Now Shantideva turns to relying upon the power of mindfulness.

(7.68) Just as a seasoned warrior on the battlefront
Approaches the enemy’s weapons with care,
So will I protect myself from the weapons of the delusions
And bind these enemies so that I can destroy them.

(7.69) If someone drops his weapon during a battle,
Out of fear he will immediately pick it up again.
Likewise, if I ever lose the weapon of mindfulness,
I will recall the sufferings of hell and out of fear restore it straightaway.

(7.70) Just as a little poison will spread throughout the body
With the circulation of the blood,
So, given an opportunity,
The delusions will spread throughout my mind.

(7.71) A Dharma practitioner should practise as attentively
As a person would walk if he were forced to carry a jar brimming with oil,
Fearful in the knowledge that, if he spilled just one drop,
The tormentor behind him would slay him with a sword.

(7.72) Therefore, just as I would quickly jump up
If a snake were to crawl into my lap,
So, whenever sleep or laziness threaten,
I will swiftly remove them from my mind.

(7.73) Each time faults such as delusions arise,
I will thoroughly chastise myself
And then focus for a long time
On the determination not to let that happen again.

(7.74) In this way, in all situations
I will acquaint myself with mindfulness –
Sincerely and purely practising Dharma
So that I can protect myself and others from suffering.

I love how Shantideva frequently used military metaphors for our Dharma practice.  In truth, the stakes of Dharma practice are much higher than those of warfare since war at most can harm us in this life, whereas delusions can harm us in all our future lives.  Further, by keeping us trapped in samsara, delusions prevent us from attaining enlightenment and all those we would otherwise be helping if we attained enlightenment would continue to suffer.

We should have Shantideva levels of fear of our delusions.  Normally, we don’t think it is a big deal if we generate a little jealousy, anger, or attachment.  So we allow these poisons to course through our mind, growing in strength, until eventually they control us completely.  In the end, we need to make a choice:  our delusions or enlightenment.  We can’t have both, we must choose.  One day or another, we must completely eliminate all the delusions from our mind, the only question is when do we start.

I also think it is very important to remember our default in samsara is we are headed to hell.  All of us.  If we do not purify, we will eventually fall.  There is no third possibility.  Virtually everyone we know or see on the street will soon be in hell.  Hell is the natural abode of samsara.  Demographically speaking, only a very small percentage of the beings in samsara are not in hell.  Trying to escape hell while remaining in samsara is like trying to escape the gravity of the sun while being close to it. 

In Joyful Path the story is told of a person standing in a doorway and he asks his disciple whether he is going in or out.  The disciple replies, “it depends on your intention.”  The same is true for our remaining in samsara or getting out.  We stand in the doorway of a precious human life, whether we go further into samsara or get out depends upon our intention.  In reality, even that is not true.  If we don’t decide to get out and put in the necessary effort, we will fall deeper in.  No one has ever attained liberation or enlightenment by accident.  Either they put in the effort or it never happened. 

To overcome our laziness, we need to rely on mindfulness remembering the dangers of delusions and remaining in samsara.  If somebody thought they were about to starve or their family would be evicted from their home, the would work tirelessly to prevent that from happening.  This is how we should be.  We should constantly remember, “I am en route to hell, and so is everyone I know or love.”  We must think carefully about our samsaric situation if we are to overcome our laziness and increase our effort.

Generally speaking, we’re quite lazy about identifying and opposing our self-grasping and our self-cherishing aren’t we?  We’re quite lazy. We allow them to remain in our mind, don’t we?  We sometimes even think they are our friend.  We think our delusions take care of us and help us so we allow them to remain.  All delusions are deceptive.  They trick us into thinking they are helping us.  It is only when our delusions are really strong and we are really unhappy that we feel any burning desire to get rid of them.  But besides then, we are content to go about our day “happy enough.”  The only function of delusions is to harm us. 

Now Shantideva gives some advice on the fourth power we need to rely upon in order to increase our effort, the power of rejection.

(7.67) If I become weak or tired, I should stop what I am doing
And continue with it once I have rested.
When I have done something well, I should not be attached,
But move on to what needs to be done next.

It is important that we take time to rest so that we can then continue to put effort into our Dharma practice and into our Dharma activities.  People tend to oscillate between being lazy not doing anything or engaging in their Dharma practices like a maniac and then burning out.  Both are equally faults.  With the power of rejection, we are primarily focused on avoiding the latter situation where we push too hard in an unsustainable way.  Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path that our effort in Dharma needs to be like a slow, steady river making its way to the ocean, not a waterfall cascading and then nothing.  When we hear the teachings on overcoming our laziness, we can easily develop a form of manic guilt that we need to go, go, go with our practice and any letting up is somehow a fault.  I also know many people who feel like it is a fault to relax in non-Dharma ways.  Such a neurotic approach to Dharma practice never lasts.  We need to be honest with ourselves when we are too tired or when we are pushing so hard out of guilt or some sense of obligation.  We know if we become too tired, then we very easily become unhappy, and then we have no strength to fight our delusions, and they will to surface in our mind. If we push ourselves unsustainably for too long, we will burn out and do much less in the long run, and may even wind up abandoning the Dharma altogether.

While there is nothing wrong with resting in non-Dharma ways if we need to, there are also some Dharma ways of resting.  The best method is to let go our self-grasping.  Our self-grasping, our self-cherishing, and our delusions are what tires us out.  Letting go of our delusions allows us to relax.  We can also train in simply shutting off our mind by making it like a block of wood.  We all tend to think too much about everything.  We think way too much, it is exhausting.  We need to allow ourself to not think about anything and relax our mind.  We can do this even sitting in a chair.  We also need to quit taking ourself so seriously.  Because we think everything we do is all so important and  because we think we are so important, we take what happens in our life really seriously.  This makes everything emotionally exhausting.  If instead, we don’t take ourselves so seriously, we can relax and lighten up.  We need to remember, none of this is real – it is all appearances – hallucinations.  There is no reason to take any of it seriously.  When we do, we can break our identification with our tiredness.  We think, there is tiredness in my mind, not I am tired.  There is a big difference between the two.

How can we find a balanced attitude for resting that accepts our capacity but doesn’t use it as an excuse to give in to laziness?  We can try the following strategy:  First, we try resting in a Dharma way as I just described.  If that does not work, then we should do what we want to rest, but learn to want what is actually good for you.  Among the non-Dharma ways of resting, some are more healthy and less deluded than others.  We need to gradually outgrow our unhealthier methods of entertainment and relaxing.  At a minimum, when we rest, we should make sure we do not do anything that is harmful to ourself or to others.  Harmful things do not give us rest, they just create more problems, which in turn tire us out.

The power of rejection also does not mean we reject virtue.  It means we take a break from applying effort to engage in it when we need to.  We still recognize virtue as the cause of our happiness, and we rest so that later we can come back to our Dharma activities refreshed.  The power of rejection is a strategic mind which wishes to maximize the virtue we can do in the long run, and so takes a step back so can do more in the future.  When it comes to learning how to rest in more qualified ways, we need to train gradually without guilt.  We shouldn’t be extreme about it now, but rather understand and learn to enjoy more and more beneficial ways of resting.  Again, we should do what we want to do, but learn to want what is good for us.

The second piece of advice is this verse is “When I have done something well, I should not be attached, But move on to what needs to be done next.” This indicates that we must always be moving forward, taking things that little bit further.  We should feel drawn towards greater and greater goals. Otherwise, we plateau, don’t we?  We can become satisfied with what we have accomplished and become complacent.  It is not enough to just dig ourselves out of the holes we fall into, we need to positively build the future.

Ultimately, we are trying to construct a completely pure world filled with pure beings and environments.  We can look at our mind and ask how much of the world we perceive resembles the pure land.  Seeing the difference, we know there is still work to do.  But we should also remain within our capacity.  We should not try push ourselves too far beyond our capacity, nor should we let the best become the enemy of the good. 

Now we turn to the power of joy.

(7.63) Like a Bodhisattva, I should long to work for others
With the same enthusiasm as that possessed by someone
Who thoroughly enjoys playing a game.
I should never tire, but experience uninterrupted joy.

(7.64) Although it is uncertain whether the result will be happiness or suffering,
Worldly people still work hard to make themselves happy;
So why do we not derive joy from the practice of Dharma,
Which definitely results in happiness?

(7.65) I have a strong wish to pursue objects of desire,
Which, like honey on a razor’s edge, give no real satisfaction;
But it would be far better to develop a strong wish to pursue virtuous actions,
Which result in the everlasting happiness of liberation from all suffering.

(7.66) Therefore, to complete the virtuous actions mentioned above,
I will engage in them with the same enthusiasm
As that with which an elephant, tormented by the heat of the day,
Plunges into a cool, refreshing pool.

Oh, to enjoy in this way!  Imagine if we enjoyed our Dharma practice and our Dharma activities like a child at play. When we practice Dharma, we should strive to have a lightness in mind, the joy of a hot elephant plunging into a cool, refreshing pool.  We have been given such a special opportunity to once and for all free ourselves from all suffering and put ourselves in a position to help others in the same way.  We have a truly unique opportunity. Why do we not enjoy it?  We need to check what exactly within our mind prevents us from deriving such enjoyment from the opportunity that we’ve been given?   If we are too serious, especially if we worry, then we can become unhappy, and we can lose our enthusiasm until there is none left.

But with joy, results come easily and quickly.  Why?  Because our mind is focused 100% on creating causes.  Because we are creating lots of causes, it is inevitable that results will come.  With joy, there is no attachment to results.  When we have attachment to results, we create the causes to be separated from results.  But with joy, our mind is naturally faithful, simply happy to create causes.  If we knew the results of our actions were rebirth in a pure land, how could we not be happy?  In dependence upon our faith, we receive a constant flow of blessings.  This makes everything easier and everything work. 

Some people think either we have joy or we don’t, but like all things it is a dependent arising.  If we create the causes for joy, we can grow it.  There are several things we can do.

First, the most important thing we can do is change our desires to be spiritual ones by practicing lamrim.  It is intention that determines the karma we create, and it is lamrim practice that transforms our intentions into spiritual ones. 

Second, we need to connect our study and practice of Dharma with the problems we are experiencing in our life.  Geshe-la explains in Transform your Life that we need to make a distinction between our outer problem and our inner problem.  Our outer problem may be somebody we love is suffering greatly or our boss things we are doing a terrible job, but our inner problem arises from our deluded reactions to these external developments.  If we instead were able to view these external developments as Dharma teachings or opportunities to train in overcoming our delusions, then the external situation would still be what it is, but we would not internally have a problem with it.  We turn to the Dharma not because we “should,” but simply because it works to solve our problems.  We feel joy at knowing we have real solutions that work.  One possibility is to use whatever is our lamrim meditation of the day to solve everything that comes up that day.  For example, if our meditation object of the day is death, we can ask ourselves with respect to whatever arises, “will this matter to me on my death bed?” 

Third, we need to be careful to not treat our Dharma practices like we do a samsaric object that have some power to do something to us, rather we need to realize that our Dharma practices are something we ourselves need to do.  For example, when we do our sadhanas, we shouldn’t wait for the sadhana to do something to us, rather it is a mental regimen we ourselves need to do.  Our focus should not be on trying to experience results from the practice, rather to be like a guitar player focusing on improving the quality with which they play their song.  Each time we practice, we try to do a little bit better than the last time.  After every failure, we patiently examine what went wrong, make strategies for what we will do differently, and then meditate on the determination to do better. It is important that we accept where we are at.  We expect ourselves to already be farther along than we are, or perhaps we are puffed up with pride thinking we are much better than we thought we were.  It’s perfectly OK to be exactly where we are at.  If it is not good enough for others or not good enough for our pride, so be it.  We accept where we are at, and we joyfully grow from there.

(7.60) When I find myself assailed by a host of delusions,
I will oppose them in a thousand ways.
Like a lion among a group of foxes,
I will not allow myself to be harmed by delusions.

(7.61) Just as people protect their eyes
When in dangerous situations,
So, whenever there is a danger of the delusions,
I will protect myself from their influence.

(7.62) It would be far better for me to be burned to death
Or to have my head cut off
Than it would be for me ever to submit
To the enemy of the delusions.

This is an expression of the kind of self-confidence that we need in overcoming the delusions.  We need this sort of courage and feel as if we are in a fight for our life.  In truth, it is more than a fight for our life because if we develop a habit of giving in to our delusions, they will harm us not only in this life, but all our future lives.

Here it is important to make a crucial distinction – we cannot overcome our delusions with will-power alone.  Instead, we need to stop wanting to follow them because we realize they are wrong, indeed deceptive.  They promise one thing, but deliver the exact opposite.  Most of our delusions are simply wrong desires fueled by ignorance.  Attachment wants terribly our objects of attachment because we are convinced that they are causes of our happiness, and we want to be happy.  Anger very much wants to harm its object because we are convinced that it is the cause of our suffering.  We are desire realm beings, which means we have no choice but to do what we desire.  We can use our will power for a short period of time to resist the pull of our delusions, but eventually our delusions will win because they remain our dominant desire.  We still want to follow our delusion, so eventually we do.  When we use will power, we simply repress the delusions until they gradually build up in strength until we eventually give in. 

To actually oppose our delusions we need to dismantle their inner logic with wisdom.  When we know somebody is trying to scam us, such as receiving an email from the Nigerian prince who wants to transfer his fortune to us “for safe keeping” is only we send him our bank account numbers, we are not easily tempted.  We know it is a lie, a scam, so we are not fooled.  Indeed, reading the email knowing it is a scam reinforces our desire and determination to not be tricked by others out to fool us.  We need to be exactly the same with our delusions.  When we don’t want to follow them, we won’t, just like the scam email.

There are two ways to expose the lies of our delusions so that we actually don’t want to follow them anymore.  The first is to see the lie of the delusion itself.  All delusions are by nature deceptive.  They promise us happiness, but always leave us more miserable.  We need to go through the specific delusions in our life that come up again and again and see how they have deceived us time after time.  For me, a very common one is hitting “send” when I’m still angry.  Damnit, I want to say something.  My anger gives me the courage to say it.  But every time, it just makes things worse and I always regret doing so and then have to exert a great deal of effort cleaning up the mess my anger created.  Sometimes its jealousy.  Often it is attachment.  Our attachment tells us we will feel better if we give in to it, but then it never works out the way we hoped and we remain forever addicted. 

Second, we need to not want to be under the influence of the delusion itself.  We take the example of wanting to smoke a cigarette when we are trying to quit.  If we just think of things in terms of the harm of the cigarette to our health versus the relief we might feel from smoking, we might conclude the benefits of smoking outweigh the costs of smoking.  Even though we know it is bad for our health, we want to do it anyways.  But if we consider the faults of giving in to the delusion itself, the calculus changes.  Every time we follow what our delusions tell us to do, it grows stronger in our mind.  Venerable Tharchin likens it to feeding the Dragon who will eventually devour us.  If we give in now, we will give in again and again and again in the future and we will never break free.  Yes, the immediate relief of smoking might be better than the harm an individual cigarette will do to us, but it won’t just be once – it will be time and time again, forever until we stop.  If we give in to one delusion, we will give in to others, and pretty soon they will have complete control over us.  Either we gain control over our delusions or they will forever control us – in this life and in all our future lives.  Seen in this larger light, we can then not want to follow the delusion for long-term considerations, not just the immediate circumstances. 

(7.56) Anyone who is governed by the view of self-importance
Is under the influence of delusion, not self-confidence.
Such a person has succumbed to the enemy of the self-important view,
Whereas one with self-confidence has not.

(7.57) Those who are inflated by the deluded view of self-importance
Will be reborn in the lower realms;
And, if they later take rebirth in a human form,
They will be poor and miserable, like slaves eating others’ food.

(7.58) Stupid, ugly, and feeble, they will be despised by everyone.
So-called “tough people” who are puffed up with pride
Are also counted among the self-important –
Who could be more pathetic than they are?

(7.59) By contrast, whoever develops the self-confidence to conquer the enemy of the self-important view
Is a self-confident one who is a true conquering hero;
And whoever completely eradicates the enemy of the self-important view
Will be able to fulfil the temporary wishes of living beings and bestow upon them the fruit of enlightenment.

We need to make a distinction between self-cherishing, self-importance, and self-confidence.  Self-cherishing is the mind that thinks that our happiness is supremely important.  We think that only our happiness matters, and since our happiness is really important what happens to us is really important.

Self-importance is self-cherishing with pride.  We have an exaggerated and exalted view of ourselves as being somebody special and important.  When we have self-importance, we feel like we deserve recognition for how wonderful we are, and when others don’t give us the recognition we think we deserve, we feel easily slighted.  We demand a certain respect from others and feel perfectly justified in getting angry with people when they do not provide it.  Self-importance can also take the form of a feeling that the whole world needs us, but we do not need them. We can accomplish things well, we can look after ourselves, our world, and we feel others need us rather than we need them.  We influence rather than are influenced. Others listen to us, we don’t need to listen to them.  An extreme example of this is so-called “tough people,” who are not only self-important, but they also make a big show of it all.  They make sure that everyone knows they are there and how special and important they are.

Self-confidence, in contrast, makes a distinction between our contaminated aggregates and our true self.  We are completely humble with respect to our contaminated aggregates.  We realize that they are broken and useless.  To have confidence in our contaminated aggregates is pride.  Anytime we think anything good about our contaminated aggregates, it is pride.  We can look at Geshe-la.  There is nobody more confident than he is, but he is not in the slightest bit proud.  But we can be completely confident with respect to our true self.  We realize that by nature we are the Spiritual Guide, and anything he can do, we have the potential to do.

If we have self-importance, we don’t really take notice of anyone else, to some extent even our spiritual guide.  As a result, we gradually lose everything.  There is a story Geshe-la gives of a disciple who took rebirth as a God, and the spiritual guide went to try help him in the god realm, but the former disciple just ignored him because he was so busy enjoying his godly delights.  We see this also with people who rise to important positions in society.  They no longer have time for “the little people.”  Those who strongly have this view of self-importance often only have self-reliance.  For them, they are the Guru, and they don’t need anybody else

If we think carefully with our wisdom, we realize that we have accomplished nothing on our own and everything in dependence upon others.  The meditation on the kindness of others reveals how everything comes from others.  We can also consider that any good fortune that ripens does so as a result of good karma.  How were we able to create good karma?  Through the blessings of the enlightened beings.  We need others for anything good.

In life we have many things that we call our own.  Like our job, our house, our children, and our friends.  Thinking “mine” with respect to things just reinforces our feeling of self-importance.  A Bodhisattva who has perfected the perfection of giving has no feeling of anything being theirs.  We should give everything we have away right now, so that we no longer consider anything to be our own.  Some things we can directly give away, other things we retain possession of, but now ownership.  We feel our things belong to others and we are using them for their benefit.

One of the best ways of doing this is to offer everything to the Spiritual Guide or to Dorje Shugden.  To the Spiritual Guide, we feel like all the beings in our life are Geshe-la’s children that we are taking care of.  To Dorje Shugden, we offer everything to him so that he can use it for our spiritual practice and that of others.  We may fear offering everything in this way, but it is only our self-cherishing that fears this.  The guru will use things in the way that is in fact most beneficial for us.  It is our self-cherishing that will use things in a way that is the most destructive for us.

(7.52) If a snake lies dying on the ground,
Crows will act like brave eagles and attack it.
In the same way, if my self-confidence is weak,
Even the slightest adversity will be able to harm me.

(7.53) If, out of laziness, I give up trying,
How shall I ever attain liberation in such a feeble state?
But if, out of self-confidence, I generate effort,
It will be difficult for even the greatest adversity to harm me.

(7.54) Therefore, with a steadfast mind
I will overcome all downfalls
For, if I am defeated by a downfall,
My wish to triumph over all obstacles will be but a joke.

(7.55) “I will conquer all obstacles,
And none shall conquer me.”
Thus I, who will become a Conqueror,
Will practise with self-confidence.

Geshe-la says if we lack this self-confidence we will easily be defeated by discouragement or malevolent interferences.  It seems many of us give up too early and we give up too easily.  As soon as things are even remotely difficult, we give up trying.  One reason for this is our motivation for overcoming our delusions is still worldly.  We are doing it for this life, and indeed right now.  Delusions make us unhappy now, we want to be happy now.  As soon as it become “less fun” to not follow the delusions than to follow them, we give in.  This is very short-sighted because no matter how hard it is to overcome our delusions, it is always harder in the long run to not do so.  Another reason for this is pretty much every time in the past that we have stood up to our delusions, we have been defeated.  Anyone who has battled addiction knows this experience.  Since we “know” we will lose, we do not even bother putting up a fight anymore.  But if we never resist, there is no way we will ever win the war.  We have to use each defeat to strengthen our determination to eventually win the war.  We also give up due to attachment to results.  We want immediate results now, and if we do not get them, we give up.  Again, this is a question of spiritual immaturity.

All we need to attain enlightenment is the decision to never give up trying.  Samsara is a self-imprisonment.  We are here because we choose to keep coming back by taking refuge in samsaric objects or being dragged down.  We can generate self-confidence because we realize that if we never give up, nothing can stop us.  If we decide to leave, nobody and nothing can stop us.  If we decide to lead all beings to enlightenment and to never give up in that endeavor, nothing can stop us.  Enormous confidence comes from this understanding.

I think we need to take Piglet from Winnie the Pooh as our Yidam.  For those not familiar with Piglet, he is this tiny little pig with a big heart.  Everything is so big compared to him, but he never gives up.  When the wind blows strongly, despite him pumping as hard as he can to go forward, it pushes him back.  But he never gives up, he keeps trying, and eventually he gets there.  It is the same with our spiritual life.  If we never give up trying, even when we are blown back, we will eventually get out.  It is guaranteed.  The only way we can fail is if we give up trying.  The name of the game in the Dharma is the creation of causes.  The only thing we are interested in is creating good causes, and we create good causes by trying, not succeeding.  In this way, trying itself is success.  Not trying itself is failure.  If we try, we create good causes, and the future results are guaranteed because one of the laws of karma is if the cause is created the effect is guaranteed.

Very often, things are the most difficult when we are on the verge of a breakthrough.  When we are about to have a breakthrough, there is often significant obstruction before we finally push through.  People give up often when they are just about to break through.  This is a shame.  We see this in children when they are learning to walk, talk, etc.  The same process occurs in the Dharma.  When we are in a particularly difficult situation, we should recall this and use it to keep going and push through.  It is very useful to recite as a mantra these words from Shantideva, “I will conquer all obstacles, and none shall conquer me.”

With respect to self-confidence, we can think, “I’m going to try, I’m going to try in my Dharma practice, my Dharma activities and so forth, for the sake of others. I will do these things because I want to help others, because I want to free others from their suffering.”  This thought will definitely give power to our actions.  We think, “no matter what I’m doing, I’m going ahead with my Dharma practice, I’m going ahead to overcome my delusions because sentient beings need me.”

(7.50) Unlike me, worldly beings are powerless.
Being under the control of delusion and karma,
They are unable to make their lives meaningful.
Therefore, I will practise virtue for their sake.

(7.51) How can I sit and do nothing
While others waste their lives on meaningless tasks?
Although it might seem like self-importance,
I should act out of self-confidence, which is quite different from self-importance.

Worldly beings are powerless, they are helpless, being under the control of delusion and karma.   Therefore, we have to take responsibility for them because we have been given all the tools we need, both externally and internally.  We know how to take responsibility for others who have no power – we can provide encouragement, we can set a good example, and we can pray.  If we do these three things for long enough, they will eventually be enough to liberate all beings. 

I like to recall that everyone I see is a being of my karmic dream.  If I am not responsible for them, who is?  Venerable Tharchin said we need to take responsibility for removing the faults we perceive in others.  Normally we think it is their responsibility to remove their faults, but it is our mind projecting them, so it is our responsibility.  Why are they helpless?  Because I have been neglecting them.  I have not given them the power.  They are just karmic appearance, they do what we have karmically created the causes for them to appear to do.  How do we remove the faults from their mind?  By removing them from our own.  Since they are a reflection of our own mind, if we purify our own mind of the faults we perceive in others, they will gradually – almost like magic – disappear in others. 

We need to find the right balance between waiting for them to come to us and going out to help them.  It is an extreme to just wait for them to come to us.  We do not wait for a drowning person to come to us, we just dive in and help.  What hope do others have other than us?  It is also an extreme to force our help on others – I am here to save you, I am here to help you.  Because if people are not asking for help and we give it, they will reject our help and this creates the tendencies for them to reject the solution of Dharma. 

The middle way is to become whatever others need us to be – not necessarily what they want us to be, but what they need us to be.  We look back at ourself from their perspective and ask what we need from that person (ourself).  Then we give them whatever they need, according to their needs and wishes.  In the beginning, we will help them with a lot of ordinary things, but this is OK, because in this way we become part of their lives.  Gradually we are able to help them with higher and higher spiritual objectives because they seek it from us.  What they really need us to be is a Buddha.  When we see that, bodhichitta will become effortless.

We should follow the example of our fellow Sangha, teachers, and Geshe-la.  We should have admiring faith for what others do.  As a result of this admiring faith, we will naturally develop the wish to do the same.  Then we can follow their example.  When we see that it works because we have good examples, then we can have confidence that if we try, we can do the same thing.

(7.49) I should maintain self-confidence in three things:
My Dharma practice, my Dharma activities, and overcoming my own delusions.
I should encourage myself by thinking, “I alone will lead all living beings to the happiness of enlightenment”,
And in this way sustain my self-confidence in these three things.

Perhaps we lack confidence in one, two, or possibly all three things. Our Dharma practice, our Dharma activities, and overcoming our delusions are all difficult.  Actually we need to cultivate each of these in turn.  We should also actively discuss with our Sangha friends how to overcome our lack of self-confidence in these three and how to improve our self-confidence for each of them.  If we have self-confidence in these three, we will accomplish everything; if we doubt we can do it, we will accomplish nothing.  There is little more important than cultivating these three types of self-confidence.

With respect to the first, our Dharma practice, in Guide to Dakini Land Venerable Geshe-la, in general whenever we practice Dharma, we should first overcome all doubts about the instructions we have received and reach a clear conclusion about them.  There is no doubt that if we do, we will become a lot more confident in our Dharma practice.  With a faithful mind, we need to apply the instructions we have received.  Through applying them, both our understanding and our familiarity with them will grow. And as they do, we will become more and more confident.  A good example is our practice of generation stage.  At first, it seems overwhelming, but with familiarity, it becomes much easier, even natural.  Many people receive the empowerments.  Those who have tried their best are now starting to get it and their confidence is growing.  Those who thought it was too difficult and did not even try are still stuck, and may have even abandoned their practice completely out of discouragement. 

Second, we need to develop self-confidence in our Dharma activities.  I have spent roughly 20 years of my life in the United States, 20 years in Europe, and 8 years in Asia.  In the United States, the cultural tendency is to dive in to things even if they are beyond our capacity, so sometimes we get in over our head, and then give up trying things we once failed at.  In Asia, people are generally afraid of trying anything unless they can do it perfectly.  They would rather do nothing than publicly try and fail.  In Europe, people often see how things can be done better than what they can do, and so they conclude if they cannot do it perfectly, they are somehow doing it badly.  They would rather do nothing than risk somebody pointing out their mistakes trying.  The point is, pretty much all of us have an unhealthy relationship with trying and failing.  Our job is to develop a healthy relationship.

The key to gaining confidence in our Dharma activities is to let go of attachment to results and realize that trying itself is succeeding.  It is the mental factor intention that creates karma, so even if we do not succeed in accomplishing specific results, we will succeed in planting seeds.  Because we have faith in karma, we know if the cause is created, the future effect is guaranteed.  We are just happy to be constructing a good future.  The definition of maturity is when we use today for the future.  Spiritual maturity is when we use this life for future lives.  There is a special satisfaction that comes from building for the future.

One thing we can do to increase our confidence in our Dharma activities is to rely more on our spiritual guide.  We need to feel the presence of our spiritual guide at our heart with everything you do.  The Spiritual Guide can do anything.  We simply need to realize the relationship between him and us.  He is our own pure potential fully developed.  When we realize this, everything he can do, we can do.  To develop faith in him is to develop confidence in ourselves.  If we try to develop confidence in our contaminated aggregates, it is just deluded pride and everything falls apart.  If we invest the time to learn how to rely upon the spiritual guide for all our activities, then we will realize everything is possible.  When we are involving our spiritual guide in this way, there is every reason to be confident.

And then the third, we need to develop self-confidence in our ability to overcome our delusions.  Again, we find it difficult because it seems our delusions are a lot stronger than we are. What can we do?  What I find helpful is to remind myself simply:  delusions and seeds of delusions are not an intrinsic part of my mind and they can be destroyed, my Buddha nature cannot be. We can also consider that Buddhas – like Vajrapani who has infinite spiritual power – are actually aspects of our own pure potential, so whatever they can do, we can do. 

We must set ourselves goals or targets towards which we direct our mind and our activities.  We are quite used to doing this for worldly goals.  We also need to set ourselves meaningful spiritual goals. Some for a day, some for our life.  All Dharma goals are ‘do’ goals, not ‘result’ goals.  We cannot make a commitment, “I will attain spontaneous bodhichitta by the end of this year.”  We can’t control when the results will ripen.  But we can say, “I will focus my spiritual practice on training in bodhichitta this year.”  That is something we can do.  We can also commit, “I will keep training and never give up until I attain spontaneous bodhichitta.”  Once again, that is a “do” goal – something we commit to doing. 

Once we make a commitment, we then commit ourselves to keeping it. We commit ourselves to striving towards and eventually achieving or accomplishing these goals.  Our spiritual progress very much depends upon keeping our commitments.  We can look at parents.  Parents make huge commitments to take responsibility for the lives of their children.  We need to do the same for our spiritual children – all the beings in our karmic dream.   

But generally, if we are honest we don’t like to commit ourselves, do we. We think commitments limit our freedom, when in reality it is our delusions that limit our freedom, and keeping commitments is what sets us free.

There is no doubt by setting ourselves goals, and committing ourselves to reach those goals, we increase our capacity, don’t we?  Our spiritual guide is trying to help us do this. He is always trying to get us to increase our capacity until we possess the capacity of an actual Bodhisattva, finally an actual Buddha.  But we must be realistic right about what we are able to accomplish. What we feel we are able to accomplish. We must be honest with ourselves.

It is difficult to know sometimes what we can accomplish.  This is one reason we need reliance on our spiritual guide. One good reason why we need to be of service to him is because he knows what we are capable of.  Perhaps what he feels we are capable of and what we feel are going to be different which is why we need to trust our spiritual guide.  We offer ourself to him – please do with me whatever you want.  We don’t need to move to a Dharma center or receive detailed instructions from him about what we should do with our time, it is a mental attitude.  We offer ourself to him.  We commit ourselves to the fulfillment of his wishes in our own little karmic world.  All he wants of us is that we practice Dharma, so we commit to doing so at our work, in our homes, and with our families and friend. 

If we have offered ourself to be of service to him, then we can expect sometimes to be stretched.  Sometimes we mistakenly think if we start practicing Dharma, life will somehow get easier.  We will somehow be protected from samsara’s sufferings.  Ha!  If only.  The truth is, it never gets any easier.  It is always equally hard, we just start dealing with more and more responsibilities as our capacity grows.  Maybe sometimes we feel we cannot accomplish the results that our spiritual guide is asking us to accomplish. We think we cannot reach the goals, even the short-term goals that he is asking us to reach.  But we need to trust, to have faith and trust, and then apply ourselves without hesitation to reaching those goals, accomplishing those results.  He believes we can do it, we do not.  Who do we trust? Even if sometimes we do not manage to reach those goals, from our side is there any fault in doing our best to try?  Perhaps trying our best and failing is how we learn the spiritual lesson we need to learn.

This is why we need patience, we need patient acceptance.  We need to be able to accept our weaknesses as well as our strengths. Our inabilities as well as our abilities. It is so important.  Perhaps sometimes we all feel we just cannot do it. We think of some goal we would really like to set ourselves, some practice perhaps that we would like to engage in, and we feel we are not ready, that we can’t do that yet.  If we are not accepting of where we are at, we then set unrealistic goals and set ourselves up for failure.  Then how can we ever develop our confidence?  If there is no acceptance, then how can we be confident, and then how can we ever improve? If we strive for a goal and fail, we also need to accept that.  It is OK to fail as long as we are learning.  We accept we didn’t make it, but we just pick ourselves back up and try again.  When we accept ourselves, we can also accept our failures.  Then, we never fail, we only learn.

We now start the second of the four powers, the power of self-confidence:

As mentioned in Vajradotsa Sutra,
Whatever Dharma practice I study, I should complete it with strong confidence.

(7.47) First, I should examine what is to be done,
To see whether I can do it or not.
If I am unable to do it, I should not start it;
But, once I start something, I should never turn back.

(7.48) Otherwise this habit will carry into my future lives
And my non-virtue and suffering will continue to increase.
Moreover, other virtuous actions will take a long time to accomplish
And will yield only meagre results.

This is incredibly important and practical advice.  Very often we swing from the extreme of making huge commitments we have no means of keeping or completely giving up trying to do anything.  Both function to destroy our self-confidence.  Instead, we need to consider carefully what we can actually accomplish (and that we want to accomplish), and then we make a very defined commitment to accomplish that no matter what.  For example, in Alcoholics Anonymous, people are advised to take things “one day at a time.”  We make a commitment, “I will not drink today.”  This is a small, doable commitment.  When we make this commitment, then we keep it.  When we keep it, our confidence and our capacity grows, and we can start the cycle over again.  Eventually, we will gain the ability to commit for two days, then a week, then a month, and eventually for the rest of our life.  In this way, we work skillfully with all of our spiritual vows and commitments until we are eventually able to keep them all perfectly all the time.  But if we make an unrealistic commitment we can’t keep, then we will break it.  When we do, our confidence and capacity will wither.  Then, in the future, when we make commitments to ourselves, they will have no meaning and no power because we know we will not be able to keep them.

It is the same with making commitments to others.  We want to help others and be there for them.  But sometimes we overpromise and then later have to under-deliver.  We aren’t able to do everything we committed to, and so we leave people disappointed.  This causes them to not trust us and it becomes a habit for us where we fail to live up to our commitments to others.  As bodhisattva’s, we are making the commitment to lead each and every living being to the ultimate state of full enlightenment.  If we start breaking our smaller commitments to others, then it becomes a habit and we will never be able to keep our ultimate commitment to others.  It is this commitment that gives our bodhisattva vows power.  If we know our commitment is meaningless in our own mind, then so too will our bodhisattva vows.  The point is we need to “right size” our commitments to something that is actually doable.  Not too great that we can’t keep them, and not too small that they are meaningless. 

Whether we are making commitments to ourself or to others, once we have made them, we need to be like Eddard (Ned) Stark from Game of Thrones.  Ned Stark was the most honorable man in Westeros.  He always kept his commitments – to himself and to others.  It was his honor.  He valued his honor more than his life.  True, it got his head chopped off, but it was the reputation of him as an honorable man that ultimately led to many of his children ultimately surviving and rising in their own right.  Even though he died, his honor won in the end.  So too it is with our spiritual honor.  If we keep our spiritual honor, even if we get our heads chopped off (an unlikely event, to be sure), we will keep our vows in tact on our mental continuum and be able to refind the spiritual path again in our future lives.  We should not fear losing our life for our spiritual honor, rather we should fear losing our spiritual honor for the sake of this one life.  In truth, it is almost unthinkable that we could find ourselves in a situation where we need to choose between our spiritual honor and our life, but internally we have already made our choice.  We know what we would choose.  We would channel our inner Ned Stark.