Author: Kadampa Ryan

Happy Protector Day: Tapping into Dorje Shugden’s Power

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

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 7 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

The remainder of the sadhana is largely making requests to Dorje Shugden.  Before we get into the specifics, I want to now explain some general advice on how to increase the power of our making requests to him.  These apply equally to the meditation break as well as the meditation session. 

First, the extent to which he can help us depends on the degree of faith we have in him.  If our faith is weak, his protection will be weak.  This is not because he is holding back it is because our mind remains closed so he has few points of entry for bestowing his blessings.  If our faith is indestructible and infinite, then his protection of us will be infinite.  If we understand this we will realize that our primary training in the practice of Dorje Shugden is increasing our faith in him.

Second, he can help us to the extent that our motivation is pure.  When our motivation is pure, it is like we align the crystals of our mind perfectly with the light of the deity.  To improve our motivation, we need to train sincerely in Lamrim.  The main function of Lamrim is to change our heart desires from worldly ones into spiritual ones.  Once we get our motivation right, everything else naturally falls into place.  It is the mental factor intention that determines the karma we create, so intention is the most important.

Third, he can help us to the extent that we realize that he, ourselves and everything else are empty.  The main point is this:  Dorje Shugden isn’t anything from his own side.  He is as powerful as we construct him to be.  We can construct him as an ordinary being or as an infinitely powerful protector.

After the invitation to Dorje Shugden, which has already been explained, we then make offerings and requests as follows:

HUM
Respectfully I prostrate with body, speech and mind. 

Here we imagine that from ourself and from all the beings we previously put within the protection circle, we emanate all of our past and future bodies.  Then with all of these past, present and future emanations of ourself, we prostrate.  This creates special merit with him so that he can provide us protection in all our past, present and future lives.  How Dorje Shugden protects us in our present and future lives is easy to understand.  But how can he provide us protection in our past lives when they have already passed?   He can bless our mind so that everything that happened to us in the past also becomes a cause of our enlightenment. We view our past differently in such a way that it teaches us lessons of Dharma.  In this way, no matter when we start our practice, even if it is when we are very old, it can be as if we effectively have practiced our whole life.  When we go to normal psychological therapists, they help us process our past so that it is no longer a drag on us.  In the same way, by requesting Dorje Shugden to transform our past experiences into a cause of our enlightenment, we receive special blessings to view these events differently.  We may even come to view our greatest past trauma as our greatest life blessing.  Such is the power of Dorje Shugden and the truth of emptiness.

I offer a mass of inner and outer offerings, blissful tormas,
Alcohol, tea, cakes, milk, and curd,
Both actually set out and mentally imagined, filling the whole of space.

The basic idea is this:  whatever we offer to Dorje Shugden, he can then use for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  For example, if I offer my house to him, then everything that happens in my house will be emanated by him for my practice, etc.  So mentally, we offer everything because we want to use everything for our attainment of enlightenment. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Train in mental stabilization

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Downfalls that obstruct the perfection of mental stabilization

Neglecting to train in mental stabilization. 

The attainment of Tranquil Abiding is necessary to achieve profound realizations.  Therefore, if we fail to make an effort in the following areas we incur a secondary downfall:  (1) to listen to and think about the instructions on tranquil abiding, and (2) to improve our concentration by training in tranquil abiding.

At the end of the day, we have been given perfect methods for attaining enlightenment.  We have been given everything.  All we now need to do is actually do them.  Our main problem is when we do our practices, our mind is filled with distraction.  So while outwardly it appears that we are meditating, inside our mind is wandering everywhere except where it is supposed to be, namely on our practice.  If we can learn to overcome this one problem, progress along the path will come very quickly.

Why is concentration important?  Ultimately, the strength of our concentration determines the extent of our spiritual power.  The more powerful our practice, the more quickly and profoundly we make progress.  It is no exaggeration to say we are fighting a war against our delusions.  It is an all or nothing battle.  Either our delusions defeat us or we defeat our delusions.  There is no middle ground, there is no peace treaty or compromise possible.  Either we exterminate them or they will not stop until we are pinned down into the deepest hell forever.  This may sound like exaggerated rhetoric, but it is not.  Delusions are relentless in their deceptions and they will never stop.  At no point will they ever be satisfied thinking this person is deluded enough, they will keep deceiving us until they drive us literally insane.  The more freedom we give our delusion to reign within our mind, the more they will seize control of us and make us do things which only serve to harm ourself or others.  They are an enemy without remorse.  They have no redeeming qualities.  The only reason why we do not see this or realize it is because they have us so firmly in their grasp that they have convinced us they are our friends.  Against an enemy such as this, we need power to defeat them.  Concentration is our power.

Concentration has two components:  (1) remembering our chosen object of meditation, and (2) realizing its object clearly.  In the beginning, our primary focus should be remembering the object.  To remember the object means to keep it in mind, to maintain the continuum of keeping the focus of our mind on the object of our choice.  The ability to do this is called mindfulness.  Mindfulness simply means remembering our object, or more practically, not forgetting it. 

If we check, there is really only one reason why we forget our objects of meditation.  It is because we think our object of distraction is more important or more interesting than our object of meditation.  To us, the value of our objects of distraction seem evident and seem immediate, whereas the value of our objects of meditation seem abstract and seem to be far off in some uncertain future.  If we want to remember our objects of meditation, we need to reverse this.  Remembering our objects of meditation has to become, for us, the most important thing in our life.  If we can remember our objects of meditation, we will find permanent freedom.  If we allow ourselves to forget them, we will quickly be swept away and become lost forever.  Again, this sounds like hyperbole, but it is not.  The stakes are this high, the choices are this stark. 

So if we want to remember our objects we have to want to remember them because we understand them to be the most important things in our life.  We accomplish this by meditating again and again on the benefits of each meditation we do.  If we check, a very large proportion of all Geshe-la’s books is simply an explanation of the benefits of the different objects of meditation.  We should not gloss over these and try jump straight to the object of meditation itself.  If we do this, we will quickly become distracted, receive almost no benefit, and then gradually abandon our practice.  If instead, we take the time in the beginning to focus most of our time and attention on contemplating and meditating on the benefits, then we will become very motivated to remember our objects when we are in meditation.  When we meditate on the benefits of a given object of meditation, the most important thing to focus on is not the “what” but rather the “why.”  In other words, just knowing what the benefits are will have little power if we don’t understand why the given object of meditation produces the actual benefit.  If we don’t directly see and understand the connection between the two, our desire to mix our mind with these objects of meditation will be superficial at best and lack the power necessary to remain with them.  When distractions come, we will eagerly go with them.  In particular, we should focus on realizing the benefits of meditating on death, the benefits of bodhichitta, the benefits of the self-generation object and the benefits of the Mahamudra object.  These are our main and most powerful objects of meditation.

Happy Tsog Day: Making Our Spiritual Life Practical

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 12 of a 44-part series.

Offering medicines, and ourself as a servant

I offer many different types of excellent medicine
That destroy the four hundred and four diseases of the delusions,
And to please you I offer myself as a servant;
Please keep me in your service for as long as space exists.

We have met Geshe-la in this life and he has taught us the stages of the path to enlightenment. If we are lucky and apply full effort with great faith and a pure heart, we may attain enlightenment in this life. But it is also possible we will not complete the path before we die. At that point, it becomes vital that we find the path again in all our future lives without interruption so we can continue on with our spiritual training. Gen Tharchin explains that “if we do our honest best to train in the stages of the path throughout our life, it will be enough to ensure we find the path again in our next life.” But the supreme method to always meet Geshe-la again and again in all our future lives is to offer ourself as a servant for as long as space exists. What does it mean to offer ourself as a servant? It means to promise to dedicate our life to the fulfilment of our Guru’s wishes. What does our Guru wish? He wishes that we attain enlightenment and that we help others to do the same. His special method for leading all beings to enlightenment is to form fully qualified spiritual guides who in turn train other fully qualified spiritual guides, as a “great wave” of virtuous deeds that will – generation after generation – eventually wash over all living beings. To offer ourself as a servant is to make ourselves part of this great wave. Practically speaking we can do this by becoming a qualified Kadampa teacher, a center administrator, or even just a humble practitioner. The point is we do what we can to help cause the Dharma to flourish in this world. It is obvious that if we spend this life fulfilling our Guru’s wishes to cause the Dharma to flourish we will create the karma necessary to refind the Dharma in all our future lives.

Confession

In the presence of the great Compassionate Ones I confess with a mind of great regret
All the non-virtues and negative actions that, since beginningless time,
I have done, ordered to be done, or rejoiced in;
And I promise that from now on I shall not commit them again.

Infinite negative karma is the biggest problem we do not realize we have. Logically, this is not difficult to establish. First, the vast majority of our previous lives have been spent in the lower realms, where we engaged almost exclusively in negative actions. Animals may occasionally engage in virtuous actions, but almost every other action a lower being engages in is negative – each one creating negative karmic seeds on our mind. Second, engaging in virtue takes effort, whereas engaging in negativity comes effortlessly. This shows not only that we have powerful negative tendencies on our mind, but that in the past we have mostly engaged in negative actions and very few virtuous ones. And third, we have made almost no effort to purify our negative karma, even after having been in the Dharma for many years. Before we met the Dharma, we did not engage in purification at all, and since we have found the Dharma, we have done precious little purification. There are only two ways negative karma can be removed from our mind, either by ripening in the form of suffering or through sincere purification practice. Since we have not purified, all these countless negative karmic seeds remain on our mind. Intellectually, this logic is inescapable proof.

But it still does not move our mind. Why? Primarily because we still have on our mind negative karma of holding wrong views rejecting the truth of karma and past and future lives. These negative seeds prevent us from believing the unavoidable truth of our negative karma. So even though intellectually, we know it must be true, we do not really believe this in our heart, and therefore we never generate the appropriate levels of fear for the negative karma that remains. Geshe-la explains in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that the primary reason we have not yet sincerely put the Dharma into practice is because we have neglected generating rational fear of samsara. In other words, the fact that we do not feel fear of our negative karma is itself a perfect sign that we have much left to purify.

I find it helpful to consider I (and everyone I know) am destined for the lower realms. We are en route for them right now, and if we do not purify, we will inevitably fall. I find it helpful to consider some analogies, such as I am on an island that is rapidly sinking into an ocean of molten fire of the lower realms. I am chained to the deck of the Titanic, and if I do not free myself, I will go down with the ship. I carry in my heart countless karmic time bombs that can explode at any moment.

To purify our negative karma, we need to apply the four opponent powers. The power of regret admits to ourself that we have untold quantities of negative karma remaining on our mind, and if we do not purify it, we will get sucked into a vortex of endless suffering. The power of reliance is turning either to the three jewels or to all living beings to purify our negative karma. The power of the opponent force is any virtuous action motivated by regret and is directed towards either the three jewels (such as Vajrasattva practice of the 35 Confession Buddhas) or living beings (such as engaging in virtuous actions for their benefit). The power of the promise is making internal commitments to refrain in the future from similarly engaging in negative actions. The power of regret purifies the effects similar to the cause. The power of reliance purifies the environmental effects. The power of the opponent force purifies the ripened effect. And the power of the promise purifies the tendencies similar to the cause to engage again in negativity.

I find it helpful to understand how this works by considering how we apologize. When we have wronged someone in some way, if we check, we follow a very clear formula when we apologize. First, we honestly admit what we did and the harm that it caused the other person. Then, we express our apology to whoever we harmed. Then, we do something kind to make amends. Finally, we promise to not do it again. The truth is we have been harming the three jewels and living beings since beginningless time. But we now have an opportunity to correct for this by engaging in sincere purification practice.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Keep your conversations meaningful

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

If we spend much of our time engaging in senseless conversations out of attachment we incur a secondary downfall.

Earlier I explained that no activity is senseless from its own side, it only becomes senseless when we engage in it with a senseless mind.  The same applies to conversations.  But putting that aside, we can say that a senseless conversation is a conversation about nothing of importance.  There are countless examples of such conversations, but they all come down to a common denominator of the conversations help nobody.  They just fill time. 

It is surprising how many such conversations we have.  If we check our day, it is not uncommon for half or more of our conversations to fall into this category.  Like a bunch of nervous Nellies, we chatter away saying nothing to avoid awkward moments of silence.  Or perhaps our relationship with the other person is so superficial that there is no scope to discuss anything of substance with them. 

Does this mean we should become quiet and reserved and only engage in conversations with others if they want to talk about the Dhama, because after all, only the Dharma really matters!  No, that is an absurd way of thinking.  Because as explained earlier we need karmic relationships with others, we need to engage with others.  There is nothing decreeing our conversations with others have to be devoid of meaning.  It is not difficult to engage in substantive discussions with anybody.  It suffices to take a genuine interest in the person you are talking to and asking them about their life.  Within a few minutes you can be discussing something of value. 

But sometimes, yes, this is not possible.  There are some people who we seem to only cross occasionally in the elevator and the only thing that we can seemingly discuss is, “boy, it sure is cold today” before they get off on their floor.  So be it, it’s better than just ignoring them.  But in general, with minimal effort we can have meaningful conversations with pretty much anybody.

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. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Not trying to overcome laziness. 

Kadampa Ryan Uncategorized

To attain enlightenment requires great effort.  If we do not try to eliminate our laziness or our attachment to sleep or other worldly pleasures, we incur a secondary downfall.

Enlightenment cannot be bestowed upon us like a gift.  The state of enlightenment is a dependent-arising, which means it is something that only arises when all the causes and conditions for its existence have been assembled.  The laws of karma state that if the cause has not been created, it is impossible for the effect to arise.  This means if we ourselves do not create the causes for our own enlightenment, it will never happen.  We will remain trapped in samsara forever, or for at least until we do create the causes to get out.  There is no escaping this.  Since we are going to have to do it eventually, we might as well start now.

Sadly, our mind is pervaded by laziness.  We don’t want to do anything.  Interestingly, we find it easy to generate the effort to do things that are harmful to us, but we struggle mightily to do the things that are actually good for us.  For us, a good day is one where we don’t have to do anything and nothing is expected of us.  We struggle to get out of bad, we procrastinate everything that doesn’t have to be done right away, we take forever to work up the determination and focus to start working, and when we do, we almost immediately start looking to do something else, like check our email or Facebook for the 36th time today.  We never get around to starting our exercise regime, we continue to eat unhealthy foods despite knowing better, dishes pile up, laundry goes undone, thank you notes never get written, days go by until eventually we die without having ever gotten anything done.  If we consider the analogy of the blind turtle putting its head through the golden yoke explained in the lamrim teachings, we realize that our current precious human life only happens once every approximately 600 trillion years!  For us to fitter away this precious opportunity doing nothing is a waste of cosmic proportions.  But look at how many people do exactly that.

For us as Dharma practitioners, if we waste our life in this way, we will die with a mind of intense regret.  We will realize we had been given the opportunity to finally break free from the cycle of samsara, but we squandered the opportunity on meaningless things and now it is too late.  We will feel like the fool who had been taken a treasure island for a day who forgot to gather up any riches before it was time to go.  If we die in such a miserable state, we will most certainly fall.  We cannot let this be our story. 

Effort in a Dharma context does not mean hard work.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Effort means taking delight in virtue.  In other words, a mind of effort is one that enjoys doing what is good for us.  Venerable Tharchin explains the problem is we don’t actually believe Dharma works.  If we don’t believe it works, it is very difficult to generate the effort necessary to do it.  But if we see clearly how it does work and we see how everything is in fact eminently doable, then, he says, “effort comes effortlessly.”  We will feel like somebody who stumbled upon plans to make a time machine or a wish fulfilling magical device.  We are so excited about the prospects, that we don’t even think about the work it takes to get it built. 

So the trick to generating the mind of effort is to constantly ask ourselves the question, “how does that work?”  The Dharma does work and there are valid answers that explain how and why.  In some other religions, people are discouraged from asking too many questions or probing too deeply.  In the Kadam Dharma it is the opposite.  The more we ask the question, “how does that work?” the more we receive satisfactory and perfectly reasonable answers.  We get enough of these and we start to see, not just believe, that the Dharma does indeed work.  Of course at first it begins with little things like happiness depends upon a peaceful mind, but in dependence upon these initial understandings we can get the ball rolling.  We keep probing, trying and coming up with answers, and gradually more and more practices make sense.  Then at some point we see, “if I do this, I see how it will set me in irreversible motion, and if I can attain that escape velocity I will eventually be guaranteed to attain enlightenment.”  From this, we do more, probe more, until eventually we see directly how the entire path actually works, from the initial steps all the way to final enlightenment.  If we understand this, effort will not be a problem for us at all.

Early on in the process, there is a critical turning point we need to reach.  At present, we want worldly attainments more than we want spiritual attainments.  As a result, we put effort into worldly attainments and little effort into spiritual ones.  We need to reverse this.  The method for doing so is a consistent practice of the lamrim meditations, such as the cycle of 21 explained in the New Meditation Handbook or the 15 explained in Mirror of Dharma.  The main function of the lamrim is to change our desires from being worldly desires to being spiritual desires.  When this is what we want, we will naturally work to fulfill them.  This is why the lamrim is the foundation for all that follows, and why if we lack a lamrim foundation we will never get very far no matter how many advanced practices we try. 

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.

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.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Gather a circle of followers for the right reasons

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

 

Downfalls that obstruct the perfection of effort

Gathering a circle of followers out of desire for profit or respect. 

If, for selfish reasons, we try to gather followers we incur a secondary downfall.  This includes doing so on social media.

This is actually a very difficult vow for us.  On the one hand, it implies that we are supposed to gather a circle of followers.  This makes sense because we are trying to attain enlightenment so that we can lead others to the same state.  But to actively seek to gather a circle of followers seems to us like proselytizing and unbelievably arrogant, so we don’t quite know how to generate the wish to gather a circle of followers without it seeming weird and deluded.  It is obviously incredibly unskillful to get on top of our soapbox and try gather people up.  So how can we understand this desire?

Perhaps some examples can help us get a feel for this.  If we bake some really good chocolate chip cookies, we naturally want to share them with our kids because they are so good.  We are happy to share them with others.  When we discover some new way of doing things that really works and we see others struggling with the same problem, we naturally want to share with them our strategy so that it is easier for them.  When we succeed in accomplishing something and we see others trying to do the same, we are happy to share our experience with them to help them along.  It is the same with the Dharma.  All these examples contain two key ingredients:  (1) an appreciation of the value of what we have, and (2) others who from their own side already want but don’t have what we have to share.  If we don’t ourselves appreciate the value of what we have and others don’t want what we have, then it is inappropriate to try gather people to share it.  But if we do have such an appreciation and others do want what we have, then it is entirely natural to want to share it with them. 

So how do we actually gather such a circle?  Obviously, if we belong to a Dharma center, regardless of whether or not we are the teacher of that center, we naturally want the center to grow and for more and more students to come to the center.  There is nothing wrong with this.  When we have something special, we naturally want to share it with others.  If we see the value of what the center has to offer ourselves, then we will naturally want others to also benefit from it.  So we will do things like help with publicity or we will tell some of our friends or relatives about the center if we think they might be open to it. But the best thing we can do is create a loving, open, fun, and accepting atmosphere at the center.  If the culture of the center is like this, then people will naturally, from their own side, want to stay.  So we really don’t need to do anything other than actually practice what we have been taught with the other people at the center.  When new people come, we don’t jump on them and try convert them, we just be friendly and open and let them discover things.  It is often better to offer them tea and cookies than Dharma advice.  We wait for them to ask questions before we start giving them answers. 

Outside of a Dharma center, we can recall the story of Venerable Tharchin I mentioned in a previous post, where Geshe-la said if he didn’t come out of retreat he would be a worthless Buddha because he didn’t have karmic relationships with living beings.  Our ability to help anybody depends upon our karmic relationship with them.  From a practical level this is obvious, if you don’t have any connection with somebody how can you help them.  Also, we see every day that we are able to more easily help those we are close to than those we hardly know or interact with. 

At a deeper, unseen level, the only way we can actually help people is through them receiving blessings of the Buddhas.  Geshe-la explains that living beings are basically incapable of generating a virtuous mind on their own.  Due to our past of having spent virtually all our previous lives in the lower realms engaging only in negativity, the overwhelming gradient in our mind is towards the negative.  We see this every day.  It is much easier to get angry at somebody than it is to do something nice to them without expecting anything in return.  This is where Buddha’s blessings come in.  Buddhas have the power to activate positive karmic potentialities on the minds of living beings.  They can find that needle in a haystack of negative tendencies and ripen it.  Once it ripens, we then are far more likely to engage in virtuous actions, which plants more positive seeds, which can then be ripened as well, gradually building up karmic momentum like a spiritual locomotive until eventually it becomes more natural for us to engage in virtue and it actually becomes hard to engage in negativity. 

We may ask, if Buddhas have the power to start such virtuous karmic cycles in the minds of living beings, why aren’t they doing it to everyone every day.  The short answer is they are doing the best they can, but from our own side we haven’t created the causes and conditions for them to do so.  It may be bright and sunny outside, but if all our windows are sealed shut, very little light can creep into our room. And this is where our karmic connections with living beings come in. 

Karmic connections are like invisible karmic fiber optic cables through which the light of the Buddha’s blessings can pass.  Because we are practitioners, we are actively trying to open up our windows to the light.  So light is flowing into us.  Then, through the karmic connections we create with others, this light can then flow out to others.  The more karmic connections we have with others, the more bandwidth our cables have, and the more light of blessings flow through.  It is for this reason that Venerable Tharchin said, “for every step we take towards enlightenment, we bring all living beings with us in proportion to the karmic connection we have with them.” 

Interestingly, apparently bad karmic connections with others are better than no karmic connections at all.  There are two stories which illustrate this point.  The first is (if I recall the story correctly, perhaps some scholar can help me get the story right), Buddhas first five disciples were actually beings in the past who had engaged in some serious negativity towards a previous incarnation of Buddha.  There is another story of a yogi who really wanted to help some local farmer, but the yogi and the farmer had no connection at all.  No matter what the yogi tried, nothing worked.  So the yogi came up with an idea – he went into the farmers field and smashed all his crops.  That got the farmer’s attention, and he came out saying he would kill the yogi who was running off gleefully.  The yogi knew that now, once the negative karma between him and the farmer had exhausted itself the yogi would have a close karmic connection through which he could help.  This doesn’t mean we should go around and intentionally destroy people’s work to create karma with them, but it does illustrate the power and importance of karmic connections.

Regardless of whether or not we are currently a teacher, we are all aspiring Bodhisattvas.  As such, we need a vast web of karmic relationships with as many beings as possible.  It is through this web of karmic relationships that we will eventually be able to lead everyone to enlightenment.  How do we build such karmic relationships?  By cherishing others, serving them, helping them and caring for them in every way possible.  We can also pray for others.  No matter what is happening, we can always pray for others.  Even when we ourselves are sick in the hospital dying, nothing can stop us from praying for others.

Happy Protector Day: Protector of the Bodhisattva’s Path

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

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 6 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

And on his head he wears a round and yellow hat.

This symbolizes his ability to help us gain the correct view of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality.  We can understand how all things are like a dream, and how if we change our actions, we can change our karma and that will change the dream that appears to our mind.  In this way, we can become the architect of our own destiny, and cause this world of suffering to cease and the pure world of the Buddhas to arise.  If ever we have difficulty understanding emptiness, we can recall his hat and request that he bless our mind to be able to gain a correct understanding of emptiness.  We then imagine we receive his blessings and return to our Dharma book (or the teaching we are receiving) and try again.  If we still do not understand, we once again request blessings and repeat the cycle.  We can continue like this for as long as it takes.  Eventually, through the power of his blessings, we will understand. 

His hands hold a sword and a heart of compassion.

This symbolizes his ability to help us engage in Lamrim meditation, in particular the union of the vast and profound path.  The vast path is all of the Lamrim meditations for developing a good heart, leading up to bodhichitta, the wish to lead all beings to enlightenment.  The profound path refers to the wisdom realizing emptiness, that everything is like a dream.  Just as we did with trying to understand emptiness, when we are having difficulty with our Lamrim practice, we can recall this function of Dorje Shugden, request his blessings, receive his blessings and then try again.  Practicing in this way dramatically increases the power of our Lamrim meditation. 

To his followers he shows an expression of delight, but to demons and obstructors he displays a wrathful manner.

This symbolizes Dorje Shugden’s ability to love and care for us while destroying our delusions.  We need to make a distinction between ourselves and our delusions.  Just as a cancer patient is not his cancer, we are not the cancer of our delusions.  Many people fear Dorje Shugden because they know he can be quite wrathful, but this fear only arises because they identify with their delusions.  So when their delusions are challenged, they feel like they are challenged.  Whenever we have a delusion arise strongly in our mind, we can immediately remember Dorje Shugden and request his blessings to be able to happily accept our difficult circumstances understanding that what is bad for our delusions is good for us. 

He is surrounded by a vast, assembled retinue,

Such as Kache Marpo and so forth.

Dorje Shugden is like the general of a vast army of Dharma protectors, each of whom accomplishes a different function.  These can be understood from the explanation of the nature and function of Dorje Shugden in the book Heart Jewel and the Praise to the five lineages of Dorje Shugden explained in the extensive Dorje Shugden sadhana Melodious Drum Victorious in All Directions.  It is customary for large Dharma Centers around the world to practice Melodious Drum on every Protector Day, or at least once a year.  We can do so on our own at any time, including every Protector Day.

The five lineages of Dorje Shugden refer to the five principal deities of his mandala.  Each one corresponds with one of the five Buddha families, the five completely purified aggregates of a Buddha, and the five omniscient wisdoms.  Each of the principal deities is like a specific protector for each one of the five Buddha families, and through relying upon them we will be led to attain the five purified aggregates and the corresponding five omniscient wisdoms.

The principal deity is Dorje Shugden himself, who is the protector of the Akshobhya family, will guide us to completely purify our aggregate of consciousness and attain the wisdom of the Dharmadhatu.  The wisdom of the Dharmadhatu is an aggregate of consciousness completely purified of all our past contaminated karmic potentialities (also known as the two obstructions) and that knows directly and simultaneously all phenomena as manifestations of bliss and emptiness.  Vairochana Shugden is the protector of the Vairochana family.  Through relying upon him, we will completely purify our aggregate of form and gain mirror-like wisdom, which sees directly all phenomena as manifestation of bliss and emptiness.  Pema Shugden is the protector of the Amitabha family.  Through relying upon her, we will purify completely our aggregate of discrimination and attain the wisdom of individual realization, which is able to discriminate all objects individually as manifestations of bliss and emptiness.  Ratna Shugden is the protector of the Ratnasambhava family.  Through relying upon Ratna Shugden, we will purify completely our aggregate of feeling and attain the wisdom of equality, which experiences all phenomena equally as bliss and emptiness.  Karma Shugden is the protector of the Amoghasiddhi family.  Through relying upon Karma Shugden, we will purify completely our aggregate of compositional factors and attain the wisdom of accomplishing activities, which enables us to use a Buddha’s completely purified and developed mental factors as if they were are own.  For a more in depth understanding of the five aggregates, see How to Understand the Mind.

Dorje Shugden is also surrounded by the nine Great Mothers, the eight fully ordained monks, and the ten wrathful deities.  The nine mothers arrange the secret conditions necessary for our Dharma practice.  They are comprised of Lochanna, Mamaki, Benzharahi, and Tara which arrange the earth, water, fire, and air elements respectively for our practice; and the five offering goddesses who transform all of the various forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile objects into conditions for our practice.  The eight fully ordained monks arrange the inner conditions necessary for our practice.  They are the eight main bodhisattvas, including Vajrapani, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, and Maitreya.  They manifest whatever is needed to tame disciples and protect those with commitments like their only child.  The ten wrathful deities arrange all of the outer conditions for our Dharma practice.  They subjugate the malevolent and guard all directions with various guises.  Kache Marpo is like the commander of the Dharma protector special forces who directs all the oath-bound attendents (spirit kings, wealth gods, nagas, celestial spirits, and so forth) who perform a host of actions to help arrange the mundane conditions for our Dharma practice. 

Light rays from my heart

Instantly invite the wisdom beings
From the sphere of nature
And from all the different palaces where they abide.
They become inseparable from the commitment beings.

We visualize a vast array of mundane and supermundane Dharma protectors filling the whole of space, all working tirelessly under the direction of Dorje Shugden to arrange all the outer, inner, and secret conditions for our Dharma practice.  As Heruka, we then imagine that light rays radiate from our heart and invite the wisdom beings – the actual deities of Dorje Shugden’s mandala – to enter into the commitment beings (those we have visualized). We then strongly believe that all of these protector deities are actually in the space in front of us and filling the universe accomplishing their special function.