Author: Kadampa Ryan

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

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

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

Understanding How Holy Days Work

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

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

Generating Compassion for Beings in the Upper Realms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Returning to this World to Spread the Dharma

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

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

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

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

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

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

Returning to Spread the Dharma

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

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

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

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

Do Not Despair, No Matter How Hard it Gets

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The bottom line is this: each person is experiencing their own little world of hallucinations. We are all schizophrenic from one perspective. A world appears vividly to our mind, and we respond to that world as if it were actually real, when in reality it is nothing more than our karmic hallucinations. This is equally true for everyone. The only difference is some people’s hallucinations are more calm or “normal” than others. But they are all equally hallucinations.

The challenge is we each have a different set of hallucinations, and they don’t necessarily correspond to what others are hallucinating. So we may be acting in a PERFECTLY RATIONAL WAY relative to how the world is appearing to us, our family is likewise acting in a perfectly rational way relative to how the world is appearing to them, and the same is true for everyone else. For us, it might make no sense how our family or society are acting. For our family, it might make no sense how we are acting. Many can’t understand how society is acting, but it makes sense to them relative to their world. Everyone then accuses each other of being crazy and they are the only normal one. Nope, sorry, we are all crazy – just a different kind of crazy.

So what can we do to address this? There are two things I am aware of:

First, instead of fighting with people about why they act the way they do, we need to improve our communication with them so we at least mutually understand one another. Ask them questions about how they perceive things and why they act the way they do, not out of defensiveness, but in trying to understand the world as it appears to them. Likewise, we can share our perspective with them so they understand how the world appears to us and why we act the way we do. They will continue to think they are in reality and we are in crazy land, but that’s OK. We understand we are all crazy, just in different ways. But virtually all conflict comes from misunderstanding each other’s appearing worlds. If we take the time to understand the world appearing to their mind better, there will be less scope for misunderstanding and conflict. Things will externally pacify somewhat at best or we will understand better at worst.

Second, regardless of what appears, respond with Lamrim minds. It doesn’t matter even if everything appearing to our mind is schizophrenic hallucinations (I know it isn’t, but it also is like it is for everybody else). The point is this is HOW the world is currently appearing to us, whether it has any grounding in reality or not. How the world appears to us is NOTHING MORE than a mere karmic appearance to mind. But it is OUR karma. It is OUR karmic dream, every last bit of it. The only way to change the karmic dream is to change our karma. There is no other way. The way to change our karma is to change our actions.

It is possible for us to change our karma for the worse or for the better. The choice is ours. The way we change it for the better is by trying, to the best of our ability, to put the Lamrim into practice. Try to recognize we have a precious human life with which we can accomplish spiritual goals. Admit that we may die at any point and could fall into the lower realms. Generate qualified refuge in your mind. Follow assiduously the laws of karma. Generate the wish to wake up from all our contaminated karmic hallucinations. Generate the wish to help others do the same – they think they are in reality when they are just trapped in a different kind of crazy. Dissolve the guru into your heart, and ask him to work through you, to bless your mind, to guide you out. Above all, rely on Dorje Shugden, requesting him to arrange all the outer, inner, and secret conditions you need to advance along the path to enlightenment.

If we do these things in our daily life, responding to whatever arises with some Lamrim mind, Venerable Geshe-la 100% guarantees us that things will get better. Not right away. They could get worse in the short term, who knows what karma we have created or has ripened, but if we play the LONG GAME, it is 100% guaranteed if we change our actions, we will change our karma, and that will change what appears to us. There is no doubt about this. Tantric practice is just a super-charged method of doing this.

Both of these solutions will require a great deal of patience. Things will take time. But they will help. And they will work in the long run. It doesn’t matter how lost we are or where we find ourselves, it is never too late to start heading in the right direction. If we never give up, we will eventually get to where we want to go.

We Can Purify Others, If They Created the Causes

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra

Can we actually purify other or not? Can Buddhas do so? On the surface, it seems like we have contradictory teachings on the matter.

Sometimes we develop doubts coming from seeming contradictions in the teachings. Personally, I always find it helpful to lean into these apparent contradictions because resolving them usually leads to big breakthroughs in our understandings.

On the one hand, we have teachings that explain it is possible to purify others negative karma, such as when we are doing powa practice; we can actually take on others suffering, Jesus potentially being one of the world’s best examples of this; we can purify migrators, transforming them all into Dakas and Dakinis; we can do powa for others, transferring their consciousness to pure lands, etc. All of this is possible because others, including their minds, are empty.

But on the other hand we have teachings that say others have to solve their own problems and follow the path themselves, we can’t do it for them. Sure, we can set a good example, offer good advise, make prayers, but fundamentally they have to liberate themselves. If Buddhas could liberate us, they would have done so by now. Buddhas can’t take the delusions out of our minds like we can pull a thorn out of our foot.

So which is it? Can we purify others or not? How can both sets of instructions be true simultaneously? I’m aware of two answers.

First, we can purify others if they have created the karmic causes for us to do so. For example, we can create the karmic causes for somebody to perform life-saving surgery on us, we don’t have to perform surgery on ourselves. In the same way, we can create the karma for others to pray for us and for Buddhas to perform mental surgery on us. If we don’t create the karma for them to do so, they can’t; but if we do create the karma for them to do so, they can.

This has important practical implications. It means if we want others to pray for us, we need to pray for them; if we want others to perform powa for us, we need to do powa for them; if we want others to take on our suffering, we need to take on other’s suffering; and if we want Buddhas to transform us into a Hero or Heroine, we need to do the same towards others. All of these karmic actions create the causes for the three jewels to do the same towards us. The more we do these things for others, the more we create the karma for others to do these things for us.

The second answer I’m aware of is pure view is compassionate action. Normally we think of view as observing things objectively – things are a particular way and we see them. On the basis of that view, we then act. But for a Buddha, their pure view IS their compassionate action. By seeing us as completely purified, fully enlightened Buddhas, it functions to ripen us into one. We see this with our children, students, friends, and co-workers. When we see the good in them, see their potential, we help draw it out. It becomes more manifest. This works because it is correct imagination and others are empty. We can quite literally karmically reconstruct them into enlightened beings.

But how do we reconcile this with if this were possible, Buddhas would have already liberated us by now? The answer is shocking: from their perspective, they already have. Indeed, they see us, themselves, and all living beings as having always been Buddhas in all three times – as if samsara never was. We know this because this is exactly what we imagine in our tantric practices. We train in bringing the future result into the path. We see this now and believe it to be true. This is CORRECT imagination, meaning it is an imagination that also happens to be true. The more we meditate on correct imaginations, the more they start to appear directly to our mind and even to our sense consciousnesses to be that way – until eventually it is our direct perception.

Why do they view us this way if we are not actually enlightened? Don’t they know we are still drowning in samsara? Geshe-la taught at many festivals that for Buddhas, suffering sentient beings do not exist. But if they don’t exist, then who are they leading to enlightenment after they attain enlightenment themselves? These doubts arise from thinking we ARE or we AREN’T enlightened as some objective fact. The truth is it is a question of point of view. From our perspective as a practitioner, we are not but Buddhas are helping us get there. From the perspective of a Buddha, they have already led us all to the fully enlightened state – not because we are actually there, but because this view ripens us most quickly.

So yes, we can purify others. We should not doubt this at all. Indeed, our doubting this holds us back from even trying. Quite the opposite, we should make the yoga of purifying migrators our main practice as a tantric bodhisattva. In Mirror of Dharma, our oral instructions of Lamrim, VGL explains in his commentary to Avalokiteshvara practice that our main practice is purifying the six realms of samsara. We are meant to incorporate this instruction into our HYT practice. It’s great to transform ourselves into a Buddha, but imagine the wonder at transforming all living beings!

And indeed, it is by our taking the yoga of purifying migrators as our main practice that we create the karmic causes for others and the Buddhas to do the same for us. Not only can we purify others, we should orient all of our practices around this understanding, feeling that we are directly purifying and transforming all beings, their activities, their enjoyments, and their environments into complete purity, strongly believing that not only it is true, but that they experience it as such.

Tantric practice is incredibly radical, but when we see the connection between our training in the yoga of purifying migrators and the karma such a practice creates for us, we can easily understand how it is the quick path and it is possible to attain enlightenment, even in this very lifetime.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: It’s Our Responsibility to Bring Emptiness to the World

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.76) (Other schools) “If living beings do not truly exist, who will gain the results of meditating on compassion?”
It is true that the cause, meditation on compassion, and the result, Buddhahood, do not truly exist; but they do exist nominally.
Thus, so that the suffering of all living beings may be completely pacified,
We should not reject the nominally existent compassion which leads to that result.

For us when we hear that they are dreamlike beings or that they are nominally existent and so forth it robs some of the thunder. We think therefore it does not matter. The extent to which we think this comes from are having fallen into the extreme of nothingness thinking that if things do not exist inherently then that means they do not exist at all.

All of the problems that arise with these sorts of doubts come from grasping at believing there is some part of reality that exists and some part of reality that does not exist. We hear the Prasangikas say that things do not exist inherently and even if we accept that, we then say OK all of those things do not exist, but there is something that does exist that is reality that I should worry about. But if everything is equally empty then this problem goes away. Our dreamlike self engages in dreamlike actions which create a dreamlike enlightenment to help dreamlike sentient beings. Everything is the same nature of a dream. It all functions, it all makes sense, it all has a point in the context of emptiness.

And finally:

(9.77) It is suffering and its causes that need to be abandoned,
And it is the ignorance of self-grasping that causes delusions and suffering to increase.
(Other schools) “But there is no way to abandon self-grasping so that it will never recur.”
On the contrary, meditation on selflessness, or emptiness, is the supreme method for accomplishing this.

In this world, more and more people are desperate to find solutions to their problems.  There are many samsaric methods for finding release from suffering, but they are all temporary and the problems come back, so they are not real solutions.  All the sufferings come back because we do not address the root cause of our suffering, our identifying with contaminated aggregates.  Only when people realize that none of these things are truly existent does sickness or any kind of suffering come to an end. Why?  Because we cease identifying with that which has problems.  In fact, we cease to appear such things in the first place.

It is our responsibility as Kadampas to provide the real solution, actual methods. It is our responsibility now to teach emptiness, the actual method to remove suffering from this world.  We need to gain knowledge of emptiness and experience of emptiness.  It is particularly important that we know how to teach emptiness, isn’t it?   We can start by helping people realize that their opinion of things, and therefore their experience of things, depends on their mind.  They have a choice what opinions they have of things.   Help people view their situations differently, as opportunities to improve themselves as people.  Even ordinary people can understand that your world is what you make of it.  Help them realize this and that they have choice.  Choice is the very essence of emptiness.

One thing that we are all learning is that we have to stop protecting ourself by self-cherishing means, because it doesn’t work. On the surface, self-cherishing seems to protect us, but through examination we know it just brings us more suffering.  Yet we keep being duped, don’t we?  We must rely upon wisdom in order to protect ourselves from suffering and to bring us happiness.  But this means choosing to listen to and follow our wisdom, which is not always easy because of strong habits and we think it is no big deal.  Geshe-la says we actually need to just forget about the object of our self-cherishing, more simply, forget about ourself.  Just work for others, which will include taking care of this instrument that we normally refer to as our self so we can help them more.

We also need to let go of the person we think we are.  So often we grasp at who we are, and then think we cannot change.   We need to give the spiritual guide a chance to change us, and he can only do this if we let go of our grasping at who we ‘are.’  We need to actively try to change ourselves – who wants to remain who we are, we need to aspire to be better people.  We need to want to leave our ordinary self completely behind.  This is easier for people who get ordained, but internally we need to do the same thing.  When you let go of self, and you just cherish others, wonderful changes will naturally take place.  A bodhisattva becomes whatever she is needed to be.  Such flexibility.

But to let go of our ordinary self and allow change to take place, we need to realize that our self-cherishing is not protecting us, but keeping us imprisoned.  Then, we will be able to break free.

We Need Never Worry

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life

When we dissolve everything into the clear light, we don’t just dissolve our own body and mind into emptiness – transporting ourselves to the inner pure land – we also can dissolve the bodies and minds of everyone we love into emptiness – transporting them also to the inner pure land.

Just like us, their samsara is a mere karmic appearance to their minds, a hallucination they believe is real and suffer from. But their samsara is not just empty with respect to THEIR minds, it is also empty with respect to our mind. They suffer because they believe their samsara and they believe the lies of their delusions.

When we dissolve them into the clear light, we should imagine we are freeing them from the clouds of hallucinations that have been tormenting them and they are freed and delivered into the inner pure land where they enjoy infinite peace and omniscient wisdom.

Dissolving them into emptiness doesn’t make them cease, it just makes their samsara they normally see cease. Their minds remain, abiding in the bliss of the emptiness of all things.

We should feel that our meditations on emptiness are supreme acts of compassion and that those we dissolve into the clear light are directly blessed by the definitive guru because we dissolve the mental obstructions between them and his loving care.

When we think about it, if we allow their samsara to again reappear to our mind, it is like we are re-imprisoning them in a samsara of our creation. We can’t do that! So out of compassion, we again dissolve them back into the clear light, imagining we are re-delivering them to everlasting joy. This is Vajrayana Mahamudra.

All of this works because it is correct imagination and they are empty. There will of course be a lag between when we see them this way and they come to see themselves in this way, but if we keep at it for as long as it takes, eventually they will. This is why we need never worry.

Just as nobody can stop us from leaving the prison of samsara if we choose to do so, so too nobody can stop us from also freeing everybody else from samsara.

According to common appearance, it will appear as if they are freeing themselves (they will be blessed to start to do the right things, if not in this life in some future life), but from the uncommon perspective of our own enlightenment, we will directly perceive us having liberated all beings and they all abide with us in the pure land, not just at some point in the future, but always in all three times.

It will be as if samsara never was, not just for us, but for everyone. As Nagarjuna said, with emptiness, everything is possible.

A Pure Life: Abandoning Intoxicants (In particular alcohol and marijuana)

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part nine 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.

One of our Mahayana precepts is to abandon intoxicants.  This includes drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or taking drugs.  This is often one of the toughest ones for us to follow.  The object of this vow is obviously any intoxicant, whether it is legal or not.  Some people ask the question whether caffeine counts, after all it is highly addictive and many people relate to it no differently than other drugs.  And if coffee is an intoxicant, then aren’t all of the centers and festivals and World Peace Cafes constantly encouraging others to break their Pratimoksha vows?

Some people don’t like the answer I am about to give, but I will give it anyways.  Yes, I think caffeine can be considered an intoxicant.  I think nothing is really an intoxicant from its own side and everything can be an intoxicant for us depending on how we relate to it.  Sugar is not an intoxicant from its own side, but if we adopt an addictive attitude towards it, then for us I would way it is and likewise should be brought under control.  Likewise, many people get addicted to porn.  This is a very common addiction in the modern world, especially with the ease of access on-line.  This too can be a form of intoxicant for us depending on how we relate to it. Whether caffeine, sugar, and porn would be considered intoxicants as far as the Pratimoksha vows are concerned is debatable, but strictly speaking probably not. Should we nonetheless consider abandoning addiction to things a worthwhile goal on precepts day about abandoning intoxicants? Sure, why not.

Some objects, like cigarettes, alcohol and drugs are in a somewhat different category because their express purpose is to alter our mind.  This is the main point.  If we understand that our problem is our mind and alcohol and drugs help us change our mind, then can’t we argue that with them we are at least solving the right problem?  From one perspective, I guess we can say that.  But it is still a completely wrong thought.  Yes, we need to change our mind, but we need to change our mind with our mind.  We can think of our mind as like a muscle.  The more we exercise it, the stronger it gets.  The more we become dependent upon other things to change our mind, the weaker that muscle becomes.  Ultimately, we need a very strong mind.  Further, alcohol and drugs function to render our mind uncontrolled.  Our goal is to make our mind controlled.  So these things may change our mind, but they do so in a way that makes our mind more uncontrolled, and thus they take us in the opposite direction of where we want to go.

Let’s talk about alcohol

Alcohol in particular generally just makes us stupid.  The reason why alcohol is so dangerous is it primarily functions to undermine our inhibitions.  Our inhibitions are often what hold us back from engaging in negativity.  If we harbor in our heart a good deal of negative impulses, then when we consume alcohol, it erodes those inhibitions and our negativity is given free rein.  We all know stories.  Now, some people say that there is nothing wrong with being an occasional social drinker, especially if is done in moderation.  It is true that it is less bad, but that does not necessarily make it good.  It is true that it is good to be social, but how will you grow more as a person, by using the crutch of alcohol or doing the deep inner work of overcoming those delusions which prevent you from being a socially engaged person?  I am now a diplomat and I attend quite a number of social gatherings where virtually everyone is drinking.  I walk around with a glass of water or even orange juice in my hand.  At first, I hated these gatherings because I have never liked parties.  But I forced myself to learn how to become socially engaged, to let go, relax, and have a good time.  I learned how to be able to have a good conversation easily with anybody.  The secret to this is not complicated:  take a genuine interest in what others have to say.  Everyone has a lifetime’s worth of experiences waiting to be tapped, and all you need to do is be interested in finding out what they have to say.  Usually people only want to talk about themselves anyway, so it is not difficult to get the conversations started, and what you will find is because you have all of your mental faculties about you, you are better able to cherish the other person and occasionally pepper the conversation with some wisdom. 

Other people object saying having a glass of red wine every day has been medically proven to be good for your health.  I am not a doctor, so I cannot say whether this is true or not, but let’s just assume it is.  My question is simple:  isn’t moral discipline also good for your health?  Let us take a wild exaggeration of the benefits of drinking a glass of wine every day and say it adds 10 years onto your human life.  Surely that is extraordinary, is it not?  Surely that is enough justification to do it.  But every time we engage in the practice of moral discipline we create the substantial karmic cause for a rebirth in the upper realms, for example as a human.  If we assume an average lifespan of 80 years, what extends our experience of human life more, the 10 years or the 80?  And, just to take this a little further, if you practice this moral discipline every day from age 21 to 80, then that is 21,535 instances of moral discipline, each one of which creates the cause for at least another human rebirth of say 80 years, then keeping this vow will extend our experience of human life by 1,722,800 years!  Do the math.  Logic doesn’t lie. 

Let’s talk about marijuana

Some people agree that drinking alcohol just makes us stupid and taking hard drugs is just too dangerous, but they then ask what about marijuana?  People who have smoked almost all agree that it makes them more mellow and often gives them insights which are very similar and profound like what we realize with the Dharma.  There are also a great number of medical studies about the health benefits of this drug.  Let us face it, a very high percentage of Dharma practitioners have smoked pot in the past. 

Here the case is much harder, but still it is not worth it.  Why?  First, just as alcohol functions to undermine our inhibitions, marijuana functions to undermine our desire to do anything other than more marijuana.  This is true and anybody who has smoked knows what I am talking about.  Conventionally, people usually all agree that people who regularly smoke have less ambition and drive than they used to.  Whenever free time arises, their first impulse is to light up.  As we know from the lamrim teachings, desire is everything.  All of the lamrim meditations are ultimately about building up within us an unquenchable desire for liberation and enlightenment.  Marijuana deflates our desires, and the more we smoke the less we desire anything else. 

Second, if we are even slightly prone to psychiatric disorders, marijuana is downright dangerous.  When I was in Geneva, there were three different practitioners who were mentally completely normal prior to smoking marijuana, but they had latent potentials for psychiatric disorders, and after smoking regularly for a period of time, they all three developed very serious psychiatric issues, so much so that all three of them have spent a fair amount of time in mental hospitals.  We do not know what latent potentialities we have lurking under the surface, and smoking could activate them.  Perhaps we have smoked a few times without a problem and therefore think we are immune to this problem.  But we never know if we are just one joint away from tripping over some invisible karmic wire we did not know was there.

Third, marijuana is a gateway drug.  It is like crossing the Rubicon, and once we have done so, the other drugs that before we said we would never even consider trying suddenly no longer seem that different.  Marijuana seems to be OK, perhaps Ecstasy, opium, or a little blow might be OK too.  Geshe-la explains in the teachings on delusions that the easiest way to stop delusions is to do so early before they have gathered up steam.  Once we allow them to run a little bit in our mind, they can seemingly take on a force of their own and become unstoppable in our mind.  It is the same with drugs.  Just as they say it is easier to attain enlightenment once we have become a human than it is to become a human if we have fallen into the lower realms, so too it is easier to avoid marijuana now than it is to avoid using other drugs once we have started using marijuana. 

Finally, sometimes people object saying that when they smoke marijuana it gives them deep insights into the Dharma, so how can that be bad.  Perhaps it is true that when we smoke up, suddenly emptiness makes sense.  We see all the connections between the different Dharma teachings.  Such experiences can quickly and easily be used to justify doing it some more “for valid Dharma reasons.”  So again, just like with the health benefits of drinking a glass of wine every day, let us assume for the sake of argument that there are deeper insights to be had by smoking marijuana.  Once again, my question is simple:  isn’t having a precious human life also good for gaining spiritual insights?  Every time we practice moral discipline for spiritual reasons, we create the karmic causes for an entire precious human life.  So what gives us greater opportunities to gain spiritual insights, 80 years worth of a precious human life or a few hours each week for 80 years?  And this is setting aside the fact that there are diminishing returns.  Perhaps the first time we get high we feel the subtle vibrations of the cosmos, but do we get that same feeling the 20th time we get high?  Eventually, it starts to do very little for us.  So again, let us assume you smoke once a week for your whole life.  By taking this vow, you will train in this moral discipline 3,120 times (assuming you are 20 and live until you are 80).  3,120 actions of moral discipline translates into 3,120 precious human lives or another 249,600 years’ worth of precious human existence.  What will give you the opportunity to gain greater spiritual insight, 250,000 years’ worth of precious human life or a few random insights from being high?  Again, math does not lie.

The final thing I want to address is the situation of what happens if despite all of the above, we are ready to take the Pratimoksha vows for everything except this one related to intoxicants.  We just can’t bring ourselves to do it.  Should we hold off on taking the vows?  Normally, Geshe-la teaches that we generate the intention to one day keep all our vows purely and that is good enough. So by that logic, the answer would be we should take the vows and then gradually work with all of them until we can keep them better. But for technical reasons I don’t fully understand, apparently we can’t follow this logic with our pratimoksha vows.

So should we not take the Pratimoksha vows at all then if we find ourself in this situation? I would say there is nothing stopping us from formally taking all the other Pratimoksha vows as clear, absolute moral disciplines, and then we take the one at the level of intention of working gradually with the vow until one day we can keep it perfectly too. Have we taken Pratimoksha vows in this way? Technically no, but we’ve taken something very close to them. So there is no reason to not do this. It makes absolutely no sense to refrain from all moral discipline just because you cannot do one act of moral discipline perfectly.  How is that any better? 

Now it is true that we cannot take all of the Pratimoksha vows except the one regarding intoxicants, we need to work with all of the vows, but we can work with each one at different levels according to our capacity.  Just as Buddha skillfully encouraged the butcher to no longer kill animals at night, so too we can skillfully promise to refrain from taking intoxicants in some circumstances, such as never do so while alone.  Or not on Tuesdays, whatever.  Start somewhere, and then gradually expand the scope.  What matters is that mentally you understand the value of moral discipline and you maintain the intention to one day keep even this vow purely.  It is better to get incomplete benefits from imperfect Pratimoksha vows than it is to get no benefit from no Pratimoksha vows.  So don’t let this wrong understanding prevent you from getting started on the path of improving your moral discipline.

The Path May be Joyful, but Walking it Can be Painful:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

We have to go through a lot of pain before we can develop a qualified bodhichitta.

First, we have to admit to ourselves that our situation in samsara is hopeless without giving into despair because we have found a way out.

Then, we have to get to the point where we cannot bear those we love suffering without any trace of self-concern or despondency.

Finally, we have to accept we are currently powerless to do much to help those we love and they will continue to suffer for a long time until we become a Buddha for them, and even then they will have to do the work themselves.

Each one of these is like walking on a mental tightrope and falling into the extremes on either side of each one is very painful. We will fall. We will hurt. We will cry. It will not be easy.

This journey is only made in the heart and the heart feels. We have to have the courage to knowingly and willingly take on the inner hurt associated with embarking on this inner journey. It’s not all adventure and rainbows. It’s a whole lot of struggle and inner pain.

It’s easier to just think ignorance is bliss than accept the truth of our situation. It’s easier to harden our heart to other’s plight than take on their pain. It’s easier to fool ourselves into thinking we are farther along the path than we really are than accept without discouragement that we are still a mess. It is easier to believe that somehow everyone will be OK and they not fall deeper into samsara than accept that virtually everyone we love is on a one-way ticket to the lower realms. It’s easier to just stay at the intellectual level than move into the heart.

But the easy way is in fact the hard way. The hard way is, in the long-run, the easier way because there is an end. We have been shown what we need to do. It works for all who try it.

But nobody said it would be painless.

Happy Tsog Day: Getting to the Heart of the Matter

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 15 of a 44-part series.

The Nine-line Migtsema Prayer

It is customary to recite the nine-line Migtsema prayer at this point.

Tsongkhapa, crown ornament of the scholars of the Land of the Snows,
You are Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara, the source of all attainments,
Avalokiteshvara, the treasury of unobservable compassion,
Manjushri, the supreme stainless wisdom,
And Vajrapani, the destroyer of the hosts of maras.
O Venerable Guru-Buddha, synthesis of all Three Jewels
With my body, speech, and mind, respectfully I make requests:
Please grant your blessings to ripen and liberate myself and others,
And bestow the common and supreme attainments.

The Migtsema prayer is essentially a method for invoking Lama Tsongkhapa to accomplish his function in this world. We typically recite it at the end of every practice. When we recite the prayer, we are directing it to Je Tsongkhapa in the space in front of us. We can imagine he is in front of all living beings who have been around us throughout the sadhana, engaging in the prayers with us. If we are at a festival or receiving a Dharma teaching, we can direct the prayer to the Je Tsongkhapa inside the person giving the teaching. We should strongly believe that we receive all our teachings from Je Tsongkhapa, not the ordinary person appearing in front of this. Reciting this prayer in this way strengthens our pure view recognitions.

Specifically, we can imagine as follows:

When we recite, “Tsongkhapa,” we can recall the living Je Tsongkhapa in front of us (either in the space in front of us or at the heart of the spiritual teacher). When we say, “crown ornament of the scholars of the land of the snows,” we imagine that from Je Tsongkhapa’s heart countless emanations of Je Tsongkhapa radiate out transforming all living beings into the aspect of Je Tsongkhapa, strongly believing that by doing so we are bestowing upon them the qualities of a fully qualified Kadampa spiritual guide in the aspect of the body and mind of Je Tsongkhapa. When we recite “you are Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara,” we recall the living Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara in front of us in the heart of Je Tsongkhapa; and when we recite “source of all attainments,” we imagine that from Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara in front, countless emanations of themselves go out to all the beings generated as Je Tsongkhapa, strongly believing that by doing so we are bestowing upon them all the qualities of a fully qualified Sutra and Tantra spiritual guide in the aspect of Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara respectively – we are placing a Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara into their hearts.

When we recite, “Avalokiteshvara,” we recall the living Avalokiteshvara in front of us at the throat of Je Tsongkhapa; and when we recite, “treasure of unobservable compassion,” we imagine that from Avalokiteshvara countless emanations of Avalokiteshvara go out to all living beings, bestowing upon them all the compassion of all the Buddhas and all the realizations of the vast path in the aspect of Avalokiteshvara at their throats. We do the same with Manjushri and Vajrapani, imagining countless emanations radiate out bestowing upon all living beings the wisdom and spiritual power of all the Buddhas in the form of and all the realizations of the profound path in the aspect of Manjushri at their crowns and Vajrapani at their hearts.

When we recite “O venerable Guru Buddha,” we are directing our request to all the Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechangs now generated around us. When we recite “synthesis of all three jewels,” we recognize the body, speech, and mind of all these beings collectively to be all Sangha, Dharma, and Buddha jewels respectively. When we recite “with by body, speech, and mind, respectfully I make requests” we imagine the pure body, speech, and mind of all the emanations now around us are making the requests. When we recite, “please grant your blessings to ripen and liberate myself and others,” we recall that to ripen means to ripen fully onto the path and to liberate means to attain liberation. And when we recite, “and bestow the common and supreme attainments,” we imagine that Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang bestows full enlightenment on all living beings and we strongly believe that they are now all enlightened. This is powerful tantric technology, indeed Geshe-la explains the Migstema prayer is the synthesis of the entire practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide.

Offering the Mandala

If we wish to make a mandala offering together with the three great requests we may do so at this point.

OM VAJRA BHUMI AH HUM
Great and powerful golden ground,
OM VAJRA REKHE AH HUM
At the edge the iron fence stands around the outer circle.
In the centre Mount Meru the king of mountains,
Around which are four continents:
In the east, Purvavideha, in the south, Jambudipa,
In the west, Aparagodaniya, in the north, Uttarakuru.
Each has two sub-continents:
Deha and Videha, Tsamara and Abatsamara,
Satha and Uttaramantrina, Kurava and Kaurava.
The mountain of jewels, the wish-granting tree,
The wish-granting cow, and the harvest unsown.
The precious wheel, the precious jewel,
The precious queen, the precious minister,
The precious elephant, the precious supreme horse,
The precious general, and the great treasure vase.
The goddess of beauty, the goddess of garlands,
The goddess of music, the goddess of dance,
The goddess of flowers, the goddess of incense,
The goddess of light, and the goddess of scent.
The sun and the moon, the precious umbrella,
The banner of victory in every direction.
In the centre all treasures of both gods and men,
An excellent collection with nothing left out.
I offer this to you my kind root Guru and lineage Gurus,
To all you sacred and glorious Gurus;
And especially to you, great Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang together with your retinues.
Please accept with compassion for migrating beings,
And having accepted, out of your great compassion,
Please bestow your blessings on all sentient beings pervading space.

The ground sprinkled with perfume and spread with flowers,
The Great Mountain, four lands, sun and moon,
Seen as a Buddha Land and offered Thus,
May all beings enjoy such Pure Lands.

I offer without any sense of loss
The objects that give rise to my attachment, hatred, and confusion,
My friends, enemies, and strangers, our bodies and enjoyments;
Please accept these and bless me to be released directly from the three poisons.

IDAM GURU RATNA MANDALAKAM NIRYATAYAMI

We can understand the meaning of mandala offerings from the explanation given earlier in this series when we offered a mandala after the outer offerings. For me, the main point is a mandala offering is a promise that we will work for as long as it takes to transform the world we normally see into the pure land we are offering. We will not stop until all living beings have been delivered to the pure land. Geshe-la explains in many places that mandala offerings are one of the best methods for attaining rebirth in a pure land ourselves. If we are offering to deliver all living beings to a pure land, we create countless karmic potentialities to attain a pure land ourselves.

Geshe-la explains in Essence of Vajrayana that there are four different types of mandala offering – outer, inner, secret, and thatness:

“We offer the inner mandala by mentally transforming our aggregates and elements into the form of the outer mandala. We offer the secret and thatness mandalas by imagining that our mind of indivisible bliss and emptiness transforms into the mandala. From the point of view of its having the nature of great bliss the mandala is the secret mandala, and from the point of view of its being a manifestation of emptiness it is the thatness mandala.”

We can offer the mandala in these four ways simultaneously by offering our self-generation as Heruka in Keajra as our mandala offering. The outer aspect is Keajra pure land with all the deities, we recognize this pure land as our aggregates completely purified and transformed into the aggregates of the pure land that we are offering, we experience this mandala as great bliss, and we recall it being emptiness in the aspect of the mandala offering. Offering mandalas in general is the best method to attain the pure land, but offering them in these four ways simultaneously is substantially more powerful.

Also, if we wish to receive blessings so as to gain the realizations of the Mahamudra, we may recite the Prayers of Request to the Mahamudra Lineage Gurus and/or The Condensed Meaning of the Swift Vajrayana Path at this point.

It is important to recall that the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide is a preliminary practice to Mahamudra meditation. The definitive path of Je Tsongkhapa is Lamrim, Lojong, and Vajrayana Mahamudra. Lamrim transforms our motivation into bodhichitta, Lojong enables us to transform adverse experiences into the path to enlightenment, and Vajrayana Mahamudra enables us to transform pleasant experiences into the path. Vajrayana Mahamudra has two stages – generation stage and completion stage. With generation stage, we generate ourselves as the deity through our faith and imagination; in completion stage we directly transform our subtle body into that of an enlightened being.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: If Others are Empty, Why Generate Compassion?

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.73) Neither the mind of the past nor the mind of the future is the self,
Because the former has ceased and the latter has yet to be produced.
(Other schools) “But surely the mind arising in the present moment is the self.”
If it were, then the self would not exist in the next moment!

(9.74) If you peel away the layers of the trunk of a plantain tree,
You will never discover anything substantial.
In the same way, if you conduct a detailed analysis,
You will never be able to find a self, or I.

The self or I can be found nowhere. According to the Madhyamika-Prasangikas, it can be found nowhere.  What we believe to be true is just an illusion. If we look for our I or self anywhere, we will find nothing. There is nothing that is the I or self. Nothing.  If you look for an inherently existent I you will find nothing, because it doesn’t exist, but if you look for the conventionally existent I, the mere name projected by mind, you can find it.

(9.75ab) (Other schools) “If living beings have no true existence,
For whom can we develop compassion?”

This is a very common objection that arises when we start to consider emptiness. We think if living beings do not truly exist then there’s nobody there who’s actually suffering, so what is the point of generating compassion? Further we think if there’s no one actually there then it doesn’t matter if we harm others because no one is actually being harmed. When the Matrix movies came out Dharma practitioners saw very close parallels between the teachings on emptiness and the movie, how everyone was trapped in a simulation that they thought was real. But in the movies, they made it seem as if there was no harm in killing and shooting everybody since they weren’t really real anyways. If no one actually exists then what is the point of anything?

(9.75cd) We promise to achieve the goal of Buddhahood
For the sake of those whom ignorance imputes as truly existent.

Shantideva’s answer to this objection is living beings do not have to truly exist for us to generate compassion for them or to attain enlightenment for them. For example, if in a dream we see somebody who is hurting, we naturally go to their aid. This is the right thing to do in the context of dream. We have a dreamlike self helping dreamlike others in dreamlike ways. All of it is appropriate within the context of the dream. If we were not dreaming, then of course there would be no need to go help dreamlike beings because none would be appearing.

People who are schizophrenic see all sorts of hallucinations that they believe to be real and as a result they often suffer from these appearances. Their doctors try help them understand that these appearances are not real but are just projections of mind, so there is nothing that they need to worry about. It is because the doctor knows that the hallucinations are not real but that the person believes that they are that they then help the patient understand reality. In exactly the same way, we are all trapped in a schizophrenic dream that we believe is real. Because we believe it is real, we suffer from it. It does not have to be real for us to experience pain and suffering. The Buddhas, who are outside of this contaminated dream, naturally want to help wake us up from these hallucinations. They don’t do so because they believe the hallucinations are real, they do so because they know we believe they are real and we are suffering as a result.

The fundamental flaw in this doubt is it assumes pain has to have a real cause for it to be painful. This is not true. In fact, most of the things that we suffer from never actually occur. For example, we worry endlessly about what could possibly happen in the future, and very little of what we worry about ever comes to pass. The mental future that we project does not actually exist, is just a mere projection of our mind, but we nonetheless suffer from it because we fear it could come to pass and we believe it is real. Likewise, all of our delusions are amplified by the degree to which we have inappropriate attention. Inappropriate attention exaggerates either the good or bad qualities of something beyond what is actually there. As a result, we generate attachment or aversion towards these things. This attachment aversion then causes us to mentally suffer and destroys our inner peace. But none of those things that we are imagining are actually true, they are all exaggerated interpretations of what is going on created by our mind. All of these examples which we see in our daily life show clearly that even though things are not real we can still suffer from them, in fact most of what we suffer from doesn’t actually exist.

Happy Tara Day: May there be the auspiciousness of her presence

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

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

Offering the mandala

When we make a mandala offering, we imagine the entire universe is transformed into a pure land.  The highest offering we can make is one of our practice. For me, a mandala offering is a promise that we will work for as long as it takes before we actually transform the world we normally see into the pure land we are offering.  We will not stop until all living beings have been delivered to the pure land.  Geshe-la explains in many places that mandala offerings are one of the best methods for attaining rebirth in a pure land.  If we are offering to deliver all living beings to a pure land, we create countless karmic potentialities to attain a pure land ourselves.  Just as Tara was born from the tears of the protector of the three worlds, and arose to tell Avalokitshvara to not worry, she would help him; in the same way, when we make a mandala offering, we are telling Tara to not worry, we will help her.  We share the same wish to lead all beings to the pure land, and we promise to work towards that aim.

Requesting fulfilment of wishes

O Venerable, Blessed, Compassionate Mother,
May I and all countless living beings
Quickly purify the two obstructions, complete the two collections,
And attain the state of complete Buddhahood.

All living beings have Buddha nature.  This means that if we purify our Buddha nature of everything that is not enlightened, our natural Buddhahood will emerge.  In some respects, we don’t need to construct our Buddhahood, we just need to uncover it.  Our very subtle mind, once completely purified, transforms into the enlightened mind of a Buddha.  There are two obstructions on our very subtle mind – our delusions and their imprints.  Every action creates four karmic potentialities:  a tendency similar to the cause, an effect similar to the cause, a ripened effect, and an environmental effect.  The first is a tendency to generate delusions again – basically our bad mental habits to respond in deluded ways.  These are our delusion obstructions.  The other three are the imprints of our past delusions, also known as obstructions to omniscience.  They are so called because they ripen in the form of ordinary appearances – things appearing to exist from their own side.  Another way to think about this is there are two types of karma: contaminated and non-contaminated karma.  Contaminated karma is of two types:  negative and positive.  Negative karma ripens in lower rebirth and positive karma ripens as upper rebirth in samsara.  Non-contaminated karma, or pure karma, ripens as a pure rebirth outside of samsara.  To close the door on lower rebirth, we need to purify all of our negative karma.  To close the door on our personal rebirth in samsara, we need to purify all of our negative karma and all of our delusion obstructions.  To attain full enlightenment, we need to purify all of our contaminated karma.  Tara can accelerate the rate at which we do all of this. 

The two collections refer to the collection of merit and the collection of wisdom.  The collection of merit arises primarily from our practices of the vast path (all of the Lamrim meditations up to bodhichitta), and the collection of wisdom arises primarily from our practices of the profound path (specifically the meditation on emptiness).  According to highest yoga tantra, the collection of merit also includes generating the very subtle mind of great bliss that we use to meditate on emptiness.  Once we have completed the collection of merit, we attain a Buddha’s form body. Once we have completed the collection of wisdom, we attain a Buddhas mind, or truth body. The union of these two is full enlightenment. Since Tara is the Buddha of Lamrim, she can help us complete both collections. Understanding this, when we recite this verse, we generate a strong wish to rely upon Tara understanding she can help us from where we are now all the way to full enlightenment.

Throughout all our lives before we reach Buddhahood,
May we attain the supreme happiness of humans and gods;
And so that we may accomplish the omniscient mind,
Please quickly pacify and eliminate all interferences,

It is said that it is easier to attain enlightenment once born human than it is to attain a human rebirth if we have been reborn in the lower realms. There is no guarantee we will attain enlightenment in this lifetime. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that we do not fall into the lower realms. If we do, there is a danger we may not re-find the spiritual path for countless eons. All of the beings who we would have otherwise been able to help if we had attained enlightenment earlier will have to continue to suffer for all that time. Not to mention the fact that we ourselves will have to experience all of the sufferings of the lower realms. Sometimes we think generating fear of lower rebirth is a meditation for beginners. We want to engage in higher meditations, and indulge ourselves in the fantasy that we are somehow exempt from lower rebirth. Geshe-la explains in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that the main reason why we have not yet generated qualified refuge is because we lack fear of lower rebirth.  If we do not have even qualified refuge, it goes without saying we have no chance of gaining higher realizations. Geshe-la further explains we should be as terrified of lower rebirth as we would be if we were trapped in a circle of fire. Understanding this, we should generate a very strong fear of lower rebirth and then, with faith in Tara’s ability to protect us from lower rebirth, we request her protection. In dependence upon this, if at the time of our death we remember Taro, she will bless our mind and we will avoid lower rebirth, and remain in the human and god realms until we reach Buddhahood.

Evil spirits, hindrances, epidemics and sickness,
As well as the various causes of untimely death,
Bad dreams, ill omens, the eight fears
And all other forms of danger.

Samsara is a dangerous place.  In the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Geshe-la says Samsara is like a vast ocean of suffering and at any point we can be eaten by the sea monsters of the Lord of Death.  We never know what sea monster may arise and pull us down into the deep ocean of suffering.  Even if we avoid death for awhile, we are nonetheless buffeted by the violent waves of suffering.  There is no safety anywhere in samsara.  Nobody saw the Coronavirus coming, but in a very short period of time, it changed everything.  It is just a question of time before we wind up with some incurable sickness.  Tara can protect us from all of these dangers.  How?  First, by generating faith in her, we open our mind to receiving her blessings which prevent the negative karma already on our mind from ripening.  Second, she can help us purify our negative karma directly, much in the same way Vajrasattva can.  And third, if adversity does strike (which is inevitable), she will bless us with the wisdom to know how to transform it into causes of our enlightenment. 

May all mundane and supramundane collections
Of good fortune, happiness, goodness and excellence increase,
And may every beneficial purpose without exception
Be effortlessly and spontaneously accomplished.

Supramundane collection, I believe, refers to spiritual collections as opposed to worldly ones.  Normally we differentiate between worldly vs. spiritual, the former referring to things of this life and the latter referring to our future lives.  For example, if we engage in our spiritual practice for the sake of this life, it is said to be worldly; but if we are training for the sake of our future lives, it is said to be spiritual.  In other contexts, supramundane refers to virtues attained by superior beings – those who have attained a direct realization of emptiness.  Regardless, this verse clearly calls for all good things to increase.  When we rely upon Tara, for us, it will be an increasing time when spiritual development comes easily, even if for the world it remains a degenerate time, when bad things come effortlessly.