Author: Kadampa Ryan

A Pure Life: Putting the “Mahayana” in Precepts Days

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part three 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.

This practice is called training in the eight mahayana precepts. The eight precepts themselves are specific moral disciplines that we train in. What makes them mahayana precepts is we train in this moral discipline with a bodhicitta motivation. Any virtuous activity can become a bodhisattva’s perfection by engaging in that virtue with a bodhichitta motivation.

What is bodhichitta? Bodhichitta is a mind that spontaneously wishes to attain enlightenment for the sake of protecting all living beings from their suffering. It observes that all living beings are suffering, drowning in the ocean of samsara, and wishes to do something to help them. But it recognizes that at present we currently lack the ability to help living beings. We ourselves remain trapped within samsara, controlled by our delusions, and limited in our capacity to do much good to help people over a sustained period of time. We also frequently have no idea how to actually help people, and all we can do is perhaps offer them a shoulder that they could cry on. Observing this, we conclude it is not enough to simply wish others did not suffer, but we must ourselves do something to free them from their suffering.

If a mother saw her child drowning in a river, she would not merely wish the child not drown but would actively dive in to try save her. But the problem is at present we do not know how to swim. So even though we would want to help others, we lack the ability to actually do so. We then ask ourselves, who does have the ability to help all living beings and lead them out of the ocean of samsara onto the island of enlightenment? Only a Buddha does. A Buddha possesses the omniscient wisdom that always knows how to help others and is able to continue to help others life after life without interruption unimpeded by their own death or the death of those they are trying to help. A Buddha is also able to emanate countless forms for each and every living being trapped within samsara. They are not limited by simply one body and one voice, but can emanate as many forms as living beings need to always be there with them 24/7 life after life. Buddhas also possessed the skillful means necessary to guide complicated samsaric beings how to enter, progress along, and eventually complete the path. Let us face it, most people reject the advice that they receive even if it’s exactly what they need to hear. Having skillful means knowing how to encourage people to engage in spiritual practices makes the bodhisattva’s task possible.

Understanding that only a Buddha has the ability to actually fulfill the compassionate wish to protect others from their suffering, we then make the firm determination that we ourselves must become a Buddha in order to help all other living beings. The primary wish of bodhichitta is the wish to help others, and the wish to attain enlightenment is the secondary wish we need to do in order to fulfill our primary wish. Geshe-la gives the analogy of wanting a cup of tea. If we generate the intention that we would like to have a cup of tea, we naturally get a cup, a tea bag, and hot water. This happens almost automatically and is a natural consequence of our primary wish to have a cup of tea. In the same way, when we wish to protect all living beings from their suffering, we then naturally get the body, speech, and mind of a Buddha that enable us to fulfill our primary wish. This happens almost automatically and without our having to give it much thought, we are simply driven by the desire to protect others and we naturally do what is necessary in order to fulfill that wish.

Each of the eight precepts by itself is a practice of moral discipline. What makes it a mahayana practice of moral discipline is we engage in them with a bodhicitta motivation. When we explore each of the eight precepts themselves, I will attempt to explain how our observing that precept specifically helps us gain the ability to protect others from their suffering. But generally speaking, how does our practice of moral discipline help us attain enlightenment? 

To attain enlightenment, we need to purify our very subtle mind of the two obstructions. The two obstructions are the delusion obstructions and the obstructions to omniscience. Delusion obstructions are simply the delusions of our mind, and the obstructions to omniscience are the imprints of our past delusions and past deluded actions. Once we have purified our very subtle mind of the two obstructions, we will naturally attain enlightenment. In other words, enlightenment is essentially already within us, we simply need to uncover it.

How do we purify our mind of the two obstructions? We do so by meditating on the emptiness of our very subtle mind where all of our delusions and their imprints are stored. When we directly realize the emptiness of our very subtle mind, it functions to uproot directly and simultaneously all of the contaminated karma we have accumulated since beginningless time.

How do we then gain a direct realization of emptiness? That depends upon our ability to concentrate our mind. In the Sutra teachings on tranquil abiding, we learn how to concentrate our gross mind. And in the tantric teachings regarding controlling our inner winds, we learn how to concentrate our very subtle mind. It is impossible to concentrate with our very subtle mind if we are incapable of concentrating with our gross mind.

Concentration is primarily a training in overcoming distractions. Distractions cause our mind to move away from our chosen object of meditation towards something else. If we do not mix our mind with the Dharma, it will have no power to transform our mind. Distractions are the thief that robs us of our spiritual life.  Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that distractions are of three types: mental excitement, mental wandering, and mental sinking. Mental excitement is when our mind moves to an object of attachment. Mental wandering is when our mind moves to another object of Dharma other than our chosen object of meditation. Mental sinking is when we lose the clarity or grip of our mind on our chosen object, but our mind has not necessarily gone to something else. In the beginning, our primary obstacle is mental excitement.

Why does our mind go to objects of attachment instead of our object of meditation? The reason why is our mind is naturally more interested in objects of attachment because we still believe them to be causes of our happiness and we have not yet realized that our objects of meditation are causes of happiness, rather we find them to be quite distant or perhaps even boring. Our mind will naturally go to wherever it feels it will be happiest. Why does our mind believe objects of attachment are causes of happiness? Simply habit. The habit of believing the lies of our attachment that external objects are indeed causes of our happiness. We are so accustomed to these lies that we do not even call them into question. If we are to overcome our mental excitement, we must stop being fooled by our attachment.

A good example is spam. We have all received the emails from the Nigerian Prince who promises to transfer us a bunch of money for safekeeping if only we give him our bank account numbers. When we first receive this email, we wonder maybe it is true, and we are tempted to send our bank information. But when we know clearly that this is a scam and a lie, we are no longer fooled and do not feel tempted to send our information. In fact, simply receiving such an email reminds us of the need to be careful to not be fooled by the many scams that exist out there. We may not be able to prevent such spam from arriving in our inbox, but we can cut the power or the danger of such messages by seeing them as the lies that they are. In the same way, our minds of attachment are like spam. They promise us all sorts of happiness if only we follow their advice. When we first encounter such lies, we are tempted and often do follow their advice. When we fail to find the happiness that they promised, our attachment then lies to us again and says we did not experience it because we did not do it well enough. So once again we believe the lie and follow it. We start to do this again and again, until eventually we have no choice and we follow such lies blindly believing them to be the truth.

But with Dharma wisdom, we can recognize attachment for the lie that it is. It is the spam of our mind. When the thoughts of attachment arise in her mind, we then see them for the lies that they are. The more they come, the more we strengthen our determination to not be fooled. Like with our spam, we might not be able to prevent such thoughts from arriving in our mind, but with wisdom we can cut the power of such thoughts over us in terms of controlling our behavior.

How do we game such wisdom and such power? Through training in moral discipline. The practice of moral discipline is quite simply seeing the dangers of engaging in negative behavior and then making the determination to not do so. It is a wisdom that is no longer fooled by the lies of our attachments. It sees through these lies and recognizes them as deceptive, trying to trick us into engaging in negative behavior thinking it will bring us happiness when in fact it only brings us more suffering.

So how then do we train in moral discipline? When the temptation to break our moral discipline arises in our mind, we remind ourselves of the wisdom that caused us to take the vow or precept in the first place. We recall how the minds of attachment encouraging us to break our moral discipline are in fact deceptive, promising us happiness but simply guaranteeing more suffering. The practice of moral discipline is not an exercise in willpower. If in our heart we still want to engage in the negativity, we may for a short period of time be able to refrain, but all we will actually be doing is repressing our attachment wanting to do the opposite until eventually our attachment grows in strength and it overwhelms our willpower.

Rather, moral discipline is the practice of changing our desires. By contemplating again and again how are delusions are deceptive and how our wisdom and virtues are non-deceptive, we gradually change our desires to no longer want to chase the objects of our attachment and be fooled by their lies, and rather we want to train in the opposite virtues which we know are reliable methods for bringing us the happiness that we seek.  It is easy to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts, but the actual training is keeping them in the face of our deluded temptations to break them.

When the temptations arise in our mind, we then recall the disadvantages of breaking our moral discipline, the deceptiveness of the attachments lying to us, and the benefits of observing our moral discipline and following pure conduct. Through engaging in these contemplations again and again and again, we gradually change our desires. We no longer want to follow attachments, we instead want to follow our wisdom and virtues. By gaining experience with these contemplations and in keeping our vows, we gradually build up tendencies similar to the cause within our mind that are familiar with this way of thinking. Then, when we are in meditation itself and objects of distraction, or objects of mental excitement, arise in our mind, we are not tempted to go follow them but rather we see them as deceptive. We are then able to more easily renew our determination to not follow our distractions and instead to keep our mind focused on our object of meditation.

It is for this reason that Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that the practice of moral discipline overcomes gross distractions and the practice of concentration overcomes our subtle distractions. We first need to overcome our gross distractions through the training in moral discipline and then we can overcome our subtle distractions through our training and concentration. By training in concentration, we can gradually gain control over our gross mind, which then creates the space for us to gradually gain control over our subtle mind through the trainings of learning to control our inner winds. Once we can control our inner winds, we will eventually be able to make manifest our very subtle mind of clear light. Once this mind is manifest, we can then engage in the meditation on the emptiness of our very subtle mind and purify our mind of the two obstructions and thereby attain enlightenment.

In this way, we can see the very clear connection between our training in the practice of the Eight Mahayana Precepts and our eventual attainment of enlightenment. When we see this connection, we can easily generate the bodhicitta motivation to take the Mahayana precepts. In this way, our practice of the eight precepts becomes training in the eight Mahayana precepts.

Why This is the Joyful Path

Kadampa Ryan Uncategorized

Every adversity both teaches us some truth of Dharma and gives us some opportunity to train our mind. In this way, our suffering becomes a cause of our enlightenment.

What we lack is (1) a stronger wish to attain enlightenment than to enjoy a pleasant life, and (2) the wisdom necessary to know how the adversity we are facing is exactly perfect for our spiritual training.

If we wish to enjoy samsara more than to accomplish spiritual goals, knowing how to transform our suffering into the path won’t work to help us maintain a peaceful mind in the face of life’s difficulties. We will think, “oh, that’s nice, but I don’t care. I just want my suffering to stop and the external thing is the cause of my suffering or cause of my happiness.” But when we want to accomplish spiritual goals more, it all works. We become willing to accept difficulties – meaning we can keep our inner peace in the face of them – because we know they are moving us closer to our much more important spiritual goals. Fundamentally, we understand that whether we are happy or not depends upon our mind, so the only way to be happy is to change our mind – our external situation is almost irrelevant.

Dorje Shugden can help with both of these things we lack. For the first, he is the protector of the Kadam Dharma or Kadam Lamrim. The actual Dharma only exists within our mind. He protects the flourishing of the Dharma within our mind. The quintessential butter that comes from churning the milk of Dharma is bodhichitta, the wish to attain enlightenment. Just as all rivers eventually flow into the ocean, all Dharmas flow into the mind of bodhichitta. The Lamrim principally functions to change what we want from worldly happiness to spiritual goals, up to the wish to attain enlightenment.

For the second, Dorje Shugden is a wisdom Buddha, an emanation of Manjushri. His blessings are particularly powerful to help us understand how what we are facing in life is perfect for our next step in our spiritual journey. All we need is faith in him and a pure spiritual motivation. We then make requests that he arrange what is best and that he bless our mind to see how what is happening is best for us. When we receive these blessings, we then see and know. This enables us to accept our situation and get to work on transforming our adversity into the path.

Just as Dorje Shugden can do all this for us, he can also do all this for those we love. It may not be as quick or as obvious how this is happening, but since he, those we love, and ourself are all empty, it is definite it is happening. We gradually karmically reconstruct our empty world.

Because the methods we have are perfectly reliable, all we need is the perseverance necessary to never give up and both we and all those we love will get there in the end. This is why it is the Joyful Path. We know the final outcome is assured.

Happy Tsog Day: How to Practice the Song of the Spring Queen (part 2)

Kadampa Ryan Tsog Days, Uncategorized

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 25 of a 44-part series.

HUM All you Tathagatas,
Heroes, Yoginis,
Dakas, and Dakinis,
To all you I make this request:
With a mind completely aroused by great bliss
And a body in a dance of constant motion,
I offer to the hosts of Dakinis
The great bliss from enjoying the lotus of the mudra.
AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO
May the assembly of stainless Dakinis
Look with loving affection and accomplish all deeds.

The first four lines and the last three lines can be understood in exactly the same way as the verse above. With the fifth line of this verse, we recall our mind has been completely aroused by great bliss from the previous verse and we are experiencing joy at our throat chakra. With the sixth line, we imagine that ourself and our consort Vajrayogini are in fact a single body of inseparable bliss and emptiness engaged in a dance of constant motion – our act of engaging in spiritual union. Here, we offer this experience of great bliss to the host of Dakas and Dakinis of the body mandala. There are two ways of engaging in Heruka’s body mandala. In the first, as explained in Essence of Vajrayana, we imagine the deities of the body mandala surround us in concentric circles. In the second, as explained in the sadhana New Essence of Vajrayana, we imagine all the deities of the body mandala at the twenty-four places of our body. In both cases, we imagine that the deities of the body mandala are by nature our channels and drops of our subtle body at these places. By mixing the deities of the body mandala with our channels and drops at the twenty-four places, we receive powerful blessings that function to heal our subtle body enabling all our winds to more easily find their way into our central channel at our heart and not become blocked by imperfections or blockages within our subtle body.

In the context of the practice of Song of the Spring Queen, we can imagine either the deities of the body mandala around us in concentric circles or at the twenty-four places of our body. In either case, we offer our experience of great bliss arising from engaging in union with the wisdom mudra Vajayogini to the Dakas and Dakinis, and as a result of them experiencing great bliss, we imagine that our subtle body is completely healed. The Dakas and Dakinis are then able to unobstructedly transmit their blessings through the principal channels of our subtle body causing all our inner winds to travel through them into the central channel at our heart. When we recite the ninth line, we imagine that once again Vajrayogini’s pure winds are blown up into our central channel, re-igniting our tummo fire, and causing the white bodhichitta at our throat to descend to our heart chakra, where we experience the second joy called supreme joy. It is as if all the pure winds from throughout our subtle body and the white bodhichitta descending from our crown all converge into our heart chakra in a concentration of indescribable bliss. 

HUM All you Tathagatas,

Heroes, Yoginis,

Dakas, and Dakinis,

To all you I make this request:

You who dance with a beautiful and peaceful manner,

O Blissful Protector and the hosts of Dakinis,

Please come here before me and grant me your blessings,

And bestow upon me spontaneous great bliss.

AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO

May the assembly of stainless Dakinis

Look with loving affection and accomplish all deeds.

In this verse, with the fifth line, we recall that the great bliss everyone is experiencing around us is by nature emptiness. There is nothing more beautiful nor peaceful than the emptiness of all phenomena. With the sixth and seventh lines, we invite the wisdom beings of all the deities of Heruka’s body mandala to enter into the commitment beings that we have been visualizing up to this point. We imagine that from the ten directions come countless collections of the 64 deities of the body mandala that all dissolve into ourselves as the self-generation. When they do so, we imagine that they bestow spontaneous great bliss upon us, mixed inseparably with a direct realization of the emptiness of all phenomena. When we recite the ninth line, we once again imagine Vajrayogini’s pure winds enter into us, strengthen and further power the tummo fire at our navel. This causes the white bodhichitta, which is still experiencing supreme joy at our heart from before, to descend to our naval channel where it mixes in separably with the tummo fire itself. As a result, we experience the third of the four joys, extraordinary joy, which is even more profound and intense then the supreme joy we generated before.

HUM All you Tathagatas,
Heroes, Yoginis,
Dakas, and Dakinis,
To all you I make this request:
You who have the characteristic of the liberation of great bliss,
Do not say that deliverance can be gained in one lifetime
Through various ascetic practices having abandoned great bliss,
But that great bliss resides in the centre of the supreme lotus.
AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO
May the assembly of stainless Dakinis
Look with loving affection and accomplish all deeds.

Normally when we speak of liberation, we are referring to abandoning all our delusions for ourselves. This is the final result of the Hinayana path and also the middle scope of the Lamrim teachings. However, as explained above, the mind of bodhichitta is the substantial cause of the mind of great bliss, and the practices of generation stage and completion stage are these circumstantial causes that enable us to transform the mind of bodhicitta into the very subtle mind of great bliss. Thus, with the fifth line, we recall that Vajrayogini, who we are engaged in union with, is by nature bodhicitta, which is the uncommon characteristic of the liberation of great bliss. The liberation of great bliss is an experience of great bliss that is equal to or greater than the bliss of individual liberation from samsara, otherwise known as nirvana, but whose special characteristic is to retain the bodhicitta motivation that prevents us from being content with solitary piece.

With the sixth and seventh line, we recall the importance of completely abandoning all attachment if we are to engage in qualified completion stage practice. Aesthetics principal practice is abandoning attachment, and they do so primarily through renouncing all pleasant experiences and achieving a mind that is completely at peace despite that. Aesthetic practices are similar to the practices of physical yoga. When we engage in physical yoga, we put our body into all sorts of extremely uncomfortable positions and stretches, but then we learn how to relax completely into that discomfort and tension completely fades away and we experience it as blissful relaxation of letting go into discomfort. In our practice of tantra, we do not abandon pleasant experiences, rather we learn how to transform them into the spiritual path of generating the mind of great bliss that we then use to meditate on emptiness. The sixth and seventh lines, therefore, remind us that our practices of generation stage and completion stage must be completely free from every trace of attachment just like the practices of an aesthetic must be. The difference is we do not need to renounce the pleasant experience, instead we use it spiritually. With the eighth line, we recall that great bliss can only be found through tantric practice, and in particular through completely loosening all the knots at our central channel as described above. It is only through tantric technology that we can attain enlightenment in one lifetime. This can only be done through relying upon both a wisdom and an action mudra. The supreme lotus refers to Vajrayogini’s bhaga.

When we recite the ninth line, we once again imagine that Vajrayogini’s pure winds flow up into our central channel where they envelop our white bodhichitta now at our navel chakra, and then they draw our white bodhichitta down to the tip of our sex organ. Technically speaking, the center of the chakra at the tip of our sex organ is slightly outside the tip, so we should feel as if the white bodhicitta is now residing inside the center of our lower door and we experience the fourth joy, spontaneous great bliss joy.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Emptiness of Science

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.128ab) If the general principle, the independent creator of all, has a threefold nature,
It is neither singular nor plural, and therefore does not exist.

We need to be very clear about what exactly it is we are refuting here and why. The Samkhyas are asserting an independent creator of all that is the nature of a general principle. They are not saying this general principle is Ishvara, an externally existent being that is the creator of all, they are saying this general principle is simply the external immutable laws of nature. In essence, they de-personify God, but still hold that there is an external process of creation that unfolds according to the laws of the general principle.

There are all sorts of theories in modern society that do exactly this, the most notable example being science as we understand it. The exact way that the Samkhyas assert how the general principle functions is not what is important here. Whether the general principle works this way, or that way, is not the point. None of us before reading Shantideva had ever heard of the Samkhyas or their explanation of the general principle, so of course we might think this refutation has nothing to do with us. This is why it is important for us to understand and identify the modern equivalents of the views of the other schools to see what they are talking about, and to identify how we still hold onto such views within our own mind.

If things exist inherently, they must be either singular or plural.  They cannot be both. This is because something that is inherently existent is one thing or another, and it does not exist independence upon anything else. That is the definition of inherent existence, not dependent upon anything else for its existence. If a singular thing has a plurality of parts, then that singular thing exist in dependence upon those parts, at which point it would no longer inherently be a singular thing.  If something is empty, in other words a mere creation of mind, then there is absolutely no problem for something to be simultaneously singular and plural, but neither singular or plural.  Again, to use the analogy of a hologram or the number six. Looked at from one angle a hologram appears as an elephant, looked at from another angle it may appear as a giraffe. So what is actually there, an elephant or a giraffe? Or looked at from one angle, a number looks like a six and looked at from another angle it looks like a nine. So what number is it, a six or a nine? The answer in both cases is it is simultaneously an elephant and a giraffe, but neither an elephant or a giraffe; and it is simultaneously a six and a nine, but neither a six or a nine.  In the same way, objects are neither singular nor plural, but both simultaneously depending upon how you look at them. In emptiness, this is no problem. Existing in multiple ways simultaneously without being one thing or another is the exact opposite of inherent existence. With inherent existence, we believe things are either singular or plural. They are one thing or another.

Quantum physics has gone a long ways towards unraveling this view as far as scientists are concerned, but most ordinary people do not understand quantum physics (myself included). The classic example of Schrodinger’s cat reveals how this works. In the thought experiment a cat is placed inside of a box in which there is a radioactive substance that has the power to kill the cat.  After some time has passed, the cat is either alive or dead. We exist in a state in which there are two possibilities – both are possible.  It is only when we open the box that reality organizes into one of these possibilities. Prior to opening the box, the cat exists in two states simultaneously, but is neither one or the other.  I am not a quantum physicist so I cannot say exactly how this is interpreted in science, but we can see a very clear correlation between this thought experiment and the hologram or the number six. All things exist in exactly the same way. Singularity and plurality is simply an example of how things can exist in multiple ways simultaneously. Our grasping at inherent existence says things cannot exist in multiple ways simultaneously, they exist in one way or another.

Happy Tara Day: How to increase our faith in Tara

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

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

Homage to the Twenty-one Taras

OM Homage to Venerable Arya Tara

The main purpose of reciting the twenty-one homages is to generate faith in Arya Tara.  Faith is what gives Buddhas power to help us.  It is not they hold back their help waiting for our faith and respect, rather when we generate faith we open the blinds of our mind to allow the sunlight of their blessings to pour in.  There are three types of faith:  believing faith, admiring faith, and wishing faith.  Believing faith believes in the qualities and abilities of holy beings.  Admiring faith generates a feeling of wonder, amazed at their incredible good qualities.  Wishing faith wishes to be the beneficiary of such power, and superior wishing faith wishes to gain these good qualities ourselves so we can do for others what the holy beings can do for us.  The more faith we have, the more powerfully we will receive the blessings of the given Buddha.  To paraphrase Lord Acton, faith empowers and absolute faith empowers absolutely. 

When we recite the twenty-one homages, we can train in increasing our faith.  Typically, we recite the twenty-one homages three times.  With the first recitation, we can primarily train in believing faith; with the second recitation, we can focus on admiring faith; and with the final recitation, we can emphasize wishing faith.  In this way, we will build up powerful potential energy in our mind for the remainder of the practice.

Praising Tara by her life story

Homage to Tara, the Swift One, the Heroine,
Whose eyes are like a flash of lightning,
Who arose from the opening of a lotus,
Born from the tears of the Protector of the Three Worlds.

Each time we receive a Tara empowerment, we hear Tara’s life story.  She has both a common and an uncommon life story.  Her common life story is as a bodhisattva, some sexist monk said if she continues in this way, she can pray to be reborn as a man so she can become a Buddha.  Upon hearing this, she vowed to always take rebirth in a female form and ultimately attain enlightenment in a female form.  She was the first feminist.  Her uncommon life story is Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, wept as he looked at how many beings remained to be liberated.  His tears fell into the clear light emptiness, and Arya Tara arose telling him to not worry, she would help him free all living beings.  When we recite this verse, it is important to make this personal – she became Tara for us, and so we should generate a feeling of closeness and gratitude.

Praising Tara by the brightness and radiance of her face

Homage to you with a face like a hundred full moons in autumn
Gathered together into one;
Blazing with brilliant light
Like a thousand constellations.

Sometimes people wonder how it is Buddhas can help all living beings directly and simultaneously.  There are so many living beings, how exactly can we understand their emanations pervading all worlds?  For me, there are two analogies that help, both of which are illustrated by this verse.  First, while there is only one moon in the sky, it nonetheless spontaneously reflects on the surface of every body of water in the world without its light being diminished in the process.  In the same way, the wisdom moon of Mother Tara shines in the sky of our mind, and spontaneously appears on the surface of every mind of faith in the world.  Second, imagine a wheel with countless straw-like spokes.  If you shined a light inside any one spoke, it would illuminate just that spoke, but if you moved the light into the hub of the wheel, it would illuminate all of the spokes directly and simultaneously.  In the same way, Tara’s brilliant light shines into the spokes of our minds like a thousand constellations.

Praising Tara by her colour, what she holds and her causes

Homage to you who are bluish gold,
Your hand perfectly adorned with a lotus flower;
Who arose from practising giving, moral discipline,
Patience, effort, concentration and wisdom.

Blue generally represents Buddha Akshobya, the completely purified aggregate of consciousness of all the Buddhas; and gold (yellow) represents Buddha Ratnasambhava, the completely purified aggregate of feeling of all the Buddhas.  A purified aggregate of consciousness is one that is free from the two obstructions, and a purified aggregate of feeling experiences all phenomena equally as manifestions of bliss and emptiness.  By praising Tara as being bluish gold, we recall her purified consciousness and feeling and generate faith.  A lotus flower generally symbolizes how an object of complete beauty and purity (a lotus flower) emerges from a contaminated source (the mud in the pond).  In the same way, our eventual enlightenment will emerge despite our origin being contaminated.  Tara holding a lotus flower symbolizes her power to lead contaminated beings such as ourselves to enlightenment.  All Buddhas attain enlightenment in exactly the same way – through training in the six perfections of giving, moral discipline, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom.  We sometimes think Buddhas were always enlightened and they are somehow different than the rest of us, but they were suffering sentient beings once as well just like us, and through their practice of the six perfections they attained enlightenment.  If we do the same, we too will attain the same results.  Recalling Tara’s causes reminds us of that and shows her power to help us train in the six perfections ourselves. 

Praising Tara by her being honoured by the Conquerors and the Bodhisattvas

Homage to you who surmount the Tathagatas’ ushnishas,
Whose victorious actions are limitless;
Who are greatly honoured by the Sons of the Conquerors,
Who have attained every perfection.

The primary purpose of this verse is to increase our faith in Tara as an enlightened being.  Normally, we view our spiritual guide on our crown.  Tara being on the crown of all the Tathagatas indicates that she is the spiritual guide of all the Tathagatas.  Victorious actions refer to her victory over the four maras, delusions, and all other objects of abandonment along the path.  She is honoured by all the Bodhisattvas (Sons of the Conquerors) because she is their mother, and she has attained every perfection.  Considering these qualities, we generate deep faith in her.

Praising Tara by her subduing unfavourable conditions

Homage to you who with the letters TUTTARA and HUM
Fill the realms of desire, direction and space.
With the seven classes of evil spirits beneath your feet,
You are able to draw all beings to bliss.

Here, we imagine that from the mantra rosary at her heart, countless light rays radiate out in all directions, filling the entire universe and dispelling all unfavorable conditions and obstructions to our practice of Dharma.  We imagine she is doing this for the benefit of ourself and all living beings.  There are countless evil spirits (all empty) who wish to obstruct our Dharma practice, but she is able to overcome them all single-handedly.  Through her powerful actions, we then imagine she draws all living beings into the bliss of her Dharmakaya where they are perfectly freed from all unfavorable conditions.

Praising Tara by her being worshipped by the great worldly gods

Homage to you who are worshipped by Indra, Agni,
Brahma, Vayu, and the other mighty gods;
And before whom the host of evil spirits,
Zombies, smell-eaters and givers of harm respectfully offer praise.

Normally living beings look up to the worldly gods, but worldly gods worship Tara.  If we bow to them and they bow to her, then we certainly should also bow to her.  Normally we fear evil spirits, but they too offer praise and respect to Tara.  We would think evil spirits would also fear Tara since she is the opposite of evil and has the power to overcome them, but she is so loving and skillful, even her would-be enemies respectfully offer her praise.  By relying upon her, we too can gain the ability to earn the respect of those who oppose our virtuous wishes.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Emptiness of Shamanism

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.126.cd) You Samkhyas assert that the creator is
The permanent general principle.

(9.127) You describe this general principle as a balanced state
Of three qualities: lightness, activity, and darkness,
Which should be understood as the feelings of indifference, pleasure, and pain.
Unbalanced states of these, you say, are the manifestations that constitute the world.

This is also a very common view held in modern society, even though we might not use exactly the same terms such as a general principle or describe how the general principle work as being of three qualities of lightness, activity, and darkness. These theories can take many forms. For example, there is theistic evolution, which essentially says God started it all but then after that evolution took over according to his plan. So he set things in motion and then withdrew and allowed things to unfold over time according to the laws of science.  Others who do not believe in some sort of external creator God have all sorts of theories about the principles upon which the universe functions, often involving notions of balance.  For example, there are those who believe in the Tao, that there are basic external principles governing the natural order of things, and these principles are held to be permanent. There are also many shamanistic views that develop explanations of the relationship between nature and creation.  All of these are modern examples of the Samkhyas.

Happy Protector Day: Removing the Faults We Perceive in Others

Kadampa Ryan Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 2 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.

We can learn to be happy all the time, regardless of our external circumstances.  Normally, we are happy when things go well, but unhappy when things go badly.  When we are a spiritual being, all situations, good or bad, equally provide us with an opportunity to train our mind and create good causes for the future, so we are equally happy with whatever happens.  In this way, we can develop a real equanimity with respect to whatever happens in our life.

We have the power to free all the beings we know and love from this world of suffering.  We have the opportunity to become a fully enlightened Buddha who has the power to lead each and every living being to full enlightenment.  So eventually we can save everyone we know and love.  We can understand this at a deeper level by understanding that we are dreaming a world of suffering.  By purifying our own mind, we dream a different dream, a pure dream, and thereby free all these beings.

With this background in mind, in this series of posts I will explain a special practice we can do to make the most out of our precious human life, namely surrendering our life completely to the protection and guidance of the Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden. 

Normally we explain what to do in the meditation session first, but I wanted to explain how we rely upon Dorje Shugden in the meditation break first because this is where we first gain experience of him and see how useful he is.  Then, we naturally want to deepen our practice of him in the meditation session.

I would like to explain two key practices for the meditation break:  taking personal responsibility to remove the faults we perceive in others and viewing our life as a training ground for becoming the Buddha we need to become.  I will explain these over the next two posts.

Taking personal responsibility for removing the faults you perceive in others

Normally, we think it is the responsibility of others to remove the faults we perceive in them, but if we think about this carefully, we will realize that actually we are uniquely responsible for all the faults we perceive in others.  At a simple level, we can say that the world we experience is the world we pay attention to.  If we pay 90% of our attention on the 10% of faults in the other person, then it will seem to us that the person is 90% faulty.  This is how we will experience the other person.  This is how we make ‘enemies,’ ‘friends,’ ‘sangha,’ and even ‘Buddhas.’  In the same way, we ‘make’ faulty people. 

We can also understand this by considering emptiness.  If we consider emptiness according to Sutra, we understand that everything is just a dream-like projection of our mind. Where does this faulty person come from?  Our own projections of mind.  There is no other person other than emptiness. Are we responsible for the appearance of faults in the people of our dreams?  If yes, then we are likewise responsible for the faults in the people of the dream of our gross mind.  If we consider karma and emptiness together, we realize that others are mere appearances arising from our own karma. We engaged in actions in the past which are now creating the appearance of a ‘faulty’ person.  So it is our own past faulty actions which created this appearance of a faulty person. 

If we consider emptiness according to Tantra, we understand that these faulty people are actually different aspects, or parts, of our own mind.  We consider our right and left hands to be aspects or parts of our body.  In the same way, when we understand emptiness according to Tantra, we realize that others are merely aspects or parts of our mind.  Just as I am an appearance in my mind, so too is the ‘faulty’ person.  Both are equally appearances to my mind inside my mind.  They are different aspects of my mind.  So this is the ‘me’ part of me and that is the ‘faulty’ part of me.  When we meditate deeply on these things, we will come to the clear realization that there is no ‘other person’ other than the one created by my mind, so we are uniquely responsible for all the faults we perceive in others.

Given this, how do we actually remove the faults we perceive in others?  There are several things we can do.  First, we should make a distinction between the person and their delusion.  Just as a cancer patient is not their cancer, so too somebody sick with delusions is not their delusions. By making a separation between the person and their delusions, we no longer see faulty people, rather we see pure people sick with delusions.  We see faulty delusions, but pure beings.

Second, we need to develop a mind of patient acceptance that can transform everything.  The mind of patient acceptance is a special wisdom that has the power to transform anything into the spiritual path.  This wisdom enables practitioners to ‘accept’ everything without resistance because the bodhisattva can ‘use’ everything.  When we have this mind, what would otherwise be a fault is considered to us to be perfect because it gives us a great opportunity to further train our mind.  If we can learn to use whatever others do for our spiritual development, then their otherwise ‘faulty’ actions for us will be perfect.

Third, it is also very helpful to create a space of 100% freedom and non-judgment of others, and in that space, set a good example.  A bodhisattva does not try or need to change others.  When people feel controlled or judged, they become defensive.  If they are defensive, then it blocks them from changing because they are engaging in a process of self-justification.  For change to take place, it has to take place from the side of the person.  Internal change can only come from the inside.  Therefore, in the space of not controlling or judging others, we set a good example.  This will naturally inspire people to change from their own side.

Fourth, Venerable Tharchin once explained to me that we need to “own other’s faults as our own.”  Since the faults of others are projections of our own mind, the only reason why others appear to have any faults is because we possess those faults ourself.  Our job then is to find these faults in ourselves and purge them like bad blood.  We take the time to find where we have these same faults, and then we use the Dharma to eliminate them from ourself with a bodhichitta intention to be able to help the other person, and anyone else, who appears to have this fault.  If we practice like this, there are many different benefits.  We will gain the realizations we need to be able to help the other person overcome their problem because we have personal experience of having done that ourselves.  We will show the perfect example for the other person of somebody striving to overcome and eventually becoming free from what troubles them the most.  Our example often helps much more than our words.  More profoundly, the problem will actually disappear in the other person because it is coming from our own mind anyways.  And at the very least, we ourselves will have one less fault.  

Finally, we can adopt a pure view of others as emanations of Dorje Shugden.  I will explain this is greater detail in the next post.

Happy Tsog Day: How to Practice the Song of the Spring Queen (part 1)

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 24 of a 44-part series.

Song of the Spring Queen

HUM All you Tathagatas,
Heroes, Yoginis,
Dakas, and Dakinis,
To all you I make this request:
O Heruka who delight in great bliss,
You engage in the Union of spontaneous bliss,
By attending the Lady intoxicated with bliss
And enjoying in accordance with the rituals.
AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO
May the assembly of stainless Dakinis
Look with loving affection and accomplish all deeds.

The Song of the Spring Queen is for many practitioners the highlight of the tsog offering. Not only is the song beautiful and a delight to sing, it also explains how we engage in the practice of relying upon a wisdom mudra according to Highest Yoga Tantra. As explained above, there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the nature of tantric practice. Many people feel it is simply a method for having better worldly sex. The purpose of tantric practice is to explain how to transform pleasant experiences into the path to enlightenment. With our Lojong practice, we learn how to transform unpleasant experiences into the path to enlightenment. By learning both Lojong and tantra, we will be able to transform any experience into the path.

Our ability to engage and qualified Lojong or tantric practice depends upon whether our motivation to progress along the path is stronger than our worldly concerns. For example, if what we wish for is to never experience unpleasant experiences, then our practice of Lojong will lack power because we will not care that it is a cause of our enlightenment, we simply do not want to experience unpleasant things. But if our wish to progress along the path is stronger, then we will be able to accept our unpleasant experiences and use them to advance along the path. The experience will still be unpleasant, but it will no longer be a problem for us. In the same way, if our wish to experience worldly pleasures is stronger than our wish to progress along the path, we will not be able to use tantric technology to transform pleasant experiences into the path. Instead, our experience of pleasant experiences will just fuel our attachment. Thus, our motivation for engaging in tantric practice must be to end our attachment, not use tantra as an excuse to indulge in our attachment. This is very important. We should not underestimate the ability of our mind to hijack our Dharma understandings to do what our delusions want us to do.

The first four lines and the last three lines of each verse of Song of the Spring Queen are the same. The explanation that follows can be applied to every verse. With the first three lines, we recall the visualization of our spiritual guide in the aspect of father Heruka and mother Vajraygoini in union, surrounded by all the deities of Heruka’s body mandala. We likewise recall all the other Buddhas and holy beings filling the ten directions. We recognize all these holy beings as emanations, or limbs, of our principal spiritual guide Heruka. We additionally recall that all these appearances are like waves on the ocean of our definitive spiritual guide, dharmakaya Heruka, which is the nature of indivisible bliss and emptiness. Thus, every holy being is like an aspect of the Truth Body. With the fourth line, we generate a faithful mind requesting all the holy beings to perform the action we are about to describe with the next four lines of the verse.

With the ninth line of every verse, AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO, we imagine that we are Heruka engaged in union with Vajrayogini who is riding up and down on our vajra. As a result of this movement, we should imagine that Vajrayogini’s pure winds flowing through her central channel enter into our central channel flowing upwards, igniting our inner tummo fire, causing the white bodhicitta at our crown to melt through our central channel giving rise to an experience of great bliss. The great bliss we generate as a result of engaging in union with a wisdom mudra functions to loosen the knots at our heart chakra. When these knots are completely loosened, all our inner winds can enter, absorb, and dissolve into our central channel at our heart, which then gives rise to a direct experience of the eight dissolutions, the last of which is a fully qualified mind of clear light. With this clear light mind, we can then meditate on the emptiness of all phenomena, and in particular of our very subtle mind of the clear light itself. This meditation functions to purify our very subtle mind of all delusion obstructions and obstructions to omniscience. When our mind is completely purified of the two obstructions, we attain enlightenment. Thus, the purpose of this meditation is not to enjoy union with Vajrayogini – though that is certainly a pleasant experience – rather it is to loosen the channel knots at our heart so that we can complete our spiritual training. We must be very clear with our motivation for engaging in this practice. More explanations on how to engage in tummo meditation and how to rely upon wisdom and action mudras can be found in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Essence of Vajrayana, Clear Light of Bliss, and Tantric Grounds and Paths. All the explanations explained in these texts can be incorporated into our practice of Song of the Spring Queen.

With the last two lines of each verse, we imagine that all the Tathagatas, heroes, yoginis, Dakas, and Dakinis generate great delight knowing that we will soon attain enlightenment. Everyone is collectively enjoying a festival of great bliss!

The fifth through the eighth line of each verse of Song of the Spring Queen is slightly different, emphasizing different aspects of the practice and calling upon different aspects of the visualization to strengthen our practice of relying upon a wisdom mudra. With the first four verses, we can imagine we generate the four joys in serial order, then with the fifth verse we imagine we attain the union a bliss and emptiness, and finally with the last verse we attain the union of Vajradhara.

With this first verse, we focus on the outer aspects of our self-generated as Heruka and our consort generated as Vajrayogini. We imagine that we are engaging in union with her and that she is completely filled with great bliss, as if her mind has been intoxicated thoroughly by this experience. She then concentrates all her great bliss into her central channel, which she then blows lovingly into our central channel through our engaging in union. “Enjoying in accordance with the rituals” refers to the 64 arts of love which are explained in Great Treasury of Merit. Recalling all this, when we engage in union and ignite the tummo fire, we imagine the white bodhichitta at our crown melts and descends down into our throat chakra where are we experienced the first of the four joys, called joy.

On Accepting Deluded People – Including Ourself – in Kadampa Communities

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

It’s odd how as Kadampas we sometimes (oftentimes?) feel a reluctance to admit we are hurting or deluded, even to Sangha. Strangely, this problem seems to grow worse the more years we are in the Dharma.

I think this comes from three things. First, our pride in wanting to pretend we are this great practitioner, perhaps even for seemingly “good reasons” like we are a teacher or senior practitioner and we want to set a good example.

Second, is attachment to being accepted by Sangha and feeling that if they knew how messed up we still are inside, they will no longer accept us, love us, or look up to us.

And third a collective delusion within the Kadampa community that does not really accept fellow Kadampas who are still deluded, sometimes heavily. There is in part a culture of victim blaming – you’re still suffering or deluded because you are a bad practitioner. We even blame people who take things as victim blaming – saying it is their fault they are taking things this way; which sadly, is a perverse form of gaslighting fellow Sangha as we deflect blame because we can’t admit Kadampa communities or ourselves still have a lot of work to do. Or it comes from a misunderstanding of faith, projecting onto our objects of refuge that they need to be perfect from their own side, and then we lose faith in them when they seem to still be deluded. This destroys our own faith and puts unrealistic pressure on our more senior practitioners.

For the first one, if we have pride, we don’t have refuge, it is as simple as that. We are just pretending to be a practitioner. Kadam Morten once said the best example is the one who shows the journey, not the end result. We need to peacefully accept it is perfectly OK to be where we are at and we grow from there.

For the second, attachment to what Sangha thinks of us or attachment to them accepting and loving us is still attachment and an object to be abandoned. Dharma communities are not social clubs, they should be healing clinics – with doctors, medicine, nurses, and we are all patients – and it is up to us to make them so.

For the third, we need to remember the essence of the Kadampa way of life is a mind of “everybody welcome.” This is not just a rule for who we accept into our centers, but how we position ourselves towards everybody in our life. If we have aversion to being around deluded people, our so-called bodhichitta is nothing but a sick joke. We are suffering because we are still in samsara. Our delusions are our mental sickness, like a broken leg or cancer, not a personal failing. We also need to make sure to not confuse projecting expectations of perfection onto the three jewels with faith. Pure view does not expect the three jewels to appear perfect from their own side, rather it is viewing and relating to the three jewels in a perfect way. Venerable Geshe-la taught that we should view our teachers as Sangha jewels, not Buddha jewels. For ourselves as fellow Sangha, we should view ourselves as loving nurses, not finger-waggers. Gen Tharchin said our primary refuge should be in the Dharma, not the person. If we put our primary refuge in the person, when they do something stupid, we lose everything; but if we put it primarily in the Dharma, when they do something stupid, we learn powerful lessons.

Once again, best to have the mind of a beginner. Best to have an open heart, including towards ourself.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Emptiness of the Big Bang

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Now the refutation of production from other, that is the general principle.

after a brief refutation on the assertion of production from partless particles.

(9.126ab) The assertion that the world and living beings are produced from permanent partless particles
Has already been refuted.

Modern science claims everything arose from The Big Bang. The Big Bang essentially started with a partless particle. Much of modern physics is also about trying to identify partless particles that are the basis appan which reality is constructed. Belief in the fiction of partless particles is quite widespread in modern society.

But production from partlets particles is actually impossible. As described extensively in earlier posts, the basic argument as to why partless particles cannot create anything relates to the problem of contact.  Does a partless particle come into contact with that which it supposedly produces?  If what is produced comes from the partless particle then it implies part of the partless particle somehow separates off from the partless particle, at which point it would not be partless since it has part of it that can separate off. If one partless particle comes into contact with another partless particle, then it implies there is part of that particle that is in contact with another partless particle. If there is part of the partless particle that is in contact with part of another partless particle, that implies there is part of the partless particle that is not in contact with the other partless particle, at which point the partless particle is no longer partless. If there is not only one part of the partless particle in contact with another part of a partless particle, it implies that the two partless particles are in fact one in the same, at which point what sense is there in talking about two different partless particles coming into relationship with one another? When we think even superficially about this, it is quite absurd.