I’ve been thinking about what it means to attain Keajra without abandoning our human body.

Geshe-la said in Portugal that, “When practitioners reach Keajra pure land or Keajra Heaven through a transferrence of consciousness in this sadhana, their previous body immediately changes into the nature of light. If a practitioner who is 80 years old reaches the pure land of Keajra, he or she will become like a 16-year-old youth with a body made of light and filled with bliss. The contaminated body ceases and their body transforms into an uncontaminated body, permanently free from sickness, aging, death, and every kind of samsaric rebirth. Their original body transforms into a special body.”

It seems the meaning from the perspective of such a practitioner is their original body (in the aspect of Ryan, for example) continues to appear but is perceived as being the nature of light. It transforms into a “special body.” Their contaminated body that they normally see completely disappears, but this “special body” of light in the aspect of their original body continues to appear like an emanation in this world. But “their body,” the basis of imputation referred to by the mere name “my body,” becomes like a 16 year old in the prime of their youth, with a body of wisdom light filled with bliss.

It is like Russian dolls. The outer layer is their “special body” in the aspect of their original body that performs a function in this world like an emanation, but within that, like a Russian doll, they see themselves with a deity body. Their original body may still appear as an 80 year old, but they experience “their body” as the 16 year old deity body. The thought “my body” no longer refers to the our original body, but to our deity body; but our ordinary body still appears to us in its normal aspect but no longer as a contaminated body, but rather as a “special body” of wisdom light.

So is this special body still in samsara? It depends upon from whose perspective we look at it. For the people in our life, they will continue to see us as they have always seen us, through the lens of their karma. But we see our original body as a special body of wisdom light in the aspect of our original body.

But VGL goes further and says, “With this practice of the Uncommon Yoga of Inconceivability, we can reach the pure land of Keajra with this human body. When practitioners engage in the special transferrence of consciousness, their consciousness does not leave their body, but goes to Keajra together with the body.” In other words, we experience it as if our human body is in Keajra. How can that be if our special body still has its original aspect and still appears to be functioning in our original world? All sorts of questions start to arise.

I think the answer to these questions lies in something VGL said long ago that “the mind of Lamrim is Akanishta pure land.”

During the teachings on distractions, Gen-la Jampa explained (quoting How to Understand the Mind) that nothing is a distraction from its own side, but becomes so when we engage with it with a deluded mind. Deluded minds project objects of delusion and all objects of delusion are distractions. But if we relate to objects with Lamrim minds, they cease to be objects of delusion, they become objects of Dharma. That annoying person in our life becomes an object of our patience, the deluded person becomes an object of our compassion, everyone becomes an object of our love, and everything becomes an object of the wisdom realizing emptiness. These objects cease to be objects of samsara, but become objects of Akanishta pure land. The mind of Lamrim is Akanishta pure land.

So from the perspective of the practitioner, their human body is also with them in Keajra and they see their human body functioning in a world similar in aspect to the world we normally see in our daily lives, but instead of it appearing as contaminated objects of delusion, everything appears as objects of Dharma because they are relating to all objects with Lamrim minds.

A similar outcome can be obtained through our faith in Dorje Shugden alone. If we view all things as emanated by Dorje Shugden and that we are in his pure land training grounds, the aspect may still appear similarly as our original world, but for us it will be his pure land because all objects that appear to our mind are seen as objects of Dharma (because we are relating to them all with Lamrim minds).

With this understanding, there are no contradictions and everything settles into the pure land quite nicely.

May we all attain Keajra without abandoning this human body.

As individuals, groups, countries, even species, we will be subject to all sorts of false accusations or criticisms. This is sometimes very painful, especially if they come from those we love or are close to, or it touches on something dear to us like our role as a worker or parent, or it is about something important to us, such as our spiritual tradition or practice. In the Dorje Shugden prayers, it says, “now is the time to dispel false accusations against the innocent.” What follows are various ways we can do that, or at least things I have found to be helpful.

False accusations can take many forms, from others accusing us of doing something we didn’t do, having ill intent, misunderstanding what we are doing or saying but believing that misunderstanding to be true, being a worse person than we actually are, of being the cause of problems that aren’t our fault, and so forth. The list is endless.

So what can we do when this happens? Here are a few suggestions of things that have helped me.

First and foremost, we need to check is the accusation indeed false? We need to be honest both with ourselves and with others here. If the accusation or criticism is correct and we lie to ourselves, we never become a better person. If the accusation is correct and we pretend or lie to the other person that it is not, that’s gaslighting and usually fools nobody. If the criticism is fair, then the correct response is to be genuinely grateful that the other person pointed it out, regardless of whether their intention in doing so was love for us or hatred of us. Most often, whatever criticisms are lobbed our way are a mix – part correct and part false. For the correct part, we should admit it, apologize, and then apply effort to change. For the incorrect part, we can try the ideas below.

Second, we need to accept patiently as purification that this is our karma to have people lodge false accusations against us and believe them to be true. When you think about it, we do this to others all the time. Every time our delusions project some exaggerated or distorted image of another person and we believe it to be true, we create the karma of mentally making false accusations. If we verbalize it, then that is one step further. When you think about it, all delusions are actually false accusations. They project a distorted image and then grasp at that distortion as if it were actually true. We have been doing this since beginningless time, so we shouldn’t be surprised when some of that karma ripens. What does it mean to accept false accusations as purification? It does not mean we assent to the false accusation as being true nor does it mean we do nothing about it. It simply accepts that, “yup, this has happened. It is my karma that it has happened. My patiently accepting it is what it is will gradually purify the karmic seed giving rise to it.” When negative karma ripens for me, I like to imagine that I take on all the negative karma of all beings (including all my future selves) to experience such things and my experiencing of it is actually me purifying not only my negative karma but all the negative karma of everyone else so nobody ever has to go through what I’m going through. So I can think, “May I take on all the negative karma of false accusations of all beings (including all my future selves), and may my patiently accepting this false accusation now purify all of it for them and for me.” It goes without saying we should not retaliate in kind because that just restarts the karmic cycle all over again.

Third, we need to let go of all attachment to what other people think about us. Of course we care what other people think about us because we cannot help others or have good relationships with them if they think bad things of us. But we don’t need to be attached to what other people think about us, even those very close to us such as our family, coworkers, or friends. To be attached to something means we think our happiness depends upon this external thing. We need this external thing to be happy and we can’t be happy without it. To be attached to what others think about us means we think we need others to think good things about us to be happy and we can’t be happy if they think bad things about us. No, our happiness depends upon our inner peace. If our mind is at peace, we can be happy, even if other people think terrible and false things about us. We need to be mentally at peace with the fact that people believe false things about us. This doesn’t mean we are happy that they think false things about us, but that their thinking false things about us does not disturb our inner peace. When it hurts that people think false things about us we are being clearly shown where there is still such attachment in our mind, and this episode gives us an opportunity to root it out. Great! When we don’t have attachment to what other people think about us for some things, it is easier to let go of this attachment for all things. So much inner pain comes from being concerned with what others think about us. Rooting out this attachment from our mind is one of the most liberating things we can do in life and will likely make one of the biggest differences to our overall well-being.

Fourth, once our mind has accepted the situation as it is (others believe false things about us) and we have removed (or at least sufficiently reduced) any attachment from our mind thinking our happiness depends upon what they think about us, we can then try clarify our perspective on the situation (if the other person is open to hearing our perspective, that is). When we clarify, we shouldn’t say, “you’re wrong.” Because we are appearing vividly to the mind of the other person to be that way and to tell them they are wrong will likely either be taken as gaslighting, obliviousness to our obvious faults, or cause them to just grasp even more tightly to their false view of us. Instead, we should say things like, “I can see how you could view it that way, “ or “I understand your perspective,” and “if indeed I were that way, I could see why you would be upset since obviously that would be bad.” This acknowledges that the other person sees what they see, but simultaneously acknowledges that there are other ways of viewing things. If they are open to hearing your perspective on the situation, you can then offer it – not saying it is right and the other person is wrong, just this is how you see it and understand it. There is more than one way of viewing this. They may or may not accept your perspective, they may or may not be able to accept that there is any perspective other than theirs, but that is not something we can control. If despite our clarification, they continue to falsely view us negatively, then we need to accept that they have their opinion and we have ours and that is perfectly OK. They may be mad at us that we don’t share their perspective, but that is their issue, not ours (though it is still our karma to have people be mad at us and something we also need to accept as purification). We are not responsible for managing how other people view us or react to the things that appear in their life. That is their responsibility.

Fifth, we can view the false criticism as an indication of what we need to work on next as we proceed with our bodhisattva training. A bodhisattva seeks to abandon all faults and attain all good qualities. If somebody is making a false accusation against us and believing it to be true, we could just blithely say, “not my problem, that is their karma to see me this way.” Yes, it is true, how they see us is not our problem (meaning their distorted view of us is something happening in their mind and thus not something we can control) and it is their karma to see us that way, but to stop there would be to miss out on a great opportunity for improvement. Yes, realizing it is not our problem helps us let go of our attachment thinking how they view us matters for our inner peace and it prevents us from developing self-hatred by internalizing their distorted, negative view of us, so in this sense it is very good. But we can do even better. We can view their false accusation of us as a sign from Dorje Shugden that we need to do the work within ourselves to remove any last possible valid basis for others to view us falsely in this way. For example, if somebody views us as a bad parent, then view this as a sign we should work on becoming a better parent. Just because we can become a better parent doesn’t mean we are presently a bad parent, just we still have room for improvement. So improve! Do a better job. If others doubt us, thinking we are worse than we are, then we can view this as an opportunity to work on proving them wrong by getting better and improving in the ways that they see wrongly. Doing so can’t hurt us. If over time we consistently show the example of somebody who does NOT have the faults the other person is falsely accusing us of having, and instead we show the example of somebody who is the opposite of these things, there is a chance the other person can gradually change their view of us because there will be no valid basis for their wrong view of us. It may take time, but if we prove ourselves to not be what they think we are, they may gradually come to see us differently. Or maybe they won’t. Maybe they are not capable of letting go of their view of us. Maybe for some reason unknown to us they need to view us in this negative way. This is not something we can control. But even if it doesn’t work, we will at least have improved thanks to their false accusation of us, so we will be better off. In short, when somebody makes a false accusation against you, “prove them wrong.” Not because you are attached to what they think or because you want to be right, but because by proving them wrong you become a better person, which is the essence of our bodhisattva training. You can even dedicate your efforts so that in the future you will be able to help the person making false accusations against you.

There is much more I could say about the karmic effects of tantric pure view, emptiness, etc., but I think the above are some practical things we can do to at least maintain our inner peace despite other people thinking bad things of us or making false accusations against us (or things we hold dear, such as our tradition or practice). That’s a good enough start. On the foundation of being at peace with these things, we can then engage in more advanced practices. But without this basic foundation, these other things can become some sort of spiritual cos play that is really an act of repression, not the dismantling of delusions and faults within our mind.

I hope this helps. If not, I at least found it helpful to clarify my own thoughts about the subject. It has helped me move closer to being at peace with the false accusations in my life.

Sometimes people can feel like they are isolated from sangha. For example, they may live far from a center or be physically incapable of making it very often – or even at all. Sometimes also, people might be able to go to the center all the time, but feel like they are not accepted or don’t fit in, even if everyone there loves and accepts them fully. This can be very painful for people, leading to a good deal of discouragement and despondency.

Many people leave the Dharma for this reason because we have a legitimate need for spiritual companionship and feel it is not being met, so we go looking elsewhere – searching, but perhaps never finding, leading to ever greater depths of despair. Even spiritual people don’t love us, we are truly worthless.

Knowing there are many people like this, we should make a concerted effort to reach out to those who seem to feel alone or isolated. Everybody welcome is not just a center policy, it is the very essence of the Kadampa way of life. We need to help make everybody feel welcome, accepted as they are without judgment, appreciated for their good qualities, and loved unconditionally.

But what should we do if we ourselves feel this way?

I would say this feeling comes from grasping at sangha existing from their own side in one form or another. We think Sangha are external to us somehow and we wait for them to “do something to us” or “for us.”

This can sometimes come across as harsh, like we are blaming people for their own loneliness or isolation. It can even take on a degree of judgment and callousness like it is your own dumb fault you feel that way, thus feeding the feeling like nobody cares. But this is not correct. Recognizing that our feelings of isolation are created by our own mind means by changing our mind, we can solve our problem. We don’t need others to do anything for us to no longer feel isolated from them. We cease being a victim of what they think and do towards us. We realize the solution lies within.

Whether somebody is a friend, enemy, or stranger depends upon the mind with which we engage with others. We can construct people in any number of ways by adopting different minds towards them. How we relate to others often quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, for good or for bad. When we assume somebody is our friend and we relate to them in that way, we tend to be friendly and open and then others respond to us in similar ways. When we assume everybody hates us an is judging us, we relate to them defensively and awkwardly, and they then find us strange or off-putting or somebody to be avoided. We don’t realize that how we view others, the mind with which we engage with them, very much shapes how they view and relate to us.

Sangha are those that inspire us along the path. They encourage us to practice Dharma. We may think, I don’t have anybody in my life like that. Everyone in my life is encouraging me to follow worldly paths and the so-called sangha in my life reject me or don’t make me feel welcome. So what should we do if we find ourselves in such a situation?

Practically, there are some clear things we can do. First, we can make an effort to go to our centers or festivals; or if that is not possible, to try at least stay connected with them on-line. Second, we can accept people as they are, not be disappointed in them that they are not loving and accepting us as much as we would want them to. Third, we can create the karma to have sangha friends by being a good sangha friend ourselves towards others.

More profoundly, we can realize sangha do not exist from their own side. Whether somebody functions for us as sangha depends upon how our mind relates to them. For example, if we see somebody being cruel or deceptive or lazy or whatever, we can view that person as showing us the example of how not to be. Their bad example is teaching us to not be like that and to instead be kind, trustworthy, and hard-working. Because we are relating to them that way, they are encouraging us to practice Dharma, even if that is not remotely their intention. Thus, for us, they are functioning as sangha. Perhaps they are even emanations appearing in this way to teach us these lessons, we don’t know. Actually, as soon as we view them as emanations, they become emanations for us because emanations do not exist from their own side. Nobody is an emanation from their own side, they become one for us through our mind of faith.

More profoundly still, we can cultivate a deep, personal, and very “real” relationship with our supreme sangha, the deities of Dorje Shugden’s vast assembled retinue and the deities of Heruka or Vajrayogini’s body mandala. Even if we never step foot in a Dharma center again, we can be with our supreme sangha every day for the rest of eternity. They are actual beings with minds, not just figments of our imagination who aren’t really there. The only difference between our external sangha friends and our internal sangha friends is whether they are form sources (objects that appear to our sense consciousnesses) or phenomena sources (objects that appear to our mental consciousness). But both are equally beings with whom we can – and should – develop deep, living relationships with.

Like anything else, sangha are created by mind. If we don’t create others as sangha, we will have no sangha in our life. Realizing this, we can let go of thinking we have no sangha in our life or let go of our real or perceived narratives of our sangha not accepting and loving us and start creating our own sangha – both externally and internally – by creating the causes for them to appear in our life. We can use the perceived absence of sangha in our life as a sign from Dorje Shugden encouraging us that now is the time to create such causes.

Then, no problems.

Their practice is, when confronted with a tendency to break or neglect the promises, reminding ourself why we made these promises and working through the delusions and negative karma that prevent us from keeping them.

Their primary function is to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our spiritual path until we attain the final goal. The level of the promise – from refuge, to pratimoksha, to bodhisattva, to our tantric vows – determines the speed with which we complete the path, like water moving through an increasingly narrow hose. Their secondary function is to help us overcome all gross distractions, which is the basic foundation of training in concentration. This in turn enables us to successfully meditate on the Dharma and in particular on the wisdom realizing emptiness that purifies our mind of all delusions and their imprints, thus taking us to the cities of liberation and enlightenment.

Our refuge promises are essentially to (1) to make effort to receive Buddha’s blessings, (2) to make effort to put the Dharma into practice, and (3) to make effort to turn to the Sangha for help. Our pratimoksha promise is essentially to refrain from harming living beings, both ourself and others. Our bodhisattva promise essentially is to not stop until we become a Buddha, in particular through the practice of the six perfections. Our tantric promise is essentially to maintain pure view of ourself, others, our environment, and our activities out of compassion for all living beings. More details can be found in Joyful Path, the Bodhisattva Vow, Universal Compassion, and Tantric Grounds and Paths.

Our most important vow is our heart commitment to Dorje Shugden. This maintains the uninterrupted continuum of our finding the uncommon Kadampa path of the Ganden Oral Lineage instructions, the quickest path to enlightenment of them all.

Within the scope of the heart commitment, I would say there are both common and uncommon promises. The common promises are to (1) cherish the Kadam Dharma, (2) to practice the Kadam Dharma purely without mixing it with other traditions, (3) to share the Kadam Dharma purely without mixing it with other traditions, and (4) to make effort to cause the pure Kadam Dharma to flourish throughout the world.

There are two uncommon promises within our heart commitment to Dorje Shugden. The first is to make the promise to attend every major Kadampa festival (Spring, Summer, and Fall) either in person or on-line between now and at least 2099 (but really, for as long as they last). This functions to preserve the NKT globally for generations to come.

The second uncommon promise of our heart commitment is to keep the Kadampa moral discipline of the Internal Rules of the NKT. These are required if we want to be a Resident Teacher or a center administrator, but are also available to any practitioner. VGL has said they are our most important moral discipline. They are the pinnacle of our Kadampa moral discipline and are taken on the foundation of all the other promises.

None of these promises are imposed upon us from the outside, but are taken freely by the practitioner based upon a clear wisdom that understands benefits of keeping these promises and the dangers of breaking them. All of these promises are worked with gradually and have many levels. When we break them, we can purify the downfall and restore them within our mind. We can do this daily.

We are so lucky to even know of these things, much less have the opportunity to train in them. I would say they are true wishfulfilling jewels.

From a spiritual perspective, we as modern day Kadampas live in increasing times. That means spiritually things are getting better and better. But the world we live in is one of degenerating times, meaning things will continue to get worse and worse and will likely continue to do so until Maitreya comes. This is a difficult nut for people to swallow.

We tend to think it is good to be “optimistic” and believe that things will get better, but this is a trap for two reasons. First, it grasps onto things getting better externally as a necessary precondition for our happiness. This too shall pass. Brighter days lie ahead. Tomorrow will be better. OK, if that is the case, then I can accept my present circumstances. But what happens if tomorrow isn’t better? What do we do if each day things get worse externally? If we are always basing our happiness on things getting better externally, we remain attached.

Attachment is an object to be abandoned, even attachment to the hope of things getting better. Perhaps the last few hundred years have been increasing times, but now we are in degenerate times. Tomorrow will be worse than today and this will continue to be the case for likely a very long time. If we don’t shed this attachment to things getting better externally, we will suffer more and more from it, life will beat us down further and further, we will grow more and more depressed. This path leads to suicidal hopelessness.

The second reason why this is a trap is it is a form of self-torture. When we tell ourselves things are going to get better externally and they don’t, then we get crushed, our hopes drained, and our life becomes one of constant disappointment. Where does the disappointment come from? It comes from our unrealistic expectations about the external world. The truth is actually staring us right in the face. We are all doomed – we will all get sick, get old (if we are lucky), and die. And this process is going to repeat itself again and again. Life in samsara is one of perpetual, self-replicating doom. It is not going to get better, indeed it is on track to get much, much worse. We are enjoying but a brief relatively pleasant furlough in the human world.

These are hard truths to accept. Shattering, actually. But that doesn’t make them any less true. Until we come to grips with them, we remain on samsaric paths. Accepting them is when the path to liberation begins. This isn’t fire and brimstone manipulation. Buddha is very clear – we are in degenerate times. We better get used to it. Letting go of hope that this world will get better and that our external situation will get better is the starting point of the path to liberation. You should know sufferings.

So how can we happily accept these hard truths? How can accepting these truths not crush us and trigger a mental breakdown? How can we hear these things and not become suicidally hopeless?

First, we need to internalize these truths gradually. Start with the small stuff. Gain some experience of transforming slight adversities into the path of spiritual growth. When we can do that, we get a taste that it is possible. If we can do it with the small stuff, we gain the confidence and capacity to do it with slightly bigger stuff, and so on until eventually we can do it with any adversity. Venerable Geshe-la explains in How to Solve our Human Problems that there is no adversity so great that it cannot be transformed into the path. Indeed, with experience, the more things go badly externally the more we are propelled along the spiritual path internally. Instead of being beaten down by samsara, we become ejected by it – literally expelled out of it.

Second, we do not abandon hope, we simply change both its object and its expected timeline. Yes, we need to give up hope completely in samsara. It will never get better, it is irreparably broken. Doing more samsara will never create less samsara. Doubling down on samsaric methods will just double our suffering in it. But that doesn’t mean we are hopeless. Quite the opposite, we have a pure potential that can never be harmed by samsara no matter how awful it gets. We can reliably place our hope in our pure potential. We can reliably place our faith in the Dharma we have been taught as the method for ripening this potential. From the mud emerges the beautiful lotus. But we need to be realistic about how long this is going to take. It could take aeons. But that’s OK because we know with a pure potential and perfectly reliable methods the final outcome is assured. This is the mind of definite emergence and it is a joyful mind that knows we are bound for freedom and the only thing that can stop us is giving up trying. If we never give up, not only are we assured of getting out, we will eventually be able to lead everyone else to freedom. We can and will empty samsara. Buddha is also very clear about this. And it may happen much quicker than that – we have, after all, found the Ganden Oral Lineage through which it is possible to attain enlightenment in one short life. Maybe we won’t make it in this life, but if we give it our all, we will be able to pick up where we left off in our last life and it won’t be long before we find ourselves scaling Mount Meru in Keajra and eventually centering ourselves within the HUM at Guru Heruka’s heart inside his celestial mansion.

Third, we should remember that our samsaric world we normally see does not actually exist – at all. It is just a deluded hallucination. We are trippin’, as they say. It’s a bad trip, but it is not real. It is a bad dream, but it is not real. No matter what happens in the dream, it can never hurt us unless we believe it is real. We need to get to the point with our samsara that it becomes like a movie that is so bad, so absurd, it is funny. Samsara makes me laugh. The sky is never harmed, no matter how violent the storm raging in it. Be the sky. When we connect with the emptiness of an appearance, we purify the karma giving rise to it and it gradually subsides back into emptiness. By realizing the emptiness of our mind itself, we can cause all appearances to our mind to likewise subside into emptiness. We quite literally end the dream in such a way that it never arises again. You should attain cessations.

Fourth, we should trust in Dorje Shugden. One of my former students was a guy named Taro. Some of you may know him. He suffered terribly from psychotic minds, even towards the three jewels, and lived for close to a decade in a psychiatric hospital. His body may have been in the human realm, but his mind was often in hell. But he had vajra-like faith in Dorje Shugden. After he heard Gen Tharchin teach that we design our own enlightenment based upon the specific bodhichitta we generate, Taro said he wished to become a Buddha for extremely degenerate times – when everyone has a mind like he had now. His faith in Dorje Shugden enabled him to look at his torturous mind and view it as giving him the opportunity to gain the realizations he needed to fulfill his specific bodhichitta wish. He also once told me, “stop telling your spiritual guide how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your spiritual guide is.” His bodhichitta later evolved into wishing to become part of Dorje Shugden’s mandala. He has since passed away, but I have no doubt he is now part of Dorje Shugden’s vast assembled retinue. Perhaps he always was, actually. He bought for the center in Geneva a temple-sized Dorje Shugden statue. It’s bigger than our Buddha Shayamuni statue was! It was (and is) glorious, as was he. Indeed, it is wrong for me to say he was one of my students. He was rather one of my teachers – really, he was a teacher of us all. When they write the biographies of the early modern Kadampas, he will be listed as one of our modern Kadampa Mahasiddhas. Of this I have no doubt. If faith in Dorje Shugden can transform Taro’s tormented mind into a cause of enlightenment, then it can easily do so for the rest of us.

As a practical matter, accepting that samsara is hopeless and our lives within it are doomed does not mean we don’t still try make things better where possible. We still need to live our modern lives exactly as normal – working, exercising, taking care of our families, saving for retirement, caring for the sick, contributing to society, etc. If we can make our lives better, there is no fault in doing so. We just don’t place our hope in these things and we accept it when our life falls apart – as it will, many times.

And the ultimate irony is it is by accepting that we live in degenerate times, that samsara is irreparably broken, and indeed that we (or at least who we currently think we are) are doomed that we can actually be happy not just in our future lives, but in this life. It’s simple expectations management. If we expect (and accept) that things will go badly, then when it does we are not surprised or disappointed. But if it winds up going better than the worst we expected, we are pleasantly surprised. Either way, we keep our inner peace. By placing our hope in our pure potential and expanding our timeline, we get the same benefits of a hopeful mind but in something that actually will come to fruition. Samsara is doomed, but we are not. It’s good that samsara is doomed because then we can let go of chasing its rainbows and false promises. We stop wasting our time on what has no hope of working and we joyfully plunge into the divine pool of the clear light. We develop not only the joyful mind of definite emergence, we know that – in the end – we will guide all those that we love who currently suffer so to permanent freedom from all suffering. And nothing can stop us as long as we never give up trying. The final outcome is assured. So then, like Taro, we can happily accept our present adversity as forging us into the Buddha we need to become. We can then, as Gen Tharchin explained, take our place in Geshe-la’s holy mandala.

As times become ever more impure,
Your power and blessings ever increase,
And you care for us quickly, as swift as thought;
O Chakrasambara Father and Mother, to you I prostrate.