(1.4) This precious human life, so hard to find,
Offers the ultimate goal for living beings.
If we do not strive to accomplish this goal now,
How will such a precious opportunity arise again?

(1.5) Just as on a dark and cloudy night
A flash of lightning for a moment illuminates all,
So for the worldly, through the power of Buddha’s blessings,
A virtuous intention occasionally and briefly occurs.

We have worked very hard to get this opportunity.  All we need do is look and see how hard it is for us to engage in virtue to realize that this is true.  Right now, it takes tremendous effort for us to do the right thing.  All of our natural tendencies are towards engaging in negativity and squandering the spiritual opportunities we have.  When we do manage to engage in some virtue, it is often feeble at best.  What’s worse is we quite often will “reward ourselves” for having engaged in some virtue by allowing ourselves to indulge in some samsaric pleasure.  What little virtue then remains, we usually forget to sincerely dedicate.  Mentally or verbally reciting some words of a dedication prayer with a distracted mind eager to finish our meditation and get on with our day is not actual dedication.  For dedication to work, we must genuinely feel like we have invested our virtue and given it away.  We rarely do that, and as a result when we subsequently get angry at life’s minor annoyances, what remaining virtue we had gets burned up.  So how much virtue actually remains?  Basically none.

Then, we should consider just how much virtue it takes to have the spiritual opportunity we have before us.  Just to be born human, we need to have engaged in extensive practices of moral discipline and generosity.  It is said it is easier to attain enlightenment once born human than it is be born human after having fallen into the lower realms.  To live in a country where pure Dharma instructions are available and we are free to practice, we need to have protected the rights of others to practice when they faced persecution (fighting for the religious freedom of others creates the causes to have religious freedom ourselves).  To encounter the spiritual path in a free country, we need to have made the spiritual path available and accessible to others.  To encounter a correct spiritual path, we need to have given correct Dharma teachings to others.  To have an interest in practicing that path when we meet it, we need to have practiced it purely and sincerely in the past.  To encounter the Mahayana path is rarer than finding the Hinayana path, and to encounter the Tantric path is rarer than finding the Mahayana path.  Using the analogy of the blind turtle explained in the Lamrim, I did the math once and found that a human life such as our own happens only once in every 550 trillion lifetimes!

And it is not enough to just find such a path, we have to sustain our interest in it over a long period of time.  Due to bad habits, we all relate to Dharma teachings like we do samsaric objects, believing that the instructions have some power to do something to us, as opposed to ourselves needing to do something with them.  We quickly lose interest in the path and wander on to the next thing.  So not only do we have to have enough good karma to find the path, we need multiple sets of that karma to help us survive our early years full of mistakes in the Dharma before we figure out how to practice the path correctly and make our practice self-sustaining.  How many people do we know who have found the Dharma, stuck around for a few years and then wandered off?  Thousands.  There are FAR more people who have come into the tradition and left than those who have come and stayed.  Yet we are still here.  It is not too late for us.  But if we don’t seize the opportunity we have before us, it is just a question of time before we too lose the path.

I personally am of the view that this one precious human life we find before us is the culmination of our spiritual destiny.  We have been saving up our karmic pennies for aeons and we have cashed them all in for this one opportunity.  If we don’t use it to the fullest, we will end this life having depleted our karmic savings and once again be plunged into spiritual darkness within the slaughterhouse of samsara for countless aeons before we have another similar opportunity.  Venerable Tharchin says if we don’t take full advantage of the spiritual opportunities we have, we burn up the karmic causes which created it and will never find it again.  If instead, we take full advantage of it, then we create the causes for it to continue and for our opportunities to get better and better.  While we are still motivated to practice the Dharma, it is vital that we contemplate this deeply.  I know far too many people who have lost their spiritual life.  It happens all the time, and it will happen to us if we are not careful.

From the perspective of karma, the worst possible life a living being can have is a wasted precious human life.  If we had a normal human life with no spiritual possibilities and we lost that life, we would consider it a great loss.  All life is precious.  But really, our loss would be quite small.  We weren’t accomplishing anything meaningful with our life anyways, and the world would scantly notice our passing.  In contrast, think of the passing of the truly great beings who have walked this earth, such as Buddha Shakyamuni, Jesus, Mohammed, Ghandi and quite recently Thich Nhat Hanh.  Their passing represents a tragic loss, and the whole world mourns.  I, however, would say it is even a greater loss when an ignorant being like you or I loses their spiritual life.  Why?  When the great beings pass away, they come back in different forms.  They remain with us forever, guiding us all to freedom.  So actually, they never leave and we lose nothing.  But somebody who had the spiritual opportunity to become a great being like these masters who then lost that opportunity represents a true spiritual catastrophe which takes aeons to recover from.  All the beings who this person could have otherwise helped if they had become a holy being themselves are then forced to languish in samsara for incalculably long periods of time until this person once again re-finds their spiritual path.

(1.2) There is nothing written here that has not been explained before,
And I have no special skills in composition.
My reason for writing this is to benefit others
And to keep my mind acquainted.

(1.3) Thus, the strength of my faith and my virtuous realizations
Might for a while be increased by this,
And perhaps others who are as fortunate as I
Might also find this meaningful to behold.

Shantideva is very clear that nothing he is saying is new, rather he is just saying once again what has already been taught.  By saying this, Shantideva shows that everything he says has lineage.  Anybody can come up with a new theory or new ideas, but only a few in this world have been able to present timeless wisdom.  In Buddhism, the essential meaning of the teachings remains the same, only the presentation changes.  We pass on what Buddha taught not what we think for the simple reason that he is enlightened and we are not.

Likewise, his saying this forces us to challenge our own attachment to hearing something new.  When Geshe-la publishes a new book, we usually focus our attention on what is “new.”  When he reproduces chapters found in other books, we tend to skip over the quickly thinking we have already heard that.  We relate to Dharma teachings like we do any samsaric object, namely always looking for the newest and latest instruction.  When we hear the same instructions over again, we feel like they have gone stale.  It is true, the instruction may be the same, but it will only feel stale if it is our own mind that has not changed since the last time we heard the instruction.  If when we hear an instruction we immediately put it into practice, our mind will change.  As a result, when we next hear the same instruction, even though the instruction will be the same, we will hear something different.  Because our mind has changed, we will discover a new deeper truth to what is being taught.  In this way, the instructions can seem fresh even if we have already heard them over 100 times.  The chapter on Ultimate Bodhichitta from Eight Steps to Happiness has been reproduced in several different books.  Geshe-la once said of this chapter that we should meditate for an hour on each sentence in it, and then repeat that process 100 times for the entire chapter.  One day, I hope to do exactly that.  In the meantime, I will try check my mind for attachment to new instructions.

As was discussed in the introduction to this series, when I first read this and its corresponding commentary in Meaningful to Behold, I took it to be the false humility it seemed to me that Buddhist masters sometimes show.  In reality, they are these high lamas, but they just say, “I am nothing but a humble monk, bumbling my way through.”  But actually, now, I think like everything else in the Guide we should take Shantideva at his word.  When he wrote the Guide, he did so to clarify his own thoughts and to provide himself with an opportunity to acquaint his mind with virtue.  If other people reading it also receive benefit, then all the better.  In fact, I would say it is because he had no attachment whatsoever to others receiving benefit from what he said and he has no need to change other people because he accepts them all as they are that his words function to provide benefit and induce change.

When reading the Guide, we should understand this is Shantideva talking to himself.  Sometimes when people read his Guide, they feel attacked by Shantideva and they reject what he has to say as a result.  Instead, we should understand that Shantideva is simply showing us how he talks to his own delusions and to himself.  He is attacking them, not us.  Further, he is revealing to us the attitude we ourselves should take vis-à-vis our own delusions.  Geshe-la says in Eight Steps to Happiness that when we make a clear distinction between ourselves and our delusions, we can simultaneously be utterly ruthless with our delusions while being kind and gentle with ourselves.  Shantideva shows us how to do this.  Our own inner discourse can come to resemble his.

I think these two verses reveal not only the voice of the Guide, but they also indicate how we should approach things like writing blogs or giving Dharma teachings.  It is very easy when writing a blog or when giving Dharma teachings to become attached to others receiving benefit from our teachings or even to receiving praise about how wonderful our explanations are.  Such attitudes completely destroy any benefit from our efforts, both for ourself and for others.  If we approach giving Dharma with such an attitude, people will naturally sense that this is our motivation.  As a result, they won’t see our explanations as sincere and they will reject them.  Further, if we are trying to change others with our explanations, people will naturally sense that too and they will begin to resist the change we are trying to bring about.  Far from helping them, we will actually make their situation worse because now they are rejecting the Dharma.

If instead we approach things as Shantideva does, namely we are writing to clarify our own thinking and to give ourselves an opportunity to acquaint our own mind with Dharma, then we will have complete equanimity whether others like our explanations or not.  Of course we want others to receive benefit, but we don’t need them to in any way.  Because we are not trying to change others, people feel no need to resist what we have to say.  A Bodhisattva accepts everybody exactly as they are without judgment.  As a result, when they share Dharma nobody feels attacked or manipulated by the explanations.  This enables them to accept what we have to say.

Quite often, after we have been practicing or teaching Dharma for some time, we can become very arrogant thinking we know all the answers or we become very judgmental about other people and the choices they make.  Even if we say nothing, others sense our disapproval and feel judged.  If the other person goes along with what we would want them to do in order to avoid feeling judged, they might externally seem to be practicing Dharma but in reality they are just avoiding our condemnation.  For Dharma to work, it has to be practiced from our own side and for our own internal reasons, not from the outside in an effort to avoid judgment.  Instead, if we adopt Shantideva’s approach of remaining humble and not presuming to impose what we are saying on others, then people will naturally be open to what we have to say and might receive some benefit.

Shantideva begins:

Homage to the enlightened Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

(1.1) I prostrate to the enlightened Buddhas endowed with the Truth Body,
And to the Bodhisattvas and all other objects of prostration.
I will explain briefly, in accordance with the Scriptures,
How to engage in the condensed practices of the Bodhisattva.

Prostrating, quite simply, functions to ripen within our own mental continuum the qualities we are prostrating to.  To prostrate means to request that all the obstacles that prevent us from acquiring these good qualities ourself be removed.  It likewise is a request that all these good qualities we are prostrating to are bestowed upon us.

In essence, prostration is the actualization of our faith.  If we have faith, what we do is we prostrate.  By prostrating we develop within ourself the qualities we prostrate to.  From this perspective, we can view the entire path of Tantra as – in effect – a giant practice of prostration.  There are four main types of faith, blind faith, believing faith, admiring faith and wishing faith.  Blind faith is faith without a valid reason.  Normally we say blind faith is rejected in Buddhism, but that is not entirely true.  Certainly blind faith is not enough, but it can be a stepping stone to higher forms of faith if we are lucky enough to have our objects of blind faith be reliable.  For example, those who have practiced it know that the Kadam Dharma of Lamrim, Lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra are perfectly reliable.  Anybody who practices them sincerely will enjoy the results of Dharma practice.  If somebody doesn’t know this to be true, but nonetheless develops blind faith in the Kadam Dharma, they can get started on their path, gain some initial experience of its truth, and then these experiences provide them with “valid reasons” upon which they can build higher forms of faith.  But it is also possible that we could develop blind faith in incorrect teachings and be led astray.  For this reason, we generally say blind faith is unstable, possibly dangerous and certainly not good enough.

The second type of faith is believing faith.  Believing faith is faith based on a valid reason.  Valid reasons generally are either logical reasons, believing the words of somebody such as a spiritual guide who we know to be reliable, seeing examples in the world or personal experience of the truth of the instructions.  These reasons enable us to believe some aspect of Dharma.  Believing faith is distinct from wisdom in that wisdom knows its object to be true, whereas believing faith believes it to be true but doesn’t know for sure.  In the context of Shantideva’s Guide we can believe that it presents a flawless explanation for how to enter, progress along and complete the Bodhisattva’s path.

In dependence upon believing faith, we then develop admiring faith.  Admiring faith admires the good qualities we believe in.  If we did not believe the good qualities were true, we couldn’t admire them, but if we do believe them to be true, we cannot help but admire them.  The qualities of a bodhisattva and a Buddha are truly extraordinary, and the Guide presents to us how to acquire these qualities for ourself.  It is as if we have found a book of magical spells that function to transform us into a holy being.  This Guide is beyond priceless.  If we truly understood its value, we would gladly offer everything we had in exchange for receiving it.

In dependence upon admiring faith, we naturally develop wishing faith.  Wishing faith is a mind that wishes to attain ourselves the good qualities we admire.  It is not enough to simply admire the good qualities of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, we need to develop these qualities ourselves.  Only then can we enjoy eternal happiness and be in a position to help others.  Wishing faith is a pure spiritual desire.  Desire is not a problem if what we desire is good.  Attachment is uncontrolled desire for those things which ultimately harm and deceive us.  Wishing faith is controlled, pure desire for those things which ultimately help and free us.  We want to develop all-consuming desire for spiritual attainments.  Such desire will never deceive us.

Having a wish to develop these good qualities ourself, we then prostrate.  We humbly recognize that we ourselves do not possess such qualities, and we quite literally throw ourselves at the feet of those who do requesting them to take us into their care, to remove all of the obstacles that prevent us from acquiring these good qualities, to guide us on how to develop these qualities for ourself and to ultimately bestow them upon us through their blessings.

Modern people sometimes really struggle with the idea of throwing ourselves at the feet of somebody else, especially some spiritual master.  The reason for this is two-fold:  first, we are incredibly arrogant thinking we know it all and insecure about admitting we have something to learn.  Second, we live in degenerate times when there are many charlatans out there who pretend to be some great spiritual master, but are actually nothing more than megalomaniac cult leaders.  But we need not have such fear with Shantideva.  He is universally revered, and all those who have put his instructions into practice attest to his reliability.  He will likewise shatter our arrogance and complacency.  Shantideva at times can be quite wrathful, but we need this.  Samsara will not coddle us, so it is actually a disservice to us to be treated with kid’s gloves.  Shantideva tells it like it is.  Sometimes, this can make us very uncomfortable, but we need this.  More than our life is at stake.  All of our future lives and all of the future lives of all we love are at stake.

Shantideva begins his Guide by prostrating to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.  We should begin our contemplation of his Guide by prostrating to him.  Essentially, Shantideva took all of Buddha’s instructions and organized them in a special presentation for Bodhisattvas.  So the origin of these instructions is Buddha, which means they are totally reliable.  These instructions are all we need to know about being a bodhisattva.  Nothing is missing, so we don’t need to look elsewhere.  We have all we need.  Our job now is to gain deep experience.

When Shantideva’s Guide was studied at the International Teacher Training Program, Geshe-la gave some special advice for how to get the most out of our study.  Before we get to this advice, I want to first provide some basic background on the nature of our samsaric existence.

The real source of all our problems is we are trapped in contaminated aggregates.  We have human problems because we are trapped in human aggregates.  We identify with a human body and we can’t stop doing so.  So when our body experiences pain or our mind experiences delusions, “we” experiece pain and “we” have delusions.  Samsara is the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth into contaminated aggregates.  If we identified with the pure aggregates of a Buddha, we wouldn’t have samsaric problems, but experience only bliss.  The same is true of everyone else.  A Bodhisattva is somebody who understands that the root cause of everyone’s problems is their identification with contaminated aggregates, so they learn how to identify with a Buddha’s aggregates to be able to help everybody else do the same.

So what makes our aggregates “contaminated?”  Our delusions.  In particular, self-cherishing and self-grasping ignorance are the two root delusions from which all other delusions arise.  Self-grasping ignorance thinks that we exist inherently, independently; and self-cherishing then cherishes this I as supremely important.  In reality, the “I” of self-grasping ignorance doesn’t exist, so the object of of our self-cherishing doesn’t exist at all.  Understanding this, it is quite silly to think our “I” is supremely important.  Self-grasping ignorance and self-chershing are like the generators of the uncontrolled nightmare of samsara.  They project uncontrolledly contaminated appearances which we then assent to as true.  From these two delusions arise all our other delusions of attachment, aversion, jealousy, etc.  Shantideva’s Guide takes these two delusions as the primary targets to be destroyed.  If we destroy these, we pull the plug on all our other delusions.

With this background in mind, what was Geshe-la’s special advice for studying this book?

“You should mainly try to concentrate on, understand the meaning of the text Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Through contemplating, try to find a very meaningful practice and keep it in your heart.  … This text is a real emanation. When I escaped Tibet I took only Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, texts by Je Tsongkhapa, and some money.  My first teaching in England was on Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Kadampa teachings are mainly training the mind. Training the mind comes from Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  Never waste this good opportunity. Wonderful that you’re memorizing.  When I was at Sera I made my own determination to memorize it.”

There are a few points I want to highlight about this advice.  First, Geshe-la says we need to understand the meaning and then put it into practice in our heart.  The meaning of this was discussed extensively in the last post.  Second, this text is a real emanation.  We should view Shantideva’s Guide as like a magical telephone through which we can communicate directly with the Spiritual Guide.  We can meditate on the verses requesting that their meaning be revealed to us.  Everytime we do so, we will discover a new layer of meaning.  Third, we should not waste this good opportunity.  We very often take for granted that we have found the Dharma in this life, but we don’t understand how many causes we had to create to have this opportunity.  If we don’t use this opportunity to the fullest, we will burn up the karma that created it and never get it again.  Finally, he advises us that it is useful to memorize the verses.  We don’t do this for memory’s sake, but rather because it is a powerful way of internalizing deeply the verses into our mind.  Essentially, by memorizing the verses, we plant patterns, like a kalideoscope, on our very subtle mind which then reflect up pure spiritual meanings.   In short, whatever we mix our mind with, we will become.  If we mix our mind with the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, we will become a Bodhisattva, and eventually even a Buddha.

The main point of studying Shantideva’s Guide is we need to change our way of life with the instructions.  Our intention determines what kind of life we have.  A selfish, worldly intention will cause us to have a worldly way of life, and a bodhichitta intention will enable us to have a Bodhisattva’s way of life.  As was said earlier, we have arrived at the crossroads and we need to decide what kind of life we are going to have.

The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is divided into ten chapters.  The first three chapters prepare us to take the bodhisattva vows.  The first chapter, the benefits of Bodhichitta, helps us develop a strong desire to generate bodhichitta and begin the Bodhisattva’s path.  The second chapter on purification helps us purify all of the negative karma obstructing us from travelling this path, and then the third chapter explains taking the Bodhisattva’s vows.  The next two chapters, chapters four and five, primarily explain the specific mental qualities we need to actually train in the Bodhisattva’s path, namely the minds of conscientiousness and alertness. These chapters primarily explain the practice of the perfection of moral discipline.  The following four chapters explain in turn the practices of the perfection of patience, effort, concentration and wisdom.  Finally, the last chapter directly is a dedication for the guide, but indirectly it teaches us the practice of the perfection of giving.  In this way, Shantideva explains how we enter the Bodhisattva path by first aspiring to become a Bodhisattva and then making the formal decision to travel the path.  He then explains how we actually engage in the Bodhisattva’s path by training in the six perfections.

The Guide begins with an explanation of the benefits of bodhichitta.  If we do not want bodhichitta, we will not put in the effort necessarily to cultivate it.  Since such an exalted mind will never arise on its own, if we don’t consider the benefits of bodhichitta we will never start the Bodhisattva’s path.  It is said that we are desire realm beings, meaning we have no choice but to work towards whatever we desire.  If we desire samsaric pleasures, this is what we will direct our efforts at attaining.  If we want bodhichitta, we will work to attain it.

In reality, the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is the Lamrim for Bodhisattva’s.  Atisha put together all of Buddha’s instructions in a special presentation called the Lamrim.  Shantideva did the same thing for Bodhisattva’s.  By practicing the instructions in his guide, we are directly or indirectly practicing everything.

When Geshe-la first came to the West, he had only a few books in hand, the most prominent of which was Shantideva’s Guide and Chandrakirti’s Guide to the Middle Way.  Shantideva’s Guide was the first book that Geshe-la systematically taught.  In particular, Eight Steps to Happiness, Universal Compassion, the Bodhisattva Vows and of course Meaningful to Behold all emerge, directly or indirectly, from Shantideva’s Guide.  Meaningful to Behold is considered the final book in the Foundation Program sequence, essentially wrapping up into a final package how all of the Foundation Program instructions are to be practiced.  It is, in effect, the very synthesis of Foundation Program.

There is a huge difference between taking Dharma at an intellectual level and putting it into practice.  Taking Dharma purely at an intellectual level will change the way we think, putting it into practice changes the way we act with our body, speech and mind.   In other words, we need to learn how to allow ourselves and our actions be influenced by the instructions so that we change.  In reading about and studying the instructions our main focus should be, “what does this mean in terms of how my actions should change?” “How do I need to change my actions in response to these instructions?”  If we take Dharma at a purely intellectual level, it is just Dharma chess and not very useful.  Shantideva says there are many Buddhist scholars in hell.

The definitive meaning of instructions is found in our personal experience of them.  Normally people fall into one of two extremes:  either a scholar or a practitioner.  A scholar takes things too intellectually and a practitioner often fails to grasp the inter-connections between the different practices.  The ideal we strive for in our tradition is to be like Je Tsongkhapa, who was a scholar-practitioner.

In broad terms, every Dharma instruction has three layers of meaning.  There is the instruction itself, namely the meaning we can derive from looking at the instruction in a vacuum, all by itself.  As Geshe Chekawa says, the instructions are “like a diamond, like the sun and like a medicinal tree,” meaning that even a small fragment of them has incredible value.  The second layer of meaning is viewing the instruction within its context, namely seeing the instruction within the context of the overall system of instructions.  This is primary understood when we realize an individual instruction within the context of a special presentation of all of the instructions, such as that found within the Lamrim or as found in Shantideva’s Guide.  When we have attained this level of meaning of the instructions, then our direct study of any one instruction indirectly reinforces our experience and understanding of every other instruction.  At this point, the Lamrim ceases to feel like 21 different practices, and instead comes to feel like one practice with 21 parts.  The third and final layer of meaning is that discovered through personal experience of the truth of the instruction.  Here our understanding arises from our practice of the instruction.  This is the final, definitive meaning of the instruction we are after.  When we have personal experience of the instructions we effortlessly understand the intellectual levels at a very deep level, and things make sense.

We hear in Dharma all the time, “we need to put the instructions into practice.”  What exactly does it mean to put the instructions into practice?  It means to use them as the solution to our problems.  The point of departure where one becomes a spiritual practitioner is a redefinition of the problem.  There are two problems in every situation:  the external one and the internal one.  Geshe-la gives the example of our car breaking down.  The outer problem is the car doesn’t work any more.  Dharma can’t help us solve this problem (directly, at least).  Our internal problem – our actual problem – is the deluded mental reaction we have to the outer problem.  This deluded reaction destroys our inner peace and it creates unpleasant feelings within our mind.  Dharma is used to solve that problem.  We then use the instructions to change our mind, and thereby solve our inner problem.

The secret to being able to put the instructions into practice is to adopt the six recognitions of listening explained in the Lamrim, in particular viewing ourselves as a sick person.  Before attending any Dharma teaching or reading any Dharma instructions, we should take a few moments to correctly identify what our inner problem is and how it is creating difficulties for us.  We see ourselves as somebody sick with the disease of delusions.  With this in mind, we then view Shantideva as the supreme spiritual doctor and the instructions he is providing us are our personalized medicine.  In short, we bring our problem to the instructions.

There are several different things we need to consider to make the decision to enter the Bodhisattva’s Path.

First, our lives are as meaningful as the goal towards which we work.  The goals that we are working towards determines what kind of life we have.  There are many different types of goals we can adopt.  Worldly goals are goals aimed at external happiness in this life alone, such as money, a good reputation, power, a pleasant partner, etc.  Spiritual goals are internal goals of spiritual realizations that protect us in this and all our future lives, such as closing the door on the lower realms by purifying all our negative karma and creating no new negative karma; or attaining liberation by overcoming all of our delusions and thereby gaining the ability to choose our next rebirth.  The highest of all goals is to solve all the problems of all living beings for all their lives.  Essentially we make a promise to lead each and every being out of the mentally created prison of samsara.  Someone who works for this goal is a Bodhisattva.  We need to make a conscious decision about what we find to be worthwhile and work towards that goal.  It is not enough to allow the momentum of our life to carry us along. To choose the life of a bodhisattva does not mean you have to abandon your external life, but you do have to completely change the mind with which you do it.  We strive to integrate all of your activities into the accomplishment of our primary objective.

Second, we have worked incredibly hard to give ourselves this opportunity.  Nothing happens without a cause.  It is impossible for us to experience anything if we didn’t create the cause to do so.  We now have everything.  We have a precious human life, we have access to a Dharma center where we can receive teachings, we have a strong interest in accomplishing spiritual goals, we have access to Tantric instructions which enable us to attain enlightenment in one lifetime, and we have the opportunity to engage in a Bodhisattva’s actions through the center.  I did the math once, and an opportunity like this comes around only once ever 550 trillion lifetimes.  We worked exceedingly hard over many lifetimes to get this opportunity.  We accumulated good causes for ourself and they are all ripening as this present opportunity.  In many ways, this present opportunity is our self-created spiritual destiny.  To not seize this opportunity would be like studying for 12 years to become a doctor and then in the last semester dropping out.  Or it is like running our whole life for president and finally getting elected, and then not showing up for work on the first day.  It is actually far worse than that.

Third, if we don’t fully seize this opportunity while we have it, we will lose it forever.  It would be as if all our Dharma karma has ripened in the form of this present opportunity and we have nothing left on our mind.  If we don’t take full advantage of this opportunity, we will burn up the causes which created it and have nothing left on our mind. If instead we fully seize this opportunity we will create the causes for it to continue until eventually we attain the final goal.

Fourth, we each have an inescapable rendez-vous with death.  We are going to die and we don’t know when.  The only thing we can take with us are the imprints we have placed on our mind.  Everything else, we have to leave behind.  If we invest all our energy of this life into external things to be enjoyed in this life, we will arrive at death empty handed and have no protection for our future lives.  Do not allow yourself to arrive at death and realize too late what you could have accomplished spiritually if only you had been motivated enough.

We make this decision when we choose to take the Bodhisattva vows.  Over the next several months of posts, we will work to prepare ourselves to be able to make this decision.  Essentially, the purpose of these next many posts is to lead up to us being able to make this promise to living beings.  We should give ourself this opportunity to really examine this opportunity we have in front of us and make a concsious and informed decision about what we want to do with this life and the rest of eternity.  After the discussion of preparation for the bodhisattva vows, we will then likely spend the next three years explaining how to actually embark on a Bodhisattva’s path and live a Modern Bodhisattva’s way of life.

Before we begin exploring the guide itself, some foundations must first be laid to appreciate its meaning.  The next several posts will provide this foundation.

All of Buddha’s teachings on wisdom come down to one thing:  we are being deceived by our own mind.  The rest is explanations of how we are being deceived.  We think we are awake and that we are free, but in reality we are asleep and imprisoned.  Everything we see around us is the prison of our contaminated mind projected by our self-grasping and self-cherishing.  So complete is this deception that we have no idea that this is the case.  In reality we are dreaming uncontrolledly, and it can quickly turn into a nightmare.  At present, what appears to our mind is rather benign, but we have the karma on our mind for things to turn terribly bad.  And it can happen at any time.  The tsunami of death is coming yet we remain oblivious.

The prison of our ordinary mind need not exist.  We could be abiding in the infinitely wide open freedom and bliss of the Dharmakaya.  A Bodhisattva is somebody who has seen the other side or knows there is a pure world beyond the prison of samsara and has dedicated himself or herself to getting everyone out.  Shantideva has come to wake us up and tell us what we need to do to get out.  More than that, he is presenting us the path for gaining the ability to get everyone else out too.  The question now is what are we going to do?  We have arrived at the fork in the road where we will decide our fate and the fate of those we love.  This is no exaggeration.

One way to think about it is this:  we have two selves – an external self and an internal self.  Our external self is our contaminated aggregates – our ordinary body and mind.  With our ordinary body and mind we can accomplish some external things.  It’s not bad compared to a slug, for example.   But we know the future of this body:  it will get sick, it will get old, it will hurt and it will die.  We also know the nature of this mind.  It gets angry, jealous, has attachment, and when we are feeling miserable there is very little we can do to stop it.  Its greatest deception is it is convincing us to use our precious human life for the external interests of this life alone.  As a result of this, we will arrive at death empty handed having wasted this unique opportunity.  Our external self is like the Titanic, after it has already hit the iceberg.  It is definitely going down, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  What can we really accomplish with our external self?  Not much.  The most we can do is rearrange the deck furniture so it is a little more comfortable as we go down.

Our internal self is our true self, or our pure potential.  This is our Buddha nature, and when purified it will turn into the omniscient mind of a Buddha.  The literal translation of a Buddhist is ‘an inner being.’  Buddhas are beings who abide in the realm of the mind.  They live beyond the prison walls of samsara.  Our inner self can accomplish anything, and can become an omniscient, immortal being that has the ability to enter into the minds of each and every living being every day and gradually lead them out – they have committed themselves to this task and will work for as long as it takes.

We are now being given a choice.  Shantideva has come and laid at our feet a flawless method for ripening fully our pure potential and becoming a Buddha.  Shantideva’s Guide is effectively a special presentation of the Lamrim for Bodhisattva’s.  The entire lamrim is contained within the Guide, and it is organized in a special presentation for Bodhisattva’s.  In particular, it is a systematic attack on our self-cherishing and our self-grasping, which are the generators of our samsara.  Shantideva tells things as they are.  He hides nothing and pulls no punches.  His words are as strong and direct as you can find.  But he tells the absolute truth.  Everybody who has put this method into practice has accomplished the same result.  There is no reason why we would be any different.

Before we didn’t even know about our pure potential, much less have an opportunity to fully ripen it.  But now we do.  So now we have to decide:  do I go back to my ordinary life and pretend this never happened; or do I enter the path of a bodhisattva?  We need to ask ourselves:  what am I going to do with my life – pursue ordinary goals or pursue spiritual goals?  What am I going to do with the rest of eternity – get thrown uncontrolledly from one samsaric rebirth to another or break free and then help others do the same.  This is a decision that will radically alter eternity for ourself and for others.

When I was in college, I was quite arrogant (I still am, but that’s another story).  There was nothing I felt I could not do.  I was eating breakfast one sunny morning outside Collins Dining Hall with a good friend, and he just started laughing at me uncontrolledly.  I asked him what was so funny, and he said “you.”  He went on, “everything in your life has come easy for you only because you have only done easy things.  If you want a real challenge, learn to master your own mind.”  Then he laughed some more.  After I got over my wounded pride, I asked him how.  He said I should start meditating.  Thus began my spiritual life.  Looking back, this was probably the most important day of my life, and the kindness my friend showed me by laughing at my face was the greatest I have ever received.  Without that day, nothing would be the same.

I then started going to the book store, finding books on meditation and then going home to try them out.  I devoured many books and felt like I was making progress, but it was all quite ad hoc.  In the bookstores, I kept running into the book, “Meaningful to Behold.”  I would look at it, see it was quite advanced, and put it back.  This happened in bookstore after bookstore, wherever I went, this book would follow me around and I kept putting it back.  I then went on a trip to Europe and once again, in a London bookstore, the book found me again.  This was too much, so I finally bought it.  I read it on the plane ride all the way back to L.A.  I couldn’t put it down.  I had always held as a life philosophy that there is no point doing anything other than the most you can possibly do with your life.  I had thought myself quite ambitious at the time, but after reading this book I realized I was nothing but a child setting his sights on the insignificant.  This book presented a life challenge – a goal – that far surpassed anything I had ever imagined.  In fact, it seemed to me the challenge of a bodhisattva was literally the greatest of all:  take responsibility to solve all the problems of all living beings for all of their lives.  I could not think how any goal could even possibly be greater, and I said to myself, “that’s what I am going to do.”  Thus began my life as a Kadampa.

I then bought and read all of Geshe-la’s books.  The difference between his integrated and complete presentation and everything I had read up until then was so vast that everything else simply fell by the wayside.  My first class in a Kadampa Center was the beginning of Joyful Path Foundation Program.  When the teaching concluded, Gen Lekma made eye contact with me and I mouthed to her, “thank you.”  I knew I had found home.  I continued to attend classes, later moved to France and studied under a particular teacher, then moved to Geneva and eventually became Resident Teacher there.  This enabled me to go to the International Teacher Training Program at Manjushri in the Summers, where the first book I studied was Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  The next three years of teachings I received on this book were probably the best I had ever received.  Once again, Shantideva became the guide of my life.

After a few years, through a variety of life events that caused us to lose our home, lose the schooling of our kids and lose all of our money, we went back to the U.S.  As a result of all of this, I had to give up completely on teaching, going to teachings and even festivals.  The karma just wasn’t there to be able to do so.  For me, it was like a death.  The spiritual life I had known died, and now I had to start over from scratch with a new life.  I had a period of limbo for a couple of years, wound up joining the State Department and was then posted for my first assignment to Brussels.

The book Modern Buddhism had recently been published, and almost overnight the entire tradition seemed to have reorganized itself around this book.  At this festival, Gen-la Dekyong said, “with the publication of Modern Buddhism, Geshe-la has said the central mission of the tradition now is ‘to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.’”  Upon hearing these words, I felt as if I had been given my marching orders.  I understood why I had died and been reborn in this new life.  I had been given a completely normal ‘modern life’ (job, kids, etc.), and now my job was to attain this union.  Thus began my modern Kadampa life.  I then began this blog in earnest.  The goal was to try share what I was learning in my efforts to attain this union.  But in the beginning, I struggled to find the right mental space for writing a blog.  I knew a blog cannot – should not – be a teaching platform, but what should it be?  I found myself growing attached to how many people would read my articles, etc.  My mind wasn’t relating to the blog correctly.

Once again, Shantideva came to the rescue.  At the very beginning of his Guide, he says:

(2) There is nothing written here that has not been explained before,
And I have no special skills in composition.
My reason for writing this is to benefit others
And to keep my mind acquainted.

(3) Thus, the strength of my faith and my virtuous realizations
Might for a while be increased by this,
And perhaps others who are as fortunate as I
Might also find this meaningful to behold.

When I had read this initially way back when I first read Meaningful to Behold, I always dismissed this as what seemed to me to be a form of false humility that great masters often showed.  But when I re-read these verses I realized, “no, like everything else in the Guide, Shantideva is telling the absolute truth.”  He wrote his Guide with the intention of simply acquainting his own mind the Dharma and to clarify his own thoughts by having to write them down.  If other people reading it found benefit, then all the better.  I then realized this is precisely how a Kadampa should approach a blog.  It was then that I decided, “one day, I will go verse by verse through Shantideva’s guide and explore how we can put into practice his advice in the context of our modern lives.”  That day has finally arrived.

Writing this blog, for me, is part of my practice.  It is my opportunity to acquaint my mind with the teachings I have received.  By writing it, it forces me to clarify my own thoughts and understanding.  By doing so, my familiarity with the teachings grows and hopefully my practice will improve.  If other people receive benefit in reading this, then it is icing on the cake.  But for me, embarking upon this project is like engaging in an extensive meditation and self-study of Shantideva’s Guide.  My goal is to discover how to integrate Shantideva’s timeless wisdom into my modern life as a parent and as a working professional.  In this way, I hope to bring my modern life into alignment with the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  My intention is to discover what it means to be a Modern Bodhisattva.  I don’t know where this will lead, but I am eager to get started.  If others reading along find something useful, then all the better.