Author: Kadampa Ryan

The importance of receiving teachings

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

Another fundamental thing I was reminded of at this Summer Festival is the importance of receiving teachings.  Unfortunately, due to the absolutely crazy karma that I have had over the last several years, about January 2010 I stopped doing my correspondence FP classes.  I have consistently been on FP or TTP since 1995, so this marked a major milestone on my spiritual path.  If I check honestly, I stopped for two reasons – one valid, one not valid.  The valid reason for stopping was given all that I had going on, I simply couldn’t keep up with it, even at a very slow pace.  Sometimes this may happen in life, but if we are lucky it will only be for very small patches of time.  The not so valid reason is since I felt like I could successfully transform my every day into a teaching through my “faithful mind of a student” (to the extent that I had one), I didn’t feel like I needed it any more.

The problem with this second reason is it is very short-sighted.  The only reason why I didn’t feel like I needed it was because I was riding high on the mountain of merit and blessings I had accumulated and received from the previous 15 years of intensive study.  But how did I get that merit and those blessings in the first place?  By receiving teachings and putting into practice what I was learning.  Eventually this merit will exhaust itself and the blessings will dissipate and then I will fall back.

Additionally, when you are not receiving new teachings, you are not being exposed to new ideas and points of view on the Dharma.  What happens then is new experiences bounce around the structure of Dharma you have already built within your mind, revealing new things about the interactions of what you know, but it doesn’t take you beyond your narrow understanding of the ocean of Dharma that has been revealed to us by our Spiritual Guide.  When we are exposed to new ideas and points of view on the Dharma, the structure of Dharma within our mind not only deepens it broadens.  So without new teachings, it is very easy to stagnate on the path.

Further, in general new understandings of the Dharma only arise in our mind in dependence upon oral transmission blessings. The importance of these is often under estimated.  We think, yeah, they are important, but they are not that big of a deal.  This view is not correct.  We can understand why by considering the emptiness of receiving Dharma teachings.  The Dharma is transmitted mind to mind, like a Vulcan mind meld, almost.  Literally, at a profound level, what is happening when we receive teachings is the teacher is transferring/transmitting their own personal experience of the Dharma into the minds of the students.  Conventionally this happens through “listening”.  The mental realizations of the teacher take on a grosser form of speech.  When the student “listens” to the teachings (as opposed to merely hearing them), the realization then gets transferred into the student’s mind.  The more faith the student has, the more fully and deeply they “listen”.  When we don’t listen to Dharma teachings, we don’t receive these oral transmission blessings, and as such we are largely on our own without a teacher.  We might think that if we have a faithful mind of a student we can receive teachings directly from our guru through our daily lives.  This is true, we can do this.  But surely the teachings of our Spiritual Guide pass through “the sound of Dharma” more fully than they do through other sounds (due to their nature being pure).  So receiving teachings through our daily life is good, but it is no substitute for receiving traditional teachings.

And this points to an important relationship.  One one hand, we have the extreme of thinking that we can only receive teachings through attending traditional teachings.  This view arises from a limited understanding of how the guru can reveal the Dharma to us.  On the other hand, you have the extreme of thinking you don’t need any traditional teachings at all.  This view falsely derives from the observation that it is possible to receive teachings through everything, therefore thinking that because that is the case I no longer need teachings.  But just as the sound of Dharma carries more Dharma than non-Dharma sounds, so too the entire experience of attending teachings teaches more Dharma than our non-teaching experiences.  The middle way between these two extremes is to attend as many traditional teachings as your karma allows while maintaining the faithful mind of a student in all of our daily activities so as to receive teachings through everything.

In my personal case, this means attending as many of the major festivals as my karma allows and starting up again my FP studies.  I was fortunately able to make it to this Summer Festival.  I can’t do the Summer Festival next year because I will be back in Washington on a mandatory training.  But, since I will be in DC next Fall, I should be able to take maybe 2-3 days to attend the Fall Festival in Portugal where Venerable Geshe-la will be granting the Prajnaparamita empowerment and giving an “oral transmission” of the his new book, “The New Heart of Wisdom.”  So I should really do everything I can to try attend, especially since this very well might be the last teaching Venerable Geshe-la gives before he passes on.  This is a must.  As far as my FP studies are concerned, what I can do is substitute one day of my normal daily practice with listening to a teaching by correspondence.  This I should normally be able to do.  I can also use this time I have this Summer when the family is in the U.S. to listen to as many teachings as I can.  I feel very fortunate in that I am able to receive teachings from Venerable Tharchin, arguably the most experienced meditater in the tradition.  For those who don’t know him, he teaches the entire tradition how to do retreat.

The point is this:  each one of us has our own karmic circumstance.  All of us, however, can follow the same principle – namely we receive as much traditional teachings our karma allows while viewing the rest of our experiences as teachings being revealed to us through our daily lives.  This, to me, seems to be the middle way.

The importance of reconnecting with Sangha

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

I just got back from the Summer Festival.  I have been going to Summer Festivals every year since 1995, but due to all of the karmic changes in my life over the last few years, for the first time I wasn’t able to make it in 2010 and 2011.  I tried to go to Brazil, had bought my ticket, taken my vacation time, but stupidly didn’t bother to check whether or not I needed a visa until it was too late.  So this is the longest I have gone without being at a festival and reconnecting with my global spiritual family.  It was so nice to be able to go to the festival, reconnect with old friends and receive live teachings.

It is amazing how at a festival Dorje Shugden manages for you to have a personalized festival meeting up with everyone you need to and having the conversations you need to have.  Some of the highlights for me were as follows:

  1. I was able to meet Venerable Tharchin, who I consider to be my main teacher for more than a decade now.  Normally when I meet with him, I just babble on and never listen.  So this time I said I was going to talk little so that I can listen more.  In fact, I even told him that in the meeting as a joke, but I made a new mistake this time!  I didn’t walk into the meeting with a question in my heart.  So when I told him I want to listen, I stopped talking and then he just stared at me in silence…  It was a very powerful teaching in and of itself, namely whenever we go for refuge, be it a meeting with your teacher, a live teaching or in your prayers, we should always have a question in our heart.  How can we receive answers if we don’t have questions?
  2. I was able to meet with one of my old teachers.  She is now the Resident Teacher at Manjushri.  I haven’t really spoken with her much in a few years, and like me, she has been in a period of karmic flux over the last few years.  It was very nice to speak with her.  She started out the meeting by saying we don’t really give advice any more, rather we share our experience and people take from it what they want.  For about the next hour, she then proceeded to tell an elaborate tale about jealousy, how attachment to what other people think of you prevents the flourishing of the Dharma, and how her job now is to just love people.  She had an amazing ability to see deeply into the hearts of others, see what their core problem is, and bring it to the surface so that we can work through it.  Even though she was just “telling a story” for me, it functioned as a very powerful teaching about something deep in my heart.  Amazing!  It was really great to see her again.
  3. I was able to have good, long conversations with two very dear friends from my time when I was in Paris about 14 years ago.  We have seen each other at various festivals over the years, but never really had the opportunity to have a real deep conversation about how each was doing and what we have been working on in our practice.  One friend has basically spent the last decade in hell, but through sincere reliance has managed to change himself completely.  He said what enabled him to change was realizing that “identifying our delusions is itself a spiritual practice, and even if we spend our whole life doing just that, it is a well used spiritual life.”  Because he didn’t realize this before, the more he would study Dharma the more he would see his faults, and therefore the more he would beat himself up over being inadequate.  So far from making him happier, he would feel worse and worse about himself robbing him of any joy.  But when he realized becoming aware of our faults is itself a spiritual training he was able to accept where he was at and therefore create the space to change himself as opposed to beat himself up.  With another friend, I was able to realize I have had all sorts of jealousy, competitiveness and insecurity towards him, but through talking we were able to both have a good laugh at our respective delusions and reestablish that vajra brother bond.
  4. I was able to spend a good deal of time with my fellow Kadampa in the blogosphere, Vide Kadampa, author of the blog “Daily Lamrim” (in the links section).  It was truly amazing how much we have in common in terms of our outlook and approach to the Dharma.  We discussed the benefits and potential pitfalls of doing a blog (also subject of a future post), but mostly we talked about starting on the Tantric path.  He has laid a fantastic foundation of Lamrim, and we discussed how to integrate our lamrim practice into our Tantric practice.  He too is a Kadampa Working Dad, and somebody I cherish very much as a close Dharma friend.

I have much more I will write about my experience at the Summer Festival, but an additional resolution I have made is to make my blog postings shorter and more readable.  So I will sign off here for now.  The main point is the virtual world is great for being able to maintain your connection with your global Sangha family, but it is no substitute for reconnecting with your spiritual family live.  While sometimes our karma may not allow it, in our heart we should always maintain the wish to be with them and to reconnect with them every opportunity we get.  In my view, this is vital for our continued spiritual progress and has the added benefit of creating the causes to meet once again our spiritual tradition in all our future lives between now and our eventual enlightenment!

Reflections on overcoming laziness

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life
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.  

Reflections on overcoming attachment

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life
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

Kadampa Ryan 5. 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

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra
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

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life
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

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

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Activating our inner Spiritual Guide
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

Kadampa Ryan Activating our inner 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.