan

Avoiding cult-like behavior

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life, 4. Practicing in Daily Life

When joining or belonging to a religious tradition, the question can sometimes arise, “is this a cult or is it a pure tradition?”  The answer is all religious traditions are nothing from their own side.  The real question is do we as spiritual practitioners relate to our tradition in a cult-like way or do we relate to it in a qualified way?  If we relate to it in a cult-like way, for us our tradition will be a cult and our relationship with it will be unhealthy and destructive.  If we relate to it in a qualified way, for us our tradition will be a pure tradition and our relationship with it will be liberating and enlightening.  How do we protect ourselves from relating to our tradition in a cult-like way and instead relate to it in a qualified way?  Geshe-la has given us the answer.  Here, I have tried to collect my understanding of all of that advice in one place.  Indeed, this advice is equally applicable to any spiritual person relating to any spiritual tradition, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, Kadampa or non-Kadampa.

The short answer is we need to avoid extremes in our relationship with our tradition.  If the bulk of practitioners of a given tradition relate to it in a cult-like way, then in this world it will conventionally function as if it were a cult.  If the bulk of practitioners relate to it in a qualified way, then in this world it will conventionally function as if it were a pure tradition.  What it is in this world, ultimately, depends upon the behavior of its practitioners.  It is because we cherish the tradition we belong to and we wish for it to bring infinite benefit to the beings of this world that it is our responsibility to make sure we are relating to it in a qualified, healthy way, free from extremes.  If we relate to our tradition in a healthy way, our spiritual friends, students and so forth will likewise be more likely to do the same.  Our friends and family will not fear we have joined some crazed cult.  If we get it right, our tradition “may flourish forevermore.”  If we get it wrong, we may inadvertently destroy our precious lineage in this world.  The stakes are high.

Many students of spiritual traditions become confused, not knowing what to do or how to react when they see cult-like behavior among their spiritual friends, including their teachers.  They love and cherish their tradition, they see wrong behavior, it creates for them a crisis of faith, and they enter into a terrible intermediate state where they are too attached to their tradition to leave it but too averse to some of the things they see in it to be able to receive any benefit from it.  Geshe-la touchingly says, old people “have many special sorrows.”  In the same way, so too do those who become trapped in such an intermediate state.  These practitioners have many special sorrows.  If we relate to them with compassion, we can lovingly bring them back into the fold; if we become defensive, they will feel attacked and mistreated and eventually leave the tradition at best or become virulent critics of it at worst.  How should we respond when we see cult-like behavior among our spiritual friends?  How should we respond with compassion when one of our spiritual friends has found themselves with these many special sorrows?  More on that below.  First, it is important for us to learn how to get our own relationship with our own tradition right.  Above all, Dharma is a mirror against which we can identify our own faults, it is not a magnifying glass for criticizing others.  To get our own relationship with our tradition right, I find it useful to be mindful of the many different sets of extremes we can sometimes fall into.

Remain faithful while striving to do better

The first set of extremes arises from relating to our tradition as if it existed from its own side.  One extreme is becoming a religious fanatic.  Here we grasp at our tradition as being inherently good from its own side.  Anybody who criticizes our tradition or calls its purity into question gets branded an “enemy” who needs to be defended against and even destroyed.  Some fanatics use words like “heretic” and “infidel,” but regardless of what language we use, we all know who our “enemies” are.  Anybody who doesn’t likewise share our exalted view of our tradition is deemed lesser, inferior or a threat.  We become paranoid, thinking others are out to destroy our pure spiritual tradition in this world.  When faults, mistakes or scandals do appear, our first reaction is to cover them up or make excuses for them, which always makes things worse.  In short, our extreme attachment to our view and to our tradition makes us hostile towards others who might think differently about it.  Our interactions with others become dominated by pointing out all of the different ways in which the other person is wrong and we feel greatly threatened when they do the same towards us.  Any deviation or any departure from a strict, literal reading of things is seen as “degeneration,” and such views must be snuffed out to preserve the religious “purity” of the tradition, even if that means resorting to what can only be described as spiritual bullying.  Divisive speech becomes the norm.  Veritable “witch hunts” become commonplace where those who are critical are made to feel in no uncertain terms that they are no longer welcome.  They either fall into line, or they can find the door.

The other extreme is becoming a religious critic.  Here, we grasp at a tradition as being inherently faulty from its own side.  In the early stages of being a critic, we may still go to teachings but we receive little benefit because we primarily see the faults of the teacher and the hypocrisy of everyone around us preaching goodness, but then acting otherwise.  Eventually, we focus more and more on the perceived faults until they are all we can see.  Not wanting to lose our connection with the spiritual tradition we have invested so much in, we keep our doubts bottled up, but they fester and grow like a cancer until at some point, in a flurry of passive-aggressive behavior, we get upset and voice our criticism.  We may have once belonged to the “in group,” ascribing to the fanatics view of things, but now we somehow find ourselves on the wrong side of cult-like divisive speech and we became a target for purge ourselves.  We then grasp very tightly at all of the perceived faults and wrong behavior we see in our former organization.  Having been a “victim” of their fanatical behavior, we then feel it is our duty and responsibility to “protect others” from becoming ensnared into the cult.  In the Lamrim, Geshe-la describes the stages by which delusions develop.  First, we grasp at our observed object as having certain faults or qualities from its own side, then, in dependence upon inappropriate attention, we exaggerate those faults or qualities, sometimes well beyond reasonable recognition.  We then relate to our exaggeration as if it were somehow “objectively true.”  Both the fanatic and the critic make the same mistake, just from two different sides.

The middle way between these two extremes is to “remain faithful while striving to do better.”  I remember feeling very frustrated when I first read the teachings on faith in Understanding the Mind.  Faith was defined as the principal opponent of non-faith; and non-faith was defined as the opposite of faith.  This seemed confusing at best and tautological at worst.  But faith is the mother of all virtues and the root of the path, so we must learn to understand it correctly.  Faith primarily functions to oppose the perception of fault in an object of refuge.  Non-faith perceives such faults in an object of refuge.  Without wisdom, this can easily be misunderstood.  Practically speaking, non-faith is grasping at our objects of refuge as being faulty from their own side.  If faith is the opposite of non-faith, we could wrongly conclude that faith, then, is grasping at our objects of refuge as being faultless from their own side.  Then, when these objects appear faulty, we are left with a dilemma:  either we say what is faulty is somehow correct (rationalizing wrong behavior as somehow being sublime) or our faith becomes shattered and we lose everything.  The opposite of non-faith is not grasping at our tradition as being inherently faultless, the opposite of non-faith is the wisdom mind that realizes our objects of refuge are nothing at all from their own side.  If we relate to our objects of refuge as existing from their own side, we will quickly develop all sorts of attachments to them causing us to become a religious fanatic or aversions to them causing us to become a religious critic.

Pure view does not mean trying to view our objects of refuge as being perfect from their own side, rather it means learning how to view our objects of refuge in a perfect way where we receive spiritual benefit regardless of how they appear.  This is not hard to do.  When our objects of refuge appear to do something right, we should be inspired to emulate their example.  When they appear to do something wrong, we should learn from their example what not to do.  Either way, we receive perfect spiritual benefit.  Avoiding the perception of fault in our objects of refuge does not mean turning a blind eye to the faults that appear, rather it means ceasing relating to those appearances in a faulty way.  To “remain faithful” means to do precisely that.   We are able to remain faithful not despite the appearance of fault, but rather thanks to the appearance of fault.  Venerable Tharchin says we should take refuge in the Dharma, not the person.  If we take refuge in the person and the person makes some mistake, we lose everything; if we take refuge in the Dharma and the person makes some mistake, we learn a valuable lesson.

To “strive to do better,” quite simply, means to act on the lessons we learn from observing the behavior of our objects of refuge.  When we see particularly skillful behavior, we seek to emulate it ourselves.  When we see particularly wrong behavior, we look within ourselves to see where we are making the same mistake and we try stop doing so.  Remaining faithful while striving to do better protects us from falling into the extremes of being a religious fanatic and a religious critic.  We appreciate the good qualities we see and adopt them for ourselves and we learn valuable lessons from the mistakes we see, vowing not to repeat them ourselves.  We realize our tradition isn’t a cult nor a completely pure tradition from its own side, rather there are just different individual practitioners relating to it in different ways.  Instead of becoming distracted by defending its greatness or lambasting its faults, we strive to put its teachings sincerely into practice.

Remain grateful while clarifying misunderstandings

The second set of extremes we can sometimes fall into arises from how we relate to criticism of ourself or of our tradition.  One extreme is the extreme of defensiveness.  Here, we feel as if we are being unfairly attacked by the other person.  We feel like they don’t appreciate all that we do or our many good qualities.  We exaggerate what the other person is supposedly saying, thinking they are saying we are all bad with no redeeming qualities.  Because we exaggerate the scope of their criticism, we find it most unfair.  Pride, ultimately, is a reaction to our underlying insecurity.  We have projected within our own mind an exaggerated view of how great we are, and our feelings of self-worth depend upon maintaining that illusion.  When others call it into question, it forces us to confront our false self-narrative which is sometimes quite painful.  Seeking to avoid that pain, we feel it necessary that the other person stop saying such things, and we use a wide variety of different methods to try to silence them, not because we are trying to protect them from negative karma but because we dislike being criticized.  Our efforts to silence them often lead us to engage in actions in direct contradiction with the many teachings we have received.  We become like the United States when it used torture, sacrificing its very ideals in the name of supposedly defending them.  Our mind immediately begins to find fault in the person who is criticizing us, focusing on all of their many mistakes and shortcomings.  We often are then driven to retaliate against them, pointing out all of their many faults and inflicting upon them penalties for highlighting ours.  The dynamic then quickly spirals out of control, with both sides so absorbed in their mutual war of words that they don’t realize their own behavior is consistently proving the other person right.

The opposite extreme of defensiveness is abject surrender or passive behavior.  We allow the other person to criticize us, assenting to their negative view of us being inherently faulty.  We develop all sorts of feelings of guilt, worthlessness and helplessness, eroding away at our confidence.  Motivated by a misguided attachment to outer peace and a deep-seated aversion to any form of conflict, we allow the other person to spread wrong views about us unopposed.  We correctly think their harsh words are the ripening of our negative karma of having unjustly criticized others in the past, but we do nothing to oppose it thinking doing so will somehow rob us of our atonement through suffering.  We think nothing of the negative karma the other person is creating for themselves by criticizing us or our tradition, nor the harm they are doing by destroying the faith of others.  We passively do nothing while all that we have built and cherish is gradually destroyed by an unrelenting current of misplaced criticism and false accusation.  We seek to appease our attacker by giving them what they want, even if that means sacrificing fundamental pillars of our own beliefs.

The middle way between the extremes of defensiveness and abject surrender is to “remain grateful while clarifying misunderstandings.”  If we are honest with ourselves, every criticism, even the most unfair, contains a morsel of truth.  Rightly or wrongly, we are appearing to others in certain ways, and we bear some responsibility for that appearance.  Yes, it’s true, what appears to others minds depends upon their own delusions and karma, but it is a cop out to say all the fault lies with them while pretending that we are perfect.  Sadly, all too often we do precisely that.  In my view, this is a misuse of the Dharma.  We are using the precious teachings on emptiness to escape judgment and dodge uncomfortable criticism.  When we do this, the person who courageously voiced their criticism feels as if the victim has been blamed and then (correctly) concludes we are a self-righteous charlatan blind to our own faults.  They then give up hope of finding refuge within the tradition we belong to and they leave disheartened, discouraged, confused and sometimes quite bitter.  They may leave jaded towards all religions, setting them back possibly countless lifetimes before they find a spiritual path again; or they join a new tradition that identifies itself primarily through its opposition to us.  Who benefits from this?  Nobody.

Geshe-la says when we are criticized, we should express gratitude.  How can we possibly improve if we don’t know what we are doing wrong?  Alertness is the ability to distinguish faults from non-faults; great wisdom is the wisdom that knows the objects to be attained from the objects to be abandoned.  Due to our pride, sometimes the only way we can become aware of our mistakes is when others point them out to us.  The correct reaction to criticism should be genuine gratitude because now we can do better.  If we are making mistakes, we should forthrightly acknowledge them, make amends for any harm we may have caused, and strive diligently to not repeat them.

But this does not mean we should not seek to clarify misunderstandings when the criticism against us is unfounded.  We should not sit idly by while our self and our tradition are unfairly attacked.  But when we do seek to clarify misunderstandings, it is vital that two conditions are met.  First, that our motivation is genuine compassion wishing to protect the other person from accumulating negative karma for themselves as a result of their false accusations; and second, that we do not act in ways in contradiction with the teachings we have received in the name of defending them – for if we do so, we transform ourselves into our own worst enemy.  Most of the time, our clarifying of misunderstandings will take the form of a grateful yet apologetic conversation where we acknowledge our mistakes yet clarify where the person has misunderstood.  Sometimes, however, it is necessary to use other means to clarify misunderstanding or even cut the power of false words in this world.  But at no time should we violate these two essential conditions.

Remain inspired while following your own path

The third set of extremes that we can sometimes fall into arises from how we relate to teachings of other traditions.  One extreme is the extreme of rejection.  Here, we reject any and all teachings different from our own as being wrong, inferior, misguided and possibly even harmful.  We believe our tradition has the monopoly on the truth and all others must, by default, be wrong, or at best only partially right.  We grasp at there being one valid truth, one valid path for all people, and we possess it.  We feel very threatened when people practice in ways different than our own, and feel it incumbent upon ourselves to point out all of the ways the teachings from other traditions are somehow wrong.  Some Christians, for example, believe if people do not accept Christ as their savior, then those people will be subject to eternal damnation.  They then feel it necessary to “convert” others in an effort to “save their souls.”  Some Catholics think if it is not Catholic it is cult.  Likewise, some Buddhists haughtily look back on Christians as being small minded and superstitious.  If the Buddhist is feeling generous, they might acknowledge that there is some overlap between the Christian faith and the initial scope of the Lamrim, but then they all share a good laugh with their fellow Buddhists about those Christians who believe in God as creator.  Some Muslims, some Jews and some Hindus develop similar misguided views towards other religions.  Even within a religion, different individual traditions will develop similar rejectionist views of other traditions, such as Catholics vs. Protestants, or the scorn cast towards Mormons or 7th Day Adventists.  Likewise, such views can arise amongst Buddhists, such as Hinayanists vs. Mahayanists, Gelugpas vs. Nyingpas, or Dorje Shugden practitioners vs. non-Dorje Shugden practitioners.  Regardless of the example, the mind is always the same:  we are universally right, everyone else is wrong.

The other extreme is the extreme of mixing traditions.  Here, we say that every tradition has something useful to contribute and our job is to mix and match the good bits from the different traditions while leaving out the bad bits, and in this way we synthesize all of the teachings down into an inner essence that is equally true for everybody.  On the surface, it can certainly seem like such an approach is open-minded and non-sectarian.  The first extreme of rejection is a form of gross sectarianism.  This second extreme of mixing traditions is in fact a form of subtle sectarianism.  How so?  First, it is a subtle form of rejectionism where we are leaving out what we deem to be the “bad bits.”  Second, it grasps at its synthesized essence as the only valid way of looking at things, and hypocritically accuses all those who wish to follow their own tradition purely without mixing of being sectarian.  Thinking that only the synthesized mix is valid is just another form of gross sectarianism, the only difference being the content of one’s views is a mix of different traditions as opposed to an individual tradition.  Practical problems also arise because when we mix we transform ourselves into our own Spiritual Guide who arrogantly thinks we can lead ourselves to enlightenment by putting it all together.  Perhaps we may succeed, but the odds of us doing so are quite low; and even if we do, it will surely take us longer to forge a new path on our own then follow a proven one.

The middle way between these two extremes is to “remain inspired while following your own path.”  The Heart Commitment of Dorje Shugden is to “follow one tradition purely without mixing while respecting all other traditions as valid for those who follow them.”  For me, the best analogy for explaining this is imagine you are trapped in a burning room with many different doors out.  What do you do?  You find the door nearest to you, and you head straight out.  You don’t head towards one door, then another, then another because then you never leave the room.  You don’t head towards the average of two doors, because then you run into a wall.  You don’t head towards all doors simultaneously, because that will split you into many parts.  Your selection of the door nearest you is in no way a judgment on the validity or utility of other doors for those who stand closer to them.  If you see your best friend close to one exit and you are closer to a different one, you don’t fight with your friend trying to get them to go out your exit, instead you tell them to take their exit while you take yours.

It is exactly the same with different spiritual traditions.  There are many different spiritual “doorways” out of this world of suffering.  Different people stand karmically closer to different doors.  What should you do?  Find the door closest to you and head straight out following its path.  This is the meaning of follow one tradition purely without mixing.  If we start along one path, then another, then another, we never escape.  If we follow an average of two paths we are not led to an exit and will quickly become confused as we try reconcile the two seemingly conflicting views.  If we follow all paths simultaneously we will spiritually tear ourselves apart while going exactly nowhere.  Our choice of one door as being best for us does not in any way mean other doors and paths are not better for those who are karmically closer to them.  If we see our cousin or partner or friend stands karmically closer to a different spiritual door following a different spiritual path, we shouldn’t fight with them trying to get them to take our path to our door, rather we encourage them to head along their path purely without mixing because that is what’s best for them.  We respect all paths as being valid for those who follow them.

Does this mean we ourselves should reject all other paths for ourself while appreciating their value for others?  No.  Milarepa said, “I do not need Dharma books because everything teaches me the truth of Dharma.”  Where does the wisdom to do this come from?  It comes from following one tradition purely without mixing.  A religious tradition is, in the final analysis, a way of looking at things.  The more purely and consistently we look at things in a single way, the more universally we can look at everything and receive teachings.  When we read the newspaper, go out to dinner with our friends or go to an art museum, everywhere we go, everything we do, everything we encounter will reveal to us the truth of Dharma (or the Gospel, or the Quran, etc., depending on our religious inclinations).  Some things teach us the faults of self-cherishing, some things reveal to us the preciousness of our human life, some teach emptiness.  But because we are clear on our point of view, everything teaches us something.  If we can do this with a good Beatle’s song, why can we not also do this with the Sermon on the Mount?  Why can we not be inspired by the faith of Christians, the wholesomeness of Mormons, the example of Ghandi?  This does not mean we mix the teachings of these different traditions into our own, rather it means we can without fear look at these things from a Kadampa point of view and extract Kadampa lessons from them.  Doing so is not mixing, it is using the whole world as a Dharma book.

It is important to also note that respecting all other traditions as valid for those who follow them also includes showing respect for those who choose to mix traditions.  If for some people mixing traditions is what works best for them, then we should be happy for them and respect their spiritual choices.  Just as it is wrong for them to judge us for following one tradition purely without mixing, it is likewise wrong for us to judge them for mixing.  They do their thing, we do ours, let’s all be inspired by each other’s wish to become a better person.  This is likewise true for those who wish to mix Kadampa teachings with non-Kadampa teachings.  It is entirely normal that there will be a wide spectrum of degrees to which one mixes their mind with the Kadampa teachings.  Some will wholeheartedly commit themselves in this and all their future lives to follow this tradition purely without mixing, others will by happenstance cross a quote by Geshe-la when they are searching images on Google.  And there will be countless examples in between.  All are good, none are bad.  If we present the Kadam Dharma as if it is an “all or nothing” proposition, then the vast majority of people will choose nothing because they are not yet ready to accept everything.  If instead, we present the Kadam Dharma as “take what you find to be helpful, and set aside the rest as possibly something for later,” then people will feel free to engage with the Dharma on their own terms, according to their own karma, needs and dispositions.  If we tell people they have to be vegetarian to be Buddhist, they will choose to not be Buddhist because they are not ready to be vegetarian.  If we tell people they don’t have to be vegetarian, they then become Buddhists and later perhaps from their own side choose to be vegetarians.  The same logic is true for everything else.

Remain natural while changing your aspiration

The final set of extremes I like to try keep in mind are those arising from grasping at their being only one way to practice.  One extreme is the extreme of the exaggerating the importance of the external aspects of practice.  For centuries, our tradition has primarily been a monastic one, so it is only natural that we tend to hold up the example of an ordained person, living in a center, dedicating all of their time to working to cause the Dharma to flourish as the example of what we are supposed to be doing.  Some ordained people develop pride thinking this is the case and they look down on all those who “can’t let go of samsara.”  Some lay people develop all sorts of doubts thinking everything in their life that prevents them from adopting this monastic way of life is somehow an “obstacle to their practice.”  They then find themselves torn between what they think they should be doing if they were a pure practitioner and their commitments to their spouse, kids, job and so forth.  They grasp at these latter activities as being somehow inherently mundane and non-spiritual, while living and working at the center attending every puja, teaching and festival as being somehow inherently spiritual.  When they aren’t able to live as the person in the center, they start becoming frustrated with their loved ones, job and so forth and they feel this great tension between their spiritual life and their daily life.  If spiritual teachers are not careful, they can easily fall into the trap of mistaking their own personal choices as somehow being best for everyone else.  The skillful teacher understands different people have different karma and so therefore will follow the same set of teachings in different ways.  People who exaggerate the external aspects of practice find themselves suddenly dressing differently, bathing less, abandoning their non-Sangha friends or activities, beginning every sentence with “Geshe-la says,” and likewise standing in judgment over all those who continue to have kids, partners, professional careers, go on normal vacations to something other than a festival, or those who don’t attend every puja, teaching or festival.

The other extreme is exaggerating the internal aspects of practice.  Here, we neglect doing anything other than our practice.  We think the only thing I need to change is my mind.  I can remain cloistered alone in my room, avoiding contact with the rest of the world fooling myself into thinking I am being a bodhisattva.  When we are on this extreme, we look down on those who act in this world for normal charities or other good causes, we judge those who engage in political or social activism, and we give up on trying to make the world a better place concluding it is hopelessly broken so why bother.  Venerable Tharchin tells the story of when he was on long-retreat at Tharpaland.  After several years of retreat, he told Geshe-la, “I feel like I am very close to enlightenment; if I stay on retreat for a while longer I will make it.”  Thinking that Geshe-la would be delighted and tell him to remain on his retreat, Venerable Tharchin was greatly surprised when Geshe-la told him, “then now is the time to leave your retreat.”  Geshe-la continued, “if you stay on your retreat, you will attain enlightenment, but if you do you will become a ‘worthless Buddha’ because you will have no karmic connections with living beings.”  Geshe-la then sent him to Canada to teach, where he formed some of the best teachers of the tradition who are now teaching other students.  Geshe-la then sent Venerable Tharchin back to Tharpaland to lead it as a retreat center, where he established how exactly a retreat center within this tradition should operate.  Those he taught then fanned out to the other retreat centers around the world.  Venerable Tharchin concluded the story by saying our ability to help others primarily depends on two things, the quality of our inner realizations and the depth of our karmic relationships with others.  We need both.

The middle way between these two extremes of exaggerating the external or internal aspects of our practice is to “remain natural while changing our aspiration.”  Our primary task is to internally change our motivation from a selfish one to a selfless one.  When we do so, our external behavior will naturally change.  We can’t make external changes to try live up to some fixed notion of what it means to be a Dharma practitioner and think that will bring about internal transformation.  It is perfectly possible to get ordained, live in a center or spend our entire life on retreat and remain just as deluded and ordinary as before.  It is likewise perfectly possible to change diapers, work long hours in a demanding career, and otherwise lead a completely normal modern life and have it be the Quick Path to enlightenment.  All situations are equally empty, therefore all ways of life can equally be the Quick Path.  It all depends upon how we relate to that life.  If we respond to what arises in our life with Dharma minds, then regardless of what those life appearances might be, we are living a Kadampa way of life.  If other people don’t understand this and continue to judge the choices we make, that is only coming from their ignorance grasping at there being only one way of practicing Dhama.  We need to be engaged in the world, helping in every way we can.  Geshe-la said our job now is to “attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.”  He has given us the Kadam Dharma and we already have a modern life, our job now is to completely unite the two realizing their non-contradiction.

This does not mean there is some fault in becoming ordained, living in a center or dedicating our life to retreat.  Of course that is wonderful and is a life that should be rejoiced in.  If every life is equally perfect for our practice, then that must also be true for somebody who follows a more traditional approach to practice.  The fault comes when we grasp at there being only one valid way of practicing, regardless of whether we think it is a traditional way of doing so or a more modern way of doing so.

What do we do when we see our spiritual friends engaging in cult-like behavior?

Having explored in depth the four different sets of extremes we can fall into with our relationship to the tradition, we can now return to the question of what we should do when we see our spiritual friends, including our teachers, engaging in cult-like behavior.

There is something about religious teachings that just naturally tends to bring out extreme behavior in people.  The reason for this is quite simple:  they are very powerful.  I had a friend once who loved all sorts of two-wheeled vehicles, from his first bike, the scooter he drove around in college to his prized Harley.  One day, he went to visit a friend who just bought a racing bike, which he affectionately called his “crotch rocket.”  Quite naturally, my friend wanted to try it out.  The owner of the bike said, “be careful, it’s really powerful.”  My friend said, “yeah, yeah, I know.  Let me give it a try.”  So my friend got on the bike, started out slowly, drove around a bit, and then turned a corner where he found himself at the beginning of a long, straight country road.  Wanting to see what the bike was capable of, he hunched down and decided to gun it, throwing the throttle to the maximum.  The bike suddenly lurched out in front of him, he found himself doing a wheelie, and the bike kept going throwing my friend back skidding along the road and trashing the bike in the process.  Spiritual teachings are just like this.  We hear about them, try them out carefully at first, but then once our initial doubts and hesitations are overcome we might decide to really go for it.  Our mind can race off in an unbalanced way and we will find ourselves skidding along the spiritual road, trashing the bike of our spiritual life in the process.  We start out just trying to become a better person and find a little inner peace, but before long we have transformed ourselves into a crusading spiritual zealot.  Such is the power of spiritual teachings.

So we shouldn’t be surprised when our spiritual friends, including our teachers, might sometimes start acting in cult-like ways, relating to the tradition in one of the extreme ways outlined above.  We all have experienced this from time to time.  I would say my time with the Kadampa tradition can be divided into two distinct phases.  For about the first decade, the normal view students tended to adopt towards their teachers was viewing them as “Buddhas.”  People would routinely joke about their teachers “miracle powers,” and anytime somebody had a problem with the behavior of the teacher, it was the student who needed to “maintain pure view.”  Teachers felt like they had to go along with the pretense of being a Buddha because it seemed to help students generate faith, and therefore take the teachings to heart.  But it had many unintended, indeed unhealthy, side effects.  Some teachers let this go to their head and started believing they were infallible, refusing to continence that they were making any mistakes.  Some teachers would engage in all sorts of spiritually manipulative behavior, thinking themselves Marpa taming a bunch of unruly Milarepas.  Some teachers wound up repressing all of their delusions, pretending that they didn’t have any to maintain the external image, but the end result was quite predictable.  They increasingly felt trapped, incapable of discussing with their spiritual friends their delusions and struggles, the repressed delusions would fester and grow like a cancer under the surface until one day they would blow in a variety of dramatic fashions, from sudden disrobings, sexual scandals to breaking off from Geshe-la wanting to establish one’s own tradition and lineage.

Students likewise began having all sorts of unhealthy, cult-like relationships with their teachers, desperately trying to get the teacher to love and approve of them, but never quite succeeding.  When confronted with wrong behavior on the part of their teacher, they would be told it was their wrong views and delusions, and they would tie themselves into all sorts of spiritual knots trying to say what is wrong is somehow right.  They would feel it is wrong to ask questions or challenge their teacher on the things they would say, growing increasingly confused as one misunderstanding compounds another.  So deeply scarred by such relationships some students became that they felt the need to flee the tradition or they remained and even to this day constantly judge themselves as spiritually falling short.

Geshe-la, then, one year at a Summer Festival gave a teaching which changed everything.  He said, clearly and unequivocally that we should view our teachers as Sangha jewels, not Buddha jewels.  They are practitioners, just like us, who are trying their best to put the instructions into practice, but still struggling with their delusions and making mistakes.  He said when teachers are teaching on the throne, the students should feel as if an emanation of Je Tsongkhapa enters into them and teaches through them.  In this way, they become a “temporary emanation.”  But that when they come down from the throne, we should relate to them “exactly as normal.”

He said when our teachers appear to make a mistake, with a mind of cherishing love for the teacher, the student has a responsibility to approach the teacher with their concerns.  He said, if we fail to do this the wrong behavior will continue and it could threaten the future of the tradition.  When we approach our teacher, he said we should do so respectfully saying, “first, I want to thank you for all you have done for me.  However, I have noticed that you tend to do XYZ.  Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that this is not right for ABC reasons.  But perhaps I am misunderstanding, and I am hoping you might be able to clarify your perspective on this.”  Geshe-la then told us how the teacher is supposed to respond.  The teacher should first thank the person for raising the issue, honestly acknowledge any and all mistakes that the person is pointing out, and then clarify any remaining misunderstandings.  The student should then listen with an open-mind to the teacher’s explanation.  If we do this, he said, only good comes.  The teacher is made aware of their mistakes, so they can do better in the future.  The student feels as if their concerns have been acknowledged and addressed, and so go away happy.  If the student is right and the teacher changes, then the student’s faith in the teacher will deepen because they see the teacher sincerely putting the instructions into practice.  If the student is wrong, then the teacher’s patient explanation clarifying any misunderstandings will help the student see things more clearly in the future.  If we do not do this, only harm comes.  The teacher continues with their mistaken ways and the student remains stuck with their doubts and appearances of fault.  They then lose all refuge.  While not explicit in his advice, implicitly I think his meaning is also that if a teacher sees a student is trapped behind doubts, the teacher should compassionately approach the student and try clear the air so all concerned can go into the future free from problems.

After he gave this teaching, it took many years for things to really change, but year by year things have definitely gotten better.  There are still, of course, residuals of the old behavior.  Old habits die hard.  But by and large, with this clarification things are definitely trending in the direction of getting better and better.  The Dharma may be flawless, but we remain deeply flawed beings, so it is only natural that we will from time to time make a real mess of things.  That’s perfectly normal and not a problem.  As long as we are learning from our mistakes, it’s all part of the path.

In the end, nobody wants to be part of a cult.  Geshe-la certainly doesn’t want us to become one.  No spiritual tradition is, from its own side, either a cult or a pure tradition.  If we relate to our spiritual tradition in cult-like ways, such as the extreme behaviors described above, we transform our tradition into a cult.  But if we instead relate to our tradition in a healthy, balanced way then we transform our tradition into a pure one.  We all have a responsibility to carry the lineage forward in a way we can be proud of.  As it says in the sadhana Dakini Yoga, “all my actions from now on shall accord with this noble lineage; and upon this lineage pure and faultless, I shall never bring disgrace.”  This does not mean we will not still make mistakes and become cult-like in our behavior, rather it means when we do so we will recall the teachings and make another honest stab at finding the middle way.

 

May all conflict and tensions between religious traditions cease and may they all respect and be inspired by one another.  May all extreme behavior quickly cease, may we all find the humility to admit to and learn from our mistakes, and may all those who suffer from the many special sorrows associated with cult-like behavior find peace.  Above all, may my own behavior continuously improve so that I can, in my own small way, help the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa flourish forevermore.

 

 

 

 

 

Vows, commitments and modern life:  Purifying your consciousness

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

The three commitments of the family of Buddha Amitabha

The commitments of Buddha Amitabha function to purify our aggregate of discrimination and transform it into the wisdom of individual realization.  The aggregate of discrimination is not a mind that discriminates against other people, rather it is a mind that knows the distinctions between different objects.  It is explained in Understanding the Mind that the way in which we “know” an object is by realizing its “uncommon characteristic.”  If someone were to ask, “who is John” and the reply was “the human being standing over there in that group,” we wouldn’t know who is John.  But if we said, “the bald, fat, white guy on the right” then we could clearly distinguish John from everybody else, and thus know him.

Venerable Tharchin explains that our samsaric problem is, quite simply, we have the wrong discriminations.  We discriminate objects as being inherently pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  On the basis of this mistaken discrimination, we then experience objects as being inherently pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  On the basis of these experiences, we then generate attachment, aversion and ignorance towards objects.  Motivated by these delusions, we then engage in contaminated actions which plant contaminated karma onto our consciousness.  When this karma ripens, it does so in the form of contaminated karmic appearances.  Due to these contaminated appearances, we then once again discriminate objects in a contaminated way, namely as inherently pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  This cycle is samsara.  Understood in this way, we can see clearly that contaminated discriminations are the very root of samsara.  If we are to break the cycle of samsara, we must do so primarily here.  It is the weak link, it is the first domino, it is the thing we can most easily change.  By changing our discriminations, we change how we conceive of things, this changes how we experience things, this changes what minds we generate towards things, this changes the actions we engage in, which then changes the karma we plant on our mind, which finally changes the world that appears to us.  Pure discriminations lead to pure feelings which lead to pure minds which lead to pure actions which leads to pure karma which results in a pure world.

Seen in this light, all of our Dharma study and contemplation is, in effect, a systematic assault on our wrong discriminations.  It is likewise a comprehensive rebuilding of correct discriminations.  We can incorrectly view people as friend, enemy or stranger; or we can correctly view people as our kind mothers.  We can incorrectly view difficult circumstances as adversities or we can correctly view them as opportunities to grow and to train our mind.  We can incorrectly view those who criticize us as mean or we can view them as our kind benefactors who help us identify our faults and do even better.  We can incorrectly view external circumstances as good or bad; or we can view them all equally as opportunities to put the Dharma into practice.  We can incorrectly view our world as samsara or we can correctly view it as the pure land.  Correct and incorrect in a Dharma context does not means “objectively true” or “objectively untrue.”  Something is objectively true if and only if the truth of the object can be established on the side of the object itself.  But since no object exists from its own side, nothing is objectively true.  Epistemologically speaking, according to the Prasangika’s truth is established on the side of the mind, not the object.  If the mind knowing an object is a valid mind, the object known by that mind is considered an existent.  “Correct” or “incorrect” refers to whether a particular discrimination is beneficial or not.  Beneficial, in this context, means conceiving of the object in this way is conducive to our enlightenment.  Any object can be discriminated in countless different ways, each more or less beneficial.  What is conventionally true for a Prasangika, therefore, is the way of discriminating things that is the most beneficial – the way most conducive to our swiftest possible enlightenment.

In short, objects are inherently nothing, they are what we discriminate them to be.  Discriminate wisely.

Vows, commitments and modern life:  Giving our love

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To give love.

To fulfil this commitment we should try develop the thought “how wonderful it would be if all living beings could be happy.  May they be happy.  I will help them to become happy.”  We should begin by developing this thought with our friends and family and then gradually increase the scope until it embraces all living beings.

Everybody wants to be happy, yet almost nobody knows how to attain it.  Everyone is convinced that they are not happy due to some unfortunate turn of external circumstances, so they invest all of their energy into changing them.  Most people are also confused about what is happiness.  They think the pleasant feelings they get from attachment is happiness, and so they relate to external objects as if they have some power to give us happiness.  As a result of this type of thinking, people develop all sorts of addictions and dependencies on the things of samsara.  But over time, these things provide us less and less happiness, and we are left only with frustration and want.  True happiness is inner peace.  If our mind is peaceful, we can enjoy everything, even adverse conditions.  A peaceful mind is a flexible mind that is undisturbed by things going wrong.  A peaceful mind is a light mind that simply can’t be bothered.  A peaceful mind is a blissful mind, a deep inner contentment radiating from within.  We cannot truly give love if we don’t know what true happiness is.

After we know what giving love is, we must want to do so for others.  Normally we don’t care whether others are happy or not, but that is only because we think they are somehow separate from us.  On the surface, it appears that one wave is distinct from another; but in reality they are both parts of the same underlying ocean.  It is the same with ourselves and others.  At a minimum, we can develop the wish of wanting to give love by thinking of the many karmic benefits of this wish.  This wish functions to purify our past negative karma towards others (it is the opposite of wishing to harm), it accumulates within our mind vast quantities of merit, and it creates the causes for our own future happiness.

It is not enough to merely want to give love, we need to actually do so.  We must pass beyond wishing others were happy to actually dedicating our life to making that happen.  We can think, “if I don’t work to help this person be truly happy, who will?”  In reality, everyone wants to feel loved, and everybody likes to feel loved.  Geshe-la likens giving love to a magic crystal with the power to transform any community for the better.  On this basis, we can generate a personal determination to actually give them love.

Once we have the wish to actually give love, we can do so in a variety of different ways.  But generally speaking, they can be divided into the three different types of love.  The first type of love is affectionate love.  Affectionate love is a feeling of genuine delight when we see or think of somebody.  The example Geshe-la give is the delight a kind grandmother gets when she sees her grandchildren, or the delight a 5 year old has when their parents walk in the door after work.  Most of the time we are convinced people don’t like us, so it really warms our heart when somebody is genuinely happy to see us.  In the same way, we can warm the heart of those around us by expressing our delight at seeing them.  Of course we shouldn’t overdo it, making them feel uncomfortable.  Each culture will have different norms and customs when it comes to expressing our delight, and we should act accordingly, but whatever is within the scope of culturally normal, we should express our delight.  In particular, we should do so when we haven’t seen somebody for a long time.  When we see others, we should feel as if we have found a long-lost precious treasure, because in fact that is exactly what has happened.

The second way we can give love is to cherish others.  What does it mean to cherish others?  It means to consider their happiness and well-being to be something important.  We naturally work for whatever we consider to be important.  We of course think our own happiness is important, and so we work for our happiness.  In exactly the same way, because we consider other’s happiness as something important to us, we naturally work to secure it.  At a very practical level this means we make no distinction between whether some problem is happening to us or happening to somebody else, we seek to resolve it all the same.  We make no distinction whether some happiness or good fortune is happening to us or happening to somebody else, we seek to sure it all the same.  When making decisions, we consider the well being of all concerned, and pursue the outcome that provides the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people.  In short, we cease working only for ourself and we begin working only for others.  Working only for others does not mean we neglect ourself, we still seek to improve ourself and our capacities so that we are able to serve others even more effectively.

The third way we can give love is to take personal responsibility for others happiness.  Anybody who becomes a parent knows the profound difference between being a good friend, and being responsible for the welfare of somebody else.  Geshe-la gives the example of seeing somebody drowning in a river, those with compassion in their heart will wish fervently that the person is saved; those with superior intention (also known as personal responsibility) will dive in themselves to save them.  We realize it is not enough to just consider other’s happiness to be important, we actually need to take personal responsibility to do something.  If we understand emptiness correctly, we realize that ultimately all of the problems in the world are parts of our own karmic dream.  If thousands were killed in a battle in last night’s dream, who is responsible for those deaths?  Surely our own conflicted mind.  In the same way, if this entire world is nothing more than a karmic dream of our waking mind, then who is responsible for all of its sufferings?  Surely, our own contaminated mind.  Through correct mental actions, in particular our tantric practices of generation and completion stage, we can literally karmically reconstruct our dream from a world of suffering into a world of eternal joy.

In short, we should give love to others in every way we can every opportunity we get.

How to deal with the death of a loved one

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life, 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Unless we love no one, all of us will one day or another have to deal with the death of a loved one, such as a parent, a child or someone very close who has meant a lot to us.  For most people, this is one of the hardest things we will ever deal with in life.  We feel helpless, we feel as if we are losing something, and we feel as if our life will never be the same again.  Fortunately, there are things we can do to help, nothing is being lost and, even though our life will never be the same again, this need not be a bad thing.  The following is offered in the hopes of helping facilitate the passing of your loved ones and in helping all of us constructively transform the mourning process.  I have tried to put everything I know in one place in the hopes it might prove useful when the time comes.

When the death of a loved one comes, we often feel helpless as if there is nothing we can do.  From one perspective, this is completely true.  We cannot stop death from coming, no matter how much we might wish we could.  This feeling of helplessness makes it very difficult to deal with the suffering of losing a loved one, and we can quickly become depressed, discouraged or resentful.  But there are things we can do to help.

As our loved one approaches death, there are five main things we can do to help.  First, we should help them re-interpret the different physical and mental pains associated with death.  Pain only becomes “suffering” when we don’t know how to use it.  The suffering of death arises from the dying person’s unwillingness or inability to let go of their current body and mind.  The habitual practice in society is to tell the person to “hang on, fight for your life and refuse to accept death.”  When seriously ill but with a chance of recovery, this is good advice.  When terminally ill with no chance of recovery, this is disastrous advice.  When dealing with somebody who is terminally ill, we should help them let go.  Regardless of the person’s spiritual inclinations (Buddhist, non-Buddhist or atheist), help them reinterpret the pain of death as “God encouraging you to let go of this body so that you may now go to heaven.  The more it hurts, the more you are being encouraged to let go identifying with this body.”  Adapt the language as appropriate depending upon the person’s spiritual beliefs.  Similarly, help them mentally let go of all that they will leave behind.  This may be as simple as telling them, “don’t worry, I’ll deal with everything.”  Ideally, if your karmic relationship with the dying person allows for this, help them plan how they want to give everything away upon their passing.  Much of the mental anguish of death is grasping on to the things they will need to leave behind.  If beforehand they mentally give it all away, it will be much easier to let go.

Second, help them die without regrets.  Obviously the best way to avoid dying full of regret is to use one’s precious human life to the fullest.  When one hasn’t done so, however, it is quite natural to develop all sorts of regrets for the mistakes made throughout life.  This regret can easily transform into guilt (a form of self-hatred, which is a delusion), which may in turn activate negative karma at the time of death leading to a lower rebirth.  To protect against this, we help the person die without regrets.  We should help them understand it is never too late to learn life’s lessons.  If we admit our mistakes and learn from them, we will die with valuable lessons learned on our mind which we can carry with us into our next life.  It is likewise never too late to make amends.  We can help the dying person reach out to those they have wronged in an effort to make amends, even if it is only helping them draft a letter of apology to be passed along after death.  Help the dying person realize they did the best they could so that they can also forgive themselves.  But don’t allow inappropriate attention to focus just on the mistakes, also help the dying person recall all of the good things they have done, accomplishments they have had, virtues they have engaged in.  Rejoicing in our own virtue is a wisdom mind which lays the foundation for a future life of continued goodness.

Third, heal our own relationships with those that the dying person also loves, especially the close members of their family.  When the relationships within a family are strained, everyone in that family pays a price.  This is especially true for the dying person.  One of the best ways we can repay the kindness of the dying person is to heal our own relationships with those that the dying person also loves.  The dying person loves both us and the other person, and when we are estranged from the other person, it quite literally rips the dying person’s heart in two.  Healing our relationship with the other person heals this rift in the heart of the dying.  Fortunately, the truth of death usually cuts through our petty differences with others and both sides agree it is time to bury the hatchet.  But even if the other person is unwilling to do so, from our own side we can let go of our own animosity and we can choose to not add any more fuel to the fire, even when provoked.  One common source of tension amongst the loved ones being left behind is anger about how others within the family or close circle of friends are responding to the impending death of the common loved one.  This anger can arise from disagreements over when it is time to accept the inevitable and shift the focus from avoiding death to preparing for its coming, scheming with regards to how the assets of the deceased will be divided, frustration with how the other person is responding to the impending death in a different way than we are or even petty jealousy over who was loved more by the dying.  Generally speaking, we should give people the space to deal with death in their own way and we should not seek to impose our way of dealing with death onto others.  Our focus should be having our own reactions be constructive, regardless of what others are doing or how they are responding.  We should recall from Eight Steps to Happiness where Geshe-la says the mind of cherishing others acts as a magic crystal with the power to heal any community.

Fourth, we should help the dying person have a virtuous mind at the time of death.  Externally, we should help them be comfortable and feel as if they are enveloped in love.  To help them feel comfortable, we should not develop extreme attitudes towards the use of pain killers.  One extreme is avoiding pain killers altogether under the false notion that pain is purification.  Pain is only purification if we accept it.  If the pain is so great that we are unable to respond to it constructively or to focus on our other virtues, then we have gone too far.  The other extreme is to overly rely upon them depriving the person a chance to remain conscious enough to generate virtue.  If the person is unnecessarily knocked unconscious, they will die without pain but they also will not have a chance to generate virtue.  Each person’s tolerance for pain varies, and the closer one comes to death the attitude towards pain killers may shift.  As a general rule of thumb, respect the wishes of the dying in this regard, don’t impose your own views on them unless absolutely necessary.  Keep the temperature of the dying person comfortable, not too hot nor too cold, again respecting their wishes.  To help them feel enveloped in love, simply love them.  Let them know you are there for them.  Help those around you project the same feeling when they are with the dying.  Mentally imagine that the dying person is surrounded by all living beings, in particular those they are close to, sending love and prayers towards them.  Strongly believe that the dying is surrounded by all of the Buddhas who have taken the dying into their loving care, protecting them from the ripening of negative karma and bestowing upon them a rain of blessings and realizations.  Most importantly, if possible, help the dying person strongly believe that whoever is their object of faith is with them and will take them by the hand through the death process and beyond.  Geshe-la once told a dying person, “know that I am with you always.”  Faith is a naturally virtuous mind.  In all religions, people are encouraged to remember their object of faith (Jesus, God, Buddha, Krishna, whomever) at the time of death.  Faith functions to open the blinds of our mind to receive into it the sunlight of blessings.  Blessings function to activate virtuous, even pure, karma leading to a fortunate rebirth.  We can surround the dying person with holy images or objects that remind them of their objects of faith, such as Buddha statues, crosses, sacred texts, etc.  Geshe-la explains that holy images are by nature non-contaminated, and merely beholding them is a naturally virtuous act which functions to plant non-contaminated karma onto our minds.

Fifth, regularly do powa for the dying as it becomes increasingly clear that death is approaching.  At the end of every festival, Geshe-la would always spend the last few minutes of his teaching encouraging us to love our families and letting us know that he prays for them.  In my view, his greatest gift to our loved ones is his teachings on the practice of powa.  Powa is a special method for transferring the consciousness of somebody to the pure land at the time of death.  The most important thing to know about death is the quality of mind we have at the time of death determines the quality of our next rebirth.  If we die with a negative, deluded mind, it will activate negative karma throwing us into a lower rebirth.  If we die with a positive, virtuous mind, it will activate positive karma lifting us into an upper rebirth.  If we die with a faithful, pure mind, it will activate pure karma taking us out of samsara to the pure land.  The primary function of powa is to help the dying generate faithful, pure minds during the death process and in the bardo (or intermediate state).  There are two main practices of powa, powa for the dying and powa for the deceased.  As it becomes increasingly clear that death is approaching, we should increase the frequency with which we engage in the practice of powa for the dying.  Sometimes the doubt may arise, “but what if my loved one is not Buddhist, surely they might object to me doing a ritual practice transferring them to a Buddhist pure land.”  We need not worry.  Even though in this world people of different religions may be in conflict, we can be assured qualified holy beings are not in conflict with each other (if they were, how could we say they were qualified holy beings?).  If the dying person’s karma is Christian, for example, even though within our own mind we might be imagining holy beings in the aspect of Guru Buddha Avalokiteshvara and that their consciousness is being transferred to Akanishta, Tushita or Keajra, we can confidently know that the holy beings will appear to the dying in the aspect of Jesus, Mary and the holy Saints and they will experience their consciousness being transferred to heaven to be reunited with God.  What we see is a question of our karmic point of view, but the underlying spiritual process of transference is the same.  More detail on powa practices can be found below and in the books Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully, and Great Treasury of Merit.

After death, what can we do to help?  Sometimes, oftentimes in fact, we will have very little warning that death is coming and so we will have little opportunity to do much of the above.  But we can almost always do much of the below.

First, what should we do about the body of the deceased?  It is important to understand there is a difference between clinical death and the death process being complete.  Clinical death usually occurs when the heart permanently stops beating.  The death process is complete when the karmic connection between the body and the mind permanently ceases.  This can happen quite quickly, or it can take up to 72 hours after clinical death.  During this time, to the maximum extent possible, the body should be left undisturbed.  If the body is to be touched, do so gently, minimizing contact with the lower parts of the body and maximizing contact with the upper parts of the body, in particular the crown of the deceased’s head.  The reason for this is the mind can remain in the body for some time after clinical death, and contact with the body can cause the person’s mind to move in the direction of the point of contact.  If our mind leaves our body through the lower doors, we will more likely take a lower rebirth; and if our mind leaves our body through the upper doors, we will more likely take an upper rebirth.  If our mind leaves through the crown of our head, we will more likely take rebirth in a pure land heaven.  Geshe-la said he has specially blessed the book Joyful Path of Good Fortune so that if we touch it to the crown of the deceased, imagining that the person’s consciousness ascends through their central channel from their heart to their crown, entering the book and then being transported to the pure land, the deceased will definitely take rebirth in a pure land.  I think every Dharma center should have a special copy of Joyful Path, which they generally keep on the main shrine at the center, and that is used in this way again and again whenever loved ones of the Sangha members pass away.  In this way, the book becomes increasingly blessed with the power to do powa and becomes a true holy relic in this world passed down from generation to generation.  Similarly, individual families can do the same thing, having a family copy used especially for this purpose.  In modern times, sometimes it is not always possible to leave the body untouched for three days.  We simply do our best knowing the power of Buddha’s blessings are far stronger than the minimal contact with the body after death.  Christians have similar beliefs, and Christian hospitals can often be more flexible about leaving the body undisturbed.  We should try negotiate this in advance with the medical facility, paying for extra nights in the hospital room if necessary and possible.  Dying at home or in special hospitals for the dying can also be arranged.

Second, we should actively do the internal work necessary to overcome any and all delusions we might have towards the deceased, and instead fill our mind with gratitude and selfless love.  Ideally, we should start this process before the person dies, but if that is not possible it is never too late.  It does not matter if the deceased is able to reciprocate our overtures,  what matters is internally when we think of the other person our mind is free from delusion and is instead pervaded by virtuous thoughts.  We should take an honest look at what delusions we may have in our mind towards the deceased, such as resentments for past wrongs, jealousy, or strong attachment to them.  We should view their death as our opportunity to finally lay to rest these deluded states of mind towards them.  Did they make mistakes?  Of course they did, but who among us is perfect?  Did they harm us in some way?  Probably, but whether we receive harm or whether we receive benefit depends a great deal (indeed entirely) upon how we relate to whatever they did or did not do.  Even if we related to it badly in the past, it is never too late to relate to it constructively now.  We should practice appropriate attention recalling all of their acts of kindness towards us, generating deep feelings of gratitude for the contribution they have made to our life.  And most importantly, we should let go of our strong attachment towards them.  When my mother died, my teacher Gen Lekma told me, “you are not losing your mother, she is simply going someplace else.  There is nothing about her death that prevents you from continuing to love her, pray for her and have a relationship with her.  If you keep your relationship with her alive in your mind, for you she never dies.”  This does not mean we don’t let go and accept that death occurs, rather it means we understand that death is not the end of our relationship with our loved ones, it simply marks the beginning of the next chapter.  For a Buddha, they see their relationship with others in an arc across countless lifetimes, one eventually resulting in their leading of all beings to enlightenment.  We can do the same, starting with our loved ones who pass away.  Venerable Tharchin said, “those who serve as our main objects of bodhichitta while we are on the path are the first ones we liberate after we complete it.”  We should always keep our loved ones, even those who have passed away, as our main objects of bodhichitta, striving sincerely to attain enlightenment so that we may one day be certain to rescue them all from samsara.

Third, we can put our share of the deceased’s assets to good use.  We can give the money to charities or causes dear to the heart of the deceased, whether that be paying for college for the grandkids, aiding the homeless, a local church, the Red Cross, or a shelter for abused women and children.  We can likewise donate the money to the International Temples Fund, the building of a retreat center in our country, or even our local Dharma center.  At a minimum, we should save some of the money to buy offerings for the main powa ceremony we do after their death.  We should try purchase offerings of things that the dying person loved most.  For my mother, this wound up being brownies, lots of flowers and a copy of Vogue magazine!  The point is this, even if the person was not very giving in their lifetime, we can be giving for them, using whatever they have accumulated in this world for good purposes (not our own selfish ones).  This does not mean we cannot use some of these resources for our own benefit.  We can honestly ask ourselves, “what would the deceased want for me,” and allocate the resources accordingly.  If the person dies without assets, we can practice such giving ourselves on their behalf.

Finally, we should try do powa for the 49 days that the deceased could be in the bardo.  Sometimes people develop the doubt, “why should we do powa more than once, isn’t once enough?”  Once may be enough, but then again it may not be.  The point is it is better to err on the side of doing too much powa than not enough.  The more causes and conditions we create for the person to take rebirth in a pure land, the better.  This may lead to a contradiction in our mind.  We may doubt, “aren’t I supposed to strongly believe at the end of powa practice that the person has indeed taken rebirth in the pure land, and so by doing it again just in case am I not undermining that strong belief?”  The answer to this doubt is subtle, but profound.  We do not strongly believe that the deceased has taken rebirth in the pure land because this is objectively true (since nothing is objectively true), rather we generate this strong belief because doing so completes the karmic action of powa which will ripen in the future in the form of this person appearing to have taken rebirth in the pure land (appearing in this way both to ourself and to their own mind).  The same logic is true for the practices of taking and giving, generating divine pride in our practice of Tantra, and so forth.  At a minimum, we should try organize one main powa ceremony at our local center with our Sangha friends, or at least one main one we do on our own at home.  Afterwards, we can (if we wish or need to) set aside our main daily practice and do the powa sadhana every day for the 49 days that the person could be in the bardo.  Indirectly, we will still be keeping all of our commitments, so we need not worry.  Alternatively, we can do 100 Avalokitehsvara mantras every day, with each recitation requesting that the deceased be taken to the pure land.  At some point during the 49 days, we may receive clear indications that the powa has been complete.  These signs may take the form of special dreams or perhaps our mind will suddenly clear and we will just know it has been done.  After that time, we can continue for good measure or cease with the practice depending upon what feels most appropriate.  Regardless of whether we receive such signs or not, we should continually train in the strong belief that the person has indeed taken rebirth in the pure land for the reasons explained above.

The power of our powa practices depends upon (1) the degree of faith we have in the holy beings, in particular their power to actually do the transference, (2) the strength and soundness of our karmic connections both between ourselves and the dying/deceased and with the holy beings, (3) the purity of our compassion for the dying/deceased, wishing that they be protected from the sufferings of death and uncontrolled rebirth, and (4) the karma of the dying/deceased, both in terms of their richness in merit and how purified their mind is of negative karma.  During the entire death process, both leading up to it and after death occurs, we should continuously strive to improve these four things.  We can increase our faith through the explanations found in the Lamrim, reading authentic commentaries on powa practice and speaking with our Sangha friends about their experiences with this practice.  We can improve our karmic connections by spending time being with or thinking about our loved one and also the holy beings.  In effect, our karmic connections with our loved one and our karmic connections with the holy beings serves as a karmic bridge through which the blessings of the holy beings can reach the mind of our loved ones.  We can improve the purity of our compassion by working through whatever delusions we may have towards our loved one and by contemplating the nature of our samsaric situation.  We can improve the karma of our loved ones by practicing giving and purification on their behalf or through encouraging them to do the same.  Everything described above, directly or indirectly, helps improve these four causes and conditions for effective powa practice.

In conclusion, when our loved ones pass away it is true our life may never be the same again.  Dealing with the death of somebody close to us will always be one of the hardest things we ever do in life.  But we need not feel helpless, there are many things we can do to help.  Our doing these things not only helps the deceased, but it is also the very means by which we ourselves mourn their passing.  Their death is not the end of our relationship with them, but is rather the beginning of the next chapter.  We can continue to love them, pray for them and keep our relationship alive with them.  Perhaps their death will fundamentally change things in our life, but this need not be a bad thing.  If we relate to their death in constructive ways, we can transform the experience from a travesty into fuel for our spiritual growth.  One door closes, but others open.  Some things are lost, but new things are gained.  Above all, Geshe-la said, “our main job is to pray.”

 

I pray that all sufferings of death be pacified, both for the deceased as well as those that are left behind.  I pray that at the time of their death all of your loved ones are effortlessly transferred to the pure land.  And I pray that their death becomes a powerful cause of enlightenment for all those touched by it.  May all those who might benefit from this document find it when they need it, may all sorrow come to an end, may we never feel alone, and may we all one day be reunited in the pure land.

Vows, commitments and modern life:  Protect others from fear and danger 

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To give fearlessness.

We give fearlessness by protecting others from fear and danger.  If we cannot do anything directly to protect others, at least we should make prayers and dedicate our merit so that others may become free from fear and danger.

Giving fearlessness and compassionate action are synonymous.  Compassion is the wish to protect others from suffering, fear and danger.  We live in samsara, and so are surrounded by fears and dangers.  It is the very nature of samsara.  People are in constant danger of losing what they have, be it their money, their position, their reputation or their enjoyments.  People around the world face dangers from others threatening their lives, livelihoods or freedoms.  In schools and in the workplace, the weak or the different are bullied and shunned.  Those with great power manipulate the political system to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else.  Those with great knowledge deceive those with less, effectively swindling them out of all they have worked so hard to build.  Those with powerful speech judge and condemn those weaker than them, using others as scapegoats for their own failures.  Those with no scruples will lie, deceive and make false allegations against the innocent.  Governments will terrorize and steal from their own people to maintain their hold on power.  Even those in society whose job it is to protect us are often sources of fear and danger.  Doctors may prescribe medical treatments or perform tests just so they can make more money off of our illness.  Lawyers may keep our conflicts going so they get more in fees.  Police may abuse their power to extort money or carry out their racist visions.  Our political leaders may stoke fear and discord in an attempt to gain electoral advantage.  If we check, there is no safety to be found anywhere in samsara.

As Kadampas and as bodhisattvas in training, our job is to protect and to serve wherever possible.  Power is very much like wealth, just with a different causal chain.  We all know that giving creates the cause of wealth.  We want wealth so we have even more to give.  In exactly the same way, protecting others creates the cause for power.  We want power so we have even more ability to protect others.  While it is beyond the scope of this blog to do so, a Dharma reading of the rise and fall of great powers is one of the protecting and then exploiting of others.  The same is true at the level of individuals.  The more we protect others, the more power we will accumulate.  Not all power is formal, indeed most of it is informal.  It doesn’t depend on the ability to coerce, rather it primarily depends on the ability to inspire.  It does not depend on our position, it depends on how much others respect and trust our intentions and opinions.  The Kadampa finds the person in the greatest need, and helps them first.  They find the protectorless, and brings them under their wing.  If they hold any power or influence in the world, they use it to protect the weak.  They wield their power for the common good, not their own narrow self-interest.  When we take our tantric vows we vow to “deliver those not delivered, liberate those not liberated, give breath to those unable to breath, and lead all beings to a state beyond suffering.”

It is of course good to wish to protect people from the effects of suffering, it is even better to wish to protect others from the causes of suffering, namely their own delusions and negative actions.  We easily generate compassion for the rape victim, but do we equally (if not more so) generate compassion for the rapist?  It is easy to condemn those who commit harm, it is hard to help them do right.

Sometimes circumstances require us to stand up and fight against some injustice.  Our doing so must be motivated by compassion.  Compassion not only for the victims, but also for the perpetrators.  Ghandi clearly showed that the best way to fight oppression is to appeal to the oppressors own ideals, and show how their actions contradict their own values.  The Prasangikas clearly show that the best way to oppose wrong views is to expose their contradictions through penetrating questions.  It is not an attack on somebody to request them to live up to their own ideals, it is an act of wrathful compassion.  Most people, even the most destructive people, in their own mind view themselves as fundamentally good people.  Nobody wants to be a bad buy, everyone strives to be the good guy.  Instead of calling somebody bad, invoke them to live up to their own standards of good.  In the short run, this may lead to conflict with the other person, but in the long run it helps free them from continuing to create causes for their own future suffering.

Vows, commitments and modern life:  The greatest gift of all 

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To give Dharma.

Here the commitment is to remember six times every day that it is our duty to help others through giving Dharma.  Even if we cannot give formal Dharma teachings we can take every opportunity to help others by giving them spiritual advice in skillful ways.  We should likewise dedicate our spiritual practice to others, imagining we are practicing on their behalf.  Finally, we can practice the yoga of purifying migrators.  These will now be explained in turn.

Skillfully giving Dharma advice.

Giving material things is good, but ultimately the benefit we can provide by doing so if quite limited.  At most, we can help people in this life alone.  Just because it is limited in scope does not mean we shouldn’t still do it, but we should not stop there thinking it is sufficient.  Giving Dharma advice helps people not only in this life, but it helps them in all of their future lives.  It not only helps them reduce their problems, but it gives them a chance to become permanently free from them.  In reality, there is no more beneficial form of giving possible.

If our giving of Dharma is to truly be beneficial, we must do so in a skillful way.  If we give Dharma unskillfully, even if we give perfectly pure Dharma and give the other person exactly the advice that they need, others will reject what we have to say.  Far from helping them, we will actually harm them because they will now create the karmic habits of rejecting the Dharma.  Therefore, it is vital that we strive to be increasingly skillful in how we give Dharma advice.

In my view, the number one rule of skillfully giving Dharma advice is, “if others aren’t asking for your advice, don’t give it.”  Others do not have to formally ask, but we need to use our judgment to assess whether the other person is at least implicitly seeking our counsel or perspective.  The second rule is we should have no attachment whatsoever to the other person following our advice.  If we believe our happiness depends on the other person following our advice, then they will feel our giving advice is actually us trying to manipulate or change them.  All of us naturally resist when others try to manipulate or change us.  Instead, we should feel that the other person not changing actually suits us just fine because of all of the opportunities it gives us to work on our own mind.  The third rule in skillfully giving Dharma is we should only explain the general Dharma principle, but leave it up to others to determine for themselves how to apply that principle in their own lives.  We can tell stories about past experiences of ourselves or others we know, we can affirm certain Dharma truths, but we leave it up to others to form their own conclusions about what it all means for them and their situation.  The reason for this is simple:  when it is their conclusion that they reached themselves, they own it and they will follow it.  Dharma only works when we put it into practice from our own side knowing it is good for us.

Dedicating our practice for others.

Dedication is essentially the means by which give away the merit we have accumulated through our practice.  Philanthropists make money so that they can give it away.  We accumulate merit so that we can give it away.  Giving away our merit is like creating within our mind an inexhaustible fountain of good karma.  The more we give, the more we accumulate, and then the more we can give.

If we check, making dedications and making prayers are essentially the same thing.  Perhaps that is why they are called “dedication prayers.”  It is of course good to dedicate that people are freed from their troubles, cured of all illnesses, unencumbered by obstacles, etc.  But it is even better to dedicate that peoples troubles, illnesses and obstacles become causes of their swiftest possible enlightenment.  Troubles, illness and obstacles are only problems when we lack the means to transform them.  If we possess the wisdom and strength of mind to transform them, such adversities are actually the strongest fuel we have pushing us along the path.  The highest thing we can pray for is that the Dharma flourish in the minds of living beings.  Only Dharma realizations can provide us with lasting protection from all suffering, only Dharma realizations can survive death.

Engaging in the yoga of purifying migrators.

If last night we dreamt of somebody in a wheelchair, we should ask ourselves, “who put them there?”  Surely, since it is our dream, we did.  In the same way, if the entire waking world is nothing but a karmic dream, who created all of this suffering?  Surely, since it is our dream, we did.  Realizing this incorrectly can lead to a crushing form of guilt, realizing this correctly can lead to a vajra-like confidence that all of our bodhichitta wishes can be realized.  If we can make a world of suffering, then we can also unmake it.  In fact, we can karmically reconstruct this world of suffering into a pure land.  The method for doing so is the yoga of purifying migrators.

When we mentally transform somebody else into a Buddha several things happen.  First, the Buddhas enter their mind, blessing them to move in the direction of enlightenment.  Second, we counter our own ordinary appearances and conceptions of the person, thus producing within our mind only virtue when we relate to them.  Third, since they are nothing more than a mere karmic appearance to mind, by viewing them in this way we plant the karma on our mind that will ripen in the future in the form of them directly appearing – even to themselves – as a Buddha.  In this way, little by little, we karmically reconstruct the world into a pure land.

Understanding all of this, it is clear there is no higher form of giving than skillfully giving Dharma.

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Vows, commitments and modern life:  Give everything you have to others

The four commitments of the family of Buddha Ratnasambhava

The four commitments of the family of Buddha Ratnasambhava function to purify our aggregate of feeling and transform it into the wisdom of equality.  When we have cultivated this aggregate within our mind, then our every experience of every object will equally be the feeling of great bliss.

 

To give material help. 

The commitment is to develop the thought to give material things six times every day, and then when we are out of meditation to give as much as we are able.

Giving, quite simply, creates the cause to receive.  Whatever you give, you create the cause to receive.  The only reason why we have anything is because in the past we gave these things.  We may think it is because we worked hard, earned money and bought these things.  Surely, that is a circumstantial cause, but the substantial cause of us having anything is our past practice of giving.

Very often we have enormous resistance to the idea of giving material things, especially our money.  When we see beggars, we tend to walk on by and try not to look at them.  When there are fund raisers at work or at our Dharma center, we are quick to become skeptical and find all sorts of excuses why we can’t give.  We feel like our material needs are not being met, and we need whatever money we have for the things we want to buy.  We keep storage closets stuffed to the brim with old and unused things that we are keeping just in case we might one day need it.  Miserliness is an all pervasive aspect of our personality.

I always find it useful to consider the example of Bill Gates.  He is by far one of the richest people in the world, and he essentially gives away everything he has made.  He single handedly gives more aid to others than the vast majority of entire countries.  Why is he so rich?  Because he gave extensively in his past lives.  Why does he give so much now?  Because he has built up within his mind the mental habit of giving.  What will his future be?  He will be even richer.  I also find it useful to consider the example of my mother in law.  She has essentially nothing.  But virtually everything she has, she gives away freely and happily to her children and grandchildren.  She almost never spends money on herself, but instead gives everything away.  More important than the fact that she gives more in absolute terms than far richer other relatives, the percentage of her things she gives is near 90%.  Who amongst us does that?

To counter our miserliness, we can adopt some very simple rules.  First, we should adopt a policy of giving something every single time we are asked.  Throughout life, there are all sorts of instances when we are asked to give, but if we check they are not that frequent.  But we should tell ourselves that every time we are asked, we will give something.  It doesn’t matter how much we give, what matters is how often we generate the mind of giving.  It was said before that it is karmically vastly superior to generate the mind of giving one penny one hundred times than it is to generate the mind of giving one dollar only once.  Give a little if you have to, but give something every time.

Second, we should go through everything we own and anything we haven’t used in over a year, unless we have a VERY specific purpose in mind that we know we are keeping the thing for, we should just give it away.  If you haven’t used it in the last 12 months, it is unlikely you will use it in the next 12 months.  Instead of sitting in your closet or garage, better to give it away to somebody who might need it.  Some people try sell their old things on eBay or in a garage sale, but from a karmic point of view this is quite foolish.  If we sell our things, we might make a few dollars (while spending a lot of time selling it, shipping it, etc., but in the end, what will we have to show for it?  Nothing.  If instead, we give it away, then we will create the causes to receive things we need in the future, and more importantly we will reinforce our mental habit of giving.

Third, Venerable Tharchin advises us to quite simply ban the word “mine” from our set of mental imputations.  When we impute “mine” on anything, then for as long as we maintain that imputation, we are burning up our merit.  If instead, we impute “others” onto everything, then even if we maintain possession of the object, instead of burning up our merit, we will continuously be creating the karma and mental habits of giving.  For example, we can view our house as the thing we are giving our family to live in.  We can view our clothes as the courtesy we give to others so they don’t have to behold our unbecoming naked body.  We can view our money as belonging to whomever we will eventually give it to when we buy something with it.  The fact that they also “give” us something at the same time doesn’t mean we can’t mentally view our paying for things as an act of giving.  We can view our body as belonging to others, we are their servant.  We can view our time as the thing we give others when we help them.  If you check, we have no need to ever impute “mine” on anything.  Everything can be mentally given to others.  We may remain custodian of certain things until a later time, but we never consider the things in our possession, “mine.”

If we train in these ways, we can train in the practice of giving material things every moment of every day.

Vows, commitments and daily life: Downloading enlightenment

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To rely sincerely upon our Spiritual Guide.

Since all the attainments of Secret Mantra depend upon receiving the blessings of our Vajra Master, relying sincerely upon him or her is the most important practice for Secret Mantra practitioners.  Therefore, we have a commitment to remember our Spiritual guide at least six times every day so as to increase our faith in him or her.

Gen-la Losang said in reality there is only one spiritual practice, and that is reliance upon the Spiritual Guide.  All of our other practices are actually just different aspects of our main practice of reliance.  According to Sutra, we can understand this on a couple of different levels.  First, every instruction we practice comes from the Spiritual Guide, so by relying upon them we are relying upon the Spiritual Guide.  Second, we rely upon the Spiritual Guide’s blessings to be able to realize within our mind the different realizations of Dharma.

According to Tantra, our reliance on the Spiritual Guide is much more robust and profound.  The simplest way of understanding it is in Sutra, it is like we are trying to create a Buddha from scratch by gradually building up within our mind all of a Buddha’s qualities through our own effort.  In Tantra, we say, “the Spiritual Guide has already attained enlightenment, all we need to do is ‘download’ his enlightened mind into our own mind, and then we ‘install’ that enlightened mind into our own mental operating system.  Downloading his mind into our mind is accomplished through the generation of the deity with faith within our mind, and we install his mind in our mind through our training in divine pride of imputing our I onto the pure aggregates we have generated.  The software on the server and the software on our computer are exactly the same, just operating on two different computers.  In the same way, the software of the Guru’s enlightenment in the server of his mind and the software of his mind in the computer of our own mind are exactly the same, just operating in two different mental continuums.  Where did the Guru get his enlightenment?  By downloading it from his Guru’s mind, and so forth back to Buddha Shakyamuni and Buddha Vajradhara.

In Sutra, when we train in lamrim we go through all sorts of different contemplations to bring our own mind to the conclusions of the lamrim, and then we try hold these conclusions for as long as possible to consolidate them within our mind.  In Tantra, we say that every realization of the path, from the realization of our precious human life up to the Mahamudra realization of meaning clear light, are all different aspects, or parts of, our Guru’s enlightened mind.  And when we train in Lamrim, what we are actually doing is making manifest within our mind this aspect of our guru’s mind.  Just as we can download the deity body and mandala, so too we can download in the same way our guru’s realizations of the lamrim.

In Sutra, when we meditate we do so with our own powers of mindfulness, alertness, concentration and discriminating wisdom.  But these are extremely weak and ineffective tools.  In Tantra, we realize we can literally meditate with our Guru’s powers of mindfulness, alertness, concentration and discriminating wisdom.  These are like nuclear enriched power tools for realizing the stages of the path.

In Sutra, as we go about our day, we try to be like the Buddhas, trying to be patient, giving, compassionate and so forth.  In Tantra, we try to become an empty conduit through which the Buddhas work through us in this world, helping living beings, giving perfectly reliable advice and spreading love.  Just as there is no point where we can say the sun stops and its rays begin, in the same way for the Tantric practitioner, there is no point where we can say the Guru stops and his rays of his actions working through us begin.  Eventually, we lose any sense of there being an “us” he is working through – there is just him working in this world, and we are him and he is us, and both are true simultaneously and without contradiction.  We become completely non-dual with him.  Viewed in this way, our enlightenment is quite simply the culmination of our practice of reliance.

Vows, commitments and modern life:  Why self-generation works

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To generate ourself as the Deity. 

To overcome ordinary appearances and conceptions, which are the root of samsara, Vajradhara gave us a commitment to generate ourself as our Deity six times every day.  Ideally we should maintain divine pride and clear appearance 24 hours a day.  We should always do this with a bodhichitta motivation.

In Sutra, we say that the root of samsara is self-grasping ignorance.  Self-grasping ignorance is believing an object is one with its inherent existence.  The inherent existence of the object appears in the aspect of the object.  In Tantra, we say that the root of samsara is ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions.  These are usually best defined in the negative.  Ordinary appearances is any appearance other than seeing the object as a karmic reflection of the emptiness of our mind of great bliss.  Ordinary conceptions is any conception of the object other than conceiving the object as a karmic reflection of the emptiness of our mind of great bliss.  Because we see things in an ordinary way, we generate delusions, which we then act on, creating contaminated karma, which then gives rise to ordinary appearance of things.  In this way, samsara continues without interruption.

To counter this, we train in pure appearances and pure conceptions.  A pure appearance is an appearance that appears to us directly to be a karmic reflection of the emptiness of our mind of great bliss.  A pure conception is conceiving of observed objects as karmic reflections of the emptiness of our mind of great bliss.  Because we see things in a pure way, we generate pure minds, which we then act on, creating pure karma, which then gives rise to pure appearance of things.  In this way, our enlightenment continues without interruption.

Tantric practice can be divided into two main stages, generation stage and completion stage.  Generation stage is like making the outline of our enlightenment, and completion stage is like filling in all of the color.  In generation stage, our main practice is self-generation of ourself as a deity.  Self-generation practice opposes both ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions.  It opposes ordinary appearances by generating within our mind pure appearances of ourself as the deity, our environment as the pure land, and all beings as Heroes and Heroines.  It opposes ordinary conceptions by mentally recalling that these things are the emptiness of our mind of great bliss in the aspect of the self-generated mandala.  These very simple recognitions cut right to the heart of samsara.

During the meditation break, we likewise constantly try to maintain pure appearance and pure conceptions.  This is a bit more difficult because an ordinary world still appears to us.  The way we can train correctly can be understood as follows.  I was in Frankfurt once and I went to the Modern Art Museum there.  One of the exhibits was a room and what was being projected onto all of the walls were images a perfectly calm and pleasant tropical beach.  So if you only looked, you would think you were on a beach.  But the sound that was playing in the room was that of a terrible and destructive hurricane.  So if you only listened, you would think you were in the middle of a great storm.  The two together created a very peculiar feeling, but due to our mind’s power to naturally integrate our different awarenesses into one experience, the sights and sounds somehow fused into one experience.  In exactly the same way, during the meditation break what will appear to our sense awarenesses will be the world that we normally see, but with our mental awareness we will be generating, and thus seeing with our mind’s eye, pure appearances and conceptions.  Yet since both are happening at the same time, the power of our mind will somehow integrate the two together into a wisdom experience of the world.  For me, it feels like I am centered in the pure world appearing to my mind, but I am moving and operating in another layer of reality that is appearing to the beings of that other layer of reality as the ordinary world appearing to my sense awarenesses.  It is like I see everything as pure, but I simultaneously see how my activities are appearing to everyone else within the realms of samsara.  Another analogy is it is like I am an undercover Buddha operating in the world, and my disguise is my ordinary appearance of myself.  I am in this world, but I am not of it.

Some people misunderstand generation of ourself as a deity as like the crazy person who thinks he is Jesus returned.  Others confusedly think it is an exercise in supremely arrogant pretension.  In reality, it is none of these things.  Proper self-generation is not a Jesus complex because the reason why we self-generate is because we are fully aware of the limitations of our ordinary body and mind, and so we dissolve it completely into emptiness and generate anew a new pure version of ourself.  It is not supremely arrogant pretension because we don’t think we actually are already the deity, rather we train in being the deity by trying to live up to that role.  Our motivation for engaging in self-generation is aspirational, we wish to become a Buddha because we realize we are not, but we know by training in being like one we will gradually become one.  While it is subtle to understand, we do mentally choose to believe we are the deity not because we grasp at ourself as inherently being so, but rather because the mental action of believing we are the deity completes the karma which will ripen in the future in the form of us becoming one.  The same karmic logic applies to our practice of taking and giving, for example.

Vows, commitments and modern life:  The echo of emptiness

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To keep a bell to remind us of emptiness.  There are two types of bell:  outer and inner.  To remind us of the meaning of the wisdom directly realizing emptiness we are advised to keep an outer bell, or a picture of one.  Through gradually training in great bliss and emptiness, eventually we shall attain the union of great bliss and emptiness, which is the very essence of Secret Mantra.  The bell also symbolizes the practitioner’s personal deity and mandala.  Realizing this we should regard it as an object of the field of merit and make offerings to it. Just as with the vajra, the real meaning of this vow is to attain the inner bell, which is the realization of emptiness.

A bell is helpful for reminding us of emptiness because just as a bell’s sounds arise from echo like waves moving through space, so too all phenomena are echo-like karmic waves moving through emptiness. Sounds also remind us of emptiness because although they appear to our ear awareness, they do not truly exist and cannot be found anywhere.

While of course the logical reasoning establishing emptiness is necessary to realize it, sometimes people mistakenly understanding training in emptiness to be some exercise in philosophical abstraction.  Our training in emptiness is actually quite different from this.  During our meditation sessions, we do all sorts of different visualizations.

As we do these visualizations, I find it most helpful to view things in one of two ways.  The first is to view everything I am visualizing as mental holograms generated in the space of emptiness.  There is nothing actually there other than the mental holograms I am generating.  I can generate this awareness by thinking, “though it appears, it does not truly exist.”  I have programmed my mind where when I recall these words, I am able to see my visualizations in this light.  It is like I take a step back out of the world of appearances and instead view the appearances from the perspective of emptiness.  Yet, I am still aware that they have been generated intentionally by my mind through effort.

The second way is I view the emptiness of my mind like a giant clear light play dough, and when I do the different visualizations, I feel as if I am molding the play dough of my mind into the aspect of the different visualizations.  Physical yoga is a process of putting our body in all sorts of strange physical shapes and positions, and we cycle through different positions in a defined sequence, and doing so functions to untie the knots and obstructions in our body.  Tantric practices are often called “yogas.”  The meaning here is the same.  Through engaging in the sadhana, we cycle our mind through different mental positions in a defined sequence, and doing so functions to untie the knots and obstructions in our subtle body and mind.  By engaging in different visualizations, we are putting and holding our mind in different mental positions.  We are literally reshaping our mind, and by doing so we karmically reshape the world.

There are a couple of different methods we can use to combine bliss and emptiness together in our meditation.  First, Kadam Bjorn said, “bliss is what emptiness feels like.”  In other words, when our aggregate of discrimination realizes emptiness, our aggregate of feeling naturally “feels” bliss.  These two together then combine into a single primary mind of bliss and emptiness in the same way that our ear awareness and our eye awareness combine into a single experience of a bird chirping.

Second, using the play dough analogy, we can feel as if the emptiness if our mind is like our body of bliss, and we shape it into the aspect of our visualization.  It is like a liquid metallic creature from some Hollywood movie, where the substance is the liquid metal (of bliss), but the aspect is the shape of the creature (or deity). During the meditation break, we can train in emptiness by viewing everything as a karmic dream, or like a karmic movie unfolding in the space of the emptiness of our mind.  We don’t need to do elaborate logical syllogisms, just view the world through the wisdom glasses of seeing everything as a karmic dream.

We can consider any number of other analogies, such as karmic waves on the ocean of our mind, or karmic echoes moving through the space of emptiness, mental holograms dancing around us.  It suffices to just recall one of these analogies, and then choose to “view” or “see” the world through this lens.  When we do so, we are able to easily recall emptiness and carry our realization of it with us throughout the day.  We can combine bliss and emptiness during the meditation break in the same way explained above that we do for the meditation session.