Author: Kadampa Ryan

Emptiness and responsibility, part 4

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Ultimate stages of the path

In this final post of this series, I will try explain how I practice in the meditation break what I consider to be the most profound part of emptiness, namely how all phenomena are by nature mind.

First, what does it mean to say that all phenomena are mere karmic appearances “of mind”?  “Of mind” means that the conventional nature of all phenomena is mind.  The term “by nature” in a Dharma context roughly means “made of”, or “substance.”  In other words, all conventional objects are “made of” or are comprised of the “substance” of mind.  The nature of a gold coin is the gold, and its aspect is that of a coin.  In the final view of emptiness, we go one step further saying that objects are not just by nature mind, they are by nature our very subtle mind of great bliss.  It even goes one step further, by saying the ultimate nature of all objects is the emptiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss.  The emptiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss is like the gold of the gold coin of all phenomena.  Put in other terms, the emtpiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss is like the Play Dough that gets shaped in the apsect of each and every object.  Just as you cannot separate the coin from the gold or the object from its underlying Play Dough, so too you cannot separate any object from its ultimate nature of the emptiness of our mind of great bliss. 

So how do I practice this knowledge in the meditation break?  First, I try train myself where I remember this wisdom every time I look at an object.  For example, I know with certainty that the World Trade Center is no longer in New York.  So when I see an old picture of the NYC skyline, the mere appearance of the World Trade Center buildings instantly reminds me that they are no longer there.  In the same way, I know for certain (intellectually at least) that all phenomena are nothing other than mere karmic appearances of mind, so the very appearance of any object “actually being there” reminds me that in reality nothing is actually there and it is just the emptiness of my very subtle mind assuming the form of (disguised as) the object.  Like any subject, the more I remind myself of the meaning of emptiness, the more familiar I become with this wisdom, and the more deeply I undestand and the more easily I remember it in a virtuous cycle. 

The second way I practice this is I try stop thinking of myself as somehow separate from everything, but rather to consider Ryan as merely a single wave on the ocean of my the emptiness of my very subtle mind of great bliss.  We naturally identify with our mind.  If we see all of reality as being by nature our mind, we start to identify ourselves as being the nature of everything.  Put another way, we see the entire universe as being by nature us.  I cease to be just Ryan and instead I feel as if I am the ocean of everything.  Every single phenomena is a wave on the ocean of my mind.  Samsara is my mind in the aspect of a turbulant, uncontrolled stormy ocean.  The pure land of my self-generation practice is my mind in the aspect of Keajra (Heruka’s pure land).  This is why it is called a “yoga” of self-generation.  In normal yoga, we put our body in certain positions (sometimes strange and uncomfortable positions) and then hold that positition and learn to relax into it.  In the same way, in our self-generation practice, we put all of our mind into the “mental position” or shape of Keajra, and then hold that position and learn to relax into it.    By adopting this ocean view, the duality between ourselves and all phenomena falls away and we experience reality as if all phenomena were inseparably one (and this oneness is ourselves).

On the basis of this experience, all of the vast path of Sutra comes effortlessly.  In says in the Lamrim texts that bodhichitta, or the wish to become a Buddha so as to lead all beings to freedom, is the quintessential butter that comes from churning all of the Dharma.  When I see all phenomena, which includes all other living beings, as waves on the ocean of my very subtle mind, each and every being becomes an aspect or a part or a limb of me.  This doesn’t mean all beings are parts of Ryan, rather it means Ryan is just one aspect or part or limb or wave of the bigger me which is the ocean of my mind.  The same is then true of all other beings – each is a wave, but we are all by nature the same ocean.  There is nothing about the Ryan wave that is more important than any other wave.  So just as I strongly wish for the Ryan wave to never again experience suffering and to attain enlightenment, so too I naturally wish for every other wave to attain the same state.  If all of my body were in acid, but my nose was not, my nose would not be satisfied with this!  I would want all of myself to be free.  Bodhichitta becomes not some distant mind, but it becomes an issue of simple complete self-preservation.  If I am no longer just Ryan, but am instead the ocean of all living beings, since I naturally wish for myself to be free, if I am all living beings then wishing for my true self to be completely free is the same thing as wishing all beings were free, and vice versa.  I naturally then feel a feeling of deep and natural responsibility for the welfare and freedom of everyone. 

This post is already too long, but I will just throw out one last way in which I try practice this.  The practice of pure view is a mental ‘yoga.’  I put my mind in the mental position or shape of viewing myself and all beings as being already Buddhas in the pure land and then I engage in the mental action of believing this to be true.  This mental action actually functions to re-shape the Play Dough of my mind into this new aspect.  Each time I engage in this action, I plant the karma on my mind which when it ripens causes the ocean of my mind to take on the form or aspect of the pure land.  With enough training and enough familiarity, the shape of my mind is gradually transformed from samsara into the pure land.  Both are the same nature of the emptiness of my very subtle mind of great bliss (equality of samsara and nirvana), but one is by nature suffering and the other is by nature great bliss.  Bliss is better!  🙂

Emptiness and responsibility, part 3

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Ultimate stages of the path

In the first post of this series we looked at how emptiness can be understood as all phenomena are mere karmic appearances of mind, which is broken down into three parts, “mere appearance,” “karmic appearance,” and “of mind.”  In the last post we looked at how to actually practice “mere appearance” in our daily life, in this post we will look at “karmic appearance” and in the final post of the series we will examine “of mind.”

“Karmic appearance” shows the relationship between our actions and what appears to our mind.  Every action we engage in plants a seed on our mind which when it ripens takes the form of a certain appearance.  For example, if I yell at somebody, I create the karma for the appearance of somebody yelling at me in the future.  I also create the karma for the appearance of a rebirth that is of the same nature as the action I created, in this case a hot anger ripens as the appearances of a rebirth in a hot hell.  Likewise, if I engage in the action of being a good father, I create the karma to have the appearance of a good father for myself in a future life and, since it is virtuous, I create the cause for an upper rebirth.

If we understand this deeply, we realize that the world we inhabit is a creation of our own karmic actions.  The lower realms are the karmic appearances/creation of negative actions, the upper realms are the karmic appearances/creation of virtuous actions, and the pure lands are the karmic appearances/creation of pure actions.  One of my teachers always used to say, “if you don’t like your karma, change it.”  In the same way, if you don’t like your (karmically appearing) world, change it!  How?  By changing your actions.  We need to karmically create our pure land through engaging in pure actions.  If our world is anything other than a pure land, we have only our own past impure actions to blame.  It’s our karmic dream, it is coming from our mind, and ultimately from our actions, therefore we are responsible for all of it.

If we understand that everything that appears to our mind is part of our karmic creation, we will realize that we have a responsibility for everything that appears since our mind/actions created it all.  This is how we avoid the extreme of apathy or indifference that can sometimes come from thinking that nothing is really happening to anyone.  We have created a world of suffering that, while by nature is a dream, the people of the world believe to be real, and therefore they experience pain.  When we look at the wars, famine and disease in the world and realize we are ultimately responsible for all of, a very powerful bodhichitta wishing to clean up the karmic mess we have created for others will arise in our mind.
So how do we “karmically create” our new, pure world?  We harness the power of karma to our advantage.  If I give a flower to somebody, I create the cause for somebody else to give a flower to me in the future.  But when that being of my dream gives me a flower, they also plant on their mind the tendency similar to the cause to give more flowers to others in the future.  So they then give other flowers, create more good karma for themselves, which continues to ripple through the dream like a wave.  If I keep pumping out virtuous and pure actions, others in the future will continue to pump out virtuous and pure actions themselves until eventually everybody in my dream is always pumping out virtuous and pure actions.  The karmic result of engaging in virtuous and pure actions is to inhabit virtuous and pure lands.
In other words, if from this point forward I choose to only engage in virtuous and pure actions and I have the mental persistence to continue with this course of action for as long as it takes, it is a karmic inevitability that I will transform this world of suffering in which I have condemned all beings to misery into a completely pure world of bliss in which I have freed all beings forever.
Venerable Tharchin says, “when we understand how the Dharma actually works, generating effort becomes effortless.”  If we understand the relationship between karma and appearance we will understand the inner mechanism of reality and realize directly how to change it.  We know it can be done and we know how to do it and we know nothing can stop us.  This gives us an indestructible confidence and purpose that we then carry with us in all of our daily actions until we have attained the final goal!

Emptiness and responsibility, part 2

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Ultimate stages of the path

In the last post, we looked at what is the meaning of emptiness, namely all phenomena are mere karmic appearances of mind.  In the next three posts, I will try explain how I use this understanding practically as a solution to daily problems.  There are three main parts to the meaning “mere karmic appearance of mind”, namely “mere appearance”, “karmic appearance” and “of mind.”  Each one of these has its own main daily practices, which will be explained over the next three posts, but they all have as a common denominator to assume responsibility for everything and everyone.

First “mere appearance.”  Again, the meaning here is that all things are only (mere) appearances to mind, like dreams or mental holograms, and there is nothing other than these mere appearances.  So how do we practice this? 

The first distinction I make is between the appearance of a thing and my opinion of a thing.  One can argue (wrongly, in the end) that the appearance of something does not depend upon our mind – the thing is just there regardless or independently of my mind – but everyone would agree that our opinion of what appears is entirely dependent upon our mind.  As Hamlet says, “things re neither good nor bad, but thinking makes them so.”  Some people like Obama, others don’t, which shows different people can have different opinions of the same thing.  So our opinions of things are entirely created by our mind, therefore we are entirely responsibile for them.  We can have a good, bad or useful opinion of things.  It is true, from a worldly conventional perspective, getting cancer is bad and getting a rewarding job is good.  Of course they are not inherently so, but everyone more or less agrees about this.  But it is also entirely besides the point.  Everything can ge “good” for us if we change our outlook to be what is useful for our spiritual training.  This is a choice of mind, a choice to change our opinion of things by looking at them through a new optic of what is useful.  We don’t have to deny the conventional good and bad (though sometimes that is necessary too), it suffices to realize good and bad don’t matter, what is important is what is useful.  When cancer strikes, of course from a normal conventional perspective it is bad, but our experience of the cancer depends entirely on our opinion of it, which in turns depends entirely upon our mind – how we choose to relate to it.  If we choose to ask the question, “how can I use this for my spiritual training?”, then we will find ways in which the cancer is useful, and therefore welcome.  It will still be painful, no doubt, but through choice of mind, we can make that pain useful.  The pleasant and unpleasant experiences of our life are fleeting, but the mental habits and karma we create for ourself endure life after life.  Seeing that our mental habits and karma are more important, we are able to remain (more or less) happy in mind even through the most awful of things, cancer.  The same approach can be taken with whatever happens to us in life. 

Another powerful practice we can do with “mere appearance” is the power of “it doesn’t matter.”  We are all way too serious about everything.  We are all “drama queens” about pretty much everything.  Everything is so heavy and dramatic.  We make a big deal about whatever happens, and as a result we create all sorts of problems for ourself.  When we understand everything is just mental phantasamgora, a mental light show, we are able to take a step back like we are watching a movie.  If something terrible happens in a movie, of course it is bad in the movie, but ultimately it does not matter since it is just light being projected onto a screen – nothing is really happening.  In the same way, all of reality is just our mental movie being projected onto the screen of our very subtle mind.  Something terrible may happen in our movie, but ultimately it does not matter since it is just mere appearance – nothing is really happening.  We can still appreciate the good movies and laugh at the really bad ones, but we don’t get wrapped up in them or swept away by them.  We are able to let go, maintain some perspective and distance, and feel safe in our seat no matter what happens to appear.  So no matter what happens, I just keep repeating to myself like a mantra, “it doesn’t matter.”  I am able to let go.  This does not mean we become indifferent or apathetic towards what appears (we will talk more about this when we get to “karmic appearance”), but it does allow us to cut the drama.

So during the meditation break, I try focus on these two practices:  viewing things through the lens of what is ‘useful’ (instead of good and bad), and realizing how whatever happens is just a mental movie I am watching, and so ultimately ‘it doesn’t matter.’  Through these, we can assume full responsibility for our own experience of whatever happens to us and stop blaming others or external things.

Emptiness and responsibility, part 1

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Many people have an intellectual understanding of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality, but it is not always clear how we actually use this wisdom in our daily lives.  In the next two posts, I will try explain what I do in the hope that it proves helpful. In this first post, I will provide a quick refresher on the meaning of emptiness (or at least my understanding of its meaning…).  In the second post, I will explain how I try use this wisdom in the meditation break.

For me, the sign that our understanding of emptiness is correct in the meditation break is we feel personally responsible for everything, and the action that follows is to choose to change our mind about whatever we have a problem with. 

Venerable Geshe-la explains that phenomena are nothing other than “mere karmic appearances of mind.”  There are three components to this:  “mere appearance,” “karmic appearance” and “of mind.”   Mere appearance means everything is like a dream.  The only difference between regular dreams and our waking world is the mind that does the dreaming.  During sleep, it is our subtle mind that does the dreaming; and during the waking state, it is our waking mind.  But both are equally dreams in that everything is created/projected by our mind – and there is nothing behind any of these projections that they refer to.  All of reality is only dream, and nothing more. 

Karmic appearance means the cause of each mere appearance is our own karma.  Each karmic seed can be thought of as a link to a “YouTube” video (many layers of meaning to that), and the karmic appearance itself is when the link has been activated and the appearances begin to run for a certain duration.  Each video is a karmic echo of your own past actions. 

 The Sutra view of emptiness brings us to the understanding that all things are mere karmic appearances.  People will then often fall into the extreme of nothingness, thinking that things do not exist at all.  The middle way is things do exist as mere karmic appearances.  But what does that mean?  Is there something there or not?  Yes, there is something there, but what is there is only the appearance of something being there.  It is an illusion, yes, but an illusion of what?  An illusion of something real.  There is nothing else there. 

But that begs the question, what then is the nature of this illusion?  What is the illusion “made of”?  This is where the “of mind” comes into play from mere karmic appearance of mind.  “Of mind” means the nature of these karmic appearances is mind.  For me, the easiest way to understand this is with the analogy of waves on an ocean.  Our mind is like an ocean, and each appearance is like a wave on that ocean.  You cannot separate the wave from the ocean, the ocean is the nature of the wave, yet you can still distinguish one wave from another.  What creates the waves?  The karmic seeds on the floor of the ocean of our mind.  When activated, the karmic seeds push up a currents which when they reach the surface (our waking mind) create waves.  Just as different waves have different shapes and reflections, so too different karmic waves take on the form of different karmic appearances.  But they are all inseparable from the ocean of our mind, yet we can still nominally distinguish one wave from another.

The enlightened mind is one in which all karmic waves have been gathered and pacified into the completely still ocean of our clear light mind.  When the karmic waves have settled, the waters of our mind become increasingly clear until they become the completely clear light.  All obstructions have unwound themselves and in this clear stillness we not only know the ultimate nature of everything directly and simultaneously as one nature, we feel as if we are this completely pure and clear ocean of omniscient clear light.  It is from this basis that the meditation break re-emerges.

Delusions will deceive you every time

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Fool me once, shame on you; fool we twice, shame on me.  We all know this lesson from childhood, but it is amazing how easily it is for our delusions to deceive us again and again.  Attachment in particular!  It promises all sorts of goodies, and we go after the objects of our attachment.  Then, just when we think we are going to get the happiness we were chasing, it deceives us again.  You cannot help but reminded of the old Charlie Brown cartoons where Lucy puts the football down for Charlie Brown to kick, he goes to kick it and she pulls it away and he falls on his back.  She then promises him that she won’t do it again, Charlie Brown believes her, he goes to kick it and she does it again.  He keeps believing her again and again, and she keeps pulling it away again and again.  We are just like Charlie Brown, believing the Lucy of our attachment – every time, she deceives us.  The only thing reliable about our delusions is they will deceive us every time. 

What we tend to do is project false hopes onto unreliable things, and then we feel terribly deceived and let down when those things don’t live up to our expectations.  Did these things or these people prove unreliable?  Yes, they did.  But our problem was we foolishly believed it would be otherwise.  The fundamental lesson of renunciation is learning to accept that the nature of samsara’s pleasures is to be deceptive – they give no contentment, only torment.  Once we have accepted this to be true, we are no longer fooled, and we stop going down the deluded roads to begin with.

So what is reliable?  The only thing that is reliable is our own practice of virtue.  That will never deceive us or let us down.  Instead of investing our hopes in others that they will give us something back and somehow fulfill our voids, instead we should invest our energies in selflessly loving, cherishing and helping others.  A life selflessly working for others is its own reward.  We do not expect anything in return from them, we rather just do the right thing towards them.  Karma is perfectly reliable.  Being patient, being kind, loving and supporting those around us, especially our family, will never let us down. 

Our family members may even let us down, such as our children blaming us for all of their problems or our parents turning out to be deluded beings struggling with life and their own delusions (just like us, but contrary to our unrealistic hopes), but their doing so is just a karmic echo of our having done the same towards others in the past.  If others let us down, it is because we have let others down in the past.  If others create false hopes in us, it is because we have done the same to others in the past.  Does it suck when this happens?  Of course it does.  But the lesson to be learned is to resolve to never do the same to others.  Sometimes life’s lessons are painful, but if we learn them then they won’t be for nothing.  Later, we may even come to view such lessons as our greatest blessings.

Not getting angry at those who are angry

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

It is obviously hypocracy at its finest to get angry about the fact that others around us are angry, but this is something we do all of the time (or at least, I do).  Learning how to constructively relate to the angry people in our life is one of our greatest personal and spiritual challenges.  But the need to do so is definite.   In this post, I am primarily going to discuss dealing with people who are angry at their lives.  In a later post I will discuss how to deal with people who are angry at us.

The first thing we must do is protect ourselves from being swept away by our own anger.  Anger is one of the most infectuous diseases which very quickly can spread like wildfire.  If we too get swept away by our own anger, any hope of being helpful will evaporate completely.  We will become part of the problem, not part of the solution. 

So how do we not get angry ourselves when surrounded by angry people?  We must first understand the cause of anger, which is, quite simply, wishing things were different.  In this context, it is wishing that the people around us weren’t so angry.  Many Dharma practitioners know they are “not supposed to get angry”, but they usually just wind up repressing it – either pretending that they are not angry, when in fact they are; or just holding it in.  Repression never works.  The pressure just builds, our fuse just grows shorter, and eventually we blow.  To prevent our own anger, we must stop wishing the people around us weren’t so angry, and instead generate the mind that wouldn’t have it any other way.  This obviously doesn’t mean we want others to be deluded, rather it means that for the purposes of our own training, their being deluded is perfect for us.  Since we view it as perfect, we let go our attachment to it being different, and as such, we do not ourselves get angry about them being angry.

So how do we do this? 

  1. Accept that this is just how things are.  We live in degenerate times in which the people around us will likely grow more and more angry.  This is the nature of samsara.  Samsara is populated by deluded beings, to expect it to be any different is to not understand the nature of samsara. 
  2. Realize it is a reflection of our own karma and our own mind.  I am surrounded by angry people because I have been so angry myself in the past.  The world I inhabit is a karmic echo of the world I have created for others in the past with my own anger.  If I want this cycle to stop, I need to not get angry myself now.
  3. View dealing with the angry person as part of your larger training.  In Offering to the Spiritual Guide, it says we must strive “for complete enlightenment with unwavering compassion; even if I must remain in the fires of the deepest hell for many aeons for the sake of each being.”  We first learn how to constructively relate to the angry people in our life as a training for becoming the courageous bodhisattva who can enter into the deepest hells and lead beings out.  Demographically speaking, most of the beings of samsara are either already in or they are en route to the hot hells, which are nothing other than the karmic consequence of angry minds. 
  4. Realize it is not your problem.  We must make a distinction between what is their problem and what is our problem.  Their problem is their anger towards their life, our problem is our anger towards the fact that they are angry.  Our anger tells us that the way to solve our problem is for the other person to stop being angry.  So motivated by this, we try to change them.  But this just makes things worse.  If the other person is angry, that is not my problem, it is their problem.  So I shouldn’t let it bother me or become my problem.  If other people are angry at their lives, that does not harm me in any way, so their being angry is not my problem.
  5. Take it as a lesson of what not to do.  Everytime we see somebody doing something wrong, such as being angry about their lives, we can view the other person as a skilful teacher showing us what not to do.  If we are learning something from what we are observing, we are growing from it, and then it is not a problem for us.  Quite simply, we tell ourselves, “I need to not be like that.”
  6. Generate compassion for them realizing that they are possessed by their anger.  Anger is a demon which seizes us quickly and we lose total control.  When we are under the influence of anger, for all practical purposes it is as if we have been seized by a demon and we are no longer in control.  We say and do and think all sorts of things which just make our situation worse, both in the short term and also for the future as we create the causes for others to get angry at us in the future.  Seeing people are possessed by their anger, we can generate compassion for them.
  7. Not cooperating or going along with their anger.  When others are angry, they will harm those around them.  Because we don’t want to become the object of their anger, we will often go along with them or cooperate with their harmful wishes.  Unless we are in a position to do so, we usually cannot stop others from harming those around them, but we can ourselves choose to not do the same.  If others get angry at us for not doing like them, then we can explain why we feel getting angry and harming others will make things worse and so we do not want to do so.  They may still get angry at us for not going along with them, but they can never make us actually go along with them.  It remains our choice.
  8. Know when to remove yourself from the presence of the angry person.  We should remove ourselves from the presence of angry people when we are not able to keep our own anger under control or when our continued presence implicitly enables the other person getting angry or acts as a de facto approval of their behavior.

All of these things are difficult, but they are all essential parts of our training.

Find the right words, and make them sincere

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Venerable Geshe-la says that every living being shares the same basic wish to be happy all the time.  The problem is we are confused about what makes us happy.  Normally, we think our happiness is a passive reaction to favorable external circumstances, so therefore when our circumstances are less than favorable we suffer.  The fundamental revolution of the spiritual path is it provides us with a perfectly reliable method for building our own true happiness within our own mind that we can take with us in every situation of our life, and indeed for all our future lives.

At the root of it, the path to happiness is quite simple:  we need to “find the right words, and then make them sincere.”  How can we understand this?  We are happy if our mind is happy.  Our mind is happy if our mind is at peace, regardless of our external circumstance.  The method for making our mind peaceful is to mix it with wisdom and virtue.  The more deeply and irreversibly we mix our mind with wisdom and virtue, the more peaceful and therefore happy we become.  There is no other method for lasting happiness, and this method alone is sufficient.  This doesn’t mean we don’t also have to successfully manage our external affairs, rather it means if we want to be happy while we manage our external affairs,  we need to actively strive to mix our mind with virtue while doing them.

So how do we mix our mind with virtue?  Through meditation.  Meditation is nothing other than the method by which we mix our mind with virtue.  Meditation is not just sitting cross-legged with our eyes closed on our meditation cushion in the morning.  We can actually meditate all of the time by actively trying to mix our mind with wisdom and virtue all of the time in every situation of our life.

We mix our mind with virtue at three different levels:  listening, contemplating and placement meditation.  These three levels can simply be understood as “finding the right words and then making them sincere.”  Enlightened beings have attained the state of perfect happiness all of the time.  They then explain how they did it and encourage us to do the same.  They specifically, with their words, explain the main minds we need to generate within ourselves, such as an appreciation of our precious human life, the wish to become free from all delusions, love, compassion and the wisdom realizing emptiness.  Their words are not only a very precise reflection of the minds they have generated, but mixing our mind with them is the path itself to the same state.

When we listen to or read their words, our goal is to gain an intellectual understanding of what they mean.  We may or may not agree yet with the idea, but at least we intellectually understand it.  This is finding the right words.  Once we have done so, we then test the words to see if they are in fact true.  We analyze and contemplate the meaning of the words, examining whether they are true and applicable and sound.  In short, we validate the truth of the words for ourselves.  Our contemplation is complete when what we intellectually understood through listening becomes true for ourselves.  We know the meaning of the words is true, correct and reliable.  Placement meditation is then striving to keep this truth alive and functioning in our mind.  We try maintain the continuum of our understanding or realizing of this truth.  It is largely an issue of continually recalling the truth we have understood.  Our placement meditation functions to transform what we understand to be true into, as Venerable Tharchin says, “an acquisition of our personality.”  We do not simply realize we have a precious human life, but we are actively seizing it.  We do not simply realize others are precious, but we become a loving person, etc.  In the beginning, we have ‘moments’ where we are loving; but through continual training we become loving all of the time in everything we do.  When this is the case, we are said to have a “spontaneous realization” of love, in other words, being a loving person just comes natural all of the time.  In short, contemplation and placement meditation is the method for “making [the correct words] sincere.”  We not only believe them to be true but we live every moment of our lives as an expression of their truth. 

So how can we do this all of the time, even while managing our external affairs?  It is simple:  we manage our external affairs by responding to them with wisdom and virtue.  We listen to, contemplate and meditate on the Dharma specifically in terms of how it can be used and applied to the circumstances and challenges of our life, whatever they happen to be.  We can do this not only in formal meditation, but as we go about our daily business.  Wisdom and virtue is the correct response to every circumstance, both in terms of making us internally happy, but also in the sense of making all of our external activities successful.  If we can do this all the time, every moment of our life will be happy, meaningful and bring us one step closer to the final goal.

 

Our outer job, our inner job, our real job

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

Every moment of every day we engage in action.  Since we currently have a precious human life, our goal should be to engage in the most karmically beneficial actions we can.  The highest actions we can engage in are those which function to transform ourselves into the gateway through which all beings can attain enlightenment (transform our root mind into a Buddha’s pure land).

Since we live in a modern world, we must work.  Even if we don’t have a formal job, we all ‘work’ in the world in some form or another.  This work is our outer job.  The more we help others, the more virtuous our outer job is.  We can make our outer job, even the most mundane of outer jobs, into a virtuous job by viewing our work through the lens of how what we do helps others.  Our outer job also enables us to maintain the material conditions of our practice and they enable us to create good conditions for others (such as providing for our family).  

There is no contradiction between pursuing a normal career and dedicating 100% of one’s life to the practice of Dharma.  If we are to gain the realizations the people of this modern world need, then we must externally adopt lives similar to theirs – and that means working, having a family, etc.  Learning how to live their lives as the spiritual path will give us the wisdom we need to be able to help the people in this world find meaning and happiness in their lives.  Our inner job is to do precisely this.

Each outer situation will induce within us a different set of delusions – sometimes attachment, sometimes anger or frustration, sometimes despondency, sometimes jealousy, etc.  Our inner job is to learn how to relate to each one of these outer situations in the least deluded and the most wise/virtuous way possible. 

If we rely completely upon the Dharma Protector, he will arrange things so that every moment of our lives is emanated by him for our practice.  Through relying upon him, everything that happens to us, the good and the bad, is exactly what we need to take the next step in our spiritual journey.  We can view what happens to us as the spiritual exercises or homework that our personal Dharma trainer gives us so that we can advance to the next level of our spiritual training. 

The sole objective of the Protector is to transform us into the Buddha we need to become.  He knows the beings with whom we have the karma to lead them to enlightenment.  He knows what wisdom they will need on their spiritual journey.  Knowing this, he gives us now the problems and life experiences that they will have in the future so that we can gain now the wisdom realizations we need to later be able to explain to them how to transform their lives into the path.  Viewed in this way, we realize how every life event is not only exactly what we need for our own training, but it is also perfect for giving us the ability to help others in similar situations in the future.  This recognition alone gives great meaning and purpose to every moment of our life.  Living our life in this way is our inner job.

Our real job, then, as Modern Kadampas is to unite our outer and inner job so that every moment and every action, both outer and inner, takes us in a singular direction towards our final spiritual goal – the enlightenment of all.  The method by which we can unite completely these two goals is externally we continually strive to help as many people as our karma allows and internally we continually strive to respond to the events of our life with as much wisdom and virtue as our realizations allow.  In short, as the Old Kadampas would say, we “harm our delusions as much as possible and help others as much as possible.” 

By continuing to ambitiously pursue both our outer and inner careers in this way they will eventually unite into one.  When we experience our life in this way, we will have the immense satisfaction which comes from fulfilling our life’s purpose and not wasting a single moment along the way.

You don’t have to beat yourself up to change

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

The entire spiritual path is a process of abandoning our faults and cultivating our good qualities.  The approach we take to doing this determines whether our spiritual path is a “joyful” one or a miserable one.  Due to conditioning from our childhood and society, we have a bad habit of beating ourselves up and making ourselves feel bad about ourselves due to our faults, believing this is the way to get ourselves to change.  Such an approach is completely self-defeating.  Instead, we need to motivate ourselves positively by feeling good about aspiring to doing things right and living up to higher principles of wisdom.  In short, we need to “identify with becoming better,” and live out that narrative.  Likewise, with others in our life, we need to stop trying to change others by making them feel bad about themselves and instead we should see them as “becoming better,” and we should encourage them to continue in that sense by helping them feel good about themselves for the fact that they are getting better.

One of the main obstacles to people embarking upon and progressing along the spiritual path is they don’t have a healthy way of relating to their own faults.  Our parents quite often used “guilt trips” or made us feel bad about ourselves as a means of getting us to change.  It is not their fault that they did this, since that is how all of society is programmed.  We often get such negative reinforcement in school, at work, amongst our friends, etc.  So when we start on the spiritual path and we learn what the correct and perfect ways of doing things are, we realize how far we are from that ideal.  It is almost as if the more Dharma we learn, the more we realize we are a total failure, and we beat ourselves up more and more.  This is a very common “Dharma neurosis.”  We even think if only we beat ourselves up enough, then we will get ourselves to change.

But the reality is such an approach not only makes us miserable and feel bad about ourselves, but it actually blocks our change.  When we feel bad about ourselves, we feel like we cannot do anything right.  Changing ourselve is the hardest thing we will ever do in life, and when we feel like we can’t do anything right we destroy our own confidence in our ability to change and we destroy our capacity to do so by beating ourselves up.  Guilt is anger towards ourselves.  Anger seeks to harm the object of our anger.  When the object of our anger is ourselves, we harm ourselves and therefore undermine our own capacity to change.  When we then try to change, but fail to do so, we really then feel like a total failure and lose all hope.  We then beat ourselves up even more in a vicious cycle.  There is no bottom to this pit or end to this process.   It ends in suicide.

Instead, we need to motivate ourselves by “feeling good about getting better.”  We need to let go of identifying with our faults and with being a failure, and instead choose to identify with “somebody getting better with effort.”  We should take the time to identify and rejoice in our little successes, and to see how, even though we still have a long way to do, we are heading in the right direction.  Our bad habits are just that – bad habits, they are not intrinsic parts of ourselves.  We are not our faults, we are rather somebody shedding all that isn’t us.  When we identify with “getting better” we enter into a virtuous cycle of feeling good about ourselves, which increases our confidence and capacity, which then enables us to change ourselves even more.  It is not arrogance to identify with getting better because we are honestly acknowledging our faults, but are at the same time confident in our ability to overcome them with effort.

We also need to be very careful that we don’t try change others by making them feel bad about themselves.  This is an easy trap to fall into, especially with those in our family or those who work for us.  Because we do this to ourselves, we do it to others.  I have a terrible habit of doing this with those I love.  The fundamental reason why is because I have aversion to being around people with faults.  But how can one be a bodhisattva, somone committed to help all beings overcome all of their faults, if we can’t stand being around people who have faults?!?  It is a total contradiction.  Because it bothers me that they have faults, I get upset at them for having them.  I focus only on what they do wrong because that is what bothers me.  Because I focus only on what they do wrong, they too see within themselves only what they do wrong.  Because I don’t like that in them, they don’t like it in themselves.  Because I am, even if only mentally, beating them up about their faults, they too then start beating themselves up about their faults.  They then enter into the guilt traps described above.  They become worse, I get more frustrated and we all feed off of each other in a negative way.  It is very unhealthy and most unhelpful.

When instead I see them as “somebody getting better” and I help them see that in themselves, then they can identifywith  themselves as “somebody getting better” and feel good about themselves.

So both with ourselves and with those around us, we need to stop beating ourselves or others up over our faults, but rather identify with “getting better.”  This one simple change will transform our spiritual path from one of self-flaggelation to one of moving from joy to joy.

A master narrative for your spiritual life

Kadampa Ryan 1. Reflections on doing this website/blog, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The purpose of this blog is to share my experience of practicing the Kadampa instructions in the context of my formal Dharma practice, my personal life and my professional life in the hopes that it may prove helpful to others seeking to transform their modern lives into the path to enlightenment.  At a personal level, doing this blog helps me crystalize my own thoughts about the Dharma by putting it into writing and it helps me bring my bodhichitta (the wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all) alive.  How so?  At a practical level, the bodhisattva path is the improving of oneself for the benefit of others, in particular the process of gaining Dharma realizations so that we can help others do the same.  By doing this blog, I can view each moment of my normal modern life as an opportunity to gain spiritual realizations which I can then share with those who read this blog.  It gives purpose to each moment of my life:  I must learn how to transform each moment so that I can help others in similar situations do the same. 

 

The starting point of transforming every moment of our life into the path is to have a unifying narrative that binds every aspect of our life together into a common purpose, or more specifically, project.  In this way, everything we do is directed at and contributes to this singular purpose/project.  If we can accomplish this, then not a single moment of our life will be wasted.  For me, this singular project is “to build my pure land.”  At a very profound level, the project is to transform myself into my pure land.  What is a pure land?  A pure land is a realm emanated by a Buddha within which living beings can take rebirth and enter, progress along and complete the path to enlightenment.  Quite simply, it can be thought of as a bodhisattva’s training camp.  For maximum benefit, this pure land must pervade the entire universe and function to lead all beings from the deepest hell to the highest enlightenment. 

 

The two characteristics of a pure land is there is no manifest suffering and everything functions as a cause of one’s enlightenment.  Suffering is ultimately a state of mind that is dispelled by the wisdom knowing how to accept and use painful experiences for our spiritual advancement.  Thus, the difference between living in samsara, or a world of suffering, and living in a pure land is our knowing how to use every experience, painful or otherwise, for spiritual development.  With such wisdom, we will be able to enjoy every experience as fuel pushing us towards enlightenment, and from an experiential point of view, it will be as if we are in a pure land.

 

A modern Kadampa life has three main spheres:  our formal Dharma practice, our personal life and our professional life.  This is true for all Kadampas, not just those who are lay practitioners.  A Resident Teacher living in a center, for example, still has their own family and many friendships and engages in all sorts of professional activities in the running of a center.  If the unifying project of our life is to build our pure land, how then do we accomplish this project in these three spheres?  In our formal Dharma practice, we strive to transform ourselves into the Yidam.  In our personal life, we strive to transform ourselves into the Guru.  And in our professional life, we strive to transform ourselves into the Protector.  In this context, the Yidam, or personal deity, is the supreme spiritual doctor who heals the suble body, speech and mind of all living beings.  The Guru is the supreme spiritual father (or mother as the case may be) and friend of all living beings who leads all living beings from the deepest hell to the highest enlightenment.  The Protector is the supreme spiritual servant-king who forever and always arranges all the outer and inner conditions so that everything is perfect for the swiftest possible enlightenment of everyone.  Practically speaking, this means in our formal Dhama practice, we strive to develop within ourselves the qualities and engage in the actions of a supreme spiritual doctor.  In our personal lives, we strive to develop within ourselves the qualities and engage in the actions of a supreme spirutal father and friend.  And in our professional lives, we strive to develop within ourselves the qualities and engage in the actions of a supreme spiritual servant-king.  If we can do this, then our entire life will be integrated into our spiritual path, bringing both meaning to every moment and unwavering progress towards the final goal.  Over time, these three spheres will merge into one and we will become the embodiment of guru, Yidam and protector liberating all beings in our pure land.  We will have completed the path.

 

Some people mistakenly believe that certain life contexts, such as being ordained in a center doing formal Dharma activities all of the time, are more conducive to enlightenment than other life contexts.  As a result of this ignorance, they either become dissatisfied with the life that they have or they judge others who are pursuing a way of life different than their own.  The reality is all situations are equally empty, in other words created by mind, and so all situations are equally transformable into the quick path to enlightenment.  This blog will attempt to share my personal expereince of being a Kadampa Working Dad as my quick path to enlightenment.  Hopefully the lessons learned will prove beneficial to all Kadampas, working parents or otherwise.  It is my hope that through sharing this experience others can learn from my mistakes and that I can live up to my bodhichitta wishes.  Enjoy!