Speaking falsely about profound emptiness. 

This vow say if we lack a correct understanding of emptiness and yet teach emptiness to others, claiming with a selfish motivation that we have a direct realization of emptiness, we incur a root downfall.

I don’t know anybody who claims to have a direct realization of emptiness, so I think there is little danger of any of us incurring this root downfall, but there is a danger of us committing a similitude of this downfall.  Those who have some notions of emptiness know how much fun it is to debate and discuss it.  Few, if any, of us have a correct understanding.  Yet when we speak, we have a natural tendency to speak as if we were to a certain extent an authority on the subject.  I, for one, do this all of the time.  Even though I am not engaging in a root downfall, I am certainly quite frequently engaging in a similitude of this downfall.  I need to stop this.

This does not mean we can’t discuss emptiness.  Rather it means we need to make it abundantly clear to any potential reader or listener that what we are explaining is just our personal understanding of what the teachings mean, and from the side of the reader, everyone who reads or listens to our explanations should take them with a grain of salt and investigate these matters for themselves.  

There is nothing more important in this world than realizing emptiness.  The only way to escape from a prison with no doors is to wake up from the dream in which we are trapped in such a prison.  Realizing emptiness is how we do this.  Given its importance, this is something we must discuss all of the time; but given its importance, it is something we must discuss in a correct and skillful way.

Accepting property that has been stolen from the Three Jewels. 

We incur this downfall if we accept goods that we know have been stolen from the Three Jewels.  We do not incur this downfall if we accept something that we do not know has been stolen.

If have even a suspicion that something we are using has been stolen from the three jewels, then it is our responsibility to ask the question to make sure we are not stealing.  If we don’t, we are incurring a similitude of this downfall.  If we know, or have reason to believe, that somebody else has stolen something from the three jewels and through our actions we somehow lend legitimacy to their claim over the object, then I think this is also an example of accepting property that has been stolen from the three jewels.  

If we have it within our power to return property that has been stolen and we fail to do so, then I also think this is a similitude of a downfall.  

Making bad rules. 

Those in charge of spiritual communities incur this downfall if they make rules that unnecessarily interfere with pure Dharma practice, such as having business activities take precedence over the practice of meditation.

We have to be careful with understanding this.  The development model of the NKT is one of indigenous growth.  In other words, things are built in dependence upon the extent to which a local sangha is willing to do the work to build it.  A mother center may provide some initial support to get a branch class of the ground, but the expectation is after that initial start up support, the center is basically on their own until they reach a sufficiently big size that they are in a position to buy some building or start taking on full-time staff.  Then there is another period of brief support which quickly ends, and the now larger center is basically on its own until it reaches the point where it could become a KMC.  The NKT takes no outside money from anybody.  The Dharma cannot flourish in this world without the underlying supporting physical infrastructure.  This requires both money and labor on the part of the local sangha.  Some people react very negatively to this fact, especially if it is their money or their labor that is being called upon!  So when the local administrators or teachers have some project they want to pursue and it requires money or people’s time, this issue usually flares up.  

There is a natural tendency for the administrators of a center to unintentionally fall on the extreme of putting business matters before spiritual matters; and there is a natural tendency for the rest of the sangha to unintentionally fall on the extreme of underappreciating the value of the requisite material developments.  This tension exists probably, at least to an extent, in every center in the world.  So we shouldn’t be surprised when we find it in our own local center!  Administrators will in exasperated tones ask other administrators questions like, “how do you get your Sangha to do more” and the rest of the sangha will complain to each other and to sangha from other centers about how bad their administrators are because they are constantly hassling the sangha and spiritually manipulating them to do more.  This dynamic is also quite common, not just in Dharma centers but in any non-profit or religious organization around the world.  Humans are humans, after all.

So the question is what should we do about it?  The answer is simple.  If we find that we are more likely to be on the extreme of using the Dharma to manipulate others into accomplishing our projects, then we should make an effort to make sure that we always pursue projects which quite clearly put spiritual practice first, and the material requirements will be a self-evident need.  If we find that we are more likely to be on the extreme of underappreciating the value and need of material development, we should consider its value and become the most prominent advocate for the need of the sangha to step up.  The most effective way to become an advocate is to become an example, but sometimes it also means speaking up in meetings.  If it is always the administrators who are calling for more material development and always everybody else resisting that, then it introduces an unhealthy dynamic in a Dharma center.  If instead it is the administrators who are putting spiritual priorities first and the sangha advocating for material development then these tensions subside and the center develops quite nicely.  

I find that in most circumstances, people are very reluctant to take the lead on things but that doesn’t stop them having an opinion on everything.  I know I am like that.  I think a good rule of thumb we can adopt for ourselves is we should always be willing to back up our opinions with our own constructive action.  The point is if you are a member of the community, do your administrators a favor and become the local advocate for the need for material development.  When a member of the community takes on this role, it is far more powerful for the development of a center than if the administrators do this.  If you are an administrator, do your sangha a favor by not trying to manipulate others into doing work for the center.  Explain the merits of the project, set a good example of working on it yourself, but respect people’s freedom to contribute as they see fit.  Better yet, find out what projects the members of the community want to work on and see how you can help marshal the resources of the center towards that end.  Our job is to serve our community, not the other way around.

Causing others to abandon the Pratimoksha. 

We incur a root downfall if we cause an ordained person to give up their Vinaya practice saying that it is not relevant to the Mahayana path.

I know some very senior ordained teachers who talk of women effectively throwing themselves at them.  The temptations must be great indeed.  To engage in actions which cause somebody to lose their ordination, which we can do merely with some wrong words spoken, is, in my view, to commit spiritual murder, or at the very least to assist in somebody’s spiritual suicide. 

I am aware of the fact that these are dramatic words.  But when somebody gets ordained, their old ordinary self quite literally dies and a new being is born, Kelsang Something or Another.  If that person disrobes, the person who was formerly known as Kelsang whatever quite literally dies, vanishing from this earth. 

We sometimes think ordained people are so strong, and sometimes the recently ordained think everything will now be so easy.  But both views are wrong.  One of my teachers once said, “getting married is easy, it is staying married where the real work is.  In the same way, getting ordained is easy, it is staying ordained where the real work is.”  Just as we would be careful to not encourage others to do things which might jeopardize their marriage, so too we need to be careful to not encourage ordained people to do things which might jeopardize their ordination. 

This vow does not only apply to the ordained Pratimoksha vows, but it also applies to the lay Pratimoksha vows (though the negative karma is greater with the ordained vows).  If we knew somebody was an alcoholic, we certainly wouldn’t invite them to a bar or put them in situations that might cause them to relapse.  In the same way, taking the Pratimoksha vows is like the alcoholic who stops drinking.  But there are tremendous tendencies within us to relapse back into our old samsaric ways.  Samsaraholics Anonymous does not exist, but it should.  And we should be just as considerate towards not leading those who have taken such vows into temptation anymore than we would of our friends addicted to drugs, cigarettes or alcohol.

Belittling the Hinayana. 

We incur a root downfall if we have a disrespectful opinion of the Hinayana path, maintaining that it does not lead to actual liberation.  One of the most useful concepts in the Dharma is the notion of common and uncommon paths.  When I was growing up, we had a split level house.  Halfway up the stairs, things branched off and I could go outside for example, or I could keep going up all of the way and make it to my room.  It is impossible for me to get to my room without taking those first stairs, but I don’t need to take them if all I want to do is go outside.  In this way, the first half of the stairs are “common” to both paths, and the second half of the stairs is part of the “uncommon” path.  Both the person who wants to go outside and the person who wants to go to the top floor must use the first half of the stairs, but only the person who wants to go to the top floor must do all of the stairs.  For such a person to belittle the first half of the stairs is to deny themselves part of their path.

In the same way, all of the paths to liberation are “common” to the Mahayana path, they are part of our path.  So to belittle them is to belittle the very foundation of our eventual enlightenment.

Few among us, though would actually outright belittle those who travel other paths, but there are many subtle levels where we do this.  First, it is not uncommon for Mahayana practitioners to, even if only internally, generate pride thinking they are somehow better because than those travelling another path that leads only to liberation.  

Second, when we speak with people from the Theravadin tradition, or other traditions that seek only liberation, we need to be mindful that some of them consider it insulting to call them “Hinayanists,” the translation of which means “lesser vehicle.”  Now in the context of the Mahayana teachings (“great vehicle”) we don’t mean it in an insulting way, we use the term merely to differentiate between the intermediate and the great scope.  But that doesn’t change the fact that it is quite understandable why they could find it insulting for us to refer to them in that way.  So when we speak with them, or when we speak in public forums where they might be present, we should show appropriate consideration.

Third, another common way in which we effectively belittle the Hinayana is in how we actually practice the Dharma.  We show a bias towards the great scope meditations and especially our tantric meditations, and pay little attention to the initial and intermediate scope meditations.  Everyone enjoys meditating on love and the self-generation as the deity, but it is a little less fun to meditate on death, the lower realms, the sufferings of samsara and technical subjects like the 12 dependent-related links.  So we generally tend to avoid these meditations and focus on the ones we enjoy.  Of course these higher level meditations are wonderful in and of themselves, but their real power is only uncovered when they are engaged in on the solid foundation of the earlier meditations.  We can generate worldly compassion and love without the earlier meditations, and this is a good thing, but if we want to generate spiritual compassion and love (meaning concern about other’s future lives), then we need these earlier meditations.  We cannot generate a qualified compassion without first generating a qualified renunciation.  We cannot generate a qualified renunciation without first generating a qualified fear of lower rebirth and a realization of our own death.  

There is of course nothing wrong with engaging in the higher meditations without having built the foundation within our mind, the point is our higher meditations will only be as qualified as the foundation we have built.  We still should train in all of the meditations from the very beginning because each meditation informs all of the others, but our qualified realization of a higher meditation will never outstrip the extent to which we have qualified realizations of the lower meditations.  Engaging in advanced tantric practices are good, but they will only produce their declared benefits when done with the proper foundations.  

Explaining emptiness to those who are likely to misunderstand. 

We incur a root downfall if we teach emptiness in an unskillful way and cause those who are listening to develop serious and harmful misunderstandings.  Emptiness is very easily misunderstood, and it is not difficult to unintentionally explain a nihilistic view.  We normally remain on the extreme of existence, but it does not take much to swing to the other side and become overzealous in our explanations. 

As a general rule, we should make sure that our wisdom understanding emptiness does not outstrip our compassion.  This will protect us from falling into the extreme of non-existence, or falling into the extreme of solitary peace.  The only thing emptiness negates is the mode of existence of the world.  Being still exist, the world still exists, suffering is still experienced.  We go places, things happen, etc.  But it is all taking place in a dream and none of it is any more real than last night’s dream.  But just because it is a dream does not mean it doesn’t matter what happens in it.  For as long as beings grasp at the dream as being real, they suffer terribly within it.  Just as it is appropriate to come to the aid of somebody we think is real, so too if we are in a dream it is appropriate to come to the aid of somebody in the dream.  They suffer, we can help, so we do so. 

In fact, it is impossible to fully unwind the dream of samsara without a measure of compassion because if others are empty, then their minds and indeed their very lives are part of our dream.  An ocean cannot be tamed by calming a single wave.  The sign that our understanding of emptiness is incorrect is we feel there is no harm done by negativity and we think it doesn’t matter what happens to others because they are not real.  The sign that our understanding of emptiness is correct is we feel an overwhelming sense of personal responsibility for whatever happens to anybody because it is all taking place in our dream.  Just as we would expect a good God to care for and protect his creation, so too when we understand emptiness it is a given we must care for everything and everyone because it is all part of the fabric of our mind.  The duality between self and others completely dissolves where it becomes absurd to even think to free oneself without freeing all others.  In fact, for a mind that understands emptiness correctly, such a thought could not even arise.

Causing others to abandon the Mahayana. 

If we cause a Mahayana practitioner to give up their bodhichitta by telling them they will never become a Buddha, and advise them to enter the less demanding Hinayana path, we incur a downfall.

Venerable Tharchin explains that the secret to developing unstoppable effort is to understand that all of the goals of the spiritual path are indeed eminently doable.  At present we give lip service to the idea of attaining enlightenment, but deep in our heart we think it is an impossible goal far beyond our reach.  When we read the teachings on Tranquil Abiding, much less all the grounds and paths of a bodhisattva, we realize we have barely even begun our training, even if we have been applying full effort for many many years.  Not seeing how it is possible, we may think it would be nice to be a Buddha but besides the words which fall from our lips about it, there is no fire in our belly to really go for it. 

The deep truth of emptiness is if we cannot keep the flame of Dharma alive in our own mind, it will become extinguished from the world we perceive, and all hope of escape for ourself or others in our dream will be lost.  But if we can become like an immovable vajra and the flame of Dharma is never extinguished from our own mind, it is just a question of time before we free everyone.  The bitter cruelty of samsara is also its greatest weakness – it is a self-imposed prison.  There is literally nothing which can stop us from walking straight out its door other than our failure to make the decision to do so.  Once we decide to leave and we have seen through its lies, nothing can stop us.  It still may take a very long time, but nothing can stop us. 

We may love our children, for example, very much and be willing to do anything for them.  But if we die without having secured our spiritual future, who will look after them?  Can we trust the task to anybody else?  But if we can place our mind on the firm grounding of the clear light, death for us will be no different than falling asleep at night knowing we will awake the next day to continue our work.  We do not recognize all of the beings around us as our past mothers or our past children, but as we become firm in our wisdom we will see and recall our past time with them, we will understand the long arc of their history with us and we will know no matter what karmic disguises they or ourselves may assume, it is still them and it is still us, and we are still with them gradually guiding them to freedom. 

Discouragement is the killer of more spiritual lives than anything else.  It is our discouragement which enables our attachments to overcome us.  If we do not believe our freedom is possible, we won’t fight for it with all our being, and we will settle for the most comfortable situation we can arrange in samsara.  But if a man’s child or wife were captured, he would not rest – ever – until they were freed.  This is our very situation, and we have the potential to free all of them – literally in one go.  The only thing stopping us is nothing. 

Holding wrong views. 

We incur a root downfall if we hold wrong views denying anything that we need to believe in order to achieve liberation.  Examples of this can include rejecting any of the stages of the path, such as the need to rely upon a Spiritual Guide, karma, the four noble truths, the disadvantages of self-cherishing, bodhichitta, emptiness, Tantra, etc. 

There is a difference between holding wrong views and having doubts or questions.  Doubts and questions are normal, and in fact are a good thing if we use them as fuel to deepen our understandings.  Holding wrong views also does not mean not yet believing or understanding a given instruction.  Holding wrong views means we come to a definite conclusion that something in the Dharma is wrong and we are right, without us having an open mind about the question.  If we have a valid reason why it is wrong, we don’t incur this fault.  But 99 times out of 100 (well actually 100 times out of a 100) if we have such a valid reason it will be refuting some wrong understanding of the Dharma, not a correct understanding.  All correct understandings of the Dharma seem eminently reasonable when properly understood, even if they are nonetheless quite radical notions. 

In general we can say our gaining of realizations occurs in a progression.  We start out with wrong views about pretty much everything.  The first step is conceding it is better to have an open mind and to admit that we don’t really know, but we intend to investigate the matter more carefully.  As we start to do this, our wrong views start transforming into doubts tending towards a wrong view.  We continue to investigate and ask questions, and eventually these doubts start tending towards the correct view.  We continue to probe and to test and eventually we might start getting the initial inklings of faith in a given object.  We think, “this idea in the Dharma is probably right and I am probably just understanding it wrong, so I better keep checking.”  Eventually this believing faith becomes stronger and we start to develop admiring faith thinking how much better our life would be if only we realized fully this particular idea.  This admiring faith then transforms into wishing faith, where we genuinely want to gain this particular understanding.  This wishing faith then transform into effort to actually gain the realization.  With effort comes experience, and with experience comes valid reasons which then are used to support what are called “inferential valid cognizers” about some subject.  An inferential valid cognizer moves beyond faith to personal wisdom on a subject, but even this is not strong enough.  We keep investigating, keep testing, keep contemplating until eventually these inferential cognizers transform into direct perceivers of the truth of the particular idea of the Dharma.  We see directly it is exactly true.  We continue to increase the power of our direct perceivers until eventually they transform into yogic direct perceivers, where we realize the truth of the given subject directly with our very subtle mind of great bliss mixed with emptiness.  These are called yogic direct perceivers.  Our goal is to eventually attain yogic direct perceivers of every single stage of the path.  Once we have done so, we will swiftly become a Buddha! 

Destroying places such as towns. 

We incur a root downfall if, with a bad motivation, we willfully destroy a place of habitation or an environment.  Unless we are a political leader, it is unlikely we could incur this downfall by physically destroying a town or somebody’s  home.  But this is something that can easily happen, for example, with respect to insect colonies. 

It is also entirely likely we could incur this downfall, or at least a similitude of it, in many other ways.  For example, if we were to engage in sexual misconduct with somebody who is married, this could easily destroy that person’s home, which is even worse if kids are involved.  It does not take sexual misconduct to destroy somebody else’s home, depending on the circumstances it may only take a few words of divisive speech. Even if the communities are not completely destroyed, they can easily be sufficiently disrupted that they are never the same again.   

Likewise, in the modern world, places are not limited to the physical world, but can also include virtual environments, such as on-line communities.  Divisive or hurtful speech can easily destroy the harmony of a community, ruining it for all.

Sometimes it is also possible to destroy a community by not doing what is required to save it if it is within our power to do so.  The circumstances of living beings are vast, and it makes little karmic difference between actively destroying a community and not saving one when we otherwise could.

It is, however, possible that actions such as these may become necessary depending upon the circumstances.  But we need tremendous wisdom to know whether it is appropriate to do so, and we must make sure that our mind is completely free from delusion and governed only by concern for others.  To take an easy example, if somebody is being abused by their partner and you encourage and aid them to escape from the abusive relationship, you may be destroying somebody’s home but it is an act of compassion not only for the victim but also for the abuser.   

Committing the five heinous actions.

The five heinous actions are actions that are so karmically awful that, barring some very unique circumstances, if we commit them it is guaranteed we will take a lower rebirth in our next life.  The five heinous actions are:  killing one’s father, killing one’s mother, killing a Foe Destroyer, maliciously wounding a Buddha and causing a schism within the Sangha.

There is little chance of us committing the first four, but it is quite easy to do at least a similitude of the fifth.  Anytime we engage in divisive speech with respect to anybody within the Sangha, we are committing a similitude of this action.  If we are a teacher or a senior member of a local center who has some degree of authority, we need to be especially careful to avoid this.  This happens most frequently in the context of discussing who is doing what work for the center.  Every Dharma center on the planet is understaffed and overworked.  There is not a single exception to this rule, I am sure.  This fact can quickly lead to resentment by the people who “do all of the work” against those who “just come to the center as consumers and leave.”  Usually those who “do all of the work” start talking badly about the “consumers,” and they use the Dharma they have learned to judge other members in the Sangha.  When they talk to the “consumers” they quite often will use the Dharma as a means of trying to manipulate the other person into doing more, or they will whine and complain about how they have to do all of the work and nobody is helping out.  This, I think, is a nearly universal story in Dharma centers around the world.  It’s quite natural, when you think about it.

But it is also completely the wrong way to approach things.  The work of a Dharma center is by definition infinite.  We are, after all, working continuously until all the problems of all living beings for all of their lives have been solved.  No matter how much more the people of a center “contribute” there will always be more work to do that needs to be done.  Clearly, the solution can’t lie in just getting people to work more.  What is required is a change in the center’s cultural attitudes towards working for the center.  If we relate to working for a center as “chores” and “tasks that grudgingly must be done” then our optic is completely wrong, and it is this attitude, more than anything else, that is creating obstacles to people stepping up and working for the center.  When we feel manipulated or judged, what do we do?  We resist and resent.  Others are no different.  So even if our manipulations succeed in getting the other person to do more or give more, they will be doing so out of guilt or resentment, not joy at the opportunity. 

If we were told we could go into our favorite store, and we had a half an hour to grab anything we wanted for free, what would our attitude be?  Our biggest concern would be not having enough time and not being able to grab enough things.  This is exactly what our attitude should be towards working for a center.  A Dharma center is a karmic gold mine we are given the keys to.  Each thing we do to help a Dharma center literally creates infinite pure karma because the center exists for the pure benefit of infinite living beings.  Just as it is a bit of work to pick up the items we want in the store as we race around, so too it is a bit of work to pick up the karmic gems from helping out.  We wouldn’t begrudge the effort it takes to pick up and put in our cart a new watch, so why do we begrudge the minimal effort it takes to create such pure karma for ourselves?  If other people don’t want to take advantage of the opportunity, that is unfortunate for them, but it is their choice.  It is because we want them to seize the opportunity that we must not try manipulate them to do things for the center.  Our manipulation will create obstacles more than anything else. 

Instead, we should show the example of somebody who joyfully is doing everything they can, and instead of bemoaning having to do everything we just feel lucky to have the opportunity we have.  When others see our joy and our enthusiasm, they will quite naturally seek to join in the fun.  And even if they don’t, what difference does it make to you?  Perhaps centers need to adjust their expectations of what all can get done, and some things will have to be set aside.  Such is life in a world of finite resources and time.  But we should use all of these constraints as fuel for our bodhichitta, thinking not “others should help out more” but instead think, “I wish I could have emanations of myself so I could do even more.”  When people ask us to do more than we can reasonably do, our answer should not be frustration, rather it should be, “You know, I would really love to be able to help you with that, but I first need to do X, Y and Z so I can’t.  I wish I could, though.  Sorry. But once I am done with those things, I will help you.” 

Conflict and tension will arise in any human grouping, and it will do so in centers and in any grouping of Sangha.  But how we resolve such conflict and tension can vary considerably.  If we find ourselves “taking sides” or “choosing personalities over substance” or we find ourselves talking badly about others behind their backs, we are on very thin ground.  In general, it is best to reaffirm mutually agreed upon principles that both sides of a given conflict agree on, and then let them apply the principle themselves.  It is better to acknowledge, squarely and honestly, the legitimate views of both sides, even if that runs counter to our desired final objective.  Usually is best to first encourage people to communicate with each other in a constructive manner before trying to resolve the substance of the matter, but we always speak in terms of “see past how the other person is talking and instead focus on the merits of what they have to say.”  It is almost always better to be a mediator of a given conflict than a protagonists in it, but when we find ourselves as one of the protagonists we should conduct ourselves in a forthright manner and affirm that we seek to resolve the dispute on the substantive merits of the matter at hand, not something extraneous like a dislike of the personalities involved.

Taking away saffron robes. 

This can be incurred only by those in positions of power in monastic communities.  If such a person, with a bad motivation, expels monks or nuns from the monastery by taking back their robes they incur a root downfall, even if those whom they have expelled have broken their ordination vows.

Fortunately, in modern times, instances of this happening are quite rare and extreme.  The reality is we don’t need somebody else to expel us, we implode upon ourselves just fine! 

In reality, though, there are subtle forms of this that happen in centers all of the time.  It doesn’t take the form of expelling ordained people or taking away their robes, but it can take more subtle forms of making certain sangha members feel like they are not welcome, or not part of the “in crowd” at the center.  If we look at the life of Jesus, we see one constant pattern:  whatever situation he was in, he would find the person who was the most excluded and disdained and he would go straight to them and cherish them with particular attention.  He wouldn’t hang out with his most loyal and devoted students, but he would actively show the example of active inclusiveness by seeking out the most despised (tax collectors, prostitutes, gentiles, etc.).  We should be just like that.

It is very easy and very natural for us to spend most of our time hanging out with the people we like, talking behind the backs of the people we don’t like, and generally ignoring everybody else.  But is that consistent with what we are being taught?  Is that the best way to use the very limited time we have to be with Sangha?  Now of course we shouldn’t go to the other extreme of ambushing en masse every new person who walks through the door or every wall flower who is quietly observing from the corner.  We, of course, need to be skillful.  But the point is in every moment of every day, whether we are in a center, at work or amongst friends, we should have a special radar on the lookout for anybody who might be feeling excluded, and we should make a special effort to be kind to them and make them feel included.  They just want to be happy too. 

This vow also advises us to cut others some slack.  Dharma is a mirror with which we can identify our own faults not a magnifying glass for judging other people for their faults.  If we don’t understand how the Dharma is supposed to be used as a mirror, there is a real danger that the more Dharma we learn the more we become judgmental of others.  People often feel guilty about their mistakes and their delusions, and if we judge them for their shortcomings they will most likely just go away so they don’t have to confront our judgment.  This is another subtle form of exclusion. 

Abandoning Dharma. 

We incur this downfall if we criticize any of Buddha’s teachings, declaring that they are not Buddhadharma and therefore should not be practiced.  We do not incur this downfall if we set aside some instructions for the time being because we do not see their relevance to our lives or they seem too difficult for our current level.  Buddha gave over 84,000 instructions and Geshe-la has written many many commentaries to Buddha’s teachings.  So clearly we work gradually with the instructions, incorporating and synthesizing their meaning in our lives over time until eventually we feel as if we practice – directly or indirectly – every single instruction every single day.  But it can decades before we feel this to be the case.

We also are not abandoning the Dharma if we used to go to every festival and to every teaching, but for whatever reason we no longer do so.  Karma changes and so it is normal that our ability to attend certain events will also evolve and change over time.  But we do incur this downfall if we come to some definite conclusions, “Buddha was definitely wrong about this.” 

Gen-la Losang said it does not matter how many people come to our centers, it only matters how many go away with a happy mind.  He said those who go away with a happy mind are actually more important than those who stay at the center for the simple reason that there are more of them!  If people go away having appreciated some point and it makes some positive impression on their mind, even if they never come back, a very powerful karmic seed will have been placed on their mind which can be activated in future lives in the form of them coming to the center and staying (even if only for a little longer than last time).  This is one of the reasons why the International Temples Project is such genius.  Busloads full of school children and tourists come visit the temples all the time, see the Buddhas and leave thinking, “hey, those Buddhists are kinda cool.”  Who is to say that the people who stay in this life were not the tourists of a previous life? 

The reality is there are many many people who come to our centers, attend classes for a shorter or longer amount of time, but then they move on.  It is very easy for the people who remain at the center or for the people who run the center to become attached to people coming to the center and then to be unhappy when people leave.  There have been many examples of people in centers making those who think about leaving feel guilty like they are abandoning the Dharma, they are breaking their vajra commitments, etc., etc., etc.  Of course the over-enthusiastic administrator or practitioner thinks they are helping the other person by saying such things, but in reality they are sabotaging that person’s spiritual future and causing the tradition to develop a reputation of being like a cult. 

The Dharma is like a diamond, like the sun and like a medicinal tree.  Any amount is good.  Just because more is better doesn’t mean having only some is bad.  If we resort to spiritual manipulations to keep people coming to our center, it may work in the short run but the person will eventually come to resent being manipulated into coming.  This resentment will build in their mind and their view of the center and the tradition will sour.  Their mind will grow increasingly negative until eventually they leave altogether.  But instead of leaving with a happy mind towards the teachings and the center, they will leave with a bitter taste in their mouth, or worse.  Let’s be honest with ourselves, there are more than a few stories of where things like this have happened in the past.  If we can’t acknowledge our mistakes, we are certainly doomed to repeat them.  The good news is I have been with the tradition for almost 20 years now, and I can say without a doubt that every year we get a little bit better about not making a total mess of things!  🙂  Most of these old ways are a thing of the past, but residuals do remain.  Of course we can’t control what other people and other centers do, but we do have a certain say over what we do and what our own local center does.

If we are an administrator of a local center, I think we need to be very careful when people approach us with problems they might be having with the center.  There has been so much external venom thrown our way, that it is very easy to allow our own sensitivities about some internal unhealed wounds to cause us to overreact, become defensive and act unskillfully when people do approach us with constructive suggestions on how we can do better.  It is very easy for major conflicts and power struggles to start and it can quickly poison the environment of a center with a cost to all.  It is perfectly possible that the person approaches us in an unskillful way, getting upset and angry and accusatory, but if we are a leader in a local center then presumably we have more experience with the Dharma and it seems to me it is incumbent upon us to respond in a constructive manner that doesn’t make the situation worse.  If we welcome their criticism and have an open, honest and sincere conversation with them where we admit our mistakes and clarify any misunderstandings without defensiveness, then our living embodiment of putting the teachings into practice will dispel any misconceptions the other person might be harboring far better than any words we might say.  We should say thank you, we apologize, and we should show a willingness to learn.

Even if in the end the other person leaves over the issue, at least they will go away thinking we handled the situation with integrity and forthrightness.  They may disagree, but they will nonetheless respect us, and therefore they will harbor no ill will or cling tightly to what could be wrong views.

Abandoning the Mahayana. 

This downfall is incurred if we reject any Mahayana scripture claiming that it is not Buddha’s teachings.  It also occurs if we propagate views that contradict the Dharma and encourage others to practice such false teachings.

For most of us, it is highly unlikely that we would reject some Mahayana scripture claiming that it is not Buddha’s teachings.  We have been explained the lineage of the teachings, and either we believe it or we think it is some elaborate lie Geshe-la has concocted.  To my knowledge, despite all of the criticism that has been lodged against the NKT over the years, nobody has ever disputed the lineage of the teachings. 

But we are far more susceptible to the other means of breaking this vow, namely propagating false views and encouraging others to practice them.  Every time I hit submit on this blog, I run the risk of doing this!  Every time a teacher teaches, they run the risk of doing this.  Every time any one of us speaks about the Dharma, we run the risk of doing this.  Understanding this, some people fall into the extreme of thinking the only safe thing to do is to repeat exactly what Geshe-la said, and they get very nervous anytime somebody says something that they can’t directly trace back to some direct quote by Geshe-la.  This is an extreme because we are encouraged to contemplate and meditate on the Dharma, not just parrot it.  We need to transform what we read and listen to into our own understanding and personal experience.  If Geshe-la didn’t want us to express the Dharma in our own words, then why would he have us discuss the Dharma in our centers or why would train people to be teachers instead of just make available on the internet his books and teachings?

If we understand being a Dharma parrot is an extreme, how do we protect ourselves then against falling into the other extreme of inventing our own lineage?  I think the answer is implicit in the way this vow is worded “…not contradict…”  I once had a lengthy conversation with a few other teachers about this question in between sessions at an ITTP one year.  What I am about to say should in no way be considered any sort of official answer to this question, but it is an accurate representation of our best faith answer to the question.  We said when we have some understanding of the Dharma that we haven’t read anywhere in Geshe-la’s books, and we are not sure whether our new understanding is correct or not, we can perform the following tests:

1. Does this new understanding contradict in any way any known instructions?
2. Does this new understanding naturally and logically follow from contemplating the interactions and implications of all known instructions?
3. Before we explain it to anybody else, have we made over a sufficiently long period of time a request to Dorje Shugden, our Dharma Protector, “If this new understanding is not correct, please sabotage it thoroughly within my mind.”?

If any new understanding can survive these three tests, then we can have a pretty high degree of confidence that it is at least not wrong.  If we do, however, share this understanding with others we should make explicitly clear that what we are saying is our own personal understanding after having contemplated the Dharma and made clear that others should not consider what we think to be definitive in any way.  They should investigate matter for themselves.  Of course it would grow tiresome to say this in front of every sentence, so it is really more an issue of our “style” in how we present things.  If we pretend we are some great scholar or yogi and make definitive proclamations about the “truth”, then we are in grave danger of making a fool of ourselves!  But if instead, we say things like “it seems to me,” and “from my perspective,” or “I don’t know if this is right, but…” etc., then there is little danger of people misunderstanding.

A final way, of course, we can abandon the Mahayana is of course to stop practicing or to put some sort of explicit limitation on who we will generate love, compassion and bodhichitta for.  This doesn’t mean we are breaking the vow if we have not yet generated a qualified universal compassion, but it does mean we break the vow if we say “I will attain enlightenment for all beings except this person.”

Stealing property from the Three Jewels. 

We incur this downfall if we steal anything that has been offered to the Three Jewels.  Besides the obvious meaning of embezzling funds or actually stealing something from a Dharma center or some practitioner, this vow has many more subtle implications.

While it is true that all Dharma centers say, “nobody will be refused for an inability to pay,” if we do make a commitment to pay a certain amount and then fail to follow up on that commitment, it is stealing.  The administrative directors of all centers will say the same thing, “do what you can afford, and don’t worry.”  All we need to do is discuss our situation with them and reach an agreement about what we can commit to, even if it is only $1 or nothing, but we will help clean up afterwards, something.  But if we fail to do this and sneak in hoping we can get away with not paying, and then afterwards think we got lucky that nobody stopped us, then this too is stealing.  If we copy correspondence recordings we don’t have a right to and didn’t pay for, this too is stealing.  If we use any property (physical or intellectual) of the three jewels without asking their permission and if we could reasonably suspect that they wouldn’t want us to do so then this too is stealing.  If we are in doubt about this and are not willing to ask if it is OK for us to use their property because we are afraid they might give us an answer we don’t want to hear, then this too is a form of stealing. 

Stealing from the three jewels is really a foolish thing to do.  Since the three jewels use everything they have for the sake of all living beings in all of their lives, stealing from them is karmically equivalent to stealing from all living beings in the worst possible way, namely stealing, even if only on the margin, their access to the Dharma. 

Not accepting other’s apologies. 

This vow means if someone who has harmed us later apologizes and we refuse to accept their apology, preferring to harbor a grudge, we incur a root downfall.  Accepting other’s apologies is a fundamental component of defusing anger in this world.  Anger is our greatest enemy.  It destroys everything that is good, and it has the power to seize our heart and never let go.  We have so little time in this world with a precious human life that we can’t waste even a moment of it harboring anger.  When others apologize and we fail to accept their apology, then the heart of the other person hardens and their anger returns.  If we accept their apology and then offer our own, it enables them to let go of their anger.  This is an act of supreme compassion, and one that both Jesus and Ghandi praised highly. 

Sometimes people will apologize to us without using words.  It can sometimes just be glancing at us in a certain way or sending a smiley face through the internet. 

One common mistake a lot of people make is they judge other people’s apologies as inadequate, and so therefore don’t accept them.  We ask questions like, “you say you are sorry, but what exactly are you sorry for?”  And if the other person doesn’t give the answer we seek, we then don’t accept their apology.  Many times people will say, “I’m sorry” with an angry tone, and they are not really sorry about what they did, they just wish there wasn’t this problem with you and they want it to go away.  We often reject such apologies out of hand.  But once again, if we don’t accept even this most meager of apologies, the other person will quickly revert back into their anger.  If, instead, we accept such apologies and once again offer our own, then it gives the situation an opportunity to defuse itself.

We might object, “but the other person isn’t really sorry, so if we accept their hollow apology it lets them off the hook and they never then generate real regret for their past deeds.”  Here we need to be skillful.  First, it is not up to us to play God and try manipulate the other person into thinking certain things.  All we can really do is look at our own mind in the mirror or Dharma and try to overcome our own delusions.  It is not up to us to withhold the virtue of not accepting somebody’s apology because we think they were not sincere enough.  Second, if we do accept their apology, then it helps disarm the tension and it opens up the space for them to look deeper within their own behavior.  Third, often times it is precisely because their apology was hollow that our sincerely accepting it as genuine will have such a big effect because the difference between where their mind is at and where our mind is at is so great. 

If we truly think it is counter-productive to them to accept their apology the way it was given, then at a minimum we can acknowledge that the other person regrets the fact that you are fighting about whatever the issue is.  You can say something along the lines of, “I am sorry that we are fighting,” or “I am sorry for my contribution to this being a fight.”  It can happen that the other person is completely wrong on the substance of the issue, but that should not distract us from our own role in transforming the disagreement into a fight. 

Just as it is important to accept people’s apologies, it is also important to know how to accept others apologies.  Generally speaking, when we accept somebody else’s apology we should make sure three things are present:  (1) we express thanks to the other person for having the maturity to apologize, (2) we make some expression of regret for our own mistakes in the situation, especially those things that we think trouble the other person the most, and (3)we have a shared laugh with the other person about how absurd we sometimes get.  All three of these are very important.  When we express appreciation for the effort the other person has made by apologizing, we reinforce that tendency and so make it more likely that the dynamic can continue in a positive direction.  When we admit and apologize for our own mistakes it enables the other person to let go of their anger towards us for what we have done wrong.  This is really important because most people are not perfect, so when they make the effort to apologize they expect us to do the same.  Perhaps they shouldn’t have such expectations, but it is quite a normal expectation to have.  When we fail to also apologize, then their anger can quickly return and they wind up walking back the apology they just made.  Having a shared laugh with the other person is in many ways the most important step because it eliminates any last residuals of resentment and it creates the space for things to get back on good footing. 

We continue our discussion of the downfall “not giving wealth or Dharma.”  In the last post, we discussed not giving wealth, in this post we turn to not giving Dharma.

In terms of giving the Dharma, as bodhisattvas, we should be no different than the greatest philanthropists of history, like Bill Gates.  The difference is we become spiritual philanthropists.  We actively seek to acquire as much inner spiritual wealth of realizations as we possibly can because we are so eager to give it away.  The mind of bodhichitta is almost no different than the mind of a philanthropist, the only real difference being the type of wealth we seek to acquire.  With such a mind, we start to view our lives completely differently.  We develop a new bottom line for our life.  When we are confronted with the various challenges of life, we see them as opportunities for us to learn the wisdom necessary to navigate through such situations.  We think of all the others who confront similar situations but don’t know what to do, and so we apply ourselves fully to learn how to navigate through the situation with wisdom with the intention to then share that wisdom with others on the other side. 

Venerable Tharchin explained that our gaining realizations with a wish to share them with others actually creates the causes for those who have similar problems to come into our karmic orbit so that we can help them.  He said growing Dharma centers, for example, is no mystery.  If the people in the center gain the realizations for knowing how to transform the typical daily lives of the people in a given region, then those realizations will act as a karmic magnet attracting people to find the center.  Of course we still conventionally have to get the publicity out there, but whether that publicity works depends on whether or not those seeing it receive blessings to be inspired to come.  These blessings karmically radiate out from the collective realizations of the Sangha in the center.  This does not necessarily mean that there will be large numbers of people who come, but what it does mean is large realizations will be transferred.  Venerable Tharchin also said that every person who comes into a Dharma center should correctly be viewed as the future savior of all.  There will come a time in the future of each of us when we ourselves will be the lineage holder, when we ourselves will be the portal between this world and the pure worlds of the Buddhas.  So even if only one person comes, that person has standing behind them all living beings.  Mark Zukerberg, the founder of Facebook, said every person on earth is no more than seven friends away (friend of a friend of a friend, etc.).  We are all quite close to one another.  Through each person, we ripple outwards quite quickly to everyone.  Infusing even one person with realizations literally heals the whole world, even if only on the margin.  Again, Venerable Tharchin says for every step we take towards enlightenment, we bring all beings with us in proportion to their karmic connection to us.  Every being is only at most seven friends away… 

Our giving of the Dharma is not limited to those who are Dharma teaches and it is not limited to helping out people in the Sangha.  George Takei (formerly Sulu on Star Trek, but now a social media icon) said something to the effect that social media is “folk wisdom and pictures of cats.”  People are starving for wisdom.  People know wisdom when they hear/read it, and it naturally speaks to their heart.  We may acquire our wisdom through the language of Dharma, but we are by no means limited to the language of Dharma for expressing the wisdom we realize.  Just as there are different languages in the world, such as English, French and Chinese, so too there are different cultural dialects for understanding the world.  Economists understand the world through the language and concepts of economics, physicists understand the world through the language and concepts of physics, musicians and artists understand the world through the language and concepts of music and art, etc.  People in the South have their own values, idioms and cultural references which is different than those in the north, but they all have different language sets and patterns for making sense of the world. 

If we are to give the Kadam Dharma our Spiritual Guide has given us to the people of this modern world, we need to learn all of these different languages, and more importantly we need to learn how to express the wisdom of the Kadam Dharma using the languages and cultural dialects that people speak and use.  If the Dharma is true, it must be true in all circumstances, so a football game can teach the lamrim just as well as anything else.  What discussion of politics can not be concluded with the disadvantages of self-cherishing?  If we have Dharma realizations in our mind, and we learn the about the world around us, we will then be able to express the Dharma through the myriad languages (linguistic and cultural) of the world and thereby give the Dharma to all the people of this world.  By finding the Dharma in everything, whether it is sports, politics, movies, our work environment, our family, our school, whatever, then we will learn how to express the wisdom of the Dharma on the field, in politics, at the movies, at work, in our family and at our schools.  And we will be able to do so without being all weird and awkward starting every sentence with “Geshe-la says” and others thinking we are some religious fanatic.  But if we lack the ability to transmit wisdom using non-Dharma words and examples, then we may know a lot of Dharma, but those realizations are nearly useless except for the few others who happen to speak the same “language.” 

Every day we should request Dorje Shugden, “please forge me into the Buddha I need to become.”  Dorje Shugden knows who we have the karma with to be their spiritual guide.  He knows what realizations they need us to gain so that we can help them.  So we request him to emanate a life for us that is a representative reflection of the life of those for whom we are destined to help.  We request him to give us their problems now so that we can learn how to use the Dharma to overcome them.  We then dedicate that the conditions be arranged for us to share the wisdom we have gained.  This is Dorje Shugden’s job.  This is what he does.  This is what he can do for us, if only we ask.  Once we make this request, our life transforms itself into the actualization of bodhichitta.  We view every situation as emanated for us to learn what we need to learn to be able to help others with similar problems in the future.  Dealing with a difficult boss or helping our spouse in their battle with cancer all start having a higher purpose and a higher meaning.  They will still be difficult to go through, but we will do so with the courageous mind of a bodhisattva knowing that the harder it is, the more people we will help in the future with the wisdom we gain.  Our life becomes a meaningful one full of giving Dharma, regardless of whether or not we are a Dharma teacher.  How wonderful!