| Non-activity is a bottomless pit. The less you do in order to ‘relax’, the less you want to do, the more tired you become. Then you do even less, which causes the whole cycle to start over again. The final destination of this is doing nothing. This is the cycle of laziness. It is good that our lives are so demanding because it keeps us on our toes and engaged. It leaves no space for laziness to take over. |
| Two good sayings that came to me today: |
| 1. Don’t leave for others things what can be done by you. (similar to why put off until tomorrow what you can do today.) |
| 2. Every day, make the decision to become a better person. |
| The ocean of omniscient wisdom is created drop by drop. I need to be content to add little drops of wisdom every day. Little by little, these drops grow and gradually fill the ocean. Sometimes they come together for something earth-shattering, but usually wisdom arises from the gradual cummulation of little insights over the course of a lifetime. I gain these insights by applying effort to use the Dharma to solve my daily problems, or to learn the Dharma that my life reveals. |
Author: Kadampa Ryan
Reflections on overcoming attachment
| Pride and sexual attachment kill more spiritual beings than any other delusions. We saw this with Gen-la Samden and others. I see this within myself. Divine pride and bliss is correct, but lacking clear discriminating wisdom and strength of pure motivation we become deceived by pride and sexual attachment. These come before the fall. If once we do fall we do not acknowledge and admit our mistake, then we can never pick ourselves back up again. What scares me most about the Gen-la Samden story is how when he came back he could not admit his mistake but continued to insist he hadn’t made any. As long as we do not admit and acknowledge our mistakes and negativity as such we can never start again. It does not matter that we fall. It is normal, it will take many tries just like in learning to master a video game. We identify and acknowledge our errors, learn something for next time, pick ourselves up and try again. But if our pride does not allow us to identify and acknolwedge our errors, but instead tries to justify and rationalize why we made none, then there is no picking ourselves up and moving on. |
| I just had a dream. This is what I understood from it. When you generate attachment for somebody, even slight that you are not expressing, it functions to push that person away from you. When you are their connection to the spiritual path or a spiritual life, the net effect of your attachment is to destroy their spiritual life. But when you keep more of a distance, but remain open and ready to help, then it creates the space for people to come towards you from their own side. When they do, though, you need to be careful to not generate attachment for them again, because if you do, then new obstacles to your relationship will arise. |
Reflections on reliance upon Dorje Shugden
| Dorje Shugden is my real Sangha now. I need to surrender my life entirely to him. I need to surrender my retreat to him and his control. He emanates exactly what I need to work on, and my job is to practice Dharma in the face of whatever arises. He has the power to harness my virtuous and negative karma for my enlightenment. |
| Ultimately, I need to completely surrender myself to DS and see what happens. |
| The request for this life can be ‘please help me to be ready to leave at the end of this life.’ This eliminates the pride of it is a given while still keeping the value of having made a definitive decision to leave at the end of this life. It also specifies what I must do between now and then, namely get ready. |
| It is also a good idea for me to start doing the full Dorje Shugden part because it is by wishing for the Dharma to flourish and be protected in the world that I create the causes for it to flourish in my mind and in my world. My whole world (whole mind) need to be freed, not just me. For this to happen, the whole world must have pure spiritual teachings and wish to follow them. For myself, I apply effort to gain realizations so that I can later help others with them. If I gain realizations with this intention, then the conditions will arrange themselves for me to be able to share them. For others, I pray to Dorje Shugden that he cares for them in the most appropriate ways according to their karmic dispositions. I am currently quite limited in what I can do directly for others, but he is without limit. They are my spiritual children, but I lack the ability to care for them. I must entrust them into his care. To not do so is to neglect them. What good parent neglects their children? |
| These are some of the dedications/requests I make to Dorje Shugden: |
| 1. I offer you every atom in my body, every thought in my mind, every appearance in my world, please use them all for the enlightenment of all beings. |
| 2. I entrust my life completely to you. Please do with me whatever needs to be done. |
| 3. Please purify everything that stands in the way of you completely taking over my life, internally and externally. |
| 4. Please protect and guide my retreat. |
| 5. Please do not let me arrive at death not being ready to go to the pure land. |
| 6. May my every action be dedicated to building my pure land. |
| 7. Please help me to take my place within VGL’s holy mandala. |
| I should request Dorje Shugden, “I entrust my life to you, please be my enlightened Game Master.” |
| If you engage in the mental action of recognizing everything that appears as having been emanated by Dorje Shugden, this mental action plants the karma on your mind to have this actually be the case in the future, where everything that does arise is indeed emanated by him. This mental action gives him the karmic material to work with. Further, by adopting this recognition now, he enters into every appearance that appears now, and through this you receive his wisdom blessings. His blessings function to bestow upon you the wisdom to understand how everything that does arise is indeed perfect for your enlightenment and that of all living beings. With this understanding, there is no basis for generating delusions with respect to anything that arises. |
| I need to have DS take over my entire world, not only for me but for all of the beings in my dream. The pure world I am building has him as its govenor. I request him to manage and govern this world, so that everything that karmic ally arises is perfect for the swiftest possible enlightenment of each and every living being. I request that he takes all the beings of my dream into his loving care and protection. That everything that arises to the mind of every being function as a powerful cause of their enlightenment. I request that things not be uncontrolled by the SC mind, but controlled by him. By me making these requests and maintaining this recognition, it will become the reality of my dream. In the short run, in the form of wisdom blessings; and in the long run, in the form of karmic emanations arising from these mental actions. I will gain the wisdom to be able to understand how anything that happens to anybody is actually perfect for their enlightenment, then I simply share my perspective with them. They can then come to see how it is perfect for them as well, and then they can happily relate to their adversity in this way. Then we can use the suffering generated by SC as a means of destroying it. Also, by making these requests, I create the causes for him to take over my life and to protect me. |
| Dorje Shugden is not limited to managing what externally arises, but he is more powerful at managing what internally arises. I have weakly relied upon him for that. He is even more powerful for what secretly arises. I have not relied upon him at all for that. Much of my motivation of late has been aimed at whatever is best for these external changes. This is good, but it is largely a worldly motivation. I need to not lose sight of the bigger picture. |
| My requesting DS to take over the management of your karmic dream, requesting him to use every appearance for the enlightenment of all beings, and then adopting the view that this is now the case, everything is indeed arising in this way (believing faith) then you will gain the wisdom that sees how this is in fact the case. Then nothing will be a problem for you, and you will have the wisdom necessary to help others see things the way you do and thereby they will not have a problem with anything either. In this way, you transform your samsaric world into the experience of being in the pure land. Then, in dependence upon this view and these mental actions over a long period of time, you plant the karma on your mind so that this becomes your living reality. Then you are actually in the pure land. |
Reflections on Completion Stage/Mahamudra
| The meditation on the Dharmakaya is the making still the waters of the ocean of our root mind of great bliss. Every object is like a wave on the ocean arising from karma and delusion. Delusion activiates contaminated seeds which create waves which reflect the appearance of contaminated objects. As I make still my mind, the waves pacify, the contaminated appearances cease, the mind becomes increasingly clear until it is clear light. |
| When you allow the waves of contaminated appearance to subside, you are able to abide directly with your guru and you realize that he is literally behind and the real nature of everything. |
| The most important possession of anybody is their mind. It controls everything and enables them to do anything. Yet, this is the possession we completely neglect, to our peril. We must care for our mind, keep it clean, powerful and well functioning so it can take us to where we want to go. We need to care for our mind like a car enthusiast would, like those guys who wash their car and care for every detail obsessively. Right now, my mind is dark, dirty and uncontrolled. I need to give it light, clean it up and get it in good working order. If I do everything but this, which is what I and others typically do, then I won’t be able to do anything. But if I do do this, I will be able to accomplish anything. Our mind is like a wild horse that we have no choice but to ride. We must bring it under control and become the one in charge. |
| The above discussion is correct, but not fully correct. It grasps at us as having two different minds in us. In reality, we have one mind. It is the same mind. But it is currently completely out of control and we are identifying with and following one of the illusions being kicked up by the fact that our mind is uncontrolled, contaminated and distorted. We grasp at ourselves as being an illusory wave. We need to see past this illusion, realize it is not who we really are, and instead stay focused upon the pure ocean. We bring the ocean of our mind under control, allow it to become still. As we do so, the illusory contaminated reflections which we remain imprisoned within (samsara) will subside and we will be left with the purity and clarity of the Dharmkaya. The conventional guru is a focal point of purity within our mind that we can more easily identify and identify with. By drawing closer to it and coming under its influence we come to center ourselves within a point of calm. Within the space or perspective of the guru, everything is harmonious and symmetric. Everything is clear. We know what to abandon and what to attain, we know what is deceptive and what is reliable. By acting from and abiding within this space, we are able to very quickly pacify the uncontrolled waters of our mind. Once sufficiently pacified, we eventually leave this conventional guru behind and pacify and dissolve even it and come to abide in the complete tranquility, purity and stillness within. |
| When dissolving everything into the DK, it is important that it not be something abstract. You are not meditating on the abstract idea of all phenomena dissolving into B&E, but rather on the first hand, living experience of this happening right where you are with the appearances around you. It should feel as your first hand experience with respect to the actual world around you. Then, likewise, when you generate the pure world, you should also experience these appearances as your first hand, living reality. |
Initial reflections on Karma
| When you engage in negative actions, or indulge in negative minds, then it is not the cause of the difficulties you face, rather it functions to activate more serious negative seeds on your mind. These small negativities are the trigger for the experience of more negative seeds already stored on your mind. You need to escape from thinking in terms of the punishment model. You are not being punished with these obstacles because of your small negativities, it is just how it works – negative minds activate negative seeds. |
Reflections on the Great Scope
| Bodhichitta is orthogonal to all negative karma I have accumulated, and it also is the best way to accumulate merit since there is nothing more virtuous than the intention to lead all beings to permament freedom. |
| You need to assume responsibility for your own happiness. |
| The entire universe is my dream. This dream is firing off in an uncontrolled way. In reality, the Director of my dream is my self-cherishing mind. My SC mind is governing this world towards a specific goal, namely putting every single being into the deepest hell. It is not just uncontrolled, random, it is an uncontrolled freefall for the lower realms. Look at what people are doing. They are racing to their own damnation. The SC director is so devious that he convinces everyone that by following their SC wishes they will attain perfect happiness. It promises perfect happiness but delivers eternal suffering. It is so deceptive and so devious. |
Reflections on the lower realms
| If we do not take control of our uncontrolled mind, we will be a slave to it, and it will no doubt take us to the lower realms. There is only one destination our ordinary mind is trying to take us and that is the lower realms. It really is the devil. It will trick us with all sorts of lies and illusions trying to convince us that it is taking us to heaven. Because we buy into its lies, we happily follow it to hell. |
| As basic as it sounds, it really is like bugs bunny. There are two minds within us, our ordinary mind (which is the devil in disguise as our closest friend) and our pure mind (which is the angel of our guru who has come to guide us to the pure land). We need to decide who we are going to listen to and who we are going to follow. What our ordinary mind promises seems so much more appealing, but it is all deceptive lies designed to ensnare us into its traps from which we will never escape and be literally dragged to hell. Worse yet, we will go there of our own seeming volition completely oblivious to the fact that we march to our doom. |
Reflections on reliance upon the Spiritual Guide
| I need to completely surrender control to my spiritual guide at my heart. It is like I transform myself into a puppet which he controls. It is almost like I make myself an inanimate object, like a car or a robot, but he is the one controlling me. He is the life within me. The goal is to have my every action be his. I need to completely abandon any self-will. I have no agenda other than to surrender myself to him. He then takes over and uses me to liberate all beings. |
| There is a difference between ‘surrendering control to the guru’ and ‘doing nothing.’ I am engaging in an action, and the action is to create the conditions so that I hand over control to him. I am not handing over control to my delusions and letting them run wild. When my delusions are functioning, I am their puppet. I need to create a stillness within me, a stillness of my delusions and ordinary mind, so that he may take over. I must ‘maintain’ the stillness on an on-going basis, which requires tremendous mindfulness in every moment. |
| To surrender control to my guru, internally, I must do the following: |
| 1. I need to actively align my motivation with his. His motivation is to liberate all beings. To accomplish this, his motivation is to forge me into a Buddha so that I may be an instrument of his peace. I need to make active within my own mind this same wish. |
| 2. I need to abandon my own plans and agenda. I let him decide what I do next, what I need to work on, etc. I adopt a mind of adventure, ready to see what he has in store next for me. |
| 3. I must make and maintain my ordinary mind completely still. My ordinary mind creates interference and it also takes over. When my ordinary mind is manifest, it takes control of me and does deluded things with me. If it is in control, how can my guru be in control? |
| 4. In an active way, I must wish him to work through me. Depending on the circumstance, I make requests such as ‘reveal to me what I need to do now’, ‘what should I understand from this situation?’, ‘please speak through me, fill me with your words’, ‘what do you want me to do?’, ‘what next?’, etc. |
| We need to dissolve the guru into our heart, and completely surrender to him. Our goal is to become his puppet. “My only wish is for you to take over completely my life.” We abandon any independent self-will, and surrender ourselves completely to his control. He takes over, and controls us like a puppet. To effectively do this, we need to: |
| 1. Make our ordinary mind completely still. |
| 2. Abandon any independent self-will or plan or agenda of what we think is best, and instead surrender completely to him. |
| 3. With deep faith, wish for him to take control of us and to do with us what he wishes. |
| 4. Most importantly, we need to align our motivation with his. One effective way to do this is to generate simply the wish to serve him, to help him accomplish his wishes. We become his servant. What does he wish for? He wishes for us to improve our qualifications so that we can be of greater and greater benefit to living beings, eventually being able to guide them to enlightenment. |
| I need to become like an Avatar, and GSBH is the one controlling me. I am a tool to be handed over to the guru so that he can do with me what he wishes, use me in the best possible way. I need to not only surrender myself in this life, but I need to surrender all my future lives so that from this time forward, he is in control. |
| When we start our practices or sadhanas, we are starting from the space of our ordinary self. With the refuge contemplations, we become aware of the fact that our mind is under the control of the devil of our ordinary mind and it will drag us to hell from which there is no escape. We then visualize the guru, who seems like an ‘other’ but is actually our true self. We then wish to draw closer to and come under the influence of our guru so that he may deliver us to the pure land. Our sense of I is currently indistinguishable from our ordinary mind. We think they are one and the same. This is an aspect of our self-grasping ignorance. We fail to make the distinction between our I, which is a mere name a label which is not the problem, and our ordinary mind, which is its current basis of imputation. We think we ARE our ordinary mind. We need to break this identification, and long to and make effort to transfer our sense of I to the guru’s mind, which is in reality our pure mind. Then, through our tantric practice, we dissolve the guru into our heart, into our root mind, and train in identifying with his mind as our own until we feel this to be our living experience. We then must familarize ourselves with this experience again and again over a long period of time, both in meditation and outside of it, until it feels to be us more than our old ordinary self. We will come to relate to this purity as ourselves, who we are. Then, when we fall back into our ordinary self, we will think, ‘this is not me, this is not who I am.’ |
| We are currently trapped in the spell of our ordinary mind, and we must wish to break free. We do so by allowing ourselves to be drawn to the guru, staying focused on his voice, his wisdom, and applying effort to move towards him. We need to turn our back on our negativity and delusions. We need to leave them behind. We can do this by confessing them, acknowledging them as misguided and wrong and deceptive and taking us in the wrong direction combined with wishing to now turn towards the light of our guru. |
| I need to completely submit myself to my guru at my heart. I need to want for him to completely take over and I do whatever he says without questions, with total faith, like a good soldier. We submit internally, not externally. My guru wants to take me to the pure land, but to get there I have to allow him to take me there. I do not have the power to get there on my own, I need to be taken there by him. I need to have deep experience of submission and doing exactly what he says without hesitation and allowing him to completely take over. If I have this experience, then at the time of my death I dissolve him into my heart, I generate the pure wish to go to the pure land, and then I submit myself to him requesting, ‘please take me to the pure land.’ As long as I am trying to retain even a slight degree of control by my ordinary self, I can’t get there. I need to renounce the control of my ordinary self completely and surrender it completely to my guru. Since my ordinary self is a false self fabricated by my distorted and deluded mind, to hold on to its control is, paradoxically, what leaves me uncontrolled. It tricks me into thinking my freedom depends on it retaining control, but by holding on to such control I reinforce and feed that which makes my mind uncontrolled in the first place. The point is if I am going to be able to completely surrender myself to the guru to take me to the pure land at the time of my death, I need deep experience of doing this during my life. Retaining control with my ordinary self, believing this is what makes me free, is actually what makes me a slave to my deluded mind and what leaves me out of control. |
| Externally, we surrend ourselves completely to Dorje Shugden that he arrange whatever needs to be. Internally, we surrend ourselves completely to our guru at our heart, to use us as his avatar in this world, to guide us, to act through us, to reveal to us what we need to do, to teach us, etc. |
Self-fulfilling Drama
The essential ingredient in all delusion is inappropriate attention. This is when we exaggerate in some way the situation, then we relate to that exaggeration as if it were true. Because of this, we act in all sorts of goofy and self-destructive ways that just make everything worse.
For example, it is quite common for adolescents/pre-teens to fall into the trip of thinking “nobody likes me” or “I don’t have any friends” or “everyone is ignoring me.” This is obviously not true, but one of the functions of delusions is to literally transform what appears to our mind where this is indeed what is vividly appearing to our mind – it appears to us, objectively, that nobody likes us, etc. Because of that, we then think we are bothering people when we are around or we misinterpret everything they do. We then get upset about the fact that they are not liking us the way we would want them to, this then becomes us being upset at them, becoming jealous when they interact with other people instead of us. But because we are getting upset, jealous, or are generally acting ackward, other people then naturally don’t want to interact with us because we are acting wierd or are being high maintenance. Then what we imagined to be true – namely that nobody likes us – become actually true. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We likewise do this with people who bother us. Somebody does some minor thing. We exaggerate how important it is what the other person did and we exaggerate the harm we experience and we exaggerate the importance of ourselves “why do things like this always happen to me!?” We then get upset at the other person, usually making some snarky remarks, and then the other people get upset at us and strike back in some way. They become the very bad guy we constructed them to be.
The way to cut this cycle is to stop exaggerating! We need to stop being a drama queen that makes a big deal out of everything. Nothing is a big deal unless we make a big deal out of it. But when we make a big deal out of things, we transform ourselves into emotional yo-yos and we become generally annoying to those around us. There is nothing less attractive than being overly sensitive, moody and irritable. Instead, we just need to remind ourselves that everything that happens is just the play of karmic appearance. Nothing is a big deal because nothing is really happening – it is all karmic phantasamagoa, mere appearances dancing within the emptiness of our mind. Why get sucked in, bogged down or bothered by a karmic light show? When we keep things light, we keep things “cool” and “chillaxed” and we become more friendly, playful, light-hearted and a delight to be around. We laugh instead of become upset when things go in a way other than what we planned.
Fortunately, this self-fulfilling dynamic also works in a positive sense. If you believe that everyone is an emanation of your spiritual guide sent to give you an opportunity to train your mind, cut the drama, be light, be positive, be happy, then you start interpreting everything others do in this light. You then learn all sorts of spiritual lessons about yourself and about life. You make effort to train your mind to respond differently and create new “no Drama” habits. Eventually you reach the point where you are so spacious within that nothing ever disturbs the joyful stillness of your inner peace. You become a traveller, somebody who voyages through this world from one karmic adventure to another.
Reflections on useful worldviews
| You need to assume responsibility for the meaning of your life. Properly viewed, like if just a series of emotional challenges, everything else is just the context for that. The challenge is to respond free from delusion and full of virtue. |
| A very interesting, and perhaps powerful, mind is the mind that says, ‘this is my last life in samsara.’ |
| 1. It is a mind that knows it is leaving. Because it knows it is leaving, it does not get attached to what one has in this place. You can use and enjoy what you have, but you do not become attached to it because you know you are going to be moving on. You also become less bothered by what you do not like in a place because you know it is temporary. |
| 2. It also helps bring into focus what matters (what you can take with you) and what does not (what you cannot). You then naturally focus on cultivating what matters and don’t become bogged down with what does not. You can take with you the personal qualities you develop and experiences you have, but you cannot take with you the objects of that place. |
| 3. As an analogy, the mind changes when we know we are leaving a place. When we knew we were leaving America, when we knew we were leaving Geneva, and now the mind that thinks/knows we will be leaving Denton eventually to perhaps take up a job at the State Department. You do what needs to be done in that place and then you move on. There are certain tasks for you to do in each place, and when they are completed, you then move on to the next place. You move on once you have copleted what needs to be done in that place. One of the advantages of working in the State Department is no matter where you are, you are always leaving. So you train in this mind of always going to be leaving. There are certain things you have to do and get done before you leave. |
| 4. If this is my last life in samsara, then I can view everything I am doing as the things I have to do to get my affairs in order before I leave samsara. I can also view my every activity as me preparing to go. Me getting prepared to go. To be able to go, there are certain things I have to get done, certain things I have to do. But since I have made the internal decision that I am going, I then focus my efforts on doing those things so as to be able to go. |
| 5. The mind that I am leaving is definitely a part of the mind of renunciation. What is less clear is the proper balance on the mind of ‘this is my last life.’ From one perspective, it is more powerful of a mind that says I am leaving and gets all the advantages of it more strongly. But from another perspective, it can lead to either attachment to results and stress and pressure from that or it can lead to complacency if this mind is conjoined with a false pride that it is a given that this is your last life. I need to give this one more thought to fully flesh out the proper balance here, to find another formulation of the thought. |
| 6. One other thing, we are born alone and we will leave alone. But from another perspective, others are minds are not separate from my own, so we are all always together |
| Life really is like a karmic video game, or karmic virtual reality game. Nothing is really happening, it is all just karmic appearance arising from the clear light of my very subtle mind. But despite that, there are definite things that need to be done. If we do not realize it is a karmic video game, then there is a very real risk of us getting sucked into it and we will suffer from it as if it was real. First and foremost, you must make sure that the game master is Dorje Shugden. Without his protection, what karmic appearances arise will be completely random at best, or uncontrollably awful at worst. If we are not mindful of how we are responding to what arises, we can easily set of chain reactions of very adverse karmic appearances, which we continue to respond to negatively, which causes even more negative karmic appearances, etc. With Dorje Shugden as the game master, he still has to work with the karma that is on your mind. He cannot invent karmic appearances for you. So what appears will still be quite normal for samsara, but what he can control is which karmic seeds ripen, in what order, in what mental context in terms of how we interpret the karmic appearance, and towards what goal. His only goal is to forge us as quickly as our karma will allow into the Buddha we need to become. We hand over our karmic storehouse to him, request him to manage it for swiftest possible enlightenment and the enlightnement of all, and then we need to keep planting onto our mind more and more useful, virtuous and pure karmic seeds that he can use towards his objective. We align ourselves with his intention, request him to forge us into a Buddha and then give him plenty of karmic material to work with through a steady stream of our virtuous actions. |
| Within the karmic game itself, we have two objectives. |
| 1. To clean up the karmic mess we have previously created. The karma of our mind is contaminated. It has created a very expansive and messy samsara in which countless living beings are suffering from all of samsara’s torments. We have created this samsara. It is the contaminated world of our creation. We need to clean it up. How? First, through ceasing to respond in a deluded and negative what to what arises. This prevents things from getting worse. There will still be plenty of negative karma from our previous negative actions on our mind which will ripen, but we will cease to plant new seeds (or at least plant them at a slower rate) for future suffering. Second, we need to correct for the harm we have already done. We should take responsibility for everything that has happened or is happening to everyone. Directly or indirectly we are responsible for everything because it is all our karmic dream. We have set in motion everything that is happening with our past actions (I need to explain this in more detail, but I won’t for now for the sake of the flow of this idea). To correct for our past wrong deeds, we need to engage in a series of virtuous actions that are, in effect, the opposite of all the harm we have done. Actions motivated by bodhichitta are orthogonal to ALL of the negative actions we have committed with respect to all living beings. It is the supreme and most rapid method for correcting for our past harm. It is the opposite of all the harm we have done. Likewise, actions motivated by compassion, exchanging self with others and all the other Mahayana minds function to correct for the harm we have committed. We engage in helpful actions that create happiness in others. This is like cleaning up a room. First we stop making more of a mess, then we engage in a series of actions to clean up the mess we previously created. Eventually, we are able to clean everything up and return it to its proper place. What is the proper place for every phenomena? The clear light Dharmakaya. The ultimate supreme method for correcting for the harm we have created is the meditation on having gathered and dissolved all phenomena into the clear light Dharmakaya motivated by conventional bodhichitta. When you connect with the emptiness of a phenomena, motivated by bodhichitta, it functions to purify the contaminated karma giving rise to that appearance. Doing this with all phenomena is like managing to put the genie of samsara back into the bottle in one go! By holding this concentration, moment by moment it functions to purify or clean up all of samsara. In short, stop making more of a mess, assume responsibility for everything, and take corrective actions, the supreme of which are conventional and ultimate bodhichitta. |
| 2. Once you have cleaned up the mess, then the second phase of the project begins: building your pure land. It is not enough to just clean up the mess you have created, you must also build a new pure world for all beings. We do this primarily through our tantric practices of generation and completion stage. Through these practices we karmicly build a new pure world. We build this world so that we may invite all beings into it so that they themselves can engage in all of the stages of the path leading to their full enlightenment. First, we must build it within our mind. Then, we must come to abide within it ourselves. Then we invite others to join us. Then we help them complete all the tasks and absorbtions to be completed within the pure land to take them to their own enlightenment. The Pure Land is, for all practical purposes, a training camp for Tantric bodhisattvas. It is like a Tantric University, or a Tantric incubator. In reality, building the pure land is one of the corrective actions we can engage in as mentioned above in number 1. But whenever we engage in our tantric practice, we first generate bodhichitta, then we engage in all sorts of virtue, then we dissolve everything into the clear light Dharmakaya, then from that Dharmakaya we build our pure land. So for this reason, I have listed it in this order. |
Kadampa Working Dad 