Author: Kadampa Ryan

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Abandoning sexual misconduct.

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To abandon sexual misconduct

For this vow, the object of our sexual misconduct is if we have a vow of celibacy, it is any other person; if we are not celibate and we have a partner, it is anyone other than our partner; if we are not celibate and do not have a partner, it is anyone else’s partner, our own parent, a child, anyone with a vow of celibacy, pregnant women, animals, or anyone who does not consent.  As far as the intention is concerned, we must know that they are an object of sexual misconduct.  We must be determined to commit sexual misconduct.  And we must be motivated by delusion.  Usually it is committed out of desirous attachment.  As far as the preparation is concerned, there are many ways to engage in this action but we already know all those!  This action is complete when sexual bliss is experienced by means of the union of the two sex organs.  This last point on the action being completed sometimes gives rise to the question, “well then is it sexual misconduct if our sex organs do not come into union?”  The answer to this question is very simple:  if you think your partner would object, then it is not OK.  Full stop.

Please note, within Kadampa Buddhism, heterosexuality and homosexuality are treated in exactly the same way, there is no difference.  Please note, it also does not include masturbation (though for ordained people, this does weaken their vows, though it doesn’t break them).  Finally please note, this also doesn’t say it is wrong to engage in sexual activity for reasons other than procreation, it says nothing about anything being wrong with birth control, etc., etc., etc. 

I have posted in the past why people engage in affairs (you can find it by doing a search of the archive).  The short version is we relate to our partner and to sexual activity in the same way we relate to any other object of attachment, like pizza.  The first few pieces are good, but the more we eat the less we enjoy it.  Other foods start to look more appealing, so we switch to eating something else.  This is the completely wrong understanding of sexual actions.  Sexual actions are opportunities to cherish others and give them happiness, not something we consume for ourselves.  We derive our enjoyment from loving others and making them happy.  Sexual activity is an opportunity to draw very close to somebody else and deepen a relationship.  If we don’t get our attitude towards sexual activity correct, then even if it is not sexual misconduct, it is still not necessarily a good thing for us. 

It is not at all uncommon for one partner in a couple to have stronger sexual desire than the other, and this can be a source of frustration and a temptation to go elsewhere.  Aside from the fact that there are other means to relieve oneself, we should view these gaps in sexual desire as emanated by Dorje Shugden to give us an opportunity to bring our sexual attachment under a bit more control.  In this sense, it is a similitude of the ordination vows of celibacy.  We are essentially saying we will be celibate with everybody except our partner.  Bringing our sexual attachment under control is not easy, but it is still necessary.  Buddha said the three biggest chains holding us in samsara are sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll (well, those weren’t his exact words, but the meaning was the same).  If we don’t bring our sexual attachment under control, it will be very difficult to escape from samsara.  From this perspective, the difference between an ordained person and a lay person in a committed relationship is not that different.  We have much we can learn from each other.

If we have strong sexual attachment, we can pursue a multi-prong strategy.  First, we should read Chapter 8 in Meaningful to Behold again and again to help us reduce our exaggerated notions of the attractiveness of another human body.  I love breasts, I will admit it, but if we check they are just bags of fat.  Second, as best we can, we should avoid things that fuel the fire, such as pornography, etc.  But the reality is sexual imagery is omni-present in our society, so there is no avoiding it.  But there is a difference between encountering it as we go about our life and seeking it out compulsively. 

Third, and this is the most important, we need to get to the point where we want to get out of samsara more than we want its pleasures.  We are desire realm beings, which means we have no choice but to pursue our desires.  If in our heart our desire is still dominated by sexual attachment, if we try to force ourselves to avoid making contact, etc., then all we will do is just repress the desires.  They will build up, and eventually we will give in and do something we subsequently regret.  This is not Dharma practice.  Dharma practice is a very active process of picking apart and reducing our desirous attachment primarily by (1) reducing our exaggerated attitudes down to something in line with the underlying reality of what is actually there, and (2) considering the disadvantages of following the delusion.  There are few delusions that create more problems for living beings than sexual attachment.  Just open any newspaper or consider your own life for more than 3 seconds and you will have plenty of material to work with.  At the same time, we need to consider the advantages of not following the delusion.  Every time a delusion arises but we choose to not follow it understanding it to be deceptive, we are engaging in the practice of moral discipline.  Each action of moral discipline creates the cause for a higher rebirth.  So quite literally, if in a given 5-minute period we successfully see through the lies of our sexual attachment and not follow it, say 20 times, then we just created 20 causes for 20 future higher rebirths.  What will bring more happiness, five minutes of some porn video or an entire lifetime in the upper realms?  Are we ready to sacrifice one for the other?  If so, which one will we sacrifice?  If we value the happiness of our future lives as much as we value our present happiness (the definition of a spiritual being) then the choice becomes obvious. 

There is much more that can be said, but I will stop here. 

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of mental stabilization

Kadampa Ryan Tsog Days

In order to remember and mark our tsog days, holy days on the Kadampa calendar, I am sharing my understanding of the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide with tsog.  This is part 39 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of mental stabilization
By abandoning the faults of mental sinking, mental excitement, and mental wandering,
And concentrating in single-pointed absorption
On the state that is the lack of true existence of all phenomena.

Happiness is a state of mind, therefore its cause comes from within the mind. In the preface of virtually every book Geshe-la has written and in the first class of every general program course taught in Dharma centers around the world, we are taught that the cause of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, then we are happy regardless of what is happening externally. And if our mind is unpeaceful, we are unhappy regardless of what is happening externally. This shows that inner peace is the true cause of happiness. What then is the cause of inner peace? Mixing our mind with virtue. The more we mix our mind with virtue, the more our mind becomes peaceful both now, while we are mixing our mind with virtue, and in the future, when the karmic effects of our mental action of mixing our mind with virtue ripen. Concentration is being able to mix our mind with virtue single-pointedly, free from all distractions. The perfection of concentration is concentrating on virtue with the bodhicitta motivation.

There are three main faults to be abandoned when training in concentration: mental excitement, mental sinking, and mental wandering. Our mind naturally goes towards whatever it thinks is a cause of happiness. Because we currently think external objects of attachment are the cause of happiness, our mind naturally moves towards them. When our mind moves towards an object of attachment, this is mental excitement. Mental sinking is when our mind gradually loses clarity and focus of whatever it is we are trying to concentrate on. It becomes dull, heavy, and we can even fall asleep. Mental wandering is when our mind moves to some other object of Dharma that is not our chosen object of meditation. While technically not a delusion, it is a distraction. We overcome mental excitement by considering the relative benefits of thinking about our object of attachment compared with thinking about our object of Dharma, and then choosing to return our mind to the object of Dharma. We overcome mental sinking by uplifting our mind, improving our posture, and restoring our object of meditation by renewing the contemplation. We overcome mental wandering by reminding ourselves that our chosen object of meditation is not what our mind has wandered towards, and that allowing mental wandering can become a bad habit preventing us from ever making progress along the path.

Improving our concentration occurs in stages, called the mental abidings. With the first mental abiding, we are able to meditate on our object single-pointedly for one minute. On the second mental abiding, we are able to concentrate on our object without distraction for five minutes. With the third mental abiding, every time we forget our object of meditation, we are able to regenerate it very quickly, like effortlessly picking up a ball we just dropped. And on the fourth mental abiding we overcome all faults of gross mental sinking and gross mental excitement for our entire meditation session. In other words, we never completely forget our object of meditation, but we may still have subtle faults to our concentration, such as subtle mental sinking and subtle mental excitement. If we attain the fourth mental abiding on an object of meditation, we can then enter into retreat and it is said we can attain tranquil abiding within six months. Tranquil abiding is an extremely powerful mind of concentration that is free from all gross and subtle mental seeking and mental excitement and is able to remain single-pointedly focused on our object of meditation for as long as we wish, indeed for the rest of our life.

The mind of tranquil abiding is equivalent to a first form realm god mind. Just as it is possible to have a human body but have the mind of a hell being, so too it is possible to have a human body but the mind of a god. Even in sutra, tranquil biting is not the pinnacle of our concentration, but rather the first major milestone in improving our concentration. Our mind can move further and further up into the god realms, attaining increasingly profound levels of concentration, up to an including the peak of samsara. A detailed explanation of these different levels of concentration can be found in the book Ocean of Nectar.

According to tantra, the very subtle mind of great bliss is infinitely more powerful than the mind of tranquil abiding. It is also much easier to generate the mind of great bliss than it is to attain tranquil abiding. Geshe-la explains in and Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that if we can attain the fourth mental abiding on the indestructible drop at our heart, our winds will enter, abide, and dissolve into our central channel. We will then perceive the eight dissolutions until eventually we arrive at the very subtle mind of the clear light of bliss. Through further training in the five stages of completion stage of Heruka, we can increase the quality with which we are able to cause our inner winds to enter, abide, and dissolve into our central channel and thereby generate increasingly qualified experiences of the mind of clear light of bliss. The mind of clear light is the most concentrated mind possible. Why is this? The reason is our mind naturally moves towards whatever we consider to be a cause of happiness. But since there is no experience more sublime than great bliss, our mind has no desire whatsoever to go anywhere else because to do so would be to move from the most pleasant state possible to something less pleasant. Thus, our mind settles into the clear light of bliss much like a marble would settle at the bottom of a bowl.

Happy Tara Day: May the Dharma and all good fortune flourish

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

This is the tenth installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.

May I strive in my practice of sacred Dharma and increase my realizations,
May I always accomplish you and behold your sublime face;
And may my understanding of emptiness and the precious bodhichitta
Increase and grow like a waxing moon.

Every once in a while, there are these people who show up to our Dharma centers for whom everything comes easily.  They seem to walk into the door with realizations and Dharma comes to them quite instinctively.  This happens when people have a lot of imprints from Dharma practice in previous lives.  But sometimes, because everything comes so easily, they never learn how to apply effort to their practice and at some point their imprints exhaust themselves.  Once it starts to get more difficult, they sometimes drift away or experience some sort of spiritual crisis.  With effort, eventually all attainments will come.  Without effort, we are just burning up our good karma.  It can also happen where we become complacent with our spiritual progress.  We have enough Dharma wisdom in our mind to be happy in this life, and that is good enough for us.  Of course we would never admit that this is the case, but our actions sometimes speak louder than our words.  To protect ourselves against this, we pray to Tara that we always feel inspired to strive in our practice of Dharma, and that we never become content with our spiritual progress until we have attained the final goal.

May I be born from a sacred and most beautiful lotus
In the excellent, joyful mandala of the Conqueror;
And there may I accomplish the prophecy I receive
Directly from Conqueror Amitabha.

Being born anywhere in samsara, even as a Dharma practitioner, is very dangerous.  There is always the risk that we become sidetracked or distracted by samsara’s pleasures and then waste our precious human life, burning up our virtuous karma, and then we die.  There is also the risk that powerful negativity could ripen, resulting is us engaging in negative actions or experiencing terrible misfortune.  The greatest danger is we die with a negative or deluded mind, and then fall into the lower realms, losing the path for possibly eons.  The only way to protect ourselves from these dangers is to attain rebirth in a pure land.  A Buddha’s pure land is like a Bodhsiattva’s training camp. We are able to receive teachings directly from Buddhas, are protected from strong negativity, and are able to progress along the spiritual path.  If we can remember Tara at the time of our death, she will bless our mind and take us to her pure land.  There, we can continue with our training and our eventual enlightenment is guaranteed.  While technically not free from samsara, from a practical point of view, it will be as if we have escaped from all uncontrolled rebirth.

O Goddess upon whom I have relied in previous lives,
Embodiment of the divine actions of all the Buddhas of the three times,
Bluish-green One with one face and two hands,
O Swift Pacifier, Mother holding an upala, may everything be auspicious.

We all have different biological mothers, but Tara is our common spiritual mother.  She cares for and nurtures our spiritual life in the same way our regular mother cares for our physical life.  But we need to create the causes for Tara to continue to be our spiritual mother in all of our future lives.  Tara will never stop loving us, but from our side we can drift away from her, making it harder for her to care for us.  If, in contrast, we always stay close to her, she will always care for us spiritually in this and all our future lives.  As explained earlier, every action we engage in creates four karmic potentialities:  tendency similar to the cause, effect similar to the cause, environmental effect, and the ripened effect.  The ripened effect is the potential to take a rebirth similar in nature to the action we engage in, for example an action of hot anger creates the cause for rebirth in a hot hell.  Whenever we engage in an action of pure faith and reliance upon Tara, such as engaging in our Tara practice, we create a ripened effect to be reborn with her as our spiritual mother.  If throughout our life, on every Tara day, we make a point to engage in Tara practice, we will create a rich reservoir of virtuous karma to have her continue to be our spiritual mother in all of our future lives.  For myself, in addition to engaging in Tara practice on the 8th of every month, I dedicate every day that Tara always be my spiritual mother.  If she will always be my mother, what will I possibly have to fear?

O Conqueror Mother Tara,
Whatever your body, retinue, life span and Pure Land,
And whatever your supreme and excellent name,
May I and all others attain only these.

Buddhas appear in many different forms, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist.  While I haven’t heard Geshe-la say so, I have heard many people say that Jesus’ mother Mary was also an emanation of Tara.  This does make sense and there is certainly no harm in believing this to be true.  Regardless, Tara’s emanations pervade the whole world and appear in many different forms to help living beings, and especially Kadampa practitioners.  Can we say with any certainty that the very device we are reading this post on is not emanated by Tara?  I would say as soon as we believe something is an emanation of Tara, it becomes that for us.  If we view everything as emanated by Tara, then for us, everything will be.  When we recite this verse, we should pray that we gain the wisdom to view everything as emanated by her for our spiritual training.

Through the force of my making these praises and requests to you,
Please pacify all sickness, poverty, misfortune, fighting and quarrelling,
Throughout all directions where I and others live,
And cause the Dharma and all good fortune to flourish.

Most of our experiences in samsara are difficult.  Occasionally, things go “well,” but most of the time, life is a constant struggle.  Sickness, poverty, misfortune, fighting, and quarreling come like waves of the ocean, one after the other, just in different forms.  It is true that we can learn to surf this suffering, but sometimes it is nice to not have constant problems so we can spend time building something good within our mind.  Just as our ordinary mother would create safe spaces for us to play, so too Tara can create safe spaces for us to develop our mind.  For example, we now have international retreat centers, international and national festivals, Dharma centers, facebook groups, etc.  All of these are spaces carved out of samsara where we can develop ourselves spiritually in relative peace, free from major obstacles or obstructions.  Internally, we may still need to battle our delusions in these spaces, but even that is easier than doing so out in the savage lands of samsara.  Understanding she can help us in this way, we pray that she protect us and our practice so that the Dharma and all good fortune can flourish.

How to Welcome the Worst Case Scenarios

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

Sometimes we worry about worst case scenarios; and sometimes even, the worst case scenario comes to pass. How can we learn to be mentally at peace with this? For me, I think the key to avoiding such worry about the future or despondency when adversity actually strikes is the practice of patient acceptance. This, for me, is the main point of the book How to Solve our Human Problems.

When things go badly in our life, most people will tell us something like, “this too will pass” or try give us some sort of hope that things will externally get better.

This may reassure us some, but such ways of thinking often leave us still worried that things might not improve and we think we can’t be happy if they don’t. Our mind is still attached to things being a certain way externally for us to be happy. But when we have a mind of patient acceptance towards the possibility that things could remain bad (or even get worse), we know how to keep our mind at peace with respect to the possibility that things remain as they are, then we can let go of that worry. In other words, we will know how to be happy if things improve and how to still be happy if they do not.

How can we get ourself to that point? The key for me is realizing how the difficult situation is in fact perfect for my Dharma practice. If I know how to transform the difficult situation (or the possible arising of my worst fears) into the path, then I will begin to understand Shantideva’s perspective that “suffering has many good qualities.” It still sucks from the perspective of my worldly concerns, but it is great with respect to my spiritual aspirations to purify my negative karma, generate authentic renunciation and bodhichitta, and even train in tantric pure view with respect to what would otherwise be considered awful circumstances.

Our training in Lojong – specifically the teachings from Universal Compassion and Eight Steps to Happiness – will give us the tools we need to transform our suffering into rocket fuel for our swiftest possible enlightenment.

To help gain this ability, I think it is foundational to surrender our lives completely to Dorje Shugden’s care. His job is to arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment. At one level, he does this through helping control what karma ripens (and what karma doesn’t) so that whatever happens is what we need next for our spiritual training, but at a more profound level he grants us the wisdom blessings to see and understand how what has happened (or what horrible thing could possibly happen) – no matter how terrible it might be – is in fact perfect for our spiritual development.

But this only works if our aspiration for spiritual development is stronger than our worldly concerns for a pleasant, easy life. If we still want a pleasant, easy life MORE than we want spiritual growth, then we may see how our present difficult circumstances (or even our feared worst case scenario) would be perfect for our spiritual training, but we don’t care! We want life to be good!

To address this problem, we need a deep and consistent practice of Sutra Lamrim. Sutra Lamrim (Joyful Path of Good Fortune, Meditation Handbook, etc.) primarily functions to change our aspirations from worldly ones to spiritual ones – generating greater concern for our own and others well being in our countless future lives than our concern for this life alone.

In short, when we have a deep and stable practice of Lamrim, then our spiritual desires are greater than our worldly ones, so when we receive Dorje Shugden’s wisdom blessings helping us see how our difficult situation – or the worst case scenarios we worry about – are in fact perfect for our spiritual development, we will no longer fear the worst but have the ability to be at peace with the possibility it could happen. We may even perhaps relish the possibility of it happening because we know such challenges will push us to attain enlightenment even more swiftly.

Then, we can be at peace with the possibility things get better and with the possibility that things might stay bad or even get worse.

In other words, we will know and have the ability to be happy all the time, no matter how bad things might get. Exactly what Venerable Geshe-la has promised us.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Abandoning killing and stealing

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To abandon killing. 

Geshe-la explains the object of killing is any other being from the smallest insect to a Buddha.  As explained above, four factors must be present.  First, for our intention, we must have correct identification of the person we intend to kill.  We also need a determination to kill the person we have correctly identified.  Killing by accident is not a complete action.  Our mind must also be influenced by delusion, specifically anger, attachment, or ignorance.  It is possible to kill out of compassion to save the lives of others, but this requires great wisdom and courage.  Killing out of compassion is not a downfall, since compassion is not a delusion.  The action also requires preparation, namely we prepare the means to engage in the action.  This includes having others do the action for us or engaging in the action as a group.  Finally, it requires the completion – the action must be completed, the person actually is killed.

The reality is we are killing all the time.  Every time we scratch our arm, we are no doubt killing thousands of tiny bacteria or microbes.  Even if we don’t eat meat, we are indirectly killing thousands who died in the rice paddies or to the pesticides sprayed on our food.  Samsara is a slaughterhouse, and everything we do essentially kills.  This doesn’t mean we are doomed and it also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother trying to not kill because it is unavoidable.  What it means is we need to do our best to lead as low impact of a life as we can.  We should work gradually to kill less and less while working within our capacity and the karmic conditions we find ourselves in.

To abandon stealing. 

The object of stealing is anything that someone else regards as their own.  This includes other living beings.  If we take something that no one claims to possess, the action of stealing is not complete.  Like with killing, the intention must include a correct identification of the object of stealing, a determination to steal, and our mind must be influenced by delusion, usually desirous attachment, but sometimes out of hatred of wishing to harm our enemy.  It can also sometimes be out of ignorance thinking their stealing is justified such as not paying taxes or fines, or stealing from our employer is OK.  Stealing also requires preparation.  It may be done secretly or openly, using methods such as bribery, blackmail, or emotional manipulation.  Finally, it must also include completion.  The action is complete when we think to ourself ‘this object is now mine.’

In modern life we have countless opportunities to steal and we often take advantage of most of them.  Common examples include not giving money back when we have been given too much change at the store, accidentally walking out with some good we didn’t purchase and not making an effort to go back and pay for it, stealing work supplies from work for our personal use, stealing our employers time by doing personal things on company time beyond what is conventionally acceptable in your work place (most work environments allow you a limited amount of personal administrative time.  The point is don’t go beyond what is intended by your employer).  Another very common form of stealing is lying on our taxes so that we pay less.  We come up with all sorts of justifications for why this is OK, but it is still stealing.  Stealing can also include saying certain clever things to cause something to come to us when it would otherwise normally go to somebody else.  One of the most common forms of stealing these days is downloading pirated music or videos, or copying and using software we didn’t pay for.  Again, our rationalizations for such behavior know no limits, but it is still stealing.  The test for whether we are stealing or not is very simple:  if we asked the creator of the piece, would they say it’s legitimately ours?  If not, it was stealing.

Stealing is incredibly short-sighted.  Anybody who feels tempted to steal should take a few hours driving through a really poor neighborhood or they should go visit a very poor country or watch a documentary on global poverty.  You can find plenty of material just on YouTube.  When we see these things, we should remind ourselves that this is our future if we steal.  When we steal we create the causes to have nothing in the future.  Giving is the cause of wealth, taking is the cause of poverty.  It is as simple as that.  Why are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so rich?  Because they have the mental habits on their mind to give away everything.  Because they did this in the past, they become incredibly rich in this life.  Because they are again giving away all their wealth, in future lives they will again be incredibly rich.  Just as they are external philanthropists, a Bodhisattva is an inner philanthropist.  We seek vast inner wealth so that we can have even more to give away. 

Happy Protector Day: Helping the Pure Kadam Dharma Flourish

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 9 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

All my harmful thoughts and actions
That have offended your mind, O Great Protector,
I confess from the depths of my heart.
Please purify them swiftly, and care for me with love, like a mother for her child.

With this verse, we can purify all the negative karma that obstructs our ability to receive the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.  Such negative karma is like interference preventing a reception of our mobile phones or junk clogging up the arteries of a person.  We can generate a regret for whatever we have done in the past which has created negative karma preventing us from receiving the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.  Then we strongly imagine from Dorje Shugden purifying light rays and nectars flow down and touch all the beings inside the protection circle, ourself included, purifying all of the negative karma obstructing us from receiving Dorje Shugden’s care and protection.  We then strongly believe that all of these being are now without obstruction.

I beseech you from the depths of my heart, O Supreme Deity,
Please cause the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa to flourish,
Extend the life and activities of the glorious Gurus,
And increase the study and practice of Dharma within the Dharma communities.

We can understand this as follows:  The key point here is we realize how the Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa is the solution to all the problems of all beings.  The reason why beings suffer is because they too are trapped in a dream-like world of suffering created by their own self-centered minds.  They need to wake up from this dream into the pure world of the Buddhas.  The Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa provides a solution for destroying this self-centered mind, thereby enabling all beings to wake up from their worlds of suffering.  This is the solution to all of their problems.

Please be with me always like the shadow of my body,
And grant me your unwavering care and protection.
Destroy all obstacles and adverse conditions,
Bestow favourable conditions, and fulfil all my wishes.

Here we request Dorje Shugden to accomplish his main function, namely to arrange perfect conditions and to eliminate obstacles to our practice.  There are two types of condition:   When we are confronted with a situation which we think could be better, we request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.  If the external situation changes, then we know the situation was beyond our capacity and we can use that to develop bodhichitta, wishing later to have a capacity that can transform anything and everything.  If the external situation remains the same (or gets worse) then we can know that we need to work on the delusions that this situation generates for us.  We can equally do this with internal conditions.  An important thing worth noting at this point is Dorje Shugden will arrange what is best for our practice, not what is necessarily best for our worldly concerns.  We might even say Mick Jagger is actually part of Dorje Shugden’s mandala when he sung ‘you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.’

Now is the time to show clearly your versatile strength
Through your four actions, which are swift, incisive, and unobstructed,
To fulfil quickly my special heartfelt desires
In accordance with my wishes;

Here we request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best in general, in his own mysterious ways and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function. Ask people their Dorje Shugden stories when you are at festivals, and you will be amazed.  If our motivation is pure, he can arrange anything.

Now is the time to distinguish the truth and falsity of actions and effects;

Here we request him to make clear the relationship between cause and effect for all the beings within the protection circle.  At present, we think negativity is entertainment and exciting and we think virtue is boring.  In reality, negativity creates the cause for enormous suffering and virtue is the cause of all happiness.  Here we request that Dorje Shugden to bestow special wisdom blessings on all beings within the protection circle so they naturally, from their own side, make good choices.

Now is the time to dispel false accusations against the innocent;

Here we request Dorje Shugden to enable all beings within the protection circle to stop making mistaken and false imputations on others, but to correctly impute onto everybody ‘emanation of my spiritual guide’ and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.  At present, we impute onto others ‘object of attachment’ ‘object of aversion’ or ‘irrelevant.’  These are false accusations we impute on others, and we relate to them as if they were really these things from their own side.  This creates all our problems.  The only valid imputation of anybody is ‘emanation of my spiritual guide.’  The ultimate nature of all things is the Dharmakaya, so it is correct to say that everybody is an emanation of my spiritual guide.

Now is the time to protect the pitiful and protectorless;

The reason why people are pitiful and protectorless is because we have been neglecting them.  Their experience is what we have karmically created for them in our empty dream.  So here we request that he provide protection for all the beings we have been neglecting and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.

Now is the time to protect Dharma practitioners as your children.

It is particularly important to provide care and protection for Dharma practitioners because by helping them directly, indirectly it helps all living beings since they have vowed to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.  It is like opening up a second cash register at the supermarket.  Everybody gets through the line twice as fast.

In short, from now until I attain the essence of enlightenment,
I shall honour you as the embodiment of my Guru, Deity, and Protector.
Therefore please watch over me during the three periods of the day and the night
And never waver in your actions as my Protector.

The biggest fear of a Dharma practitioner is the fear of losing the path.  If we do not lose the path, we have nothing to fear; but if we do lose the path, we have all of samsara to fear.  When we recite this verse, we are creating the causes to be able to meet Dorje Shugden and rely upon him again in all our future lives.  In this way, we maintain the continuum of our practice and go from joy to joy until we attain enlightenment.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Understanding the Pratimoksha vows

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

The Pratimoksha vows are the vows of individual liberation.  Just as the refuge vows primarily function to maintain an uninterrupted continuum of our Buddhist practice between now and our eventual enlightenment, so too training in the Pratimoksha vows primarily functions to maintain an uninterrupted continuum of our intermediate scope practice between now and our eventual enlightenment.  This is important because there are many spiritual paths in the world which will help us attain a better rebirth in samsara, but there are few paths indeed which will help us actually get out of samsara.  In fact, we can say only those paths which teach the Madhyamika Prasangika view of emptiness will actually lead to liberation from samsara as defined by the Buddhist path.  I am not saying attaining a better rebirth within samsara is not good, rather I am saying it is just not good enough. 

What does it mean to escape from samsara?  To answer this question, we need to know what is samsara.  Samsara is uncontrolled rebirth into contaminated aggregates.  Humans suffer from human suffering because they uncontrolledly project their I onto human aggregates of body and mind.  Animals suffer from animal suffering because they uncontrolledly impute their I onto an animal’s body and mind.  The same is true for hungry spirits, hell beings, demi-gods, and gods.  To escape from samsara is to gain control over what we impute our I onto.  When we have such control, instead of uncontrolledly imputing it onto the body and mind of a samsaric being, we controlledly impute it onto the body and mind of a liberated or enlightened being.  When we can do this, we will have become ourselves a liberated or enlightened being.

At a practical level, we can say our samsara is our delusions and our dying body.  Our delusions and our dying body create all sorts of problems for us that we are forced to endure.  If we can learn to break our identification with our delusions and our body, then what happens to them will not be happening to us.

At a more profound level, samsara can best be thought of as us being trapped in an uncontrolled dream.  Right now, our dream is not too bad!  We are human, have all our faculties, sufficient resources, pleasant surroundings, etc.  But this will not last.  We know this because the karma giving rise to such appearances is quickly exhausting itself and we are doing little to nothing to create more karma for similar lives.  Once we have burned up our merit giving rise to this particular pleasant dream, it will revert to something much more awful.  Once that happens, it will be almost impossible to get back to the good dream, like the sea turtle trying to get its head through that golden yoke.  It is said that it is easier to attain enlightenment (wake up from the karmic dream) once we have become human than it is to become human again after we have fallen into a lower state. 

I once had a dream where I was being chased by some monsters.  They trapped me and there was no escape.  But then I realized I was dreaming and I requested blessings to be able to wake up.  I then did, and I escaped the monsters.  There was no escape in the dream, but there was an escape by waking up.  It is exactly the same with samsara.  We can travel anywhere within samsara and we will find no escape.  There is no hiding within samsara from its inevitable sufferings.  The only way to escape them is to wake up.  Waking up is not easy.  It runs counter to almost all the mental habits we have built up since beginningless time.  But if we don’t encounter a path that leads to us waking up, then waking up is actually impossible.  We will remain trapped forever.  So our choice is rather stark:  either we train in our Pratimoksha vows and be guaranteed to eventually awake or we don’t and remain trapped forever.  There is, unfortunately, no middle ground.

This does not mean we need to keep them all perfectly.  Rather, it means we need to never abandon the intention to keep trying to do a little bit better every day.  If we maintain this intention, and carry it with us into our death, we will refind the path again in our next life.  Some people have a mistaken understanding that somehow the Pratimoksha vows are different than the other vows.  We believe that somehow these vows are black and white, on or off, and that we don’t just maintain our intention to do our best.  This may be true for ordained Sangha with regard to certain vows, but even there there are many shades of gray.   But for lay practitioners, we should consider such vows like we do any other.  We do our best to do a little bit better every day.  It is better to keep them imperfectly and be happy about our training than to expect perfection, fall short and then do nothing. 

At a very technical level, the Pratimoksha vows are broken when four factors are present:  The object, the intention, the preparation, and the completion.  A full intention requires three factors to be present:  correct discrimination, determination, and delusion.  To be authentic Pratimoksha vows they must be taken with at least a motivation of renunciation.

If we have not yet received Pratimoksha vows, we should request our local teacher to grant them and to provide a commentary.  In subsequent posts, I will explain each lay Pratimoksha vow in turn.

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of effort

Kadampa Ryan Tsog Days

In order to remember and mark our tsog days, holy days on the Kadampa calendar, I am sharing my understanding of the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide with tsog.  This is part 38 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of effort
By striving for supreme 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.

Effort is taking delight in engaging in virtue, like a child at play. The perfection of effort is engaging in effort with a bodhicitta motivation. The method for generating effort is simple. First, we generate faith in our spiritual practices understanding their benefits. This gives rise to an aspiration wishing to engage in the practice and attain these benefits, and that aspiration naturally leads to joyful effort. For effort to be qualified it needs to be joyful. We need to be happy to engage in the virtue, not do so begrudgingly out of some sense of obligation.

Some people relate to their Dharma practice as hard work and they struggle to be able to do it. They have to force themselves to sit down to practice, attend classes, and so forth. Once again it is useful to recall that we are desire realm beings, which means that we have no choice but to do whatever it is that we desire. If we do not want to practice Dharma, and we force ourselves to do so against our will, then it may work for a short period of time, but in the long run our desire to not practice will win out and eventually we will come to resent our Dharma practice and even perhaps abandon it altogether. Just as the practice of moral discipline requires us to dismantle our negative tendencies and to actively construct virtuous tendencies, so too with the practice of effort we need to actively deconstruct and dismantle our laziness of attachment which prevents us from joyfully engaging in Dharma practice and then create within our mind a wish to practice through generating faith in the benefits of our practices.

The laziness of attachment is a mind that thinks happiness can be found by doing non-Dharma things. Because we want to be happy and we think doing these non-Dharma things is how we become happy, we wish to do so. For some, Dharma practice can seem like the ultimate buzzkill destroying all our fun. Once again, we have everything backwards. Shantideva says that we run towards the causes of suffering as if they are a pleasure garden, and we run away from the causes of happiness as if they were monsters to be feared. We need to recognize that our attachment to the pleasures of samsara are like giant hooks that bind our flesh to inevitable sickness, aging, misery, and death.

I once had a vision while meditating about being on a disk floating in space. There were all sorts of beautiful beings enticing me to move towards them, I did so and, not realizing, fell over the edge. As I did, the enticing beings then removed their disguise revealing they were in fact demons who then said “gotcha” as I fell into the lower realms. This is exactly how samsara works. We spend our whole lives chasing after attractive forms, wasting our precious opportunity to attain permanent freedom from all suffering, and then at the moment of our death when it is too late, it is as if everything we had ever worked towards were these enticing creatures who then say gotcha as we fall to the lower realms.

When we chase after our objects of attachment they never give us the happiness that we hoped for. And even after enjoying them, we feel we never feel satisfied and can often feel guilty about what we have done. In the process of chasing our objects of attachment, we accumulate all sorts of non-virtuous actions, engage in deceit, and break our vows. In the Lord of all Lineages prayer it says, “like mistakenly thinking a poisonous drink to be nectar, attachment with grasping at objects of desire is the cause of great danger.” We are like a prisoner who has found a way out of the prison, but chooses not to leave because it is macaroni and cheese day in the cafeteria!

There was once a Tibetan who had practiced sincerely throughout his life and reached the moment of his death knowing he was bound for the pure land and he suddenly had a doubt about whether he wanted to go. He developed a strong attachment to Tibetan butter tea and was worried he might not ever have it again. His spiritual guide reassured him, “do not worry the tea is even better in the pure land.” He was then able to let go of his attachment and he was then able to go to the pure land. The same logic can be used for all our objects of attachment. No matter how good we think they are, they are even better in the pure land. If we truly want pure enjoyments, the best thing we can do is to abandon our laziness of attachment.

Normally we consider someone to be mature if they consider the welfare of their future to be more important than their present. For example, we consider someone who studies hard in school or who saves their money for the future to be mature because they are preparing for a better future. By working hard now, we can enjoy an even better future later. But if we fail to work for the future and only live for our present happiness, life will get harder and harder overtime. In exactly the same way, if we use this life only for the sake of happiness in this life, we will waste this precious opportunity we have to prepare for our future lives. Understanding all this, we can dismantle our laziness of attachment, and instead choose instead to realize that true happiness lies on the other side of engaging in Dharma practice. Because we want to be happy both now and in the future, we then happily engage in practice. Joyful effort does not mean sacrificing our present happiness for the sake of future happiness, rather we are delighted to engage in virtue now because it makes our mind peaceful, and we are even more delighted knowing that we are building a better future for ourselves.

I have always found this verse to be particularly inspiring. We need to generate a mind that is willing to take rebirth in the fires of the deepest hell for the sake of each being. Effort is not simply about willing to do the work it takes for ourselves to attain enlightenment, our real motivation is to work endlessly for the benefit of all living beings, even if that means we must go into the fires of the deepest hell for many eons for the sake of each being. Venerable Tharchin said that he wishes to attain rebirth in the lower realms because that is where all the living beings are and he wants to help them. Such is the courageous mind of the perfection of effort.

In truth, if we truly wish to lead an effortless life, then attaining enlightenment is the best course of action. Once we attain enlightenment, all our actions become effortless. In Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, both the mandala offering and the migtsema prayer emphasize being able to effortlessly benefit all living beings. This comes primarily through applying effort now to be able to benefit them effortlessly later. One way of understanding this is to think about how spaceships travel in space. Because there is no friction in space, if they first apply effort firing their rockets, they set the spaceship in motion. Once set in motion, it continues without obstruction forever. In the same way when we remove the two obstructions from our mind, we remove all sources of friction in our mind, and all the virtuous actions we created while a bodhisattva are like the rocket fuel getting us started and then making all our actions as a Buddha effortless.

Happy Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day: Returning to Help Those Less Fortunate

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

September 22 is Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day, one of the special holy days on the Kadampa calendar in which all of our virtuous actions are multiplied by ten million.  After Buddha Shakyamuni attained enlightenment, he went to the Land of 33 Heavens where his mother had taken rebirth, gave teachings to the beings of that realm, and then returned to this world to turn the wheel of Dharma here.  On this day, we can generate compassion for beings in the upper realms and generate the wish to return to this world as Buddha did so that the Dharma may flourish forevermore.

Understanding How Holy Days Work

There are certain days of the year which are karmically more powerful than others, and the karmic effect of our actions on these days is multiplied by a factor of ten million!  These are called “ten million multiplying days.”  In practice, what this means is every action we engage in on these special days is karmically equivalent to us engaging in that same action ten million times.  This is true for both our virtuous and non-virtuous actions, so not only is it a particularly incredible opportunity for creating vast merit, but it is also an extremely dangerous time for engaging in negative actions.  There are four of these days every year:  Buddha’s Englightenment Day (April 15), Turning the Wheel of Dharma Day (June 4), Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day (September 22), and Je Tsongkhapa Day (October 25).  Heruka and Vajrayogini Month (January 3-31), NKT Day (1st Saturday of April), and International Temple’s Day (first Saturday of November) are the other major Days that complete the Kadampa calendar. 

A question may arise, why are the karmic effect of our actions greater on certain days than others?  We can think of these days as a spiritual pulsar that at periodic intervals sends out an incredibly powerful burst of spiritual energy or wind.  On such days, if we lift the sails of our practice, these gushes of spiritual winds push us a great spiritual distance.  Why are these specific days so powerful?  Because in the past on these days particularly spiritually significant events occurred which altered the fundamental trajectory of the karma of the people of this world.  Just as calling out in a valley reverberates back to us, so too these days are like the karmic echoes of those past events.  Another way of understanding this is by considering the different types of ocean tides.  Normally, high and low tide on any given day occurs due to the gravity of the moon pulling water towards it as the earth rotates.  But a “Spring tide” occurs when the earth, moon, and Sun are all in alignment, pulling the water not just towards the moon as normal, but also towards the much more massive sun.  Our holy days are like spiritual Spring tides.

Generating Compassion for Beings in the Upper Realms

The vast majority of beings in samsara are in the lower realms.  In this world, we talk often about the 1% and the other 99% of the wealth distribution.  Samsara’s demographics are quite similar.  The Wheel of Life image sometimes gives a distorted perception that the six realms of samsara (gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings) are roughly equally distributed, but in reality, roughly 99% of the beings in samsara are in the lower realms, whereas only about 1% are in the upper realms.  We know this to be true because roughly 99% of the actions of living beings in samsara are negative, and only about 1% are virtuous – meaning a cause for upper rebirth.  We might object that our actions are at least 50% positive – we are a good person after all – but the actions of beings in the lower realms are almost universally negative, so they remain trapped. 

When we talk about the 1%, we usually do so from a position of jealousy, resentment, and condemnation.  We are jealous of their wealth and power, resent the control they have over our lives, and condemn the many selfish and negative actions they engage in that harm the rest of us.  Wars, climate change, nuclear weapons, pollution, structural inequality, etc., are all caused by the decisions of the 1%, but the rest of us have to suffer the consequences.  Our natural instinct is to dislike or even hate the 1%.  Considering all the harm they do, generating compassion for them seems misplaced at best and twisted at worst. 

One of Buddha’s first acts was to go to the Land of 33 Heavens to give teachings, not just to his mother, but to all of the beings who had taken rebirth there.  In other words, he showed the example that we should also have compassion for the 1% – both in this world and in samsara. 

The method for generating compassion is the same for all beings – first, we generate a mind of love, considering their happiness to be important; and then we consider how they suffer.  The beings of the upper realms are also our mothers and so they are equally objects of our love.  Why should we resent them for whatever happiness and pleasant conditions they enjoy?  They created the karmic causes for such experiences, did they not?  They are also “living beings” and so are worthy of our love.  If Buddha loves them, why can’t we also?

How can we understand the sufferings of beings in the upper realms?  First, it is important to recall that we ourselves are among that elite group since we are human, and the human realm is considered an upper realm.  We are part of the 1%.  Human sufferings are quite manifest – we all get sick, if we are lucky we get old, and we all will die.  All of us already took rebirth.  All of these sufferings are inescapable and traumatic.  We also frequently encounter things we do not like, are separated from things we do like, and experience pervasive uncertainty about what happens next.  We all know these teachings, but we need to personalize them.  My mother in law had a terrible stroke that nobody wanted to encounter, much less her.  I have been separated from my family due to working in another country.  The whole world experienced pervasive uncertainty due to the Coronavirus.  All humans are experiencing these sufferings, regardless of how rich or powerful they might be.

Geshe-la explains in Modern Buddhism that demigods experience more mental pain than humans do.  We can see and understand how by considering the 1% of this world.  The 1% are extremely jealous of the 0.01%, and no matter how much they have, it is never enough.  My kids have had the good fortune to attend these amazing international schools around the world, but the vast majority of the families who put their kids in these schools are miserable.  They are constantly competing against one another, obnoxiously bragging about their kids in an effort to feel better than others, and worrying about their husbands running off with somebody younger and more attractive.  They work insanely long hours, experience tremendous stress at work, face constant criticism from others when the majority of them don’t do anything wrong, and they live in constant fear of losing it all.  I know hundreds of these people from all over the world, and I quite literally can’t think of one who is genuinely happy, and certainly nowhere near as happy as Aunt Paulette who doesn’t have a penny to her name, lives alone after her husband of 40 years died in a small apartment with little heat and faulty plumbing, in a tiny village in France. When you travel the world and see people of different levels of wealth, you can’t help but notice there seems to be an inverse relationship between having and being happy. 

The gods are no better off.  Venerable Tharchin explains that Greek Mythology is not myth, but rather a fairly accurate description of god realm society.  They are in constant conflict with each other, and their actions have terrible repercussions on millions in the other realms – creating horrific karma in the process.  There is a saying when an American sneezes, somebody in the developing world gets a cold.  Americans have tremendous power in this world and everything they do has spillover effects on the rest of the world.  The instability we create with our economic policy, wars, and negligence in controlling pandemics have echo effects around the world.  We are like the Hunger Games, living blithely in the capital while much of the world struggles to get by supplying our excesses. 

From a karmic perspective, those in the upper realms are quite unfortunate.  Sure, the karma that is ripening might be nice, but they are burning it all up and later will have nothing.  We get complacent when things are good and it is only when we suffer do we feel any motivation to practice Dharma, now try to imagine being a demigod or a god.  Bonfire of the vanities.  And even those who do take rebirth in the upper realms still have on their mental continuum all of the negative karma from when they were in the lower realms, and if they die with a negative mind, it will activate this negative karma and they will fall.  We respond to even mild adversities in life with negative minds, so it goes without saying that many people in the upper realms will likewise generate negative minds when they face the greatest adversity of all – their own death.  It is said gods can see their next rebirth.  Imagine the horror of reaching your death and knowing how far you will fall.

We may have studied these sorts of teachings many times in the past, but have we let them touch our heart?  We still, deep within our desires, wish for even a similitude of what the demigods and gods have.  We chase after these dreams, wasting our precious time, only to arrive at death and realize it was all for nothing.  We feel resentment or jealousy towards those whose good karma is burning up faster than ours.  How ridiculous.  What we need is compassion – just like Buddha had when he went to the 33 Heavens in the first place.

Returning to this World to Spread the Dharma

Buddha did not just go to the upper realms, he returned to help us.  Think about that.  How many of those who are in positions of great wealth, pleasure, or power return to help those less fortunate than they are?  The vast majority just wall themselves off from the unclean masses and try to turn a blind eye to the suffering around them, often while looking down on all those who are not as lucky as they are.  But Buddha returned.  Many people escape from poverty and enter into the middle or even upper classes; many people get out of their small towns and move to the big city where they enjoy great success; many people are the first in their communities to get a good education and go on to enjoy a life beyond the wildest dreams of those they grew up with; many people leave their country and move to rich countries; but very few of these return for the sake of those who were left behind.  The entire nationalist populist movement in the world today is a backlash against those who have enjoyed the fruits of globalization by those who were left behind.  Of all people, it was Trump who bothered to look back and even see these people.  Of course, he did so just to con them, but still – at least he looked back.  The rest of us…  But Buddha, he returned.

One of the best aspects of Jesus’ example is he made a point of seeking out those society had left behind, judged, and condemned.  He renounced the hypocrisy of those with wealth and power and lifted up the spirits of the downtrodden.  Despite being the Son of God, he returned and dedicated his life and his teachings to those less fortunate, those on the receiving end of oppression.  He returned. 

And so should we.  For us as Kadampas, it is an increasing time.  We are better off now than we were before.  There are many who we grew up with who have been left behind.  Maybe not in material terms, but certainly in spiritual terms.  When we are at our Dharma centers or festivals, we happily rejoin our friends, but think little of those who might feel alone or lost in the crowd.  When we start to gain some mental peace and stability, we start to become frustrated with “deluded people,” even using the Dharma to judge them in a sub-conscious effort to feel superior.  We start cocooning ourselves into smaller and smaller circles of like-minded people and view it as a chore to have to return to our families on the holidays.  The root of all negativity is self-cherishing, which is not just a mind that puts ourselves first but also neglects to bother caring for others.  We sometimes forget that latter part and content ourselves with not directly harming others.  Our failure to help when we otherwise could do so is a subtle form of harming others.  For somebody who travels Mahayana paths, they equally fear samsara and solitary peace, the latter being content to be absorbed in our own liberation while neglecting everybody else.  Buddha returned. 

If we are honest, it is terribly easy to call ourselves Mahayanists, but actually just be interested in our own freedom and happiness.  We generate ourselves as the deity in the pure land, but do we remember our compassionate reasons why we are bothering to emanate pure forms?  We may even be able to bring our winds into our central channel, but is our motivation bodhichitta or a wish for the bliss of mental suppleness?  Buddha returned.

On Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day, we should honestly examine our own behavior and see all of the different ways we neglect others.  We may not harm anybody, but we neglect almost everyone just in different ways.  We should ask ourselves, how can we return?  Who should we be returning to?  How can we emulate Buddha’s example?  We might think we will return when we become a Buddha, but if we never develop the habit of returning as a budding Bodhisattva, how will we want to return when we attain liberation? 

Returning doesn’t have to imply any physical action even, it is a mental attitude.  Do we give back?  Do we engage in our practices genuinely for the sake of others?  Do we say prayers?  Do we do powa for others?  Do we put others first in our daily actions?  All of these are returning.  Buddha returned, and so should we.

Returning to Spread the Dharma

The most important way in which we return is by dedicating ourselves to ensuring the Dharma flourishes forevermore.  Buddha did not just return to help people in worldly samsaric ways, he returned to help people escape from samsara as well.  Most people who escape from prison will not return to the prison to help everybody else escape as well.  Buddha does not seek for us merely that we enjoy a more privileged position in samsara, but he returned to tell us there is no happiness to be found anywhere within it.  He trains us to become qualified spiritual guides so we can help others likewise escape.  While we may leave samsara behind, like a good soldier, we leave nobody behind. 

Venerable Tharchin says we should each assume our place in the lineage.  The responsibility is on us to internalize the Dharma, then “return” to pass it on to the next generation.  We may not all do that as Dharma teachers, but we can do so as center administrators or even the person who secretly cleans all the toilets without anybody knowing.  Even if we do nothing physically to help others, through the power of our inner spiritual actions, we can bless the minds of everyone and pray for their well-being.  Some people think such actions are meaningless compared to “practical” (meaning physical) help, but Geshe-la explains that our mental actions are thousands of times more beneficial to others than anything we can do with our body or speech. 

At the end of every spiritual practice we do, we recite the prayers for the virtuous tradition.  Aligning our life with the meaning of this prayer is the actual meaning of Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day.  As Geshe-la explains, Je Tsongkhapa represented Buddha’s teachings, and his Dharma is Buddha’s Dharma.  Geshe-la has done the same for the modern world.  He returned.  This is the deeper, spiritual meaning of returning. 

So that the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa, the King of the Dharma may flourish, may all obstacles be pacified and may all favorable conditions abound.  Through the two collections of myself and others, gathered throughout the three times, may the doctrine of Losang Dragpa flourish forever more. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Making our refuge irreversible

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To perform every action with complete trust in the Three Jewels. 

We should rely upon the Three Jewels in everything we do.  In this way all our actions will be successful.  We should always try to receive the blessings of the Three Jewels by making offerings and requests.  In previous posts, I have discussed extensively how we rely upon the guru’s mind alone for all that we do.  I encourage you to read the different special series I have done which explain this.  But the short version is this:  if you have a choice of a hammer or a nail gun, which will you choose?  If you have a choice of a soap box derby car or a Ferrari, which would you choose?  In the same way, if you have a choice of having your ordinary body, speech and mind being the source of all your actions or the enlightened body, speech and mind of your Spiritual Guide being the source of all your actions, which would you choose?  Most of us simply don’t realize we can become an instrument of the holy beings in this world, and many of those that do know this don’t know how to become one.  But once we know it is possible and we know how to do it, our life takes on a whole new purpose.  We come to have one goal alone:  to rely upon the three jewels for all that we do.

Omniscient beings know how to do our jobs better than we do, they know how to parent better than we do, they know how to get along with others better than we do, they know what paths to follow and which ones to abandon better than we do, they speak kinder, think wiser and act better than we do.  They even brush our teeth better than we do!  Frankly, there is nothing positive we do better than they do.  So why do we foolishly do things ourselves when we can learn to let them do everything through us. 

Never to forsake the Three Jewels, even at the cost of our life, or as a joke. 

We should never abandon the three Jewels under any circumstances.  What does it mean to abandon the three jewels?  It does not mean to forget about them.  This happens all the time.  Rather, it means to come to the conclusion that they are wrong.  This can take any number of forms, such as us concluding they are wrong about the nature of our problem, or they are wrong about delusions being deceptive, or they are wrong about non-virtuous actions are to be avoided, or they are wrong about the need to escape from samsara, or they are wrong about why it is better to cherish and love others, or they are wrong about the ultimate meaning of human life, or they are wrong about the ultimate nature of reality.  If we come to any of these conclusions, then this would be forsaking the three jewels. 

The reality is there are very few people who maintain a constancy in their Dharma practice throughout their life.  There are many people who come into the Dharma, have a great few years, and then move on to the next thing.  It is not bad that this happens.  It is good that they have a few years with the Dharma and leave happy.  The Dharma remains with them, influencing their behavior and thoughts in a myriad of ways, and then in their next life they stay a bit longer.  One of the biggest mistakes Dharma teachers and Dharma centers make is they become attached to people coming to all the classes and staying at the center.  Attachment creates the causes to be separated from the objects of our attachment.  Our attachment to people coming (badk) actually creates the karmic causes to destroy the spiritual life of the other person.  People are not stupid.  They know when they are being emotionally manipulated with the Dharma to get them to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do.  In the short-run, this may work; but over time they start to no longer believe us that we are just trying to help them (they think we are trying to use them for our own purposes), they lose faith and they move on. 

Any amount of Dharma is a good thing.  So let people partake of what they wish and move on when they wish.  The most important thing is to help them be happy with whatever they do do, and not feel judged for all the things they don’t do.  Even if people move on in their lives and stop coming, if we can succeed in them leaving with a happy, no regrets mind then the Dharma will remain with them their whole life.  If instead, we unskillfully say they are killing their spiritual life and blah blah blah, making them feel guilty or bad, then all that they gained from their time with us will be lost as they reject everything.  We shouldn’t project an all or nothing attitude, rather we should project a “take freely what you wish and enjoy” attitude. 

Some people will stay for a few classes, some will stay for a few years and some will stay their whole life.  Some will only go to festivals, some will just read the books, some will just come for the tea and cookies.  Some will be serious about their meditation practice, some will just be looking for some friends.  It’s all good and we should welcome all it.  If we don’t, then we are forsaking the Dharma.