Author: Kadampa Ryan

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Don’t Be Afraid to Let Go of Samsara

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.55) By all means, be afraid of something
That is the principal cause of samsaric suffering;
But, since meditation on emptiness eliminates this suffering,
Why should you be afraid of emptiness?

(9.56) If there were a truly existent I,
It would make sense to be afraid of certain things;
But, since there is no truly existent I,
Who is there to be afraid?

We all wish to free ourself permanently from suffering.  Therefore, it makes sense to identify the cause of our suffering and remove it so that it never arises again.  Once we clearly understand how ignorance is the cause of all of our suffering, we will naturally have a strong wish to eliminate it. 

Sometimes we are afraid to really throw ourselves into the Dharma.  We worry that if we truly believe the Dharma it would require such radical changes to our lives that we are not prepared to make that we wind up holding ourselves back and preventing ourselves from fully embracing the truth of Dharma. It is true that accepting the truth of Dharma does imply radical changes, but the changes we need to make are not external. Ask ash ichikawa says we need to remain natural while changing our aspiration. We do not need to abandon our jobs, our families, our enjoyments and so forth . We merely need to abandon our delusions and their root causes. We do not need to fear realizing emptiness thinking that it will cause nothing to have any meaning. Quite the opposite. When we understand emptiness we realize we can bring infinite meaning to every single thing. If meaning existed on the sides of the objects then somethings would have meaning and others would not. But if everything is empty, we can bring meaning to everything. Therefore there is absolutely nothing to fear.

Venerable Tharchin gives the analogy of somebody holding a red hot poker. If we found ourselves holding such a poker, we would immediately let it go without hesitation. We would not continue to hold onto it thinking that our happiness depended upon it. The truth is remaining in samsara and identifying with contaminated aggregates is like holding onto such a red hot poker. It is the cause of perpetual suffering. If we can simply let go of identifying with these contaminated aggregates, we do not cease to exist, we simply cease to suffer from them.   We follow our delusions because we believe we will suffer more if we don’t.  This is what needs to change.  When it does, then we will naturally want to stop following them.

On Giving People Time and Space to Process their Hurt

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

My mom committed suicide the day before my wedding when we were in the middle of the biggest fight of our lives. She had lost both her parents, one right after the other. Prior to her losing them, she had already purchased tickets to come visit us in France for Christmas. She debated coming, but finally decided to come hoping it might help her feel better.

But on Christmas Eve, she became upset about not sight-seeing enough, which of course wasn’t the real issue, and then she drank a whole bottle of wine and insisted on leaving. We said no, she said yes, we said no, she said yes; finally, we said “fine.” We took her to the airport and the security guard said, “go home people, don’t do this,” but my mom insisted. By the time she sobered up, she was on a plane and convinced herself that we kicked her out on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, I discovered Venerable Geshe-la a few days later when I ran into Meaningful to Behold in the bookstore. This is my origin story for finding the Dharma.

I spent the next three, four years trying to contact her and re-establish relations with her, but was met with total silence. I’m not even sure if she ever opened my letters (this was pre-internet). I then got engaged and my mother found out through the grapevine. About a month before our wedding, she contacted me wanting to come. My parents absolutely hated each other and my mother ruined my brother’s wedding because she couldn’t hold it together with my father there. I didn’t think it was a good idea for the first time I see my mother to be at my wedding when my father was going to be there, so I said no she couldn’t come. I said I would come after the honeymoon and we would work everything out. She then killed herself the day before my wedding, which was also the anniversary of her own parents’ marriage.

If I look within my mind, I don’t really have much guilt about her having committed suicide. That is not on me. But what I didn’t see until now (thanks to a dear Sangha friend helping me see it) was how this created in me an absolute hyper-aversion to my relations being bad with anybody, especially prior to any extended separations, such as when my kids head off for college or I get posted to an assignment for my work where the family can’t join me.

In practice, this takes three forms. First, when for whatever reason relations are bad with those I love, I can’t handle it. Everything must be OK and resolved now, now, now, or certainly before any big separation. So I push them to resolve their issues immediately, which is of course ridiculous and unfair. Second, I chase after people’s forgiveness. When they are mad at me, it really messes with my mind, and so I go through all sorts of contortions trying to get things back to OK, but in effect it enables abuse and dysfunction when I probably should have walked away long ago or just been OK with them being mad at or disapproving of me. Third, at a more subtle level, it helps explain in part why I have projected expectations on my family that they always think and act in enlightened ways because I see any delusions within their mind as precursors of things potentially going badly.

All three of these forms are completely counter-productive, creating the very problem I am trying to avoid – namely having bad relations with those I love, having them be mad at me, or things ending badly before a big separation. Sadly, it is this aversion to any relations being bad that has in fact made virtually all of my relations bad. I think this is the hidden echo of the impact of my mom’s suicide on my mind that I have not seen until now.

The solution here is I need to create the space in my mind for this discomfort of not having things resolved with those I love. I need to create the space in my mind to give others the time they need to process things in their own way, even if that means they need to separate themselves from me or be very angry with me. It’s not fair for me to push everyone around me to resolve everything immediately just because I can’t handle it, but that is exactly what I have been doing. Creating the space for others to process their own things in their own way in their own time, therefore, is part of my practice of compassion for them. And part of my practice of protecting my own mind from this crippling, yet stealthy aversion.

Indeed, I see now how it was unfair of me to expect my mom to not act like she did when she came to France. She just lost both of her parents and that’s hard, she needed her own time to process. Likewise, a mother being told she can’t come to her son’s wedding must be completely devastating for her, and it is unrealistic of me to expect her to have processed it all on my timeframe. Creating the space for others to process their hurt in their own time and thier own way is part of our practice of compassion, and to expect them to do so in a manner that suits us is completely misplaced.

This will probably take a long time for me to become OK with, and I will likely continue to make many mistakes on this front. But I see it now. Hopefully I will become increasingly aware of how I do this and I will gradually stop. This, paradoxically, will actually help me heal over time a lot of the current bad relations I have with those I love.

Delusions are just awful! This aversion has been functioning in hiding within my mind, undermining everything important to me. I share all of this in the hopes that others don’t make the same mistakes I have.

A Pure Life: Abandoning Sexual Activity

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

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

The actual Mahayana precept we take on precepts days is to abandon all sexual activity. Ordained people take a vow to not engage in sexual activity with other people, in other words they have a vow of celibacy. I am not ordained and so therefore I am certainly not qualified to definitively interpret the vows of ordained people, but I have been told an ordained person’s vows do not prohibit masturbation, though doing so is considered to weaken the vows but not actually break them. In contrast, when we take the Mahayana precept to not engage in sexual activity, it does include not masturbating.

Many people misunderstand vows of celibacy and abandoning sexual activity as saying that there is something inherently wrong with sexual activity. They argue that sexual activity is entirely normal and healthy, and such vows are misguided and guilt-inducing, and therefore harmful. In truth, there is nothing wrong with sexual activity itself. But there is something wrong with the mind of sexual attachment. Attachment is a delusion that believes happiness comes from external objects. Sexual attachment is a specific form of attachment related to sexual activities. Engaging in sexual activities without attachment is not a problem, but engaging in sexual activities with sexual attachment is a problem.

The reason why we take a vow to abstain from sexual activity on precepts days is to force us to confront the tendencies of sexual attachment within our mind. Because we have taken a vow to not engage in such activity on this day, when the temptation arises to do so within our mind, we will see the power of our sexual attachment. It will actually be painful or difficult to not follow the impulses we are feeling. All sorts of rationalizations will arise as to why it is a good thing to follow our sexual attachment. When this occurs, we can then recall the disadvantages of the mind of attachment in general, and sexual attachment in particular, and we can contemplate the benefits of having a mind that is completely free from such attachment to strengthen the desire within our mind to become free of this extremely powerful delusion. The point of taking this precept is not to say sexual activity itself is bad, but rather to create the karmic habits of not being a puppet on the strings of our sexual attachment and to instead become free from it.

Driven by sexual attachment living beings engage in all sorts of negative actions, including killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, and so forth. We also waste so much of our precious human life and our hard-earned resources in pursuit of satisfying our sexual attachment. Most of our most shameful behavior can be traced back to our sexual attachment. Much of the conflict we have with those we love comes from sexual attachment. This mind creates so much suffering in the world and within our own mind, yet we still continue to follow it believing happiness can be found in doing so.  Imagine how much easier our life would be if we were not a slave to our sexual attachment. These are the sorts of things we need to consider when the temptation to break our precept arises within our mind. Engaging in these contemplations gradually weakens the hold our sexual attachment has over us enabling us to become more free.

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

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

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

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

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

Third, and this is the most important, we need to get to the point where we want to get out of samsara more than we want its pleasures.  We are desire realm beings, which means we have no choice but to pursue our desires.  If in our heart, our desire is still dominated by sexual attachment, if we try to force ourselves to avoid making contact, etc., then all we will do is just repress the desires.  They will build up, and eventually we will give in and do something we subsequently regret.  This is not Dharma practice.  Dharma practice is a very active process of picking apart and reducing our desirous attachment primarily by (1) reducing our exaggerated attitudes down to something in line with the underlying reality of what is actually there, and (2) considering the disadvantages of following the delusion. 

There are few delusions that create more problems for living beings than sexual attachment.  Just open any newspaper or consider your own life for more than 3 seconds and you will have plenty of material to work with.  At the same time, we need to consider the advantages of not following the delusion.  Every time a delusion arises but we choose to not follow it understanding it to be deceptive, we are engaging in the practice of moral discipline.  Each action of moral discipline creates the cause for a higher rebirth.  So quite literally, if in a given 5-minute period we successfully see through the lies of our sexual attachment and not follow it, say 20 times, then we just created 20 causes for 20 future higher rebirths.  What will bring more happiness, five minutes of some porn video or an entire lifetime in the upper realms?  Are we ready to sacrifice one for the other?  If so, which one will we sacrifice?  If we value the happiness of our future lives as much as we value our present happiness (the definition of a spiritual being) then the choice becomes obvious. 

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

On Not Accepting False Accusations:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

We all have observed how people often treat nice people the worst. There are many reasons for that. Typically life is hard and most people are jerks, but others can’t say anything to those people without them doubling down on their jerkiness – striking back and creating negative karma for themselves in the process. But we know nice people don’t retaliate, so people take out their frustrations on them. Usually the nice person becomes everyone’s favorite scapegoat, the person you can safely blame. They are the people that can be falsely accused of being the problem, even when in fact they are not.

Kadampas are particularly prone to falling into this role – or should I say trap. We know the teachings on karma, so when people falsely accuse us or blame us, we accept it as our karma to be falsely blamed, made the scapegoat, or be mistreated or disrespected. We know the teachings on emptiness, so we accept even ultimately we are responsible for everything that happens and appears to our mind. Because we know these teachings, when people falsely accuse us of things or make us the scapegoat for all the problems in our families or work environments, we sometimes go along with it – accepting it as purification, transforming the adversity into the path, taking it as a powerful teaching on emptiness, training in the patience of non-retaliation, etc. And for us, it is entirely possible that we are able to do so purely, and other’s disrespectful actions towards us do function as a wrathful empowerment. We may receive genuine benefit from being mistreated this way.

But sometimes, perhaps most of the time, we are not able to entirely transform things in this way and it can hurt us badly. Worse, sometimes we may even internalize other’s false narratives that we are the problem and start thinking we are such a terrible person, terrible bodhisattva, etc., thinking we are the one who needs to do all the changing and others are perfect. In essence, people gaslight us and we assent to that, thinking we really are so bad and that we are the source of the problems, etc.

Sure, if we are making mistakes, we should admit them and change. No doubt. But that doesn’t mean we need to accept everybody’s false accusation against us as true. Accepting defeat does not mean accepting false accusations as true. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our protecting ourselves and our own mind by rejecting their false accusations as true and refusing to play the role of the scapegoat.

But even if we are able to transform everything, it seems to me our compassion compels us to – even forcefully if necessary – also reject these false accusations and being made the scapegoat with others. It doesn’t help them to allow them to falsely accuse us and scapegoat us. Indeed, it gives them a pass on their own wrong behavior and enables them to evade their conventional responsibilities in the situation.

While it is our karma to be falsely accused and everything is just a karmic manifestation of our mind, conventionally speaking – according to normal worldly conventions – sometimes we AREN’T the problem, even if everybody in the situation sees us that way. We are being falsely accused. We are being unjustly scapegoated. Assenting to these things lends credence and credibility to what is in fact relationship dysfunction.

Overcoming ordinary conceptions means to stop assenting to ordinary appearance. Just because things may appear to exist in a certain way doesn’t mean they in fact exist in that way. In exactly the same way, assenting to false accusations or assuming the role of scapegoat in situations helps nobody. It is a form of voluntarily assenting to ordinary conceptions. It keeps the relationship dysfunction going.

Pushing back on these false accusations and refusing to continue to play the role of scapegoat will definitely create turbulance in our relationships. People are used to blaming us, it’s convenient for them to do so. But it certainly doesn’t help them because they never then assume responsibility for their own actions, their own lives, and their own experiences. It also enables them to create all sorts of negative karma for themselves. It makes them feel justified in their anger towards us.

It’s worth recalling the negative karmic consequences of being angry with a bodhisattva. While we may not be a bodhisattva yet in the sense of having generated spontaneous bodhichitta, we are a baby bodhisattva, a similitude of a bodhisattva, we are striving to become a Buddha for the benefit of all. Harming us, being angry at us, disrespecting us, falsely accusing us, scapegoating us, etc., creates terrible karma for them. Allowing them to do these things towards us allows them to create such karma for themselves. Where is the compassion in that? Who does that help?

So yes, while we accept false accusations and scapegoating as purification of our negative karma and yes we don’t retaliate, conventionally our wisdom and compassion compels us to push back against them and refuse to assent to them. We can admit our mistakes and change where their accusations are justified, but we are under no obligation to do so where they are not. There is nothing selfish about protecting ourselves from internalizing their false narratives. Indeed, it is an act of compassion to not. Our refusal to do so will create waves in the short-run, but it will create accountability and healthy relationships in the long-run. We always play the long-game.

It is possible that people will end their relationships with us if we no longer play the role of scapegoat. So be it. That relationship isn’t actually helping them anyways. It is “compassion” and “cherishing others” without any wisdom. And if we are not actually able to fully transform their narratives into the path, then we are also protecting ourselves from internalizing their false accusations and developing self-loathing and misplaced guilt. And who knows, perhaps our refusal to accept their false accusations or play the role of scapegoat will eventually help them wake up to what they are doing and they stop.

Abandoning Doormat Dharma is a vast and important practice. Rejecting false accusations (while accepting them as purification) is a critical part of Venerable Geshe-la’s example, one we need to fearlessly and confidently adopt.

The Art of Helping Others by Not Helping

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

We all know the saying “give someone a fish and you feed them for a day, teach them to fish and you feed them for life.” In popular culture, this is often frankly used as an excuse to NOT help people, and we almost never actually teach them to fish either! The retort of course is “do both.” Give them fish while you are teaching them how to do so. While in theory, this makes sense, practically many complications arise based upon how the other person responds to our approach.

People will often want us to solve their problems for them and then get mad at us if we don’t. How’s a bodhisattva to react? First, we need to check the capacity of the other person – are they capable of solving the problem on their own or do they need us to do some aspects for them. Second, we need to offer as much help as necessary to help explain to them HOW they can solve their problems on their own, but leave them to actually do the work. Third, we make ourselves available to answer specific questions that might arise as they go about solving their problems on their own, while preserving a clear boundary about what we will or will not do for them. Fourth, we need to accept that they often will get upset at us if we are not doing their work for them, especially if we have frequently done so in the past. We need to accept this upsetness as purification for our past mistakes and manipulative behavior of others in the past.

Fundamentally, a big part of this is loving the other person enough to believe in them that they can do it. Sometimes we wrongly don’t believe in them, especially when they don’t believe in themselves. When they do it on their own and succeed, their confidence and capacity will grow. If we do it for them, their confidence and capacity will diminish, and they will become either increasingly dependent upon others or never flourish in life always stuck in perpetual doubt. It is, in some cases, a profound act of love to say, “sorry, I can’t help you, you will have to do it yourself. I believe you can do it, and I’m here for you to provide support and guidance as you do so.”

In the long-run, they will likely come to realize our motivation is love wishing for them to become self-sufficient and to know how to solve their own problems on their own. They may resent us in the short-run, but perhaps thank us in the long-run. Even if they don’t and they hate us forever, it doesn’t mean we didn’t do the right thing by relating to them in this way. No, none of this is easy, especially with our kids.

All of this is equally true with being a good Sangha friend helping people along the path. We can’t do their work for them, but we can skillfully help support them as they do their own work.

The challenging case comes when the other person is not willing to do their own work. They wait until the last minute and come to you asking for you to do their work for them, and if you don’t step in, then they will fail and the consequences on their life could be extreme. This is a situation I often find myself in, actually. Sometimes, this situation creeps up gradually, with small instances in the beginning and eventually extreme issues as it becomes a habit. It’s best to arrest this process in the early stages because it becomes harder when we wait until the more extreme situations. When we say “no, we won’t do your work for you,” it will almost always create a negative reaction in the other person. This is normal, and something the other person is just going to have to get used to. They step up or they down, the choice is theirs. Sadly, their reaction is most often to go find somebody else to manipulate into doing their work for them.

But if the consequences of them not getting it done are low, saying no early to small things is often a good life lesson that avoids future more extreme situations. But sometimes the consequences are unacceptably severe for not stepping in and doing their work for them. At such times, you can say, “this is unfair of you to put me in this situation, but I understand the consequences of me not stepping in are too severe. Therefore, I’m telling you now, this is the last time I will do this. Next time, I will let you fail, regardless of the consequences. I don’t help you by doing your work for you, and since I’m only trying to help you, I have to say no. I’m telling you now so you can plan accordingly and not find yourself in a similar situation again in the future. If you fail becuase you didn’t do your work, it will be on you. I can help support you do your work, but I’m not doing your work for you.” They will usually agree to this at the time because what choice do they have – if they don’t get your help now, they’re screwed.

Once the task is done, again, tell them “never again.” Then, tell them again early on when they are given large assignments that you won’t be doing their work for them and they need to plan accordingly. If they then come to you with some urgent situation like before, you will need to hold the line and say no. They very well may fail and they very well may hate you for it for a long time, but you are looking at a larger picture. Our goal is to help everyone become not only self-sufficient individuals, but eventually sources of refuge for all living beings. They will only gain that capacity if they embrace the ethic of wanting to do their own work because they know that is how they grow.

To not do this is to either (1) not believe in them, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and (2) indulges them in not only their laziness but creating negative karma for themselves of manipulating others. At some point, life will require them to perform and they won’t be ready because you haven’t loved them enough to say no to helping them earlier.

Don’t be a Wuss: In Praise of Wrathful Actions

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

People see many benefits to anger. They think it reveals where our needs are being violated, it gives us strength or a backbone, it protects us from being taken advantage of, it deters others from harming us or those we love, and it is sometimes an effective method for getting what we want. And to a certain extent, all these things are true. So when we Kadampas say, “anger is bad” and “there is no evil greater than anger,” people think we are being extreme and they reject the Dharma. They think anger is a natural human reaction and we are just repressing or becoming doormats.

For me, the core distinction is anger is motivated by self-cherishing, disturbing our own mind; and it inflicts harm on others, creating negative karma for ourselves. But wrathful actions are motivated by compassion. Externally, it may even be almost exactly the same, but internally it is quite different. We can get all the “benefits” of anger through wrathful actions, without disturbing our own inner peace or creating negative karma for ourselves.

I sometimes think as a community (or at least me), we have become so averse to anger that, excuse my sexist language, we can become a bunch of pu$$ies! We sometimes fail to stand up for ourselves or others. We sometimes fail to intervene to stop abuse or harm taking place. We fail to tell the hard truths that people will hate us for saying but they need to hear. We fail to set protective boundaries, for both ourself and for others. We set an example of enabling others to abuse us. We see others protecting themselves with anger and we tell them that is wrong, but we don’t provide them with an alternative. People see this and they say, “if this is Dharma, I don’t want that.” This helps nobody.

Geshe-la fearlessly showed the example of engaging in wrathful actions with the protests against what the Dalai Lama was saying about Dorje Shugden. Sure, lots of people misunderstood what we were doing as us being angry and we received a lot of criticism for it, but we kept doing it – round after round. Those who had the good fortune to participate in the protests recall how joyful and happy we were as we shouted, “stop lying!” We called him out on his bull$hit, to put it in modern terms. We were protecting our tradition and trying to protect him and his followers from continuing to create negative karma for themselves. Geshe-la also showed this example when he would ruthlessly fire even very senior teachers for what seemed to be small transgressions. He did this to protect the tradition, the teachers themselves, and their students.

I think we need to start learning how to engage in wrathful actions ourselves, or again, at least I do. Yes, we patiently accept, but we don’t just take it. We show a backbone, we show a spine, we push back, we call others out on their wrong behavior, we don’t say it was all us when it wasn’t, and we don’t allow others to abuse us. As a very dear Sangha friend once told me years ago, “we need King-like bodhichitta, not Smurf-like bodhichitta.” Heruka, Vajrayogini, Vajrapani, and our beloved Dharma protector Dorje Shugden all show wrathful aspects. We need to be fearless.

Sure, when we first start trying to engage in wrathful actions, we’ll make a hash out of it and it will be mixed with anger. No different than our pacifying, increasing, and controlling actions being mixed with attachment. But we learn. We gradually get better. We gradually start showing a better example. People then don’t think being a Dharma practitioner means being a push over, but they realize it is their delusions that make them a wimp and enable abuse. Wisdom and compassion gives tremendous strength and power that we learn to fearlessly wield.

Our tradition is extremely pure and threatens the very foundations of samsara and all those beings who have a vested interest in preserving it. We do get attacked by maras, and sometimes our family gets attacked by them as well. We can’t just sit there and do nothing. Yes, we need to mobilize Dorje Shugden’s vast assembled retinue, but we also need to stand up and fight back ourselves – not with anger, but sometimes also with compassionate wrath.

In short, we all know the Dharma teaches us to not be a dick. But it also teaches us to not be a pussy either.

Happy Tsog Day: How to Make Secret and Suchness Offerings

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 11 of a 44-part series.

Secret offering

And I offer most attractive illusory mudras,
A host of messengers born from places, born from mantra, and spontaneously-born,
With slender bodies, skilled in the sixty-four arts of love,
And possessing the splendour of youthful beauty.

As explained above, the karma we create from the secret offerings is activated in the wisdom-mudra empowerment, sustains our completion stage practice of the clear light of Mahamudra, and terminates in the attainment of the Truth Body of a Buddha. It was also explained above that there are two ways of making offerings of the five objects of desire – by transforming our objects of the senses and offering beautiful knowledge women. When we engage in the secret offering, we emphasize this second method.

To make the secret offering, we imagine countless knowledge goddesses who are sublimely beautiful and skilled in the sixty-four arts of love emanate out, fill the universe, then gather together and dissolve into the consort of Buddha Vajradhara at Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang’s heart, giving rise to spontaneous great bliss in his mind. Offering great bliss creates the karmic causes for us to experience it ourself.

At this point it is probably necessary to say a few words about tantra and sex. In popular culture, “tantra” means how to have better, more sensual sex with an aura of spirituality thrown in. We have all seen the ads for the classes, the only requirement for attendance not being a tantric empowerment but rather loose-fitting pants. This popular understanding of tantra not only has nothing to do with tantra, it leads to the degeneration of pure tantric instructions in this world. Simply attaining a precious human life is as likely as a blind turtle putting its head through a golden yoke floating on the surface of an ocean the size of this world when the turtle only rises once every 100 years. But meeting the path of tantra is rarer still. Of the 1,000 founder Buddhas of this fortunate aeon, only the 4th, 11th, and last will teach qualified tantric practice. This means only 0.3% of the time we meet the Dharma will we encounter the tantric path. If we practice – or worse teach – these so-called tantric sex methods mistaking them for Buddhist tantric practice or presenting them as the tantric path to enlightenment, we are almost guaranteeing we will never meet a qualified tantric path in the future. Destroying sacred things is heavy negative action, but destroying pure tantric teachings is arguably the heaviest possible negative action. We must be careful.

But when we see instructions on secret offerings, action mudras, and hear lines like “skilled in the sixty-four arts of love,” we quite naturally start to wonder. If we check, we generally have two types of experience – unpleasant and pleasant. Normally, we generate aversion to the former and attachment to the latter. As such, we need methods for transforming these two types of experience into the path. We transform unpleasant experiences into the path through the Lojong teachings on transforming adversity into the path, and we transform pleasant experiences into the path through tantra. Sometimes it is explained as transforming attachment into the path, but this is not technically exact. Attachment is a delusion and can never be a stage of the path. To be precise, we transform pleasant experiences into the path.

All tantras are methods for transforming pleasant experiences into the path of great bliss of tantra. The method for doing so is always the same. We generate a pleasant experience, we recognize the pleasant experience comes not from the object of attachment, but from inside our mind. We then dissolve the object giving rise to our pleasant experience into emptiness while retaining the pleasant experience. Then we use the pleasant experience (which has now been purified by dissolving the object we mistakenly thought gave rise to it into emptiness) to meditate on the emptiness of all phenomena. Recall from above that the bliss we generate in tantra is nothing other than inner peace so pleasant, it is blissful. This is quite a different experience than the normal grasping we have when we indulge in objects of attachment. Needless to say, if our attachment to these objects exceeds our pure spiritual motivation for engaging in these practices, they very quickly can degenerate into indulging in our objects of attachment. Most people attending so-called “tantra” classes in popular culture do not have the slightest spiritual motivation. A spiritual motivation, by definition, is motivated primarily by securing happiness in our future lives. Worldly motivations are primarily concerned with securing happiness in this life.

There are four classes of tantra – action, performance, yoga, and Highest Yoga Tantra. These four classes of tantra are differentiated by the type of pleasant experience we transform into the path. Each of these four classes can be engaged in at two levels – inner and outer. With the inner level, we imagine our objects that give rise to pleasant feelings; and with the outer level, we engage the actual objects that normally give rise to pleasant feelings. The imagined objects are called “knowledge women (or men)” to signify they are imagined objects. With action tantra, we behold beautiful knowledge deities, and simply observing them gives rise to a pleasant feeling which we then purify and use to meditate on emptiness. With performance tantra, we imagine the knowledge deities are flirting with us, this gives rise to pleasant feelings, which we then purify and use to meditate on emptiness. With yoga tantra, we imagine the knowledge deities are caressing us; and with Highest Yoga Tantra, we imagine we engage in union with the knowledge deities. Generally speaking, we are unable to train with outer objects purely if we have not first been able to manage training with inner imagined objects purely.

When it comes to engaging with an action mudra, Geshe-la is very clear we are not ready to do so until we have some experience of causing the inner winds to enter, abide, and dissolve into our central channel motivated by bodhichitta, which is a very advanced completion stage realization. Why do we need to engage with an action mudra? Traditionally, we need to do so to fully loosen the knots at our central channel. Once loosened, we no longer need to rely upon one. But the blessings of the uncommon Ganden Oral Lineage instructions are so powerful, we do not need to engage in union with an actual action mudra, but can fully loosen the knots at our central channel with a knowledge deity alone. This is important to know because sometimes people think they should not get ordained because they will one day need to rely upon an action mudra; whereas some others might think it is not a downfall for an ordained person to engage in sexual activities if they are doing so with a bodhichitta motivation as part of their “tantric” practice. Sadly, the latter mistake has happened a number of times in the past.

Suchness offering

I offer you the supreme, ultimate bodhichitta,
A great, exalted wisdom of spontaneous bliss free from obstructions,
Inseparable from the nature of all phenomena, the sphere of freedom from elaboration,
Effortless, and beyond words, thoughts, and expressions.

With the suchness (or thatness) offering, we offer the experience of a direct realization of the clear light of bliss. Our Guru of course never leaves his concentration on great bliss, but our remembering he is always experiencing it may be unstable. When we make the suchness offering, we are not so much imagining we are offering him great bliss, but rather recalling that his mind is never separated from the clear light of bliss. This is an offering in the sense that it delights our Guru that we remember this. Practically speaking, we should recall that ourself as the deity, the pure land, and our Guru are all like waves on the ocean of our Guru’s mind of great bliss, which our own mind is mixed inseparably with. We do not simply imagine he experiences great bliss at his heart, but we feel as if all phenomena, including ourself, are the clear light of bliss appearing as form. What appears is the pure form, but what is experienced is great bliss. This offering creates powerful causes for us to eventually realize the union of the bliss and emptiness of all phenomena.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Remaining in Samsara without being Touched By It.

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.52) The result of a Bodhisattva’s meditation on emptiness
Is the ability to remain in the abodes of samsara
Out of compassion for those who suffer due to confusion,
And free from the extremes of attachment and fear.

We all want to help people. But our time with others is very short. We may even live with someone throughout our entire life, but then we are separated at death. If the person we care has not themselves attained liberation or enlightenment, they will be thrown once again somewhere in samsara. If we ourselves remain an ordinary being, we will not be able to do anything for them other than pray. Will be completely helpless and when we meet them again in our future lives, we will not recognize them. This is a major obstacle to our ability to help others. In contrast, if we gained the ability to return to samsara again and again, we would be able to continue to help lead these people gradually along the stages of the path. Only in this way can we eventually guide each and every living being to enlightenment.

But returning to samsara to help others is extremely dangerous if we ourselves still have delusions and we ourselves still risk taking further samsaric rebirth. We too could get thrown somewhere in samsara and lose the path and become lost for countless eons. How can we protect ourselves against such a danger? Shantideva explains the answer is, with a bodhicitta motivation, we gain a realization of emptiness. A Bodhisattva with a realization of emptiness is able to return to the abodes of samsara without ever being swept away by them. They are then able to remain with living beings and help guide them day by day, life by life, until they attain the final goal. Such bodhisattvas are in samsara but not of samsara.

(9.53) Since the realization of emptiness is the antidote that removes the darkness
Of the delusion-obstructions and the obstructions to knowing,
Why do those who wish to attain enlightenment
Not meditate on emptiness right away?

(9.54) Thus, it is quite inappropriate to cast aspersions
On those who hold the view of emptiness;
Rather, you should meditate without any doubt
On emptiness, lack of true existence.

Geshe-la has said on numerous occasions that the true meaning of meeting Geshe Kelsang is to gain the opportunity to realize emptiness. If all of reality is nothing more than a contaminated karmic dream and this dream is the nature of suffering, then the only thing that has true meaning is gaining the ability to wake up from the dream. There is nothing for us in samsara because in fact there is nothing even there. There is no part of the samsaric dream which is safe and we do not risk getting once again thrown into the lower realms. The vast majority of samara is unimaginable suffering. The only way to be completely free from the dangers of samsara is to end it.  To make it cease. To prevent it from ever arising again. The method for doing so is to realize the emptiness of all phenomena. We need to realize directly that it has never been anything more than mere karmic appearance. We need to end such appearance in such a way that it never arises again.

Other than striving for emptiness, tell me what makes our life meaningful?  There are many, many beneficial things we can do with our life, but what active is more meaningful than realizing emptiness motivated by compassion?  I feel there is nothing more meaningful than to strive to realize emptiness out of compassion, for me it is the most compassionate activity of all.  There are many meaningful things we can do with our life and many ways we can make samsara a little bit better. But is this good enough? Is this the most we can do? When we understand samsara and we understand emptiness we realize the most meaningful thing we can do is attain liberation and, even better, attain enlightenment so that we are able to help wake everybody else up from the nightmare that is samsara.

Happy Tara Day: Tara can fulfill all our pure wishes

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

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

They will attain greatness here
And advance to the ultimate state of Buddhahood.

Greatness here does not mean high position, but rather the great scope of Lamrim, namely the precious mind of bodhichitta.  Atisha’s Lamrim has three scopes – initial scope, intermediate scope, and great scope.  In the initial scope, we abandon lower rebirth; in the intermediate scope, we abandon samsaric rebirth; and in the great scope, we abandon solitary peace.  In other words, we abandon merely seeking our personal liberation, and instead we seek to become a fully enlightened Buddha with the complete power to lead all living beings to the same state.  The essence of the great scope is bodhichitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all.  Since Tara is the Lamrim Buddha, we can be certain the greatness we will attain through our reliance upon her is becoming a great scope being.  Once we attain bodhichitta, our eventual enlightenment is guaranteed.  This is why it is said we prostrate to the new moon of bodhichitta, not the full moon of enlightenment because the former is the definite cause of the latter.

Their violent and great poisons,
Both stable and moving,
And even those that they have eaten or drunk,
Will be thoroughly eliminated by remembering her.

They will be able to prevent all suffering
That arises from spirits, diseases or poisons;
And be able to help others in the same way.

There are two types of poison – outer and inner.  Outer poisons, including intoxicants, pollution, and unhealthy food, are extremely destructive.  Every year, smoking kills 7 million people globally, alcohol kills 2.8 million, and drugs kill 750,000; bringing the global death toll from intoxicants to 10.5 million people every year.  Pollution each year kills 4.8 million globally.  Unhealthy food is even more deadly, with 2.8 million dying from obesity, 1.6 million dying from diabetes, and a whopping 17.9 million dying from heart disease, the overwhelming majority of which comes from unhealthy diets.  All of these are outer poisons, with a cumulative death toll of almost 38 million every year.  Outer poisons are the leading cause of death in the world by a significant margin.  But the reality is outer poisons only have the power to kills us due to our inner poisons of delusions that run towards these causes of death as if they were causes of happiness.  Our inner poisons of attachment and ignorance conspire to make us voluntarily consume or create outer poisons, which in turn kill tens of millions every year.  Thus, if we have any hope of actually preventing the suffering that arises from outer poisons, we must abandon their deeper cause – the inner poisons of delusions. 

But ultimately, outer poisons can only kill us in just this one life.  The inner poisons of delusions harm and kill us in all of our future lives without end.  The scale of the destruction is beyond imagination.  Delusions are the cause of all death, since beginningless time.  There will be no end to the slaughter until the inner poisons of delusions are abandoned once and for all.  Relying upon Tara ends the inner poisons, both for ourself and for all other living beings.  She not only blesses our mind to prevent them from ripening, but more definitively she bestows upon us Lamrim realizations which lead us to permanently abandon all delusions.  All delusions, directly or indirectly, find their opponent in the Lamrim.  Our gaining Lamrim realizations is the only lasting way to end samsara’s ongoing devastation.  People rightly dedicate their lives to fighting for justice in the world, but there will be no justice, no peace, no end to suffering until the tyranny of delusions has finally been defeated.  The only way to do that is through gaining Lamrim realizations, and reliance upon Tara supercharges our practice of Lamrim.  

If they recite these seven times, six times a day,
Those who wish for a son will attain a son,
And those who wish for wealth will attain wealth.

Typically at least once a year, most major Kadampa centers will do a 24 hour Tara puja, which involves a session every four hours engaging in this practice reciting the praises seven times.  When the Coronavirus broke out, Geshe-la encouraged us to rely upon Tara, and many centers started doing the 24 hour Tara Puja every month on Tara day.  For those unable to join such practices at a center, Manjushri center livestreamed the practice on Tara day every month, so we could join in from anywhere in the world.  I pray one day they resume doing this, even if the pandemic has passed.

If we are unable to do all six sessions referred to in the sadhana, it is perfectly good to do as many as we can.  Some is always better than none.  There is something particularly powerful about engaging in group pujas.  Gen Tharchin says that every time we engage in a group puja, we create the causes to do the same thing with the same people again in the future.  It is like an insurance policy for refinding our Kadampa Sangha in life after life until we attain our final spiritual goals. 

“Son” here refers to the son or daughter of the Buddhas, namely becoming a bodhisattva.  We can wish to become a son or daughter of the Buddhas ourselves, and we can also wish that multitudes of sons or daughters of the Buddhas arise from within our Kadampa centers around the world.  Wealth here refers to the inner wealth of Dharma realizations.  Outer wealth can be helpful if our motivation for using it is virtuous, but it can be dangerous if our motivation is not.  The inner wealth of Dharma realizations, in contrast, is an unalloyed good.  The more we give it away, the more it reproduces itself.  It makes us content in this life and provides for us in all our future lives.  The inner wealth of Dharma realizations is an inexhaustible fountain of good fortune.

All their wishes will be accomplished.
No more obstacles will arise for them,
And those that have already occurred
Will all be completely destroyed.

This refers to Tara’s ability to also function as a Dharma protector.  Dharma protectors arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  Normally, Dorje Shugden is the principal protector of the Kadam Dharma, but Tara also accomplishes a similar function.  There are two types of obstacle to our Dharma practice – outer and inner.  Ultimately, though, outer obstacles do not exist.  They arise only due to a lack of imagination or experience for how to transform adversity into the path to enlightenment.  But temporarily, outer obstacles can exist due to current limitations in our wisdom.  Tara can prevent outer obstacles from arising (or minimize the extent to which they do, based on our karmic possibilities).  Our job is to then use the space to practice she creates for us to then gain the inner wisdom necessary to transform any adversity into the path.  If we can succeed in doing that, then no more “obstacles” will arise for us because we will not impute anything as an obstacle.  Everything will push us towards enlightenment.  Existing obstacles are destroyed, either through purifying the karma giving rise to their appearance or through gaining the wisdom that knows how to see them all as causes of our enlightenment.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Without Emptiness, Delusions Grow Back Like Weeds

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.49ab) (Proponent of things) “The abandonment that Arhats achieve is not temporary.
They definitely do not take rebirth in samsara again
Because they completely abandon craving, the principal cause of such rebirth.”

The 12 dependent related links explain the mechanism by which samsara perpetuates itself. The short version is if we die with a deluded mind, then it activates contaminated karma which then once again propels us into a samsaric rebirth. The trigger links of the 12 dependent related links are dependent related craving and dependent related grasping. Arhats have completely abandoned all dependent related craving and so therefore they argue there is no trigger to activate contaminated karma to cause another samsaric rebirth. Therefore, they argue, it is not necessary do completely purify all previously accumulated contaminated karma because that which is there never is never activated. This is why the Hinayanists say it is not necessary to realize the emptiness that the Prasangikas explain.

(9.49.cd) But just as you say that they have non-deluded confusion,
Why not also say that they have non-deluded craving?

(9.50) These so-called Arhats have pleasant feelings
That they apprehend to be truly existent.
Because of feeling, craving develops –
So they must be subject to the craving.

(9.51) Although for a person who has not realized emptiness – the lack of truly existent things –
Manifest delusions might be temporarily abandoned, eventually they will manifest again,
Just as feelings and discriminations return when the concentration on the absorption without discrimination ends.
Therefore, you must strive to realize emptiness to attain even solitary liberation.

The main point here is simple:  If you do not root out the root of delusions, the ignorance grasping at an inherently existent self, then delusions will reassert themselves with time, like leaving a trace of roots of weeds.  The danger is very real here, not an academic issue:  It is possible that as a result of practicing Dharma, our mind becomes very peaceful and very happy and we can enjoy many good results.   We can easily become complacent with this.  Worse, we can easily become attached to the pleasant feelings we are experiencing in our mind, and we do not then push further to complete the path.  But if we do not root out the deepest root, such good results will be temporary, and we will eventually find ourselves right back where we are now.  To attain true cessations, we need to realize the emptiness of the mind that is deluded.  This completely eradicates such a mind, and it will never arise again.  Then we attain liberation.

From a technical point of view the reason why the percentages say that individual liberation attained by followers of the proponents of the lower schools is not actual liberation is because the karma too once again be reborn in Sam Sarah remains on their mind. This includes first the tendencies to generate delusions and 2nd the throwing karma to actually take a samsaric rebirth.

It is true if that karma never gets activated the person would never again take sense take a samsaric rebirth. But as long as the tendencies exist on the mind to generate delusions what starts out as non-deluded grasping and non-deluded craving can evolve to become delusions which then once again risk activating throwing karma. The only way to ensure that one never again returns to samsara is to purify all of the tendencies for generating delusions.  If the tendencies to generate delusions no longer exist on the mind then it is impossible for the person to ever generate delusions and then, yes, they would attain actual liberation.  These tendencies to generate delusions are what are known as the delusion obstructions. The other contaminated karma on the mind is known as the obstructions to omniscience. If somebody purifies all of the delusion obstructions, they do not have to purify all the obstructions to omniscience to never again take a samsaric rebirth. However, this other contaminated karma does prevent the attainment of enlightenment and the attainment of the omniscient mind of a Buddha.

The point of this discussion it’s not just to understand the mechanics of samsara but to arrive at the conclusion that the only way to attain even individual liberation is to realize the emptiness that is the lack of true existence. In particular we need to realize the emptiness of the mind that stores all of this karma. At a minimum, it is only by fully and directly realizing emptiness that we can prevent any delusions from arising ever again. When we attain the path of seeing, which is a direct realization of emptiness conjoined with the mind of tranquil abiding, we eliminate all of our intellectually formed delusions. We then continue to meditate on the path of meditation and eventually purify all of our delusion obstructions. We then continue further to meditate on emptiness on the path of meditation with a bodhicitta motivation and then we can purify the obstructions to omniscience and attain enlightenment.