(3.11) From this moment on, without any sense of loss,
I shall give away my body and likewise my wealth,
And my virtues amassed throughout the three times
To help all living beings, my mothers.

(3.12) Through giving all, I shall attain the nirvana of a Buddha
And my bodhichitta wishes will be fulfilled.
I give up everything for the sake of living beings,
Who are the supreme objects of giving.

It’s worth recalling everything that has been discussed in Shantideva’s Guide up until now has been preliminary practices for actually taking the Bodhisattva vows and formally entering the Bodhisattva’s path.  A Bodhisattva is somebody who commits themselves to working tirelessly for the sake of living beings until everyone has been lead to enlightenment.  A Bodhisattva does more than this – they promise to become whatever it is that living beings need in order to fulfill that aim.  What do living beings need?  They need us to become a Buddha for them.

Beings are lost.  How do we know this?  Because we are lost ourselves.  But through our incomparable good fortune, a holy being has entered into our life and introduced to us the possibility of entering into, progressing along and completing the Bodhisattva’s path.  There is nothing in this world that points us towards that destination, in fact everything points in the opposite direction.  Yet here we are.  We have found a perfectly reliable presentation of the Dharma, a fully qualified spiritual guide, a global sangha of practitioners eager to help, and all of the means necessary to complete the path.  We lack nothing except one thing:  ourselves.  Our full, unaltered, unflinching, unhedged commitment.  We cannot become a Buddha and hold something back for ourselves.  There is no middle ground.  What is the last thing we must do before we enter the Bodhisattva’s path?  We must give it all way, including ourself.  We must burn all of our bridges back into samsara and never look back.

Shantideva is giving away everything for the sake of living beings. He holds nothing back for himself.  This is the example we should try to follow, especially as Mahayanists trying to follow the Bodhisattva’s way of life.

This does not mean we need to stop enjoying ourselves.  What it means is that we give up ‘simply’ enjoying ourselves.  Of course enjoyment is important, but if we ‘simply’ enjoy ourselves then we’re using up our merit.  Of course we need to relax and recharge our batteries, but we derive our enjoyment from another source.  There is saying, “if you enjoy your work, you will never have to work a day in your life.”  This is how a Bodhisattva feels.  From one perspective, they work tirelessly, but from their perspective, they feel as if they never work a day in their life.  Who could not enjoy confidently progressing along a path that leads to freedom for all?  We don’t experience this enjoyment only because we lack faith in the law of karma.  We know worldly cause and effect, we are not so sure about the inner workings of karma.  But we need not doubt.  If the external world obeys the laws of physics, why should we doubt the internal world obeys the laws of karma?  In the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Je Tsongkhapa says our understanding of emptiness and karma are correct when our knowledge of one confirms the truth of the other.  If things were not empty, karma would not work; because things are empty, karma must be.

One of the best ways to accumulate merit is to give it away to all living beings, just like Shantideva.  We hold nothing back for ourselves, we want nothing for ourselves,   Keeping and enjoying anything for our own sake is an obstruction to developing Bodhichitta.  It is an obstruction to fulfilling our own and others’ wishes.  Even when we enjoy ourselves, we should give it away to living beings and to the Buddhas in our heart.  Are we prepared to do that?  Give it all away, even our enjoyments?  Do we feel a sense of loss at the thought of doing so?  If we do, we still have work to do on improving our wisdom.  As it says in the Tao Te Ching, “if you want to be given everything, give everything up.”

By giving all we shall fulfill our own wish to experience the lasting happiness that we actually seek.  We’ll be able to fulfill our wish.  We must be prepared to give everything. Only by giving everything will we be able to fulfill these wishes.  We give everything and to everyone.  We should try to carry the thought in our mind when we’re with others — “whatever I have is yours.”

There are many things at present that we feel are ours, and we’re not willing to let go of them.  It is important that absolutely nothing is ours, even happiness.  We need to ‘feel’ nothing is mine to keep, to enjoy. I’m happy with nothing. Feel homeless, liberated.  Venerable Tharchin says, the mere thought that something is “ours” functions to burn up our merit.  We should feel as if nothing belongs to us, it all belongs to others, including ourselves.

(3.9) May a rain of food and drink descend
To dispel the miseries of hunger and thirst;
And during the great aeon of famine,
May I become their food and drink.

(3.10) May I become an inexhaustible treasury
For the poor and destitute.
May I be everything they might need,
Placed freely at their disposal.

We all know that it is better to dedicate our virtues and make prayers towards enlightenment because only that will provide lasting help for all living beings.  We correctly say it is more beneficial to meditate on bodhichitta than to help living beings in worldly ways.  But sometimes we misunderstand such comparisons to mean it is somehow not good to help others in worldly ways, that we are doing something wrong when we help in a homeless shelter or pray that somebody feel better because it is worldly.  This is totally wrong.  A bodhisattva works for the benefit of living beings in this life and in future lives, in worldly ways and in spiritual ways.  Just because the spiritual ways are better doesn’t mean the worldly ones are somehow bad.  One is good; the other is even better.  But both are worthwhile.

Of course we pray that somebody be healed of their cancer as we simultaneously pray that they are able to transform their having cancer into a cause of their enlightenment.  We do both, always.

The reality is this world is filled with the poor, the destitute and the infirm.  We should do everything we can to help them, both in terms of giving them fish and in terms of teaching them how to fish.  We should do everything we can to help living beings, both in this life and for all their future lives.  It is true meditating on bodhichitta is more beneficial, but what stops us from helping those in need with a bodhichitta motivation?  Surely that is the best of all.

Our dedication functions to transform our merit into pure karma which ripens in pure results.  If we generate contaminated virtues (virtues mixed with delusions), but we subsequently dedicate that merit towards pure spiritual ends, then it functions to transform what was contaminated virtue into completely pure virtue.  It is worth recalling if we don’t dedicate our merit it will be destroyed by our subsequent anger, so it is as if we never engaged in the good action to begin with.  If we don’t protect our merit, it is guaranteed our anger will soon destroy it.  The only reason why we have anything good is because in the past we dedicated.  So every time something good happens we should thank our past self for dedicating.  If we do this, then it will not be long before we establish a clear connection in our mind between our practice of virtue and our good fortune.

Dedication works because the goals we are dedicating for don’t exist outside of our mind, so we are essentially directing the merit to ripen in a particular way.  Sometimes we can think, how can my mentally wishing my merit ripen in certain ways actually function to bring about that outcome?  We think this only because we still grasp at things existing outside of our mind as something more than mere imputation by mind.  The more we understand emptiness, the more we realize dedication and prayers not only can work, essentially only they can work.

Dedication protects the virtuous imprints in our mental continuum, and allows for growth.  As its nature is a virtuous intention, it acts as a cause directing our virtue to the effects that we’d like. As they are dedicated, intended for particular goals, the virtues in our mind will increase until they ripen as the effects that we’d like.  As Bodhisattvas we must primarily direct our virtue to attaining enlightenment and the freedom and happiness of others.  This is our final aim and purpose towards which we direct all of our virtues.  But again, this does not mean we do not also dedicate and pray for temporary happiness and freedom from suffering.

We cannot keep whatever merit we have gained for ourselves.  Miserliness with respect to our material possessions is a delusion; miserliness with respect to our inner wealth of merit is truly misguided.  Externally, it may seem like when we give something away we lose it and it is not entirely clear how we will get more in the future.  But merit, unlike outer wealth, is almost immediately replenished within our mind as soon as we give it away.  We must dedicate ours to others.  Dedicating our merit to enlightenment is actually giving away our merit to others.  Perhaps dedication is an aspect of giving that we overlook.    Giving away even the cause of one’s own virtue and happiness — what a mind!   It is the complete opposite to self-cherishing.

(3.7) Thus, through the merit I have collected
From all these virtuous actions,

Sometimes people let a false understanding of humility get in the way of their dedication.  They think, “my virtues are small and insignificant, there is nothing really to dedicate,” so they don’t dedicate at all.  Any virtue, no matter how small, is better than no virtue at all.  Vajrayogini’s mandala is an inverted double tetrahedron to symbolize that the greatest attainments of enlightenment are built upon the foundation of the smallest of our virtues.  We should never think our virtues are too small, because without them it is impossible to build something even greater.

Others fail to dedicate because they don’t understand how easily it is to lose our merit.  We work hard to make and then save our money.  If you left your wallet full of cash lying on the ground in a crowded square, how long do you think it would be before you would lose it?  Not long.  If instead, you put that money in the bank, no matter what happened outside, the money would be safe.  Merit is like internal wealth.  It takes tremendous effort to accumulate it and save it up.  But if we are careless with it and fail to put it into the bank through dedication, it won’t take long before we lose it all.  Delusions burn up merit, anger in particular.  Why?  Because delusions and virtues are opposites, when a -1 wave hits a +1 wave, the end result is zero waves.  Just one moment of anger towards a bodhisattva can burn up in just one instant the merit we have accumulated over countless aeons.  Dedication, however, functions to protect it.  We invest the merit in a good cause, and once invested in this way it can’t be subsequently destroyed.

Instead, we should rejoice in our virtues and really appreciate what a cosmic miracle it is that we engage in any virtue.  Our virtues, even the smallest ones, are like priceless jewels.  They are our initial spiritual capital which, when carefully invested, will eventually become an inexhaustible fountain of good fortune which we share freely with all living beings.  In finance, there is a concept called the “miracle of compound interest.”  For example, just $100 put into the stock market in 1915 would be worth about $300,000 today all through the power of compound interest.  Dedicated merit works in the same way.  If we said, “oh, it is just $100, it is not worth anything” before, then we would have nothing now.  Realizing how precious our virtues are, we then carefully engage in dedication.

May the suffering of every living being
Be brought completely to an end;

(3.8) And until all those who are sick
Have been cured of their illness,
May I become their medicine,
Their doctor, and their nurse.

When we dedicate, on the one hand we want to dedicate for the vastest possible goal, namely the enlightenment of all beings.  But the problem is when we dedicate towards vast goals it is easy to lose any heart-felt feeling for the meaning of the dedication because it feels too abstract.  On the other hand, if we dedicate for narrow, close to home purposes, it is easy to get a good feeling for it, but the goal is so small that the potential benefit of our dedication is cut short.  So we want to try find the optimal point where our dedication is vast enough to have meaning, but not so vast that we lose all feeling for it.  To keep it simple, I try dedicate across a range of purposes, vast, middling and narrow.  For example, every day I make prayers that everything be arrange for all beings to attain enlightenment as swiftly as possible (vast), I dedicate that everything I touch or have some control or influence over be used for this purpose (middling) and I make specific dedications for my family whom I naturally love with all my heart (narrow).

Here, Shantideva reveals how a bodhisattva dedicates.  They don’t simply dedicate towards some good end, rather they dedicate that they themselves become whatever others need.  What distinguishes a bodhisattva from merely compassionate people is their superior intention to take personal responsibility for fulfilling their compassionate wishes.  While Shantideva gives the example of transforming ourselves into medicine, doctors and nurses for the sick, we can apply the same spiritual logic for any and all good purposes.

It is important that this is not just some idea, but rather becomes our way of life.  We need to look around and ask ourselves, “what do these people need?”  Then, we need to apply effort to become that for them.  What I try do is focus my efforts on “making things easier for those who follow.”  Whatever I do in life, I try leave behind some clear instructions or advice on how to get to the same point easier.  Whatever lessons I learned, I try share so others don’t have to struggle as I did.  Or, when you are in a group of people, ask yourself, “what can I do to help?”  Then do that.  When this becomes our reflex habit in all situations, it won’t be long before we spontaneously transform ourselves into whatever living beings need.  Ultimately, the form body of a Buddha does precisely that in all three times.  That is our final goal.

Shantideva continues with the other limbs.  With these practices, like any practice, we need to make them personal.  They have to be our own, and we need to try understand their meaning and purpose on a personal level.  We need to get a feeling for them.  Otherwise they’re just words.   They won’t be ‘our’ practice.  If they are not our own practice, then these practices will have little or no effect on our mind.   For example, we need to ask ourselves, what is my purification practice?  How am I purifying?  What am I doing?  I need to know how my purification practice is freeing my mind from what is blocking it, freeing my mind from obstructions.  It is the same with the other limbs.  Make it real.

(3.5) To the Buddhas residing in all directions,
With my palms pressed together I make this request:
Please continue to shine the lamp of Dharma
For living beings lost and suffering in the darkness of ignorance.

The Buddhas want to teach, but if we don’t make requests to receive teachings, then we don’t create the causes for ourselves to receive them.  We make requests on behalf of others because it is an enormous act of compassion and it multiplies the effect for ourselves.  It is not enough to have Buddhas around, because they need to teach as well.  It is not just an issue of making requests to receive formal teachings, but rather that we receive teachings through everyone around us.

Exactly what is it we’re requesting?   We are requesting that Buddhas continue to teach us, for example in the form of our holy spiritual guide.  But this is not just limited to receiving teachings at festivals and Dharma centers.  We have to ask ourselves, what happens when Geshe-la leaves this world?  Will that be it?  I don’t know about you, but I want to be taught every day of my life by my Spiritual Guide.  This is what we are asking for.

We know that we can receive teachings from our spiritual guide every day.  There are external methods, such as those explain which how to transform adverse conditions into the path.  Suffering, our daily experience in samsara, is a powerful teaching about the laws of karma, renunciation and patient acceptance.   There are internal methods through learning how to communicate directly with the Buddhas inside our mind.  These have been discussed in detail in some of my earlier series of posts, such as How to Rely upon the Guru’s Mind Alone and Activating the Inner Spiritual Guide.  The bottom line is we if we maintain a faithful mind, our Spiritual Guide can teach us day and night through everything that appears to us.

(3.6) To the Conquerors who wish to enter paranirvana,
With my palms pressed together I make this request:
Please do not leave living beings in a state of blindness,
But remain with us for countless aeons.

The best way to get the feeling for this is imagine what our life would be like if Geshe-la had not entered into our world.  What chance would we have?  Buddhas remaining is not just a question of whether they wish to remain, because they certainly do.  Their remaining is a function of whether we create the causes for them to remain and appear in our karmic world, and we accomplish this through requesting them to do so.

This is not just an issue of wishing that they remain in this world, but that they remain in our lives and in the lives of those we love.  It is not enough that there are Buddhas in this world, there needs to be Buddhas in our lives.  We make this request motivated by compassion for the beings in our refuge visualization – ourselves, our family, our sangha, our work colleagues, the people of our region, for generation after generation after generation.

Again we can ask ourselves, how are we helped and guided by enlightened beings? How are we helped by our spiritual guide?  We must be careful never to lose the wish to be helped, to be guided in our development.  There’s a danger we’ve seen in the past practitioners who gradually fade away.   This often comes from the mara of pride thinking we don’t need Spiritual Guides and spiritual friends in our life.  It’s horrible.  None of us are free yet from this mara.   Geshe-la has warned us to watch out for the mara of pride.  We must invite Buddhas into our daily life and seek help and guidance.   We need to watch out for that mind that doesn’t want to invite our spiritual guide into our life for guidance.  We need to check, are we allowing ourself to be guided every day by our spiritual guide?

If we don’t invite the Buddhas into our lives, then change is slow.  It may even stop.  But when we do invite them, we can create very quickly a special pure mental environment in which there can be extraordinary growth of virtue.   Real change can take place.  Such a fertile environment comes from requesting in a heartfelt way that the Buddhas remain in this world and teach us.

(3.3) I rejoice in the enlightenment of the Conqueror Buddhas
And in the spiritual paths of the Bodhisattvas.

(3.4) With delight I rejoice in the ocean of virtue
That arises from generating the mind of enlightenment, bodhichitta,
Which brings happiness to all living beings,
And in the deeds that benefit those beings.

We need to ask ourselves why do we find rejoicing so difficult?  What are we afraid of?  We can appreciate the virtues themselves: love, compassion, bodhichitta.  Why then is it difficult to see those qualities in others?  I think one reason is spiritual jealousy.  I have many delusions, but pride is one of my biggest.  It is not enough for me to think I am better than everyone around me, I don’t feel comfortable unless everyone agrees I am better than everyone else.  Needless to say, such a mind never finds comfort.  I find it incredibly difficult to admit others are better than me at things I find important.  My pride and jealousy find faults in the other person as a defense mechanism so I can sustain the illusion that I am better than everyone around me.  It takes great humility to rejoice in others.  We don’t want to do that.

We need living examples of people putting the practice of Dharma first and foremost in their lives.  This does not mean we all need to get ordained or move into a Dharma center, we can make the Dharma central to any life, job or family circumstance.  Dharma, quite simply, is wisdom.  Wisdom works in all situations, otherwise it wouldn’t be wisdom.  We need to perceive virtuous qualities in others, regardless of whether they are spiritual practitioners, the highest king or the lowest beggar.  Only then will we wish to emulate all good qualities, and become a living example ourselves.  There is a difference in the mind between thinking about a virtue and seeing such a virtue in others and rejoicing in that.   There is a big difference.  The former is abstract, the latter is practical.

We have to be very careful how we see others, especially other Dharma practitioners.  We should practice pure view with one another by asking how we can receive perfect benefit from what they have done, even when they make terrible mistakes. This does not mean we turn a blind eye to their faults and mistakes, rather it means we gain the ability to learn Dharma lessons from everything they do, especially their mistakes.

For ourself, we should rejoice in whatever we do do, not judge ourselves for whatever we don’t.  Very often we judge ourselves for what we don’t do, but feel we should.  We judge ourselves as failing to live up to the standards we set for ourselves, thinking what we do is not good enough.  This just creates the cause for us to do less.  We need to accept our weaknesses as weakness – accept that is where we are at and happily try to do better.  We need to take the time to rejoice in our own virtue, no matter how small.  Doing so creates the cause for us to do more and to enjoy our practice.  This is just karma, it is how things work.

As a general rule, we should rejoice in whatever virtues others do do, and ignore the rest.  Rejoicing in others should be our main practice.  The world we pay attention to is the world we experience.  If we pay attention to others’ faults, we will live in a faulty world; if we pay attention to others’ good qualities, we will live in a pure world.  Whatever we relate to, we draw out.  If we relate to people’s faults, we will draw them out; and if we relate to their good qualities, we will draw them out instead.  Seen in this way, rejoicing is a real act of love and compassion.

Rejoicing creates the cause to acquire whatever good quality we are rejoicing in.  Criticizing creates the causes to acquire the faults that we criticize.  Rejoicing is the root of the Mahayana path.  Enlightenment depends upon bodhichitta, which depends upon compassion, which depends upon cherishing others, which depends upon finding others precious, which depends upon rejoicing in their good qualities.

We all love a good deal.  A good deal is something that has a good relationship between the quality of the good and what we have to pay for it.  Every Dharma practice has different benefits, and different costs in terms of how hard it is to practice.  It seems to me, of all the practices of Dharma, none bring so great of benefits for such an easy to do practice as rejoicing. Surely, bodhichitta and the meditation on the union of bliss and emptiness bring the greatest benefits of all, but such minds are incredibly hard to generate, and only arise superficially after many decades (if not lifetimes) of practice.  But rejoicing is easy from day one.  It is a naturally happy mind and it is easy to do.  It is just a question of what we pay attention to in others.  We can choose to pay attention to their qualities or we can choose to pay attention to their faults.  Simple choice, simple practice, limitless benefits.  I would say the entire Mahayana flows naturally, like dominos, from the mental habit of rejoicing.  Do this, and the rest will naturally follow.

CHAPTER 3:  Generating Engaging Bodhichitta

Now Shantideva describes the remaining limbs: rejoicing, requesting, beseeching, dedicating, as well as the practice of giving. First we turn to rejoicing.

(3.1) With great gladness I rejoice
In the virtues that protect living beings
From the sufferings of the lower realms
And lead all those who suffer to fortunate realms.

(3.2) I rejoice in the accumulation of virtue
That releases living beings from samsaric rebirth
And leads them to the state of nirvana –
The supreme, permanent inner peace.

One of the most important methods for attaining good qualities for ourselves is the practice of rejoicing.  Every time we rejoice in virtue, we create strong causes to possess that virtue in the future in abundance.  This happens on two levels, first the mental action of rejoicing itself is virtuous and creates for ourselves a similitude of the virtue we are rejoicing in.  For example, when we see an ordained person working hard to maintain their ordination vows in this modern world filled with temptations, we create for ourselves karma similar to if we were ordained ourselves.  Why would we want this?  It is not hard to imagine how wonderful it would be to be a child of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton or George Bush Sr.  Belonging to such a family brings tremendous benefits.

The uncommon characteristic of family is it is the people we would be willing to do anything to help, and we stick together no matter what.  The ordained belong to the close family of Je Tsongkhapa.  They are his close spiritual children, and by virtue of his close karmic relationship with his children, they receive special blessings, virtue and protection.  When ordinary beings engage in the practice of moral discipline it creates the cause for a higher rebirth.  When spiritual beings engage in the practice of moral discipline it creates the causes for a precious human life in which we find the Dharma.  When an ordained spiritual being engages in the practice of moral discipline it creates the causes for them to be reborn into Je Tsongkhapa’s Kadampa family with deep faith and a desire to practice.  The uninterrupted continuum of their spiritual practice is ensured, and with it their eventual enlightenment.  We should all want this, regardless of whether we are lay or ordained.

The second way in which rejoicing bestows upon us great virtue is in the mind of rejoicing there is present very strong admiring faith that welcomes the virtue into our own mind.  We all are reluctant to invite our enemies into our home, but we gladly welcome our friends and family.  Faith, quite simply, is a mind that welcomes virtue into our hearts.   Sometimes we fear virtue, thinking it will make us unhappy because we have to deprive ourselves of all those things we enjoy, but such a thought is born of profound ignorance.  Virtues only function is to bring happiness.  Faith sees this and welcomes it wholeheartedly.  If we are to make authentic progress we must rejoice in the spiritual paths of others.  We need to learn to see such qualities in others and rejoice in others’ spiritual paths.  Try to see those qualities in other people.  When we do this, we naturally start to emulate their view and actions.  We start to act in similarly wholesome ways.  Wholesomeness is a unique form of spiritual beauty, but one that only appeals to a pure heart.  Sometimes we mistakenly think wholesomeness means we all need to become socially uptight people who judge everyone else’s morals.  Not at all.  Genuine wholesomeness is a mind that lacks nothing – it is whole – and so it overflows with kindness and generosity.  It judges nobody and welcomes all.  Because it seeks nothing, everyone naturally trusts it and admires it.  Without saying a word, it naturally inspires others to become better people and it heals the sorrows of this world.

We should especially rejoice in those areas where we have difficulty ourselves in certain aspects of our training.  The best method really to improve ourselves is by rejoicing.  If we have difficulty training in concentration, meditation, then we must rejoice when we become aware of others who are good at meditating.  We have to watch out for the mind that says, “they may look like they’re meditating, but …”  There’s a mind that always tries to get in and spoil our rejoicing.  It always yes, “yes, but…”  Why do we want to think like that?  Why do we allow ourselves to?  If we can’t understand Dharma, maybe subtle subjects, then we must rejoice in those who are able to understand Dharma — subtle subjects, clearly, quickly.

We sometimes ask ourselves “is there a danger if I’m looking to someone as an example that I’ll be let down if that person suddenly disappears?”  Never any danger in looking at a person’s example, spotting good qualities, and rejoicing.  We need to take every single person who leaves the Dharma and learn from their mistake.  Perhaps they are a Buddha showing you a potential pitfall in your mind so that you can avoid it.  Venerable Tharchin says we must take our primary refuge in the Dharma, not the person.  If we take primary refuge in the person and they do something stupid, we can lose everything.  If we take primary refuge in the Dharma and the person does something stupid, we receive a Dharma teaching.  Then we are protected regardless of what they do.

(2.63) Whatever I have done
Out of unknowing and confusion –
Be it a natural non-virtue
Or a transgression –

(2.64) With my palms pressed together
And my mind fearful of suffering,
Prostrating myself again and again,
I confess them all before the Protectors.

(2.65) I request all the holy beings
To free me from all my evils and faults;
And since these bring only harmful results,
In future I will not commit them again.

Shantideva concludes his chapter on purification with a prayer we can memorize and recite at any time we wish to engage in purification.  Sometimes people struggle with recollecting the meaning as they recite Sanskrit mantras, other times we can’t begin prostrating to the 35 Confession Buddhas during a meeting in the conference room at our work.  But there is never a time we can’t recite these verses as a prayer of purification.  In my view, they capture perfectly the essentials of purification practice.  It is advisable to memorize all of Shantideva’s Guide, but at a minimum we can select specific verses that speak to us and memorize them.  These three verses certainly stand out as worthy of memorization.

This is Shantideva’s conclusion: “since these bring only harmful results, In future I will not commit them again.”  We must cease engaging in any harmful actions arising from attachment, aversion, ignorance. If we feel like Shantideva that we need to stop, we will stop.

When we make a promise, we do so because we genuinely “want” to stop (not “should”). We think, “I feel like stopping.”  Then our promise has real power.  This only happens when we make a direct and irrefutable connection between our negative actions and our suffering.  As long as we are not convinced of the relationship between the two, our promises to stop our negativity will lack power.  We do not struggle to make promises to never drink poison again, so why should we struggle to make a promise to not engage in negative actions again?  It can happen that poison does not harm us, but our negative karma always will.

It is vital that we no longer want to engage in negativity.  Because we are desire realm beings, we have no choice but to do what we desire.  If in our heart we still want to engage in negativity, such as taking intoxicants, engaging in sexual misconduct, cheating on our taxes or expense reimbursements, etc., but out of some feeling of obligation or attachment to reputation we refrain from doing so, all we will really do is repress our deluded tendencies.  They will eventually grow in power until we “crack” and like a bulimic, binge on our negative habits.  If we change what we actually want, then there is no danger of this.  Our promises are the nature of wisdom knowing actions and their effects.  If we gain this wisdom, we will promise because we want to.  Later, when our delusions remanifest, we can remind ourselves of the wisdom that took us to the conclusion to refrain from negativity.  After we have done this a few hundred times, we will begin to change, not because we “should” do so, but because we “want to.”

It is important that we have promises.  When we do make a promise, it is important to focus on some specific behavior.  We need to take the time to honestly examine our own behavior, admit where we are making karmic mistakes, contemplate deeply the consequences of our wrong choices, and then make specific promises to refrain from such behavior again knowing what awaits us if we don’t.  Generalized promises of “I won’t do anything wrong ever again” are so vague they lack sufficient concreteness to change our behavior.

We should likewise feel we are actually making promises to holy beings that we will stop.  Sometimes people post on Facebook for the world to see New Year’s Resolutions because doing so in front of others makes it more real.  In the same way, when we make our promises we should feel like we are actually going before Geshe-la and making an actual commitment (offering) that we will change.  This makes it more real and powerful in bringing about real change.  If we were to make an actual promise in front of Geshe-la, we would certainly keep our word.  This is how we should feel when we make promises in the context of our purification practice.

Sometimes in dependence upon such a promise, especially when we ask for help, results come quickly.  We quickly turn around a behavior that we have had for a very long time and we never turn back.  All it takes is the decision from our own side to do it and to let go of trying to do both stop and not stop.

We very often overlook the power of the promise, but this is in many ways the most important. The power of the promise purifies the tendencies similar to the cause to repeat our bad actions.

Every time we resist the direction of our delusions, in other words keep our promise, we create the cause for an upper rebirth.  So this reframes the choice:  the choice is not between having something we want or depriving ourselves of that thing; rather it is a choice between an upper rebirth vs. lower rebirth.  The reason why we have a precious human life now is because in the past we resisted the grain of our delusions.

Finally, when we make promises we need to make mini-promises and train gradually.  If we make too big of promises and break them, then decrease confidence and capacity and it gets worse.  If make too small of promises, it doesn’t do anything.  If we make promises which push us slightly, and we keep them, then our confidence and capacity increase and we can gradually abandon all negative actions.

This concludes the second chapter of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, entitled “Purifying Negativity”.

(2.62) “How can I definitely be freed
From non-virtue, the source of all suffering?”
Throughout the day and the night,
I should think only about this.

We need to be just like this, completely obsessed with ridding our mind of its non-virtue.  Instead, we are usually obsessed with engaging in it.  We have karmic time bombs within our mind that can go off at any point in time, and we don’t know when.  We have right now on our mind the karma to experience every misfortune we see in the world, from poverty, disease, violence, rape, war, public humiliation, loss of position, etc.  At a very profound level, we can say every misfortune we see in the world is a warning from our Dharma protector of what awaits us if we do not purify.  The red lights are flashing, and we remain oblivious.

Very often we fear purification more than we fear not purifying.  This is totally mistaken.  It is true, when we engage in purification it can happen that it seems like the amount of misfortune we experience in our life actually increases.  Why is this?  It is not different from when people engage in detoxification practices to try remove defilements from their body.  Sickness, acne, rashes, etc., often occur.  But we gladly accept such things knowing we are expelling contaminants from our body.  In exactly the same way, when we engage in purification of our negative karma, it can happen that karmic residuals are kicked up, but we should gladly accept such things knowing we are expelling such karma from our mind.  Geshe-la explains in Great Treasury of Merit that when we engage in purification, sometimes our purification practice does not remove the totality of the negative seed, and a residual ripens.  He says we should happily accept this knowing we just avoiding a karmic future far, far worse.

Every moment of every day and every night our urgent priority should be to purify.  When we suddenly find ourselves in financial difficulty, we make it an urgent priority to find a solution to our problem because we know if we don’t, our circumstances can become much worse very quickly.  In the same way, if we don’t make purification of our negative karma our top priority, it is just a question of time before it catches up to us and ruins everything else we have worked for hard for.  When our relationships with those close to us are troubled in some way, we know we can’t do anything else with them until we have put things back on good footing.  In the same way, we have a fundamental relationship problem between our past and present self; and our present and future selves.  Our past self has left us a legacy of karmic debts, and if our present self doesn’t pay them off our future self is doomed to an eternity of misery.  Our ordinary debts are absolved by our creditors at the time of our death, but our karmic debts enjoy no such forgiveness – we carry them with us into the future until we either purify or the debt is paid with suffering.

We should start with what is most difficult for us, such as certain deluded tendencies similar to the cause, such as strong attachment or anger or non-faith.  We each have a delusion that creates for us the most difficulty.  For some it is frustration and anger at the endless cascade of troubles we experience in life; for others it is addictive attachment to harmful substances; for others it is paralyzing laziness.  If we don’t overcome these deluded habits, they will haunt and torment us forever.  Delusions are negative karmic habits of mind.  Normally we battle our deluded tendencies, but it is far simpler to purify them with sincere purification practice.  The primary force of purification is the power of regret – we see how this negative karma creates problems for us, and we wish to once and for all be free from it.  Driven by this wish, we engage in purification.  Oftentimes, though, we have more faith in our negative karma than our ability to purify it.  The methods for purification are not difficult, and they work.  Doubting their effectiveness undermines their power; believing in their effectiveness is their power.

We should never miss an opportunity to engage in purification.  As we clean, we should imagine that we are purifying this negative karma from our mind.  As we bathe or brush our teeth or even go the bathroom, we should imagine we are removing negative karma from our mind.  As we experience difficulties, we should imagine that through this we are burning off all of these deluded tendencies similar to the cause.  Since samsara is the nature of suffering, every moment is, in fact, an opportunity to purify.

There is a particularly pure spiritual practitioner I know named Taro who, in the past at least, was in a psychiatric hospital for more than a decade.  He would sometimes have really awful days where the delusions were really strong and just torturing him and it was all he could do to not get swept away by them.

He once told me the following story:  “This morning was a total thrashing for me, really, really difficult – as hard as it has been.  I thought, ‘I can’t take it any more.’  Then it suddenly stopped, I relaxed a bit and then I heard a voice say, ‘But I love you’ and he felt this huge wave of love from Dorje Shugden.  He understood that Dorje Shugden was having him go through all of this out of love so that he can once and for all break free from all suffering.  It was all a real act of love.  I then thought, ‘I am in the martial arts temple of Dorje Shugden where he is forging me into a spiritual warrior, so what do I possibly have to fear?  This is all part of my training.”

For me, this is an absolutely fantastic example for us.  It helps us understand what is going on when we have difficulties and it shows us how we should take them.  Instead of clamoring after pleasant experiences, we learn instead to embrace the horrible.  If we can do that, then we can be happy all of the time.

(2.60) What remains with me now from the pleasant experiences
Of my previous lives that have now ceased?
And yet, because of my strong attachment to worldly pleasures,
I have gone against the advice of my Spiritual Guide.

In our countless previous lives, we have enjoyed numerous times every enjoyment samsara has to offer.  But what do we have to show for it?  We can’t even nostalgically remember them.  In this life, we are constantly chasing after the next high, only for it to be shorter and less intense than the last one.  Eventually, we reach the point where nothing does it for us anymore.

Instead of changing strategy, we simply change the external objects we chase.  But each time we do, the result is always the same.  There is no reason to assume it will ever be any different.  Despite this, we keep thinking, “next time will be different” and we chase the rainbow once again.

Our Spiritual Guide has been pretty clear:  chasing after our attachments just makes us more miserable.  We all know the reasons why, and have received many teachings on the subject.  Yet we still continue running after our objects of attachment, engage in all sorts of non-virtue for their sake, and generally waste our precious human life.  After death, it will be too late.  We have our chance now to change course.  If we don’t, we will regret it.

(2.61) If, when I depart from this life
And from my friends and relatives,
I must wander all alone,
Why commit non-virtue for the sake of friends and enemies?

Sometimes when we feel inspired after a teaching we go in the right direction, but then we stop.  Why do we allow ourselves to remain attached to the pleasures of samsara? That attachment is the source, directly or indirectly, of all our suffering.  We need to ask ourselves why we don’t follow the advice of the Spiritual Guide.

Through his immense kindness he is strongly wishing us to swallow the medicine of Dharma?  Do we trust his intention?  We know if we’re following that advice perfectly or not.  We all have areas of our life where there is some instruction we have been given and we are not following it.  We need to ask why and come to a definite decision.  We sometimes pretend in front of others that we are putting the instructions into practice so that they think good about us.  But who are we kidding? Ourselves, our Spiritual guide, everybody, or in fact nobody.  We need to ask ourselves why we do this?