Author: Kadampa Ryan

A Pure Life: Do not Steal

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part six of a 12-part series on how to skillfully train in the Eight Mahayana Precepts.  The 15th of every month is Precepts Day, when Kadampa practitioners around the world typically take and observe the Precepts.

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 such stealing is justified such as not paying taxes or fines, or stealing from our employer, downloading pirated music or videos, etc.  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 do not go beyond what is intended by your employer).  Another very common form of stealing is lying on our taxes so that we pay less arguing our government is wasteful.  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 other person would they say its 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 became incredibly rich in this life.  Because they are again giving away all of 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.

There are also many subtle forms of stealing that occur due to the way we have structured our economy. As many of you know I am in economist by training. I very much believe in free markets as the least bad way of organizing an economy. However, the optimal effects of the market only occur when there is what is called perfect competition. When there is perfect competition, excess profits are competed away and both consumers and producers are as good off as they could possibly be on the aggregate. But when markets are not perfectly competitive, markets do not produce optimal results. For example, if a company has a monopoly on the sale of a certain good that everybody needs, it can charge extraordinarily high prices and people will be forced to pay. The company intentionally restricts production to drive the prices higher than would otherwise exist in a perfectly competitive market. As a result, they extract a surplus in profit not due to the quality of their product, but rather by virtue of their market power. Extracting this surplus profit is a form of stealing from the consumers and also from society as a whole because not as much of the good is produced as would otherwise be the case.  It is beyond the scope of this blog to outline them, but there are many examples of market power being used for selfish purposes. 

At a personal level, the point is we need to be aware of the situations in which we have some form of market power over others and to not take advantage of our more powerful position to extract greater profits then we are justifiably due. If we fail to do this, it is a form of stealing. Likewise, if we live in a society in which corporations have disproportionate power and enjoy political protection for their monopolistic behavior, if we vote for or lend political support for such policy knowing that it is a form of stealing, then we are also engaged in a subtle form of stealing. The point is this, we live in a society and we have a say in how that society is run. If we use our political power for selfish purposes or to support those who do so, then are these not karmic actions that have karmic effects? This is not mixing Dharma with politics; this is understanding that the actions we engage in have effects on those around us and we must take that into account when choosing our actions.  I would not say that all of this is a violation of our Mahayana precept to abandon stealing, but it is once again a directional question. Are our actions moving in the direction of stealing or are they moving in the direction of not stealing. That is the question.

On Putting the Meaning of Dharma into our Own Words:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Sometimes people get very nervous when they hear or read Dharma being expressed in ways not explicitly articulated by VGL. Often people will say things like, “where does VGL say that,” or “you are creating confusion,” or worse they will make accusations that you are inventing your own lineage.

I understand these concerns, there are many legitimate issues that need to be navigated carefully. As modern Kadampas we need to 100% ground everything we do in what VGL has taught us. His words are perfect and were meticulously selected, so putting things a different way can lead to confusion, especially if we are wrong in how we put it. And we certainly are not qualified to create our own lineage and don’t want anybody to rely upon us over the one and only Guru of our lineage for all time – Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka.

But it is an extreme to think the meaning of Dharma can only be expressed with VGL’s exact words or formulations. It is an extreme to be a Dharma parrot. For example, he didn’t speak French or Spanish or Mandarin, yet our books are all translated into these languages. Translating Dharma has been an essential component of how the lineage gets passed on through the generations, such as the great Tibetan translators who went to India, learned Sanskrit, and sent the Dharma back.

Translating Dharma is not just from one world language to another, but occurs at a micro level all the time – for example, how we would explain the Dharma to a transgender scholar from Harvard might be different than to a die hard so-called football hooligan from Manchester. How we explain it to a grandmother might be different than to a young monk. We each live in a different linguistic circle where ideas and meanings are coded in different words, so it is entirely normal that the meaning of Dharma will be expressed differently in different contexts. Not only is this not something to be feared, it should be embraced as how we make the Dharma available to all the myriad different types of being in this world.

Indeed, VGL warns about this in Clear Light of Bliss where he explains “In the teachings on the four reliances, Buddha gives further guidelines for arriving at an unmistaken understanding of the teachings. He says: Do not rely upon the person, but upon the Dharma. Do not rely upon the words, but upon the meaning. Do not rely upon the interpretative meaning, but upon the definitive meaning. Do not rely upon consciousness, but upon wisdom.” He goes on to say, “If we understand these four reliances and use them to evaluate the truth of the teachings we receive, we will be following an unmistaken path. There will be no danger of our adopting false views or falling under the influence of misleading Teachers. We will be able to discriminate correctly between what is to be accepted and what is to be rejected, and we will thereby be protected against faults such as sectarianism.”

In other words, what matters is not the exact words we use, but whether the meanings our words transmit are pure Dharma. The meaning is unchanging all the way back to Buddha, but how that meaning gets expressed will vary over time and from one micro-cultural corner to another.

VGL explained when he first taught Modern Buddhism at a Summer Festival that our job is to “attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.” He went on to explain he has given us the pure Kadam Dharma, but we know modern life. Our job therefore is to attain this union. This is how we make the Dharma available to everyone in this world and pass it on to future generations. The Dharma is not just the words he uses, it is the meanings he is transmitting. If we get stuck just using his words, fearing any formulation he didn’t explicitly use, we risk not only obstructing the Dharma from spreading far and wide in this world, but also falling into the extreme of sectarianism, or worse having the lineage die prematurely.

Our job is to emulate VGL’s example. A huge part of his example is he took the pure meanings of Je Tsongkhapa as taught in ancient Tibet and then repackaged them in a way that the people of the modern world could accept and understand. Atisha did the same in his time. VGL helped separate what was culturally ancient Tibetan from what is pure Dharma and then presented it in a way that can be understood and practiced by the people of the modern world. We must do the same and continually do so generation after generation – always remaining entirely loyal to the pure meanings of our Spiritual Guide, free from the extremes of inventing our own lineage and restricting ourselves to being a Dharma parrot of his words.

This is true even at the level of our own individual meditations. Listening to Dharma is understanding our guru’s words. Contemplating the Dharma is making that understanding our own – in other words, putting it into our own words that transmit that meaning perfectly within our own mind. Sharing the Dharma is then either sharing our understandings in our own words or – even more advanced – translating those meanings into words that other people can understand based upon where their minds are at.

But please don’t misunderstand. Of course VGL’s words are unbelievably precious and what we need to ground all of our Dharma understandings in. We should absolutely memorize his words. At one point, he suggested we memorize all of Joyful Path and Modern Buddhism. I would absolutely love to do that. Becoming familiar with and memorizing his words is the essential foundation for the wisdom arising from listening (or reading). Without that, we can’t even get to the next wisdom, namely the wisdom arising from contemplation. My only point is we should not stop at just memorizing his words, we need to go deeper still and then also put his words into our own words without losing the meaning at all. Then, we need to learn how to put these meanings into words others can understand, again without losing the meaning at all. So everything we are normally saying, and then further. It’s not either/or, it’s both.

Yes, I agree, we need to be very careful. There are many pitfalls, traps, and dangers here. But these risks cut in both ways – both the risk of transmitting wrong understandings, creating confusion, or inventing our own lineage and of becoming a Dharma parrot, obstructing the Dharma from spreading far and wide, becoming sectarian, or causing the lineage to die prematurely. As with all things, our job is to try find the middle way.

Happy Tsog Day: Putting Others First in Thought and Deed

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 31 of a 44-part series.

Exchanging self with others

In short, since the childish are concerned for themselves alone,
Whereas Buddhas work solely for the sake of others,
I seek your blessings to distinguish the faults and benefits,
And Thus, be able to exchange myself with others.

Since cherishing myself is the door to all faults
And cherishing mother beings is the foundation of all good qualities,
I seek your blessings to take as my essential practice
The yoga of exchanging self with others.

To exchange our self with others means to cherish only other living beings. This mind is the natural conclusion of the previous contemplations. If there is no advantage and only suffering that comes from cherishing ourselves and only advantages and happiness that comes from cherishing others, it follows that we should not cherish ourselves at all and cherish only others.

We might object, “if we do not cherish ourselves at all then who will take care of us?” The answer is we do not need to cherish ourselves to take care of ourselves. It is perfectly possible to take care of ourselves – feed our body, get adequate rest, and meet all our other needs – for the sake of cherishing others. For example, if we starve or become sick because we are not caring for ourselves, then we are not able to help others. Indeed, the mind of bodhichitta, which we will discuss later, seeks to acquire every good quality for the sake of others. There is no contradiction whatsoever between improving ourselves, taking care of ourselves, and cherishing only others.

How can we generate the mind of exchanging self with others? As with abandoning self-cherishing and cherishing others, it suffices for us to contemplate the advantages of doing so and then make the determination to cherish only others. The more familiarity we gain with this determination, the more our behavior will become consistent with it. Fundamentally it is simply a question of familiarity. We need to make effort every day, month after month, life after life, to come to cherish only others. With familiarity this mind will come. Once it does, as explained before, enlightenment will naturally follow.

In chapter eight of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva explains a special method for generating the mind of exchanging self with others. He encourages us to identify with people who we normally generate pride, competitiveness, or jealousy towards. We put ourselves in their shoes and look back upon our old self. For example, we usually generate pride towards someone who we think is inferior to us in some way. When we put ourselves in their shoes and look back at our arrogant old self, we can see very clearly our selfish and deluded behavior and can realize what the other the person needs from us. Seeing ourselves from the perspective of others is a powerful way for undermining and ultimately destroying our self-cherishing attitude.

According to Highest Yoga Tantra, we can exchange self with others by simply imputing our “I” onto all living beings thinking that we are now them. And then we can impute “other” onto our old self. On the basis of these new imputations, we cherish our new self and can completely neglect our old self. All these practices can give rise to misinterpretations of what it means, but if we put the instructions into practice sincerely and try approach it in the way it was intended, we can naturally overcome these doubts and hesitations.

Taking and giving

Therefore, O Compassionate, Venerable Guru, I seek your blessings
So that all the suffering, negativities, and obstructions of mother sentient beings
Will ripen upon me right now;
And through my giving my happiness and virtue to others,
May all migrating beings be happy.  (3x)

This is the only verse in the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide that has five lines. Geshe-la explains in Great Treasury of Merit this is to indicate the special importance of this practice. In Universal Compassion, Geshe-la explains that the practice of taking and giving is the synthesis of our Lojong trainings. All the previous meditations on exchanging self with others, great compassion, and wishing love all find their final conclusion in the practice of taking and giving.

The practice here is quite simple: first we generate a mind of compassion for all living beings, and then we generate the superior intention to ourselves protect others from their suffering. With this mind, we then imagine we take on all the suffering of others in the form of black smoke which comes to our heart and destroys our self-cherishing mind completely. We then generate a mind of wishing love, wishing that others experience only pure happiness, and we once again generate a superior intention to assume personal responsibility to help others be happy. We then imagine that from our heart infinite light rays radiate out in all directions bestowing upon all living beings pure and everlasting happiness. Imagining that we have taken away all their suffering and bestowed upon them perfect happiness, we then generate a mind of joy strongly believing that we have done so.

The doubt may arise that we have not actually taken on the suffering of others or given them happiness. This doubt then prevents us from generating joy, feeling that we have not engaged in the practice. There are several lines of thought we can use to overcome this doubt. First, others do not inherently exist. They are not inherently suffering, nor are they inherently unhappy. That is simply how they are appearing to us based upon our past karma with them. The practice of taking and giving is similar to our tantric practices of bringing the result into the path. Engaging in the practice of taking and giving creates a new karma which causes the beings of our karmic dream to appear to be free from suffering and experiencing everlasting happiness. This is a way of karmically reconstructing the empty beings of our dream. Second, we do not generate joy believing others have been freed from their suffering and so forth because we believe they inherently have, rather we generate joy because strongly believing we have done this is how we complete the mental action of taking and giving. In other words, generating the mind of joy believing we have taken on their suffering and bestowed upon them happiness is how we complete the mental action of taking and giving, which then gives us all the karmic benefits of the practice.

We can engage in the practice of taking and giving at any time. One powerful way of doing this is to mount the practice of taking giving upon the breath. As we inhale, we imagine that we take on all the suffering of living beings. And as we exhale, we imagine that we bestow upon others everlasting happiness. There is a close relationship between our breath and our mind. If we mount the virtuous practice of taking giving upon our breath, it will function to purify our inner energy winds. If our inner energy winds are purified, then our mind will naturally also become purified.

Happy Tara Day: Tara can dispel all outer and inner obstacles

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

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

Praising Tara by her divine actions of dispelling conflicts and bad dreams

Homage to you who are honoured by the kings of the hosts of gods,
And the gods and the kinnaras.
Through your joyful and shining pervasive armour
All conflicts and bad dreams are dispelled.

These are particularly practical ways we can rely upon Tara.  We all, from time to time, experience conflict and bad dreams in our life.  Every time we find ourself in some sort of conflict, we can recall Tara’s swift ability to dispel conflicts, and recite her mantra with strong faith requesting that she do so.  Ultimately, all conflict is sustained by anger, attachment, and self-grasping – in either ourself of those we are in a conflict with (usually both).  When we recite her mantra, we should request that she dispel the inner causes of our conflict from all concerned.  For myself, much of my work revolves around the U.S.-China relationship, which is obviously plagued by different types of conflict.  To help dispel this conflict, I try generate pure view of my work and those I encounter as emanations of Tara and request that through them both, all conflict between China and the United States can be dispelled. 

Tara is also helpful for dispelling bad dreams.  When I was very young, I had a few particularly scary bad dreams, and became terrified of having more.  Every night when I would go to sleep, I would pray, “please please please please (repeated millions of times) protect me from bad dreams.”  It actually worked, and after I started praying like this when I went to bed, I had very few bad dreams.  Later, when I became a father myself, my kids started having bad dreams, and I taught them Tara’s mantra and gave them small Tara statues to hold in their hand as they went to sleep to protect them against bad dreams.  Their bad dreams became much less afterwards, almost without fail.

Praising Tara by her divine actions of dispelling diseases

Homage to you whose two eyes, like the sun or the full moon,
Radiate a pure, clear light.
Saying HARA twice and TUTTARA,
You dispel the most violent, infectious diseases.

When the Coronavirus first broke out, Geshe-la advised Kadampas around the world to do Tara practice due to her power to dispel violent, infectious diseases.  Some centers did 24-hour Tara pujas on Tara day every month for some time.  The way these work is every four hours, one engages in the Liberation from Sorrow sadhana, and recites the praises to the twenty-one Taras seven times each session.  While it is true the coronavirus still spread all over the world, we cannot say it would not have spread worse if such actions were not performed.  If we have faith in Tara, there is no doubt that such actions help and perhaps saved many, many lives. 

Praising Tara by her divine actions of subduing evil spirits and zombies

Homage to you who have the perfect power of pacifying
Through your blessing of the three thatnesses;
Subduer of the hosts of evil spirits, zombies and givers of harm,
O TURE, most excellent and supreme!

In many ways, this verse is like the summary of all of the previous verses.  It refers to her power to pacify, bestow blessings (in particular of the wisdom realizing emptiness, or thatness), and subdue outer and inner obstructions.  She truly is most excellent and supreme!

This concludes the praise of the root mantra
And the twenty-one homages.

Normally, we talk of these praises as to the twenty-one Taras, but here we are also reminded that these are also praises of Tara’s mantra.  In Buddhism, we often describe things as existing at gross, subtle, and very subtle levels.  Green Tara is the gross deity, her mantra is like a subtle emanation of Tara, and the Dharmakaya is the very subtle version of Tara.  In this way, we can understand the mantra as like a bridge between the Tara we normally know and definitive Tara.  With sufficient faith in and understanding the nature of the mantra, reciting the mantra has exactly the same function and power as reciting the twenty-one homages. 

Benefits of recitation of this Sutra

The wise who recite this with strong faith
And perfect devotion to the Goddess,
In the evening and upon arising at dawn,
Will be granted complete fearlessness by remembering her.

A qualified mind of refuge has two main parts, fear of samsara and faith in the three jewels.  Normally, we don’t have much difficulty generating faith, but for our faith to have any meaning, it must be informed by an appropriate fear of samsara.  Without this, our Dharma practice just becomes feel-goodism.  But with healthy wisdom fears of samsara and faith in the three jewels, we are pushed to engage in Dharma practices, such as relying upon Mother Tara.  Through this we attain fearlessness in two ways.  First, because we will have a powerful protector at our side; and second, because we will gain inner Dharma realizations, which provide us with permanent protection from all suffering.  In particular, we need the wisdom that knows how to transform adversity into the path to enlightenment.  Normally we fear things that can harm us.  Most of samsara’s sufferings can harm us only because we don’t know how to transform experiencing them into causes of our enlightenment.  But through relying upon Tara, we can gain this wisdom, and then we will have nothing to fear.  We receive this protection merely “by remembering her” because wherever you imagine a Buddha, a Buddha actually goes; and wherever a Buddha goes, they perform their function, which is to bestow blessings.  In other words, by merely remembering Tara, she comes swiftly to our side and then blesses our mind to gain wisdom realizations.  The sadhana says we need to rely upon her with perfect devotion.  What does that mean practically?  It means we move beyond simply having faith in her to actively working to accomplish her wishes in the world.  Somebody who is devoted moves beyond inner faith to practical action.  Tara’s main wish is for the pure Kadam Lamrim of Atisha to flourish throughout the world, both externally and internally.  If we are to enjoy complete fearlessness, we need to not only rely upon her, but to actively devote ourselves to realizing her pure wishes.

Through the complete purification of all negativity
They will destroy all paths to the lower realms.
They will swiftly be granted empowerment
By the seventy million Conquerors.

The cause of lower rebirth is negative karma on our mind.  The quality of mind we generate at the moment of our death determines the quality of our next rebirth – a negative mind will activate negative karma resulting in a lower rebirth, a positive mind will active virtuous karma resulting in an upper rebirth, and a pure mind will active pure karma resulting in a rebirth outside of samsara.  Avoiding a negative mind at the time of death will help protect us from a lower rebirth, but the only way to destroy all paths to the lower realms is through the complete purification of all our negative karma.  If we have no negative karma remaining on our mind, even if we generate a negative mind at the time of death, there will be no negative throwing karma to activate and it will be impossible for us to take lower rebirth.  Tara’s blessings can help us purify swiftly all of our negative karma, and we can recite her mantra as a practice of purification similar to Vajrasattva practice. 

Relying upon Tara also creates the causes for us to receive the empowerments of all the Buddhas.  What is an empowerment?  During an empowerment, our Spiritual Guide places within our mental continuum a personalized emanation of the deity who will remain with us between now and our eventual attainment of that deity.  This emanation is our personal yidam, or personal deity.  By virtue of this emanation, we can gradually learn to identify with the pure body and mind of the deity and gain the ability to use these as if they were our own.  Tara is the mother of all Buddhas, and all Buddhas respect and are devoted to their mother.  When we rely upon Tara, all of her children – the Buddhas – then come into action to help fulfill their mother’s wish for us.  They do so by granting us empowerment.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Write Your Own Commentary

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Shantideva now goes on to describe what our life will be like if we don’t follow the path of wisdom. Actually, he is describing what our life is like now.

(9.154ab) I beseech you, O reader, who are just like me,
Please strive to realize that all phenomena are empty, like space.

Again and again throughout Shantideva’s guide he portrays himself as no different than us. He is just a practitioner, striving to do his best to progress along the bodhisattva’s path. He wrote his Guide as a personal practice to try deep in his own familiarity with the teachings that he has received.  His Guide is his own personal meditation on the bodhisattva’s path he compiled to clarify it within his own mind. Geshe-la’s commentary to the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is called Meaningful to Behold. The meaning of this is Shantideva said that he prepared the guide to familiarize himself with the teachings, but if others find it meaningful, then all the better. When Geshe-la looks at the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, he finds it something to be meaningful to behold, and he encourages us to do the same.

I have spent the last many years providing my understanding of Shantideva’s Guide to Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. This for me has likewise been my own personal meditation on what Shantideva has written. By familiarizing myself with what he said, and writing down my understandings of what it means, I have clarified to an extent by own understanding of the bodhisattva’s path. I have shared my understanding on my blog in the hopes that others might also find these reflections helpful.

In the last few years of Geshe-la teaching publicly, he said many times that we need to write our own commentaries to the practices he has given us. He provides us this encouragement not to replace his commentaries, but rather to deep our familiarity with the teachings. By writing down our understandings, it forces us to clarify our thoughts about the Dharma. I have found this to be incredibly helpful and beneficial over the last many years. Writing this series of post has in many ways been one of my most important spiritual activities. None of what I say here should ever be considered definitive, it is just simply my understanding as of the time in which I wrote these words.

All of the buddhas that came before us were once practitioners just like us. They were full of delusions, worries, and preoccupations just like us. But they felt a spark of inspiration and decided to use their precious human life to familiarize themselves with Dharma. Overtime, their familiarity grew and grew and they became happier and happier. They then sought to share their understandings with others in the hopes that they too could find a similar happiness.

On Making Effort to Receive Buddha’s Blessings and Sangha’s Help:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

While it is of course true that our Guru’s mind (the synthesis of all Buddha’s minds) is constantly bestowing blessings on the minds of all living beings every day just as the sun is always shining above the clouds, from our side there is much we can and indeed have to do to be able to actually RECEIVE blessings. The fact that Buddha’s blessings are always available and s/he is always BESTOWING blessings does not mean we are RECEIVING them. We have to create openings in our mind for that light to enter. We have to open the blinds for the light to come in.

It is true all living beings might receive blessings every day, but receiving those blessings has a cause that we ourselves engaged in – perhaps not at that moment, perhaps not even in this life, but at some point in our infinite past lives. The laws of karma are quite clear: if the cause is not created, the effect cannot be experienced. We can consider the story of Angulimala (I think it was him). It was said that you needed some degree of virtue in your mind to ordain and Buddha’s seers couldn’t find any in his dark mind. But Buddha saw he was a fly on dung in the rain circumambuling a stupa. That created a tiny aperture for the light of the blessings to come in, and from that the rest could follow.

In any event, it is clear that there are things we can do – and should do – to receive blessings even more. Our refuge commitment is to MAKE EFFORT to RECEIVE blessings. There are things WE need to do from our side to train in this refuge commitment to be able to receive even more light into our mind. It is not an on/off switch, but a volume knob. The more we do these things, the more we create the causes to actually receive blessings, and the more blessings we receive.

First, our pride blocks blessings from flowing in just as surely as blinds block the sunlight. The degree of our pride determines how closed the blinds are.

Likewise, the greater our faith, the more we melt the snows on the snow mountain of our guru’s mind. More faith = more blessings.

Additionally, we can improve our motivation to align it with the motivation of our guru and our reasons for WANTING (also not a passive thing) to receive blessings. Buddha may bestow blessings equally on all living beings, but surely we RECEIVE more blessings if our motivation is bodhichitta versus some selfish motivation for wanting blessings. If we align the sails of our mind with the pure winds of our guru’s blessings (that always blow in the direction of the city of enlightenment) then the more blessings flow into our mind.

We can also increase how much we receive blessings by considering how our guru, the blessings, and our mind are all equally empty, like the space between three different bottles subsequently broken. When we think Buddhas exist independently of our mind, we create this obstruction as if their mind is there and our mind is here and there is no way for the blessings to flow in. When we realize the emptiness of the three spheres of receiving blessings, we break down these obstructions.

Further, the degree of our concentration when we are engaging in the mental action of receiving blessings will determine how much blessings are able to flow in. We have all engaged in group pujas with the recording and been distracted when the part of the sadhana for receiving blessings occurs. Did we RECEIVE as many blessings as we would have if we weren’t distracted?

So from my perspective, it seems very clear there are many things we need to do from our side to fulfill our refuge commitment to Buddha – reduce our pride, increase our faith, align our motivation with his, remember emptiness, concentrate single-pointedly, etc. It doesn’t just happen automatically or passively. If it seems like it does, this is actually just us burning up our merit from our past actions of doing the things we need to do to receive blessings. There are no effects without a cause.

To go further, I would say there are many disadvantages to thinking receiving blessings is a passive thing. First, we then think there is nothing we need to do to accomplish our refuge commitment to MAKE EFFORT to RECEIVE blessings, so we fail to create those causes. Second, we can fall into despair and discouragement thinking there is nothing we can do about the fact that we are not feelin’ it anymore, like we are a passive experiencer of our fate. Third, we can get into the weird narratives of our guru is upset at us and withholding his blessings, what did I do wrong, is he punishing me or does he no longer love me? There are many other disadvantages of the view that receiving blessings is a passive thing I’m sure we can consider.

All this leads me to think perhaps there are also things we need to do to MAKE EFFORT to RECEIVE Sangha’s help. This too is not a passive thing, even if Sangha from their side do want to help all the time. There are conditions we need to create in our mind – indeed the same conditions as for receiving blessings – for us to actually receive Sangha’s help. The more we create those causes, the more help we might be able to receive.

This is a deep practice, actually. For me, I often try be their spiritual Rambo doing it all on my own, and the more I’m experiencing extreme difficulty in my life, the more I close up and isolate myself to work it all out on my own. This is sometimes appropriate to do, but it can also many times be a big mistake. I think I do this because I have been betrayed in my life many times by the people I have counted on. I put my faith in them, then when it is my time of need, they fail to show up or worse they betray that trust and drive the knife in deeper. Of course I created the causes for them to do that to me, but still it has left me often not making effort to receive Sangha’s help. I’m hurt enough at such times, I couldn’t take finding out that I can’t count on Sangha too. I have to push myself to ask for their help.

There are also all sorts of pride reasons and strange notions about how I can’t show I’m deluded for fear of people losing faith in me or whatever (a very common neurosis amongst so-called “senior practitioners” or “Dharma teachers” – not that I consdier myself either of these things).

In short, like all of our Dharma practices, receiving Buddha’s blessings and receiving Sangha’s help are things we need to do. We need to make effort to do these things. If we fail to do so, we actually haven’t entered Buddhism and the rest of our practice lacks a foundation at best or is a sham at worst – we are practicing performative Buddhism, not Kadampa Buddhism.

But perhaps I am wrong about all this. If so, please explain why. Me asking is me making effort to receive Sangha’s help. 😉

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: The Most Important Verse in Chapter 9…

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.153) When examined in this way, who lives in this world
And who is it who will die?
What will happen in the future and what happened in the past?
Who are our friends and who are our relatives?

This is one of Shantideva’s most famous verses. Geshe-la quoted it often in his teachings on emptiness at various spring and summer festivals. With these very simple questions, we are able to completely pull the plug on the vast majority of the delusions that arise in daily life. It is definitely worth memorizing this verse and using it like a mantra whenever we find ourselves worried or stressed about daily life. Or when we find ourselves obsessing over certain possibilities, thinking we cannot be happy unless those things come to pass. Indeed, I would say if we were to only memorize one verse out of the entirety of Chapter 9, it would be this verse. It is in effect our practice during the meditation break.  We should recite this verse again and again while contemplating deeply upon its meaning as it relates to are delusions arising at any given moment.

In the beginning, when we apply wisdom to overcome our delusions it will not have much power compared to some of our vast path teachings, such as love and compassion. If we are impatient for results, we can easily and quickly give up on using wisdom to try to overcome our delusions. This is a big mistake. Wisdom gains its power overtime following an exponential curve. During the COVID crises, we all saw the many graphs about exponential growth of case number.  For a very long time the number of cases remained very low and it seemed as if there was not much going on, but it was growing in an exponential way. Then at some point the curve starts to go up quite quickly and exponential growth takes off almost like a rocket. It is exactly the same with our using wisdom realizing emptiness to overcome our delusions. In the beginning it does not seem to be doing much, but as we gain more familiarity the power of these ways of thinking grows exponentially within our mind and after a period of time it starts to become the most powerful tool we have in our spiritual toolbox. By investing our time early in applying these reasons again and again, we will later enjoy a rich reward and be able to radically chop the root of any delusion that arises.

This verse is the doorway to such experience. The more we train in it, the more power it will gain within our mind, until later in the future we will be able to overcome almost any delusion we have simply by reciting this first while contemplating on its meaning. I pray that everyone reading this post makes the firm decision to take the time to memorize this first and to gain experience with it in their daily life until eventually it becomes a universal panacea able to overcome all of their delusions.

Well, who lives in this world, who are our friends and who are our relatives?  There is no one there, there is just an appearance of somebody being there.  When we check, we will find nothing more than a mere appearance, like a hologram or an illusion.  The only difference between the illusory woman and the real woman is it is a different type of illusion arising from different causes and conditions.  But their status of being illusions is the same.

We are so concerned with what has happened, is happening and will happen to us.  Because our self-cherishing makes us think we are important, we think what happens to us is very important, so we are naturally quite concerned.  Almost all of our problems arise from this.  But what has happened to us in the past?  Nothing.  What is happening to us now?  Nothing.  What will happen to us in the future?  Nothing.

Just because nothing is happening does not mean we don’t still need to respond correctly.  Everything is a reflection of our mind, so if we respond incorrectly the appearances will grow worse and we could lose our understanding of emptiness, and then we will perceive ourselves as having big problems.  If we respond correctly to whatever arises, then the appearances will gradually improve until eventually we construct the pure land.  We also do not deny the function of objects within the world of appearances.  So we do have to be concerned with what happens.  But because we know that these appearances are coming from our mind, we realize if we want to change the appearances, we need to change our mind.

Happy Protector Day: The nature and function of Dorje Shugden

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

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 5 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.

In this post, I will explain the nature and function of Dorje Shugden.  In the subsequent posts I will explain how to rely upon him outside of formal meditation and then I will explain how to rely upon him during the formal meditation session. 

What is the nature and function of Dorje Shugden?  In short, his nature is the same as our Spiritual Guide, but in particular he is by nature the Wisdom Buddha Manjushri.  Manjushri assumes two forms, Je Tsongkhapa to lead us along the path and Dorje Shugden to arrange the conditions for our practice of the path.  His function is to arrange all the outer, inner and secret conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment.

To understand this in more detail, we can consider the meaning of the invitation prayer to Dorje Shugden that we recite every day in the context of our Heart Jewel practice.  The Sadhana beings by saying,

HUM, I have the clarity of the Yidam.

With HUM we dissolve everything into the clear light Dharmakaya and recall that the definitive nature of Dorje Shugden is the Truth Body of our Spiritual Guide.  ‘I have the clarity of the Yidam’ means we engage in our Dorje Shugden practice self-generated as our personal deity.  We do this for two reasons.  First, it is more effective.  Heruka is much closer to Dorje Shugden than we are, so by requesting Dorje Shugden as Heruka we tap into their close karmic connection.  It is similar to knowing somebody who knows somebody very powerful.  We may not know the powerful person ourselves, but if we know somebody who does know them, if they ask the powerful person to fulfill our wishes on our behalf, it is far more likely we will get the response we want.  The second reason why we do this is the practice of Dorje Shugden can be engaged in for the sake of ourself or for the sake of others.  When we eventually become Buddha Heruka our work is not finished – we will still need to lead all other beings to enlightenment.  At that time, we will need powerful allies who can help living beings, such as Dorje Shugden.  Training in the practice of Dorje Shugden while maintaining divine pride of being the deity is a very powerful method for having Dorje Shugden accomplish his function for all those that we love.

Before me in the center of red and black fire and wind.

Here, we imagine that encircling all the living beings we are visualizing around us is a large proection circle of Dorje Shugden made out of five-colored wisdom fires.  It is like a giant sphere which completely envelopes all of these beings and the entire universe.  I like to imagine that all living beings are now inside of the protection circle and everything that happens to them is perfect for their swiftest possible enlightenment. 

On a lotus and sun trampeling demons and obstructors is a terrifying lion powerful and alert.

The function of Dorje Shugden’s lion is to dispel all fear.  It is a bit like in the movie Narnia, when people were in the presence of Aslan, they knew they were safe and they had nothing to fear.  If ever we are in a situation where we are afraid, we can remember the protection circle of Dorje Shugden and we can remember his lion and strongly believe that we are protected and that we receive his blessings which pacify all of our fear. 

Upon this sits the Great King Dorje Shugden, the supreme heart jewel of Dharma protectors.

Dorje Shugden is the principal deity of the visualization.  There are a couple of different analogies we can consider to get a feeling for who he is.  He is our karma manager.  Rich people give their money to money managers to manage their money in an optimal way.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is the supreme karma manager.  He will manage our karma in an optimal way for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  He is also our personal spiritual trainer.  When people want to get their bodies in shape, they go to a personal physical trainer who gives them the specific exercises they need to get in the peak of physical health.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is our personal spiritual trainer who gives us the specific exercises we need to put ourselves in the peak of spiritual health, full enlightenment.  He is our spiritual father.  Our father protects us from danger and provides us with everything we need.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is our spiritual father, who will protect us from all danger and provide for us everything we need to accomplish our spiritual goals.  He is the director of our spiritual life.  When people make movies or plays, there is a director who organizes and puts together all the appearances.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is the director of our spiritual life, who will create a play of appearances around us for the rest of our life that are perfect for our spiritual path.  In a future post, I will explain how he has the power to help us not just in this life and right now, but in all our past and future lives as well.  Yes, we can go back within our past and transform what happened into a cause of our enlightenment!

His body is clothed in the garments of a monk.

This symbolizes his power to assist us with our practice of moral discipline.  We all have bad habits we are trying to abandon, such as smoking, getting angry at people, and so forth; and vows we are trying to keep, such as our refuge, pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric vows, but we are not very successful in doing so.  Dorje Shugden can give us the strength and wisdom we need to abandon these bad habits.  Whenever we feel tempted to break our moral discipline, we can recall Dorje Shugden in front of us dressed in the garments of a monk and request his special blessings to give us the strength to keep our moral discipline. 

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: How to Use Emptiness to Overcome Our Worldly Concerns

Kadampa Ryan Uncategorized

In these last few verses of the chapter, we receive some final encouragement by Shantideva, strong encouragement to strive for and gain the wisdom realizing emptiness.

With these verses Shantideva primarily shows us how we can apply our understanding of emptiness to practically solving the delusions that arise in our mind and in our daily life. If there is one theme that is important from the entire chapter, it is the necessity of not engaging it as an intellectual exercise but rather as a practical necessity. Here Shantideva shows us how we can use what we have learned to overcome our daily delusions.

(9.151) With objects that are empty in this way,
What is there to gain and what is there to lose?
Who is there to praise me?
And who is there to blame me?

(9.152) With no truly existent benefit or harm,
What is there to be happy or unhappy about?
And, when their ultimate nature is sought,
Where are those who seek a good reputation, and where is what they seek?

Here Shantideva shows how we can use the teachings on emptiness to overcome all of our worldly concerns. What differentiates a worldly being from a spiritual being is their principal object of concern. Worldly beings are primarily concerned with the experiences of this life. A spiritual being is primarily concerned with the experiences of our future lives. A pure being is someone primarily concerned with gaining experiences outside of samsara.

We have to honestly admit how we are still dominated by worldly concerns.  We have these worldly concerns because we are still listening to our self-cherishing, paying attention to its object, rather than neglecting or forgetting about it.  All of the things that we are concerned about, possibly condensed into the eight, are not only empty of meaning, but they are also empty of true existence.

Thus far Shantideva has explained how we can oppose our grasping at our I with wisdom, how we can oppose our grasping at our feelings and so forth with wisdom, now he explains how we can oppose our grasping at the very objects that we feel so strongly about, again with wisdom.  So what is there to gain, what is there to lose?  Nothing.  Whatever we feel there is to gain, whatever we feel there is to lose, we will find upon analysis or examination, nothing.  Who is there to praise me, who is there to blame me?   No one.  We can remind ourself of a previous verse in chapter eight that words of praise are just like empty words in a cave. 

For this to work it has to connect with our heart.  Otherwise we read these things, even we try to understand them, it will make little or no difference because in our heart we still believe the objects of our concern are important and we will be affected by such things.

Perhaps we are afraid to accept this reasoning because we fear we will lose our current objects of happiness.  Actually, we will.  We will no longer be able to enjoy things in a worldly way anymore.  But these things never had the power to give us any happiness anyway, only suffering.  All we need to do is examine our life and realize how the vast majority of our suffering has come from our preoccupation with the worldly concerns. But losing our current objects of happiness and not being able to enjoy things in a worldly way anymore does not mean that we lose our happiness and can no longer enjoy things. Quite the opposite actually. Our normal objects of happiness do not actually have any power to give us happiness, they usually just give us problems. But when we find new spiritual reasons for wanting these things, we can enjoy them in a much more sublime way. Further we find new objects of happiness that are within us that produce and provide much greater happiness than our external objects ever could. This is the essential meaning of finding happiness from a different source.

Abandoning worldly concerns does not mean we no longer seek or need things such as a good reputation, wealth, pleasant experiences and so forth. It means we change our reasons for wanting these things. When we are dominated by worldly concerns, we want these things because we believe they are actually causes of our happiness. With emptiness, we recognize that they have no power whatsoever to give us any happiness because in fact they do not exist at all. So of course they cannot give us the happiness that we seek because there is nothing there. However, this does not mean that praise, wealth, a good reputation, and so forth are without value. If we want these things for pure spiritual reasons so that they can help us fulfill our bodhicitta wishes to lead all of these beings to enlightenment, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing them and being concerned about them. What we abandon is our attachment to them, thinking that it is somehow impossible for us to be happy without having these things. We also recognize that they are at best a means to an end, and not an end in themselves.

But we happily do so because by enjoying things in a worldly way, we guarrantee that we will suffer from things in a worldly way.  There are many more objects of worldly suffering than worldly happiness, so this is a rational trade-off.  Further, we will learn to be able to enjoy worldly pleasures in a spiritual way, which is much better, so we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Happy Tsog Day: The benefits of cherishing others

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 30 of a 44-part series.

Seeing that the mind that cherishes mother beings and would secure their happiness
Is the gateway that leads to infinite good qualities,
I seek your blessings to cherish these beings more than my life,
Even if they rise up against me as my enemies.

Just as self-cherishing is the root cause of all our suffering, the mind that cherishes others is the root cause of all our happiness. The logic is exactly the same. All our happiness comes from virtuous actions, and all virtuous actions come from the mind that cherishes other living beings and considers their happiness to be important. All virtuous actions begin by considering that others’ happiness and well-being matters, and therefore works to secure it.

Just as we need to gather all blame into one, so two we need to give all credit to one – namely the mind of cherishing others. Geshe-la explains in Eight Steps to Happiness that the path to enlightenment is very simple: all we need to do is change the object of our cherishing from ourselves to others, and all the other stages of the path to enlightenment will naturally flow from this. Enlightenment depends upon the mind of bodhicitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the sake of others. Bodhicitta depends upon the mind of great compassion, which wishes to protect all living beings from all forms of suffering for all their lives. The mind of great compassion only arises when we consider the suffering of those we love. If we do not love somebody, and we consider their suffering, we do not feel any compassion and we may even feel delight. But when we love somebody, and we see that they are suffering, the mind of compassion naturally arises. There are three types of love: affectionate love, cherishing love, and wishing love. Affectionate love is delighted merely to think or see other living beings, like a loving grandmother seeing her grandchildren. Cherishing love considers the happiness and well-being of others to be important to us, something worth working towards. Wishing love aims to give others happiness. The mind of great compassion depends upon having cherishing love for all living beings. Thus, enlightenment naturally follows simply from the mind that cherishes others.

How do we generate the mind of cherishing others? In this verse and in Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe-la explains it is sufficient to simply contemplate the benefits of cherishing others and then make the firm determination to do so. We can likewise consider the analogy of viewing all living beings as the body of life. Of course we should cherish every part of our body because it is part of our body; in the same way, of course we should cherish all living beings because they are all part of the body of life. Atisha explains in Advice from Atisha’s Heart that the actual root of cherishing others is learning to appreciate their good qualities and to stop inappropriate attention on their faults. Because we focus on others’ faults, we generate aversion and even hatred towards others, and with such a focus it is impossible to generate the mind that considers what happens to them to be important. But when we focus our attention on the good qualities of others and choose to not pay attention to their faults, then we naturally start to see them as precious and, on this basis, it is easy to then cherish them.

We might object, “but if I do not see their faults then I am not seeing things objectively and they could even harm me.” This is a wrong conclusion. First, there is a difference between not seeing others’ faults and having inappropriate attention towards their faults. Inappropriate attention exaggerates the appearance of faults, and therefore is a mind that is not objective. Second, we need to make a distinction between the person and their delusions. The person is not their delusions, rather their delusions are like clouds in the sky of their mind. Because we make a distinction between the person and their faults, we are able to see the faults for what they are, but not see them as faults of the person and therefore still be able to cherish them. Third, when we see others’ faults and relate to them as faulty, it functions to draw out their worst aspects and it creates self-fulfilling prophecies. Every teacher and every parent can confirm whatever we pay attention to is what we draw out in others. Thus, even if they have faults, it is better for us to focus on their good qualities to help draw them out. Fourth, Venerable Tharchin explains that any fault we see in others is in fact a reflection of that same fault within our own mind. It is only because we have that fault in our mind that we can perceive it in others. This is true because others are fundamentally empty – they are mere projections or reflections of our own mind. Thus, when we see faults in others, we should see them as a mirror reflecting back to us faults that we have within ourselves. He goes on to explain that if we eliminate the fault within our self, it will begin to disappear in others almost like magic. Finally, we can view the appearance of faults in others as a supremely skillful teaching of an emanation of our spiritual guide. Buddhas can emanate all sorts of forms to reveal to us the truth of Dharma. People behaving in faulty ways teaches us to not act in those ways, and therefore they provide us with powerful teachings. Who is to say they are not emanations of Buddha teaching us these lessons? Even if that is not in fact the case, it is still a beneficial way of viewing things, and so we can still perceive the fault, defend ourselves against it, and nonetheless not see any fault in others.

In the sadhana it says that we should cherish others even if they rise up against us as our enemies. There are several reasons for this. First, by cherishing them despite them harming us we are able to purify the negative karma associated with them harming us in some way. If instead we retaliated, we would create once again new negative karma ensuring that others harm us again in the future. Cherishing those who harm us is therefore a way of ending the karmic cycles that we have been trapped in since beginning last time. This is not different than what Jesus advised to turn the other cheek.

Second, Geshe-la once famously explained in Toronto that love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies. If we cherish our enemies, they will come to view us as their friends, and therefore no longer view us as their enemy. Yes, this process may take time before we bring about a change in their perspective of us, but if we are patient with the process and willing to accept the karmic consequences of our past behavior of viewing them as an enemy, gradually we will turn our relationship around with them. We should be careful though to not misinterpret this to mean that we should cooperate with others’ dysfunctional or abusive behavior. It does not help others for us to enable them and allow them to engage in abuse towards us. Therefore, it can be an act of cherishing others to no longer cooperate with their delusions.

Third, others are only our enemies by mere imputation. If we viewed others as emanations of our spiritual guide, for example, then they would no longer be our enemy, but instead we would see them as our kind teacher. Atisha once had a cook who was very disrespectful towards Atisha. Atisha’s other disciples wondered why Atisha keep kept this cook around when there were so many other disciples who would be more than happy to serve their spiritual guide. Atisha said this disrespectful assistant was in fact very kind to him because this person gave him the opportunity to train in patience, and there’s no virtue greater than patience.