Just because some senior teachers may fall into scandal does not mean the Dharma is wrong, it means their understanding was wrong or their delusions or negative karma got the best of them.

Gen Tharchin said our primary refuge should be in the Dharma, not the person. The reason for this is simple. If we put our primary refuge in the person and they do something stupid, we will lose everthing. But if we put our primary refuge in the Dharma and the person does something stupid, the conclusion we reach is their story is a cautionary tale encouraging us to not do stupid things or to not hold on to wrong understandings. Instead of losing everything, we will become more motivated to do things correctly. Their downfall becomes their most powerful teaching.

And let’s be honest with ourselves, our tradition has had its fair share of pretty awful scandals. We don’t need to run away from these, minimize them, sugarcoat them, or worse deny them. We need to have the courage to own them, call a spade a spade and declare wrong is wrong, even when committed by people within our tradition. Indeed, I would say we especially need to do this if we want our tradition to survive, much less thrive. At the same time, we also don’t need to exaggerate our mistakes, self-flagellate about them, or become despondent about them. We simply admit them, learn from our mistakes, make amends, and move on. This is just as true for the tradition as a whole as it is for us as individuals.

We have also left a wake of some really hurt people by unskfillful things we have done or how some people have been treated. Sure, they made mistakes too along the way, but that doesn’t absolve us of our own mistakes. We need to own them, admit them, and do our best to repair any damage we may have caused.

Yes, we need to defend our tradition, sometimes even in wrathful ways, but we don’t have to harm living beings in the process of doing so. Sometimes (I would say most of the time, if not all of the time) the best way of defending our tradition is by responding with patience, acceptance, understanding, compassion, and wisdom. We need to show love for these people, not scorn. We need to be grateful for their criticisms, not retaliate in kind.

Just because we are defending something precious does not give us license to betray the teachings by harming those who seek to harm us. This doesn’t mean we do nothing or allow false accusations to stand, but we don’t protect our principles by violating them. It is like those who called for suspending democracy or engaging in torture during the war on terrorism in the name of supposedly defending it.

As a tradition, we need to have the courage to learn from our mistakes. And by and large we have done so. Things are so much better now than they were before. But we still have a long ways to go. Admitting that is not a criticism, it is an act of love for the tradition. Owning up to our mistakes and making amends for them are crucial parts of how we cause the Dharma to flourish for generations to come.

The strong wish for the holy Dharma to flourish can be a virtuous wish or it can be an attachment. Most often it is a mix in our mind.

Attachment thinks some external thing or condition is a necessary requisite for our happiness – having this external thing is a cause of happiness, and I can’t be happy without this external thing.

For example, imagine I am attached to the people close to me not suffering. This means I mistakenly think my happiness depends on them being OK. If they are not OK, I can’t be OK. I need them to be OK before I can be OK. When they suffer, I suffer; when they go down, I go down with them. This is an attachment to them being OK. I think my happiness depends upon something external, not on my own inner peace. The wish that others were free from all suffering could be a mind of pure compassion (for the sake of others, free from all attachment) or it could be an attachment (for the sake of myself, motivated by a delusion of attachment). Most often it is mixed. I want others to be free from suffering for pure compassionate reasons and for attachment reasons. My training in compassion includes gradually purifying my compassion of all attachment so that it is completely pure, free from all self-concern or attachment.

In exactly the same way, strongly wishing for the pure Kadam Dharma to flourish can be a pure wish or it can be an attachment. For example, if I’m attached to the people in my life being free from delusions – thinking my happiness depends upon them not being deluded – then I could strongly wish that they appreciate or practice the Kadam Dharma so that their delusions could decrease since I find their delusions so annoying and disturbing to my mind. I need them to practice Dharma for me to be OK. That’s attachment in my mind to the Kadam Dharma flourishing.

Resident Teachers and Center Administrators develop attachment to the Dharma flourishing all the time, or at least that’s how it appears. They have dedicated their lives to the flourishing of the Kadam Dharma, often facing significant judgment and concern from their family members who fear they have gone off and joined some cult. They might become attached to their family appreciating the Dharma so that this painful judgment stops. Or they might show up to a Summer Festival and only 2 of their students came, or maybe none at all. They might feel they have failed as an RT. They might work for many years to cause the Dharma to flourish in their area of the world, but try as they might, nobody seems interested.

Any endeavor usually involves some sort of “key performance indicators” where our success is measured against some metric. For RTs and center administrators, it can easily become “how many students do you have, is your center able to financially support itself, are you opening up new branches, how many people from your center go to festivals, etc.” It is very easy to become attached to all these things. All of these wishes could also be completely pure wishes, or they could be motivated by attachment – thinking our happiness depends upon these external things and if we don’t have these external things we can’t be happy. Most often our wish is mixed – part pure, part attachment. So just as we purify our compassion of attachment, so too we need to gradually purify our wish for the pure Kadam Dharma to flourish of attachment as well.

Just because our wishes right now are mixed does not mean they are wrong. We need these wishes, but we also need to make them more and more qualified and we do so through gradually purifying them of any trace of attachment, self-concern, and ignorance.

In many ways, it appears (to me at least) that attachment to the pure Kadam Dharma flourishing is one of the biggest, most pervasive, most corrosive attachments within our tradition (within any spiritual tradition, really), even if it is subtle and operating hidden like a tiger underneath the surface. It seems so justified, surely attachment to this wish is a good thing. No, attachment is attachment, and all attachments are delusions. The wish isn’t necessarily an attachment, but it can be. It can also be a pure wish.

Pointing this out is not a criticism of our tradition, it is an act of love. It is because we love our tradition and want it to flourish that we feel compelled to dig deeper and see what is going on in our mind. This is not finding fault in our tradition, it is finding fault in delusion. VGL’s surely does not have attachment to the Dharma flourishing, his motivation is completely pure. He has done the work to abandon all attachment to it flourishing and so must we. Perhaps I’m the only one with this attachment in my mind, I don’t know. But I do know it is present in my mind and so it is my responsibility to root it out. What others do by looking in this particlar mirror is up to them. I also need to eliminate all attachment to the people of my tradition eliminating this attachment from their mind (if it even exists in their mind, which I don’t know).

To me, it seems our job is to make our wish for the pure Kadam Dharma to flourish a completely pure wish. The more we do, the more we align ourselves with VGL’s pure intention and the more all our pure deeds (and this tradition) will flourish. The more we do, the more we fulfill our heart commitment to Dorje Shugden and the more effective he can be in our life helping us fulfill all our pure wishes.

Indeed, it is because we want the pure Kadam Dharma to flourish that we need to purify our mind of all attachment to it flourishing. Like all attachments, attachment to the pure Kadam Dharma flourishing actually creates obstacles to it flourishing in this world. People will feel manipulated, we will act all cult-like, we will become defensive when attacked, and we will create the karma to be separated from what we are attached to.

Clearly it is better to be attached to the pure Kadam Dharma flourishing than to making a bunch of money or having a great professional reputation, but it is better to have a pure wish for the pure Kadam Dharma to flourish than to have this wish mixed with attachment.

Hardly anybody ever talks about this attachment, or at least not publicly. But we do need to look into the mirror of Dharma and see if we have it in our mind, see how it disturbs our inner peace, gradually reduce it with the opponents, and finally eliminate it with the wisdom realizing emptiness. We owe it to ourselves to do this work since it is a delusion in our mind creating unhelpful karma for ourselves. We also frankly owe it to VGL to do this work. We owe it to all our lineage gurus who have done so much to pass this lineage on to us to do this work. We owe it to all living beings who we have been charged with carrying the lineage forward for to do this work.

But the choice is ours, of course. It’s not like it is bad to have this attachment (well, actually it is bad to have this attachment since all delusions are objects of abandonment). Being attached to the Dharma flourishing is good. But purifying our motivation of all attachment is even better.

Again, perhaps I’m the only one.

When somebody comes to us with a problem, I have found the ten steps below to be helpful. They are born from my basically having made every mistake in the book and the sometimes painful lessons I have learned trying, but failing to help those I love. I share them with the hope that you might learn from my mistakes and help those you love.

First, just listen fully with a compassionate heart free from any personal attachment to them not suffering, nodding often, seeking to understand how they are perceiving, feeling, and experiencing what they are going through. Give them the time and space to say whatever it is they need or want to say, no matter how long it may take. Sometimes this is all people need from you – just somebody they can express themselves to or a shoulder to cry on. Often just giving people the space to verbalize what is happening inside of them is enough for them to realize the answers to their own questions or to at least get it all off of their chest. That is perfectly OK and often enough. While you are listening to them, generate Venerable Geshe-la (or Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka) at your heart, imagining the person we are speaking with is actually in his presence and they are expressing themselves to him. You can also generate Avalokiteshvara or Tara in them, reciting their mantras as appropriate requesting that their minds be blessed.

Second, repeat back what you understood them to say from their perspective (not your interpretation of their experience). Explicitly recognize what happened to them and how that made/makes them feel and what they thought about it. It’s often helpful to ask to confirm that you understood them correctly to make sure you are understanding them and everything as they are experiencing it. This step is important because unless they know we understand their problem as they are experiencing it, they won’t accept, appreciate, or understand any advice we might later give.

Third, empathize with them about how hard that is, how sorry you are that they are going through all of that, and reassure them that it is entirely normal that they are having the reaction that they are having to it. If somebody has wronged them in some way, it is very important to call that out explicitly as wrong, hurtful, and harmful. We must be able to call a spade a spade, call out wrong as wrong, and acknowledge what happened to them was hurtful. This step is important because people need to feel validated in their reactions and experiences of things before they are open to viewing things differently. If we don’t do this, then there is a real risk that any advice we later might give gets misperceived as us gaslighting them, telling them that the are wrong to experience what happened to them as harmful and that they are the one at fault for their suffering or the other person’s wrong behavior. Indeed, they may think we are saying the other person’s wrong behavior is somehow correct and our friend is the one in the wrong to take things as they did.

Fourth, we can either explicitly ask or do our best to intuit (requesting blessings helps) if the person wants any advice or suggestions or whether they just want to be heard and perhaps receive a loving hug. Here again, it is super important that we abandon any last trace of attachment in our mind to them being OK. If we need them to be OK for ourselves to be OK, then we will feel compelled to try change them and give them advice (and attached to them accepting our advice) so they can get better so that we can be better. This corrupts the whole process and just creates obstacles to them accepting any advice we might offer. It’s not our job to control or manage other people’s emotional reaction to things. Our job is to accept them as they are exactly where they are at, without any personal need whatsoever for them to change or get better.

If they are not open to receiving advice, then don’t give any. Let me repeat that: if they are not open to receiving advice, then hold yourself back – don’t give any. Just be loving and compassionate acceptance. Our job is to be for them what they need, not impose upon them what we think they need. If we give unsolicited advice, all we often do is create the causes for them to reject the advice they very well may need, which doesn’t help anybody.

Fifth, if they are open to receiving advice, don’t offer any yet. Ask questions first. How does this make you feel? What do you think is driving that? What are your thoughts about how to deal with it? What does this make you want to do? If you did that, how do you think it would play out? Have you dealt with situations like this in the past? What worked and what didn’t work in those situations? Just ask questions with genuine curiosity and no implied judgment of what you think are the right answers. Ask the questions that help them find their own answers. Do not ask them the questions that guide them towards your answers or solutions because they will sense that and again it can be mispreceived as a form of judgment, gaslighting, manipulation, or the offering of unsolicited advice. Much better to help people uncover their own solutions than be given solutions by you. Request Venerable Geshe-la at your heart to help guide you to ask the right questions.

Sixth, ask again (or intuit with blessings) if they want your perspective on the whole thing. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. Again, let go of all attachment to them being OK or wanting to be their savior or giving advice or them receiving advice.

Seventh, if they do want your perspective, begin with once again repeating what you understood, call a spade a spade recognizing what the other person did was wrong, empathizing with what they are going through, acknowledging it is both hard and normal how they are reacting, and then flag what you agree with in terms of their own responses or solutions they identified in step five. Reinforce all that you have previously done and validate where you agree with their proposed solutions.

Eighth, if they are open to more, begin explaining your perspective by making a distinction between the outer and the inner problem as you see it. The outer problem is what happened and what external situation they need to deal with and the inner problem is how it may have triggered delusions in their mind that are disturbing them or they are unable to see how this bad thing that happened to them is actually good for their inner personal growth. Begin by offering very normal, very practical advice for how to deal with the outer problem. When the car breaks, take it to the mechanic. Sometimes Kadampas are reluctant to offer normal practical external advice, as if doing so is somehow not our place or takes away from the Dharma solutions we also have to offer. This is total nonsense. We should help people in all ways we can, both normal external good advice and internal advice. Most people strongly grasp at the external situation as THEIR problem, and so if you don’t show them how they can also address the external situation, they won’t feel like you understand or heard what their problem is. They also have a broken down car and need to get it fixed, so explain to them what they need to do so fix it. We should feel free to share our own experiences of when we faced similar situations and what we did externally to try address it, all while making clear that the external solution may or may not work. As Kadampas, we also need to know how to function in this world and get stuff done. Worldly wisdom is still wisdom. Once people feel like they have a solution – or at least a course of action – for their external problem, then they are more willing to be open to what we might have to say for addressing their internal problem.

Ninth, now you can turn to thoughts and suggestions on addressing their internal problem. The first thing you need to ask yourself is are they open to receiving internal advice using Dharma terminology or not. Most often, frankly, they are not; but sometimes they are. If they are not open to or familiar with Dharma terminology, don’t use it. You need to be like the ancient Tibetan translators who first had to learn the Dharma in Sanskrit and then translate it into Tibetan. We learned how to speak Kadampa through our own training, but we need to learn how to translate it into normal speech that the person we are speaking with can accept and understand. Sometimes it will be through personal stories, sometimes sports analogies, and sometimes it will be through passing on wisdom you got from your grandma. Your job is to explain things to them in a way they can understand, not how you understand it. Begin by helping them accept the situation for what it is, differentiating what we can control and what we cannot control. For the things we can control, help them see what they can do – how they can change their mind towards the situation or view it differently. More often than not, people can understand that while they may not be able to change the external situation, they can change their opinion about it. This is the beginning of the wisdom realizing emptiness. Usually, any difficult situation reveals many truths of Dharma. For the things they cannot control, help them see how this difficult situation gives them to a chance to develop some valuable internal qualities like patience, love, compassion, a backbone, setting boundaries, etc. A thorough understanding of the Lojong teachings on transforming adversity into the path is usually all we need. It is typically best to transmit this through telling stories about how you dealt with things when you faced similar situations and then let them apply the story to their own situation in their own way. Resist the temptation to tell them how they should be thinking or feeling, rather give them options they can choose from about how they might be able to view or relate to the situation differently and leave them free to decide what to take or not take from your stories or suggestions.

Tenth, ask them questions about what they think of what you had to share, if any of that was helpful or if you missed the mark. When you ask, you need to be completely free from any attachment whatsoever that they understand, appreciate, or follow anything you said. They may get mad at you for what you said and reject everything. Or they may think you are nuts and your advice is crap. Or they may appreciate what you said but you know they will not act on it. All of that is TOTALLY OK. You need to accept any and all of that. Be patient with them as Venerable Geshe-la has been with us. They may only take a fraction of what we offered and that is perfectly OK. Sometimes they hear what we say now, but will need to go through a few more similar life experiences before what we said makes any sense to them. What they take from what you offered is entirely up to them. We have no need for them to listen to us, follow our advice, or even get better. Of course we hope they do all these things, but we have no personal need for them to do so. We leave them completely free to ignore us or even hate us for what we had to say. We can request Dorje Shugden that their conversation with us becomes a cause of their enlightenment, even if they reject everything.

I’m not saying any of these ten steps are guaranteed to help and there may be many circumstances when they are not appropriate. But generally speaking, I have found them to be helpful when people have come to me with their problems. Each thing above comes from having learned the hard way that doing the opposite doesn’t work. I hope others reading this might be able to learn from my mistakes and be more helpful to those they love.

If we can learn how to help others, then we can really help the Dharma flourish in this world. If we are not able to help people with their personal problems – help them solve their problems with Dharma – then what, really, is all our practice about? But if people start coming to Kadampas when life gets hard and we are able to help them, then people will start to see the value of ancient Kadampa wisdom in the modern world. This is how it flourishes. Everyone needs Kadam Dharma. Skillfully helping them when they come to us with their problems is part of how we make it available to them.