4. Practicing in Daily Life

Differentiating Canon vs. Commentary in Our Oral Lineage:

Kadampa Ryan 1. Reflections on doing this website/blog, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden , ,

In my mind, I believe everything I write can easily be traced back to something Venerable Geshe-la (VGL) has directly taught. I have only VGL going in free from any mixing, so hopefully it is only VGL coming out. I take my heart commitment to Dorje Shugden very seriously.

There are two types of teaching, manifest and hidden. The manifest teachings are things he directly said. The hidden teachings are things we can discover by contemplating deeply what he has said and by connecting the dots between what he has said.

VGL explained that the oral lineage instructions are the making manifest of what was previously hidden. We are, fundamentally, the Ganden Oral Lineage. As the lineage courses through time, some aspects that were previously hidden become manifest.

But only those things directly taught by the lineage gurus can definitively be considered canon within our lineage. For example, for me, Mirror of Dharma and the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, and in particular VGL’s oral commentaries to these two books, are the the very essence of canonical oral instructions VGL gave us. He made manifest what was previously hidden within our lineage. I would say his oral lineage instructions began with Modern Buddhism. The books that came before were generally foundational teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa re-presented for fortunate modern Kadampa disciples. The publishing of Modern Buddhism was like VGL’s second founding of the New Kadampa Tradition.

But the rest that we all have to say, I would say, is the interpretations or commentaries of individual practitioners as they make their way along the path. They are things that were hidden to them that become manifest for them.

I would put everything I write definitively in the second basket, obviously not the first. VGL frequently encouraged us to write our own commentaries. For me, all of my writings are that.

Some people appreciate my thoughts. But sometimes some people get very bent out of shape when I write things they haven’t heard before, with some variant of “who the hell do you think you are to say such things?” Or “where did VGL say that?” as if him not saying it directly necessarily makes it wrong. They project that I am putting myself forward as some definitive word on things, inventing my own lineage, etc., and they can get upset at me or about what I am doing, as if it is some threat.

From my perspective, oftentimes this is because they struggle to see past whether I have the right to write things down to actually check whether what I am saying is correct or not. Of course the language choices I use sometimes invite that because I do tend to write with a definitive voice. Kadam Lucy has encouraged me many times to be careful on that front and add things like, “to me,” or “it seems to me,” or “I would say,…” and things like that, so people know that I am not pretending to proclaim forth the truth from Mount Sinai.

But in the end, I would say whether other practitioners find what I write to be helpful or a load of crap is really up to them. I don’t claim what I write has any validity beyond they work for me and are what I am understanding at any given point in time. It is up to each person to check out the validity of what I am saying for themselves – or they can just ignore what I have to say as the ramblings of some rogue Kadampa. It’s all the same to me. As Shantideva said at the beginning of his Guide, his intention in writing it was to consolidate his own thoughts. If others also find it beneficial, then all the better.

However, I do ask others to please point out when I’m going off the rails. Gen Pagpa, Kadam Olivier, Kadam Lucy, Gen Rabten, France, and some others do do that, and I’m extremely grateful. I don’t want to believe wrong things and I invite others to compassionately correct me when I’m wrong. I also invite others to ask questions if what I am saying doesn’t make sense or gives rise to some doubts. Many do. VGL said it is really important to discuss Dharma with our Sangha friends during the meditation break, just like we would at a World Peace Cafe or something. Everything I write is meant to start a conversation.

I might sometimes debate back with folks, though, if in my mind their “correction” doesn’t in fact make sense to me. Sometimes when I debate back people feel threatened or that I’m challenging their authority or that I am just so dense I don’t get it or that my pride prevents me from understanding they are right. Sometimes I think the exact same thing about them for not being able to see the validity of my points. None of this is a problem.

For me, that is the value of spiritual debate. If two sincere Kadampas are having a disagreement about their understanding of the teachings, this is an opportunity for both to either deepen their understanding or to help skillfully guide their fellow Kadampas along the correct path. Either way it has the potential to be good. But sometimes delusions and attachment to one’s view get in the way.

Either way, I believe it is important that we reflect deeply on what it means to be a living oral lineage. Sometimes people fall into the extreme of inventing their own lineage. Sometimes people fall into the extreme of thinking if VGL didn’t directly say it, it is somehow wrong or creating one’s own lineage and they become Dharma parrots.

I would say the middle way is understanding that the nature of an oral lineage is the making manifest what was previously hidden. When a lineage guru does this, it becomes canon in that lineage. When an individual practitioner does it, it’s just that practitioner’s individual commentary.

For us, according to the Internal Rules, only the collected works of VGL (his books, teachings, and things he has said to individual practitioners) are canon. Everything else is our commentaries. Sometimes they are written down, sometimes they are discussed over a cup of coffee, sometimes they are shared from the throne in one of the thousands of Kadampa centers around the world. Perhaps 250 years from now another foundational teacher like Atisha, Lama Tsongkhapa, and VGL will come along and re-present the teachings for fortunate future Kadampa disciples. But until then, VGL is canon, we are commentaries.

Since VGL frequently encouraged us to write our own commentaries, I see a future in which many, many Kadampas are writing, speaking, and sharing their own commentaries, learning from each other. I would say each time a Kadampa gives a teaching in a center, this is their individual commentary. It is what they understand VGL to mean and what they have understood the teachings to mean. It is their personal testimonial of the truth of the teachings for them in their life.

One of my previous teachers said the lineage blessings only transfer through individual lived experience of their truth. Two people could speak the exact same words, but the listeners will receive greater blessings from the person who has direct personal experience of the truth of that instruction. We can be inspired by such things, appreciate the value of such things, even if there might be points of disagreement along the margins. Then there is no problem, indeed there is just mutual learning within a like-minded spiritual community.

How wonderful, or at least I think it is… 😉

The Kadam Lamrim of Sutra and Tantra are Essentially All Self-Generation Meditations:

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life , , , ,

I would say the whole path of Kadam Lamrim of Sutra and Tantra is, from one perspective, a series of self-generation meditations. In Sutra, we self-generate as a “Kadampa” or a fortunate modern Kadampa disciple. In Tantra, in virtually all generation and completion stage meditations, we self-generate as the guru deity with different levels of our mind. With gross generation stage, we self-generate as the deity’s gross body with our gross mind. With the body mandala meditations, we self-generate as the deity’s subtle body which is the nature of our purified channels, drops and winds. With the completion stage meditation of the indestructible wind and mind, we self-generate as the deity’s very subtle body which is the nature of our purified very subtle indestructible wind, in the aspect of the HUM. Even with the meditation on the clear light, we self-generate as the guru-deity’s very subtle mind which is the nature of our purified very subtle mind. These are all self-generation meditations, just at different levels.

All self-generation meditations have the same core elements: what appears, what is felt, what is understood, the mind that holds the object, and the divine pride of being the guru deity on this basis. What appears is the nature of the form aggregate, what is felt is the nature of the aggregate of feeling, what is understood is the nature of the aggregate of discrimination, the mind that holds the object is the nature of aggregate of compositional factors, and the divine pride is the nature of our aggregate of consciousness. When we become a Buddha, these transform into the five completely purified aggregates of a Buddha, otherwise known as the five omniscient wisdoms.

Understanding this, we can see that the progression of Sutra to gross generation stage, to the body mandala, to the completion stage meditations, to the meditation on the clear light are actually all different self-generation meditations with increasingly subtle levels of our mind that function to transform our five contaminated aggregates into the five omniscient wisdoms of a Buddha through the same spiritual technology of changing the basis of imputation of our I to something increasingly subtle and increasingly pure – in other words, through self-generation meditations.

What appears changes at each level. In Sutra, what appears is our samsaric self, in my case Kadampa Ryan. In gross generation stage, what appears is ourself as the gross deity body. In body mandala meditations, what appears is ourself as the deities of the body mandala. In the early completion stage meditations, what appears is ourself as the seed letter, such as the HUM. In the completion stage meditations on the clear light, what appears is ourself as the clear light Dharmakaya.

The next three core elements or parts are the same at each level. What is felt is great bliss, which is the nature of the mind of love. What is understood is not ourself or ourself or the deity we normally see (at each level of mind), but the emptiness of ourself or the deity we normally see. Our self and the deity we normally see do not exist and are mistaken appearances, but the emptiness of ourself or the deity we normally see do exist as manifestations of emptiness appearing in the aspect of whichever level of self-generation we are doing. The mind that holds all this is the perfection of concentration – a perfectly concentrated mind motivated by conventional bodhichitta. The neutral mental factors come together as pure concentration and the virtuous mental factors come together as bodhichitta, the quintessential butter that comes from churning the milk of Dharma.

The specific divine prides we generate vary at each level – I am a Kadampa at the Sutra level, I am Heruka at the gross level, I am the body mandala at the subtle level, I am the completely purified indestructible wind and mind at the very subtle level, I am definitive Heruka at the level of the clear light. But they are all the nature of guru yoga. We don’t just see ourselves as the deity, but as the guru-deity. Here we bring in all of our faith in our guru, not only in the sense of being in his living presence, but of actually being him – the duality between ourself and him dissolves away completely. Our whole mind transforms into the feeling that we are now the guru deity.

In this way, we can easily see how the Lamrim of Sutra and the Lamrim of Tantra are all equally the Lamrim, just practiced at different levels of mind via a self-generation meditation. At the grossest level, we train in Lamrim in the form of the 15 or 21 Lamrim meditations from Mirror of Dharma or the New Meditation Handbook. In Tantra, at the gross self-generation, the body mandala, the completion stage, and the clear light meditations we likewise have the entire Lamrim contained within these five core parts of each self-generation meditation (what is seen, what is felt, what is understood, the mind that holds it, and the divine pride of being the guru deity). Same Lamrim, just at increasingly subtle levels of mind all brought together into a self-generation meditation.

The Dharma we have been given is indescribably profound and elegant. We are beyond fortunate to have found such a path. May I dedicate my life to realizing the Kadam Lamrim at these increasingly subtle levels of mind.

Ten Step Strategy for Dealing with Disrespect:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden , , , ,

Sometimes people act in disrespectful ways towards us, perhaps it is even the habitual dynamic in our relationship. What should we do?

We don’t help people by letting them disrespect us since they accumulate all sorts of negative karma in the process. But we also don’t help people by having no relationship with them, so we can’t just go around ending completely all relationships if there is the slightest disrespect. So what is the middle way here? What follows are ten steps we can try to navigate a middle way that works for us and our situation.

I would say the first thing we have to do is admit that yes, they are acting in disrespectful ways towards us. Sometimes we rationalize away other’s bad behavior or we believe their gaslighting of us. No, we need to call a spade a spade. Conventionally, we need to be exactly as normal.

Second, we should check within ourselves why we allow others to treat us that way? Perhaps there is some attachment we have to what they provide us that keeps us around and we are afraid if we say something we will lose that thing. Or perhaps we have deep-seated self-hatred and we think we deserve such behavior. Or perhaps we have a savior or martyr complex thinking if we stick around or cooperate with their behavior, we can get them to change for the better. Or perhaps we just have a misunderstanding of what it means to cherish others with wisdom. There are all sorts of possible explanations, we need to find out what is actually going on in our mind.

Third, we need to have an have an honest conversation with ourself about whether we have the capacity to stick around or whether in fact it is destroying us in the process. Self-sacrifice is not cherishing others. Usually there are many shades of gray with this one, where we do have the capacity to transform X, but not really Y; or we can handle it for a certain period of time, but after that we start to lose our cool. This step is essential for being able to establish healthy boundaries. First and foremost, we must establish boundaries that honestly accept our present capacity. If the situation pushes us beyond our capacity and we are going to start engaging in all sorts of hurtful, negative, or angry actions (or we reach a point where we can’t hold back our attachments), then we owe it to both ourselves and to the other person to disengage so we can stay in a zone where we can keep it together.

Fourth, for the things that are within our capacity to transform, we need to do the inner Dharma work of dismantling the attachments, anger, doubts, lack of self-confidence, unwise compassion, jealousy, or whatever other delusions are allowing the other person to disrespect us. Once we have worked through those, we will be in a position to have a conversation with the other person about the disrespectful behavior pattern that exists in our relationship.

Fifth, when we approach the other person, we should try use as skillful means as we possibly can. The books on non-violent communication have a ton of excellent tips for how to do this. VGL once said when it comes to skillful means, there is no fault in learning from non-Dharma sources. Dharma doesn’t teach us how to do accounting, computer coding, or building temples – but it can help us do all those things better. Same with listening well, being a coach, engaging in skillful communication, etc. VGL once taught that we can go to the other person and say something to the effect of, “when you do X, I experience it as Y; but perhaps I am misunderstanding. Can you please clarify your perspective on this.” Then try have a constructive conversation. You can – and most often should – have very clear asks of them. I ask you to please not disrespect me in this way, or going forward can you please do Z instead. Both we and they need to know what specifically is a different way forward. Just saying “don’t do X” isn’t enough if they don’t know what they should do instead.

Sixth, if despite your best efforts (both in terms of pure motivation and skillful means), the person refuses to change, then you need to ask yourself, “how big of a deal is this?” Perhaps it is something huge like abusive behavior where the person is creating terrible karma for themselves and you sticking around is like a cancer eating away at your sense of self-worth and self-respect. Or perhaps it is really not a big deal and certainly not worth blowing your relationship up over, and better to just let it slide. Request wisdom to know the difference.

Seventh, if it is a big deal and the other person refuses to change their behavior, then it’s time for boundaries again, but you need to give them a warning. You say something to the effect of, “If X behavior continues, then I will have to disengage from you in Y way.” Sometimes you don’t even need to say anything, you can just do it and hope they get the cue. Try make Y specifically proportional to the offending behavior. No point throwing out the entire baby with a little bit of dirty bathwater. For example, if you are not able to continue to have this conversation in person, then we will have to do it in writing. Or if you insist that I join you in X negative action when we are together, then I will no longer hang out with you in that way. There are countless different variants of this depending upon our individual circumstances, the point is “right size” your disengagement from them to the specific disrespect. We don’t want to end the relationship (we have a bodhichitta commitment to them, after all), but we do want to end their ability to continue to disrespect us in that way. Remember, healthy boundaries are not about telling other people what they can or can’t do – they are in charge of that. Rather, they are about what WE will do based upon what is happening. We are not trying to control others, but we do not have to apologize for controlling and protecting ourself.

Eighth, sometimes we will need to repeat our warning a few times before it registers, so it’s usually a good idea to “give them one last chance,” but if it continues, you need to decisively execute on your boundary. Sometimes we don’t even need to say anything, we can just leave the room, hang up, end the communication, not return their call, stop sending them money they are misusing, whatever. If they ask, we can explain that we told them this is what we were going to do, so we need to follow through with our actions, otherwise our boundaries mean nothing and they won’t credibly take our warnings in the future.

Ninth, we need to hold the line no matter the backlash. There is a very real risk that they will try every trick in their book to get us to go back to how things were. Perhaps they get flaming pissed, perhaps they get all nice (“I’ll change honey, I promise,” when we know as soon as we take them back, they will fall right back into their old patterns), perhaps they start threatening all the things we were afraid of losing, perhaps they try guilt trip us. Perhaps they try all of them in rapid succession. All these tactics have worked in the past, so why wouldn’t they try them again? But this time, we accept them all as purification, adjusting our boundaries in real time as necessary showing that we will not cooperate with these attempts at emotional blackmail either. Sometimes these cycles can escalate very quickly and it get really bad. Hold. The. Line. If you cave when the pressure gets too strong, you just guarantee that next time you try draw a line, they will escalate to that point and beyond. But if you show that they can throw everything they have at you and you do not budge, but rather you just get further and further out of the way so they cannot harm you, at some point they will give up trying. You will have broken the cycle. They will continue to try several more times in other contexts in the future, but because you saw it through once, they will know it won’t work in the future, and they will try less and less until they give up. This ninth step is often the hardest because it is where we are forced to directly confront the delusions within our mind that enabled others to disrespect us in the first place (that we identified in step two above).

Lastly, as the situation de-escalates and they realize we are serious, we make an attempt to preserve what remains of our relationship that was not unhealthy, harmful, toxic, disrespectful, or bad in some way. Sometimes this will mean relaxing some of the additional boundaries we put in place in real time during the escalation phase above. Perhaps they will accept a new equilibrium or perhaps they are incapable of doing so. If they can, great; if they can’t, then so be it. We give them the choice to continue in these healthy ways, but we will not continue in these unhealthy ways. They then decide what they want – either directly decide or their continued harmful behavior decides for them. Either way, we accept their choice.

None of this is easy, but all of it is good for our practice. Of course we should request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best, we should bring Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka into our heart and ask that he work through us, we should request wisdom blessings to know what to do, we should talk to friends who give us good advice, we should try maintain pure view, and all the rest. We should use every Dharma tool we have throughout all ten of these steps.

Living beings are precious, including disrespectful ones, because they give us a chance to learn how to actually use the Dharma to dismantle the delusions in our mind – including those that cause us to let others mistreat us or to stick around when it is time to go. We will carry these realizations with us for the rest of this life and all our future lives. They are more valuable than a universe filled with wish granting jewels. In short, going through all this may suck, but it is totally worth it.

The Fires of the Deepest Hell for the Sake of Each Being:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden , , , ,

Maybe when we first start practicing Dharma we are selfish in the sense of not caring about others, neglecting them, etc. A few years of practice and that is easy enough to leave behind. Where it gets complicated is when we absolutely want to cherish others, but sometimes the best way to cherish them is to stop enabling self-destructive behavior. Sometimes not helping them helps them more because it forces them to step up and assume responsibility for themselves and their own future.

I have spent decades misinterpreting cherishing others to mean becoming everybody’s savior, solving all their problems for them, but to a large extent all I did was create dependency and deprive them of the opportunity to learn how to stand on their own two feet.

I think for me the key test is “are they capable of doing this thing themselves?” If the answer is no, and it needs to be done, then OK, I will step in and do it for them. But if the answer is yes, they can (even if they don’t believe they can), then I will make myself available to coach them how to do it themselves, but the burden has to fall on them to do it. And if they don’t, then the consequences of them not doing it are also theirs to bear.

When I do that, they will howl in protest and use every single emotional blackmail tool in their arsenal to get me to do it for them – guilt tripping me, getting mad at me, threatening self-harm or self-destruction in some way, provoking some sort of crisis that forces me to step in, etc., etc., etc. And why wouldn’t they? Such a strategy has worked for them countless times in the past. That’s how they have learned to cope with life’s difficulties – self-destruct in some way or get mad at me to do things for them. I have trained them to do exactly that. Breaking these patterns is really hard.

When we stop participating in these behavioral cycles, they hate you for it, they cut off communication, they emotionally implode (or explode), they trigger crises, etc. If we give in to these forms of emotional blackmail, it never stops and the cycle starts again. Sometimes natural life consequences are the best teacher.

But again, for me at least, the test is “can they realistically do it on their own?” If they can’t, and it is conventionally our responsibility in society to help them, then we need to care for them because it is normal to do so, even if they are being emotionally abusive towards us along the way. We are not helping them to avoid the emotional abuse, we are helping them because they need help and we can do so.

But even this has an exception: “Are we capable of continuing to help without it crushing us in the process?” Here we have to be really honest with ourselves about what our actual capacity is. If our helping is destroying us, destroying our capacity, preventing us from practicing Dharma, leading to burnout, etc., then we have to say, “I would want to help, but unfortunately I can’t.” Sometimes our understanding of cherishing others not only leads to savior complexes as above, but also martyr complexes where we sacrifice ourself on the altar of helping others. Of course we sacrifice our self-cherishing – we have gathered all blame into one and are willing to torch it – but we don’t sacrifice OURSELVES. We are not our self-cherishing. We can’t make destroying our self-cherishing to mean destroying ourself. There are many, many people in this world that I would want to help, but I lack the capacity to do so. I need to use the fact that I would want to help but currently lack the capacity to do so to fuel my bodhichitta – this is why I need to become a Buddha so then I can help everyone.

The other mistake I make is exaggerating the importance of a few people on the altar of others who I could also be helping. If I spend all my time and mental energy on just a few people (who I’m not really helping anyways, I’m just enabling them becoming dependent on me to solve their problems for them) and I neglect all these other people who I could be helping who do want my help and I can make a difference in their lives, then I am not cherishing ALL living beings. We need to cherish everyone, not sacrifice many for the sake of few.

This gets hard when it is our conventional responsibility to help certain people (such as our kids, aging parents, employees, close friends, etc.). So for me, if I have a conventional responsibility towards somebody, then I accept this is my responsibility and I meet it because that is the “exactly as normal” thing to do in modern life. VGL has said countless times we should not be abandoning our families, etc., to “practice Dharma,” but instead we should start with those we are karmically close to and expand outwards. But there does come a point where we have met our karmic responsibilities and conventionally they should be taking care of themselves. Then, if there are others who I could be helping more, then I should be willing to cherish them too, even if doing so means I might be helping those I have been helping a lot a little less.

Then the final hurdle is learning to accept sometimes those we love will suffer and there is nothing we can do about it in the short-term. We need to completely let go of our attachment to them being OK and not suffering. We of course care for them and wish that they don’t suffer, but we can’t be personally ATTACHED to them not suffering, where our mental peace and well-being depends upon them not suffering. Just as we have to accept the truth of suffering for ourself, so too we need to accept the truth of suffering of others. They are in samsara so their lives are also the nature of suffering. Accepting this fact then needs to channel into our bodhichitta – therefore the only solution is I need to become a Buddha so I can eventually be there for them in life after life, gradually leading them out. But I can’t liberate them like a magic wand. They have to do the work. I can’t do it for them. So I need supreme patience with them (“please be patient with us”) and acceptance that they are likely going to suffer for a very long time until they do what needs to be done to not. I can’t do it for them.

It’s so hard. I often try remember the line from Offering to the Spiritual Guide, “even if I must remain in the fires of the deepest hell for many aeons for the sake of each being.” The bodhisattva’s path is not for the faint of heart. In the end, I put my faith in Dorje Shugden. I bring VGL into my heart requesting his wisdom blessings to know what to do. And then I try be as much like Heruka as I can be. I make mistakes, I try correct for them; I get knocked down, I get back up again. With persistence, we will get there in the end. We will eventually attain enlightenment and guide them to the same state.

Cherishing Only Others with Wisdom:

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life , , , ,

Once we make the decision to cherish only others, the question then becomes how do we do so with wisdom. There are many common traps we can fall into along the way.

Venerable Geshe-la famously explained in New Eight Steps to Happiness that, “the path to enlightenment is really very simple – all we need to do is stop cherishing ourself and learn to cherish others. All other spiritual realizations will naturally follow from this.”

The whole reason why we attain enlightenment is to help others more effectively. Attaining enlightenment itself depends upon generating bodhichitta, the actual wish to attain enlightenment for the sake of others. Bodhichitta depends upon great compassion, a mind that cannot bear the suffering of others trapped in samsara and strongly wishes to protect others from samsara’s sufferings. Great compassion depends upon cherishing others, considering their happiness and freedom to be something important to us. We develop this mind primarily by developing a feeling of gratitude for others kindness, realizing how self-cherishing is the cause of all our suffering, and clearly understanding that cherishing others is the actual root of our enlightenment (the solution to all of our own and others problems) since all other realizations of the path flow naturally from this. All this leads to the conclusion we need to cherish only others.

But once we have made this decision, it is very easy for us to fall into a wide variety of traps and mistakes. In particular, I want to highlight five mistakes that I have made in the hope others might be able to avoid them. It is not enough to just cherish only others, we need to learn to do so with wisdom.

One mistake we make is developing a savior complex. We think it is our job to save others, that we are responsible for both their suffering and for saving them from it. Such an approach, while well-intended, winds up creating dependency in others where they become incapable of helping themselves, they wait for the messiah, and think they can’t be happy or escape from their suffering without us doing something. In effect, this disempowers them to save themselves.

A related mistake is cherishing others with a martyr complex. Here, we wind up sacrificing ourself – destroying our own capacity to help – in the name of cherishing others. This can take many forms, such as taking on more than we can handle, pushing ourselves beyond our limits, leading to some form of burnout. Or it can take the form of sacrificing our own practice of Dharma because we are so busy “cherishing others” we don’t have time to properly invest in our practice, or maybe others resent our practice and so we think to cherish them we need to abandon it, even if only on the margin. This can also lead to resentment of those we are supposedly cherishing. We know our cherishing of them is leading to our burnout, destroying our capacity, or causing us to sacrifice our practice and then we start to resent others for not realizing what they are doing to us – we do so much for them and they just take, take, take, and don’t give a damn about how it is destroying us.

A mistake that has many, many levels to it is cherishing others mixed with attachment. The common denominator of all these levels is us being OK depends upon them being OK. When they do down, we go down with them. Our happiness depends upon them being OK. Nobody is OK in samsara, we are all drowning, so if we confuse our cherishing love with attachment to them being happy, then instead of it leading to enlightenment, our cherishing others makes the whole world’s problem our problem, and all the suffering of the world our suffering. We can quickly become despondent, discouraged, and give in to despair. It’s true, we need to “feel” other’s suffering as acutely as our own, but this doesn’t mean we should make everybody’s suffering our own. We care about their suffering as much as our own, but we don’t experience it. It’s not our suffering. This is a crucial distinction.

Another common mistake is helping too much, this often flows out of the savior complex, but can also come from just a lack of wisdom understanding what is more beneficial. We all know the saying of it is more helpful to teach a man to fish than give him one. The answer, of course, is give him a fish while you are teaching him how to do so so he doesn’t starve before he learns how to fish for himself. When we help too much – doing things for others that they can do for themselves – they never learn how to actually do things on their own and remain forever dependent. Breaking this cycle can be very difficult, especially if we have been carrying others too much for a long time. It puts us in these terrible dilemmas where either we step in to help or they crash and burn, perhaps losing everything they have been working for their whole life. But if we take a gradual approach, it can be done. It’s also like teaching a toddler how to walk. At first, they hold your finger but at some point they need to let go and walk on their own.

An additional common mistake we can make is assuming cherishing others means giving them whatever they want. Most people are completely controlled by their delusions, so what they want is what their delusions want. If we give others what their delusions want, we just feed their delusions which actually harms them. Sometimes, we have to say no – we could give them what they want, but we refuse to do so because we know it is not what is in their best interests. Or sometimes we have to speak some hard truths to them – give them some tough love, things they need to hear but don’t want to hear. They may even hate us for doing or saying these things, cut off communication with us, blame us for all their problems, start a smear campaign against us with anybody and everybody they speak with, including those we know. It can get real ugly. They may resort to all sorts of emotional blackmail or guilt trip us about being a bad Buddhist for not doing what their delusions want us to do for them. But we sometimes need to love others enough to do or say things that they will hate us for. This is a hard one.

Each one of these mistakes has many levels and we should request blessings to identify how we are making them. Then, we gradually purify our cherishing of others of them. At the same time or subsequently, we can then start informing our cherishing of others with the wisdom realizing emptiness, understanding that the others in our life are actually mere karmic projections of our mind. Realizing this without falling into the extreme of solipsism is a whole other topic worth exploring. Once we have some experience of the union of cherishing others and the wisdom realizing emptiness, then our tantric practice of pure view of others, the power of prayers to help them, etc., all take on much deeper meaning and develop significantly more power. But again, that is another very large topic.

The point is, while it is true all other realizations naturally follow from the decision to cherish only others, actually doing so skillfully and with wisdom is a vast practice. But slowly, slowly we purify our cherishing love of these mistakes and learn how to deepen it with emptiness and the tantric teachings, and eventually it carries us all the way through compassion, to bodhichitta, to full enlightenment, to the real reason why we did all this in the first place – to be able to help others find everlasting peace and happiness.

Happy trails!

Roadmap for Becoming a Child-Like Yogi at Play:

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

If I’m honest with myself, my practice is much more sincere and robust when I am in crisis mode because frankly I have no choice other than to practice with every fibre of my being just to get through it. In many ways, my life has been in one form of crisis or another since 2008, and arguably for decades before that. It has essentially been a non-stop roller coaster ever since 2008 with some pretty heavy stuff. There is no doubt that all this adversity has forced me to really dig deep and move beyond an intellectual understanding of Dharma to actually using it to bring my mind back to inner peace every time I get knocked on my butt. I cannot help but feel extremely grateful for all this difficulty because there is no doubt it has pushed me far along the path – indeed probably much farther than I would be if everything was all rainbows, unicorns, and harmony among people.

But at the same time, if I’m honest, I’m really tired of being in crisis mode. I know this is samsara and samsara is the nature of suffering – unrelenting like the waves of the ocean crashing down – and I have to accept that. I know there will be no peace until I wake up from the nightmare of mistaken karmic appearances. But when I read Chapter 8 of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, I cannot help but be moved by his descriptions of the supreme joy of a yogi’s life, like a child at play. I know Venerable Geshe-la taught that we need to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and Modern Life, but he also gave us these verses as something to aspire to.

Yes, I have grown tremendously through this adversity, but dammit, I’m tired of having to always learn and grow through adversity and tragedy. Yes, I can do it, but I would love to be able to just enjoy and improve, like a child at play or like the archetypical wise old man playfully taking delight in the butterfly that landed on his finger. When I think about me doing my future retreats, etc., this is really part of the vision I am hoping to get to. Effort can not be just be drugery, indeed, it has to be the nature of playful joy.

My challenge is I don’t know how to get there, in the short-run at least. I’m not choosing tragedy and adversity, it just keeps happening in my life. When it happens, like in the Alcoholics Anonymous prayer, I have no choice but to pray, “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Or in Kadampa terms, “well, I guess I need to grow through this one too.”

I’m so tired of constant crisis, I just want it to end, but I find when I succumb to that sort of thinking, it quickly turns into an attachment to external peace, or it is a non-acceptance of the truth of samsara, or it is a lack of faith in Dorje Shugden that he is arranging exactly what I need. It’s like I’m trying to resist how things are, not accept them; it’s like I’m trying to say I know better than Dorje Shugden, almost trying to supplant him. So I need to let go and accept that this is the karma that is ripening and that it is all for the best (I always see at the end how it was, even though it sucked to go through).

I think in the long run, though, I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to be like the contented, playful yogi. We just shouldn’t be attached to it. The question is how do we get to the point where we can just be going with the flow like a child at play? I need to do a few things from my side.

First, I need to purify the gobs of unpurified negative karma that remain on my mind. I have created the karma for everything I experience and I either need to purify it before it ripens or go through it, there is no third possibility. So if I want to stop lurching from crisis to crisis, I need to start getting serious about engaging in purification practices.

Second, I need to overcome the laziness that sets in when times are “good.” Many times I have made the request to Dorje Shugden to please arrange the outer and inner conditions necessary for my swiftest possible enlightenment. When times are shit, I’m forced to practice and make progress; but when times are good, I quickly become lazy or complacent or I stagnate. This reaction to good times creates deep incentives to keep the bad times coming because I only seem to grow with them. I need to get to the point where I grow MORE in the good times than the bad, then it won’t be as necessary for me to have to experience tragedy to fulfill the larger spiritual promise/wish of attaining enlightenment as swiftly as possible.

Third, I need to do what it takes to create the outer conditions necessary for me to not have to think much about having enough resources necessary to sustain my practice. This basically practically means I need to make enough money to be able to fund my retirement enough so I can dedicate my time to my practice. Venerable Geshe-la talks in How to Transform Your Life about the extreme of spirituality. We also need to tend to our external circumstances and there is nothing wrong with doing so. For me at least, if my spiritual life become my “job” that I need to do to sustain myself externally, it would likely taint the joy just like joining the golf team in High School killed the joy of the game because it became about winning. Or it is like the person who loves cooking for their friends and decides to become a chef only to find making it their job stole all the joy. So yes, I need to make the money necessary that I won’t have to worry about being able to have a good enough life where I can be that child at play. Through a combination of perhaps working a bit longer than I originally anticipated and learning to live with less, I think I can hopefully get there. Basically, for the next 8 years at least, I am going to try learn to live on next to nothing and to save almost everything I can to build up enough of an asset base that generates enough income to be able to be a child at play in my retirement.

Fourth, I think I’m done taking on new responsibilities for others in the sense of creating dependencies of others on me. I will always carry the great responsibility of caring in every way for the doctrine and migrators because this is my Kadampa bodhichitta responsibility. Externally, I need to fulfill all my remaining responsibilities to my family and to my country that I have assumed, but I don’t need to take on any new ones in samsara. I have basically been carrying much of the load of many people for many decades. This has exhausted me and created a degree of dependencies in them where they struggle to function on their own as strong, independent, self-sufficient, and healthy adults. It was perhaps necessary at the time, but I need to gradually get them to the point where they don’t need me anymore to function autonomously (in their own way). And I need to make a point of NOT entering into any more relationships with anybody that could once again become a dependency. I will, to the maximum extent possible, try to not enter into any new relationships that are not at a minimum reciprocal and hopefully are mutually enhancing. I need to fulfill my existing responsibilities in samsara, but I have zero intention or desire to take on any new ones.

Along the way, I am sure there will inevitably be more tragedy and adversity that arises. I will have no choice but to grow through them (since the alternative will be to let them destroy me). But this is my roadmap for getting to the yogi’s life. I may not even get there in this life, I don’t know, but it seems like a noble direction to head in.

Wherever You Imagine a Buddha, A Buddha Goes:

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

Wherever we imagine a Buddha, a Buddha goes; and wherever they go, they accomplish their function, which is to bestow blessings and guide living beings along the paths to enlightenment as swiftly as their karma allows. This is equally true for ourself and for us imagining Buddhas in the lives of those we love.

To understand this, we need to first consider both the nature and function of enlightenment and enlightened beings. The definitive Buddha is the Dharmakaya, which is an “I” imputed upon a very subtle mind of great bliss realizing the emptiness of all phenomena. This is a person whose body and mind are one entity – a mind of great bliss that realizes directly the emptiness of all phenomena (4th profundity, not just 1st profundity from Heart of Wisdom). This means a Buddha is necessarily the ultimate nature of everything. The real nature of every appearance is the Dharmakaya, or a Buddha.

The function of a Buddha is to be with each and every living being every day, bestowing blessings and guiding them towards enlightenment as swiftly as their karma will allow. It is like the sun always shining behind the clouds. The whole reason why they attained enlightenment is to be able to be with each and every living being every day, bestowing blessings and guiding living beings along the path. This means wherever a Buddha goes, they are always accomplishing their function, which is to bestow blessings.

In all the sections on guru yoga, it explains that our most important recognition is to strongly believe we are actually in the living presence of the guru deity. This is not just some fake imagination, but it is correct imagination. Correct imagination is imagining something that is actually there (not inherently, since nothing exists inherently, but conventionally, functionally), even if we don’t (yet) directly perceive it with our sense awarenesses. The more we meditate on correct imaginations, the more we start to perceive directly what we are imagining because it is what is actually there.

If you saw a snake on the hiking path, and your friend said, “no, no, that is just a stick, look carefully,” you would then start to look more closely trying to see what is there. The more you look, while checking to see if indeed your friend is right, the more vividly the stick would start to appear directly to your sense awarenesses and the appearance of the mistaken appearance of the snake would disappear. It is exactly the same with correct imaginations. The Buddhas are actually there, everywhere in everything, and the more we look at things with this correct imagination, the more they start to appear directly to our sense awarenesses until we see, “oh yeah, there is a Buddha directly in front of me. In fact, they are everywhere!”

Geshe-la explains that while the sun is always shining, if we are inside and all our blinds are closed, the sunlight does not come in. For us to see its light and feel its warmth, we need to open our blinds. We need to do something from our own side to gain direct access to these blessings. So what do we need to do to open our blinds? We primarily need to do two things: purify our motivation for why we want to see the light and generate a mind of faith. A good heart and a mind of faith are the keys that unlock the blinds in our mind, enabling the light of our guru’s blessings to flow directly into our heart and mind. The sun of our guru’s blessings is always shining and providing a degree of warmth to our home (otherwise it would be as cold as the vacuum of space), but how much brighter and warmer will it become when we open our blinds?

So wherever we imagine a Buddha, a Buddha goes because they are already actually there. Technically, what is happening is when we imagine (with a good heart and a mind of faith), we make manifest within our own mind the Buddha that is actually there – we open the blinds of our mind and allow the light and warmth to pour in. The Buddhas from their side of course want to do this, this is the whole reason why they attained enlightenment in the first place.

Where it gets really interesting is when we consider the emptiness of all phenomena. Are the things in our life ordinary samsaric things or are they all emanations? The answer is they are neither from their own side, but they can become either depending upon how we mentally project/relate to them.

For example, I can make a request to Dorje Shugden, “please take care of and protect my family always, from now until they eventually attain enlightenment; and please bless me with the wisdom to see and understand directly how you are doing so.” I then – correctly – imagine that he is doing precisely that. In dependence upon my good heart and my mind of faith, when I look at what is happening in their life, I will gradually come to see directly how he is doing exactly that for them. If I ask Guru Heruka Father and Mother to please parent my children through everyone and everything they encounter, then Heruka Father and Mother will enter into everything (technically, they are already there in everything, but it is my good heart and mind of faith that make them manifest within my mind, gradually at first but then eventually through direct perception) and accomplish exactly this function.

So even though I am not able to be with my family all the time, I know people who can, namely Dorje Shugden, Heruka, Mother Tara, Medicine Buddha, and so forth. My good heart and mind of fatih, combined with my prayers and correct imagination, will make them manifest in their lives and in my perception of their lives, gradually at first but then eventually through direct perception.

The power of this is limitless. Eventually, through my own training in the stages of generation and completion stage, I will impute my own “I” onto the Dharmakaya and all the Buddhas doing all this for all living beings. At first, they are accomplishing their function through the power of my prayers and my karma with the people in my life, but later I will experience it as if it is “me” doing it – not the Ryan me, but the enlightened me. I will feel and experience it directly as I am with each and every living being every day, bestowing blessings and guiding them along the paths to enlightenment as swiftly as their karma will allow.

When I think like this, not only will all my worry and concern go away (well at least as much as I actually believe these instructions, I still have negative karma of holding onto wrong views and deluded doubt obstructing my belief), but also both my bodhichitta and appreciation for the Tantric path will explode in power. I find that spark within me that enables me to be like a child at play, confident in the knowledge that I will soon bring my samsara and the equally empty samsara of everyone I know and love to an end and nothing can stop me from doing so.

Amazing!

On Mixing Dharma and Politics – Not Letting Political Differences Divide the Sangha

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life , , , ,

For a lot of Americans, the political changes happening in the United States right now are deeply troubling. The same is true for a lot of non-Americans who see what is happening. Yet at the same time, there are a lot of other Americans who are pleased with what is happening. The same is also true around the world.

There is also no doubt within the global Kadampa Sangha we have many examples of people who are both pleased and displeased with the changes that are occurring. Yet let’s be honest here, the Kadampa community on the whole does tend to skew left politically, so I would guess there are many more people who are troubled by what is happening and others who are afraid to voice their support for fear of being judged by their spiritual community.

Perhaps because it is part of my job, I have given a lot of thought to the question of the relationship between Dharma and politics. On the one hand, VGL is very clear we should absolutely not have any mixing of Dharma and politics at all. When religion and politics mix, the politics do not become more enlightened, rather the religion becomes more political. The spiritual path is primarily about future lives. The Dharma has a lot of opinions about delusions and karma, it has absolutely no opinions about who’s in power and what direction they are taking a given country or the world. This causes many Dharma practitioners to fall into the extreme of thinking we shouldn’t think or talk about politics at all for fear of mixing the two. There are others who come to this same conclusion because each time politics is mentioned in Dharma circles it usually ignites a firestorm, like stepping on a bee’s hive, creating unnecessary division within the sangha. There are others still who might not share the dominant political views within the Kadampa community and when they express views that are contrary to the dominant view, they get attacked for being a bad Kadampa or something – how can you possibly support what is going on and be a good Kadampa??? Call it Dharma cancel culture if you want. This hurts, so they conclude it is better to just say nothing.

On the other hand, VGL is also very clear that our job is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life. He said he has given us the Kadam Dharma, we know modern life, our job is to unite the two. Politics and what is happening in the political realm is unquestionably part of modern life. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend things like wars, revolutions, or major political developments that are affecting the lives of billions are not happening. This is especially true in democratic countries where power is first and foremost vested in the people. Politics is fundamentally about how power is shared and used. Power is inextricably part of modern life. Protecting others creates the causes for power. We cannot both protect others and not accumulate power. How we use the power we have is fundamentally a political question. Democratic systems are political systems – governing how power is shared and used.

So how can we reconcile all this? I would say by relying upon the wisdom realizing emptiness, remembering without inner peace outer peace is impossible, training in the instruction that everybody is welcome, and doing our part to uphold the internal rules of the NKT.

Each one of us has a different karmic point of view on what is happening in the world. There is no one single correct karmic perspective, there are just countless different ones. As a result of this different karma, we will each diagnose the ills of the world through different lenses. We are quite literally seeing different things, or at least different angles on the same thing depending upon our karmic positionality. Since we each see the world in different ways, it is entirely natural, normal, and not a problem that we will each have different political opinions about things. This creates some space in our mind to accommodate different political views among people who share a common love of the same Dharma.

VGL was very concerned about world peace and we should be too. We have Temples for World Peace, World Peace Cafe’s, and he often taught without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. In Toronto during the Iraq war, he famously said, “love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.” So does this mean all Kadampas must be peaceniks? He also taught it is possible to kill virtuously if it is protecting even more others. Many Kadampas have different opinions about the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere. What is the Kadampa solution to all this? Inner peace. Our job is to internally be at peace with the world and everything that happens in it. Being at peace with everything does not mean being aloof or doing nothing, rather it means we are able to maintain our inner peace with whatever appears. If we are internally at peace with the world, we are already experiencing world peace even if war is raging all around us. How do we become at peace with the world as it is? By removing any and all delusions we have about whatever is appearing. We don’t deny what is appearing in political realms, we just do the inner work to be at peace with whatever is appearing.

VGL also extensively taught about how within the Kadampa community that “everybody is welcome.” Because the world will appear to us in different ways according to our karma, we will quite naturally have different political views and opinions – and we will act on those views and opinions, even if that means some Kadampas find themselves on opposite sides of various political aisles. What matters within the Kadampa community is not what your political views are – the Dharma doesn’t have a single political point of view on any question – rather what matters is are you applying the Dharma to overcome whatever delusions you might be having with respect to what is appearing in the political realm. For some, that will mean supporting whatever is happening, for others that will mean fiercely opposing it with every fibre of their being. And both are perfectly OK as long as each person is countering whatever delusions are ripening within their mind. After the George Floyd murder, many within the Kadampa community (like much of the rest of the world), became very concerned with questions of diversity and inclusivity also within the Kadampa community itself. Some others thought this was mixing Dharma and politics and many divisions within the sangha emerged. My answer to this is “everybody welcome.” That doesn’t just mean everybody is welcome regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth, but also regardless of their political views. If we make it seem like only certain political views are welcome in Kadampa communities and consistent with the Dharma teachings we are, in my view, fundamentally betraying one of VGL’s main legacies of purifying the Dharma of politics. Good Kadampas fight their delusions and yes the delusions in the world, but they can do so from any political point of view they happen to be coming from. As a spiritual community, we MUST create the space for people of any political persuasion to feel entirely welcome. Otherwise, we are not practicing “everybody welcome.” And again, to be honest, this primarily means creating more space for right-leaning views and eliminating any trace of cancel culture within Kadampa communities towards those who might hold different political views.

Finally, within the Kadampa community itself, people will have a wide variety of different opinions about how power is distributed and used within the Kadampa community itself. Some will criticize parts as being too authoritarian, some will criticize other parts as being too rebellious, some will criticize the pricing policies or how the profits are spent, and others will criticize how we take care of our sangha members in retirement. Some will feel threatened when any decision made is questioned, others will feel like they don’t have the space to say anything for fear of being exiled or fired. All of this is entirely natural and not even slightly a problem. VGL has given us the internal rules for navigating all such questions. It is our constitution. VGL has said he wants the International Kadampa Buddhist Union to be entirely democratic. Each one of us will have a different positionality or role within the internal rules, but we all equally take on the internal rules as part of our moral discipline of being a Kadampa. We should each fulfill our role within the internal rules as faithfully as we can, upholding the internal rules above our own individual interests or perspective. There will naturally evolve different schools of thought about how we interpret the internal rules, some strict constructionists, others originalists, others still viewing it as a living document. This is no different than how judges interpret the constitution in different ways. No problem, all that is normal. We each fulfill our role within the internal rules with the least delusions and the most wisdom we can muster. We fulfill our role within the internal rules in a way that is consistent with the Dharma we have been taught. We need to create the space for this tension within the Kadampa community. Democratic systems divide power, with each part checking and balancing all the others. It’s not a problem that different people will have different views about the decisions being made (and how they are being made). This is a feature of the system, not a bug.

Politics is an inevitable part of modern life, even within the Kadampa community. We do not need to fear political differences within the Sangha about what is happening in the world or even what is happening within the Kadampa community. What we need to fear is delusions and contaminated karma, we need to fear ordinary appearances and conceptions. We don’t mix Dharma and politics, but we do engage in our politics in a Dharma way. Because we each will have different delusions with respect to what is appearing, we will naturally support or oppose different things and that is perfectly OK. As long as we are all fighting delusions, we are building inner peace. From this inner peace, outer peace will naturally emerge.

How to Make Definitive Prayers and Requests to the Buddhas:

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden , , , ,

From one perspective, all Dharmakayas – the truth body of a Buddha, the ultimate, definitive Buddha – are the same nature of the union of bliss and emptiness of all phenomena, like the different spaces within different empty bottles that when broken merge together seemingly indistinguishably. But we would not say there is just one Dharmakaya – that would be grasping at singularity with respect to the Dharmakaya.

Yet, at the same time, we can and do distinguish different Dharmakayas. There is Heruka’s Dharmakaya, Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya, Medicine Buddha’s Dharmakaya, Tara’s Dharmakaya and so forth. But we would not say there are entirely distinct Dharmakayas, as that would be grasping at inherently existent plurality of Dharmakayas.

Now we could say from the perspective of Guru Yoga there is just one Dharnmakaya, the Dharmakaya of our spiritual guide, and all other Buddhas arise from that. But even that is grasping at a singular of our Guru’s Dharmakaya. Our guru is a mere name that emanates all the Buddhas and all the Buddhas come together to form our guru. Both are equally true, just from different perspectives.

We might think, “OK, that’s interesting, but it seems like a philosophical point with no practical value.” Not true.

When we dissolve all things into the Dharmakaya, we should not lose track of whose Dharmakaya we are dissolving things into. Dissolving all phenomena into different Dharmakayas accomplishes different functions. Each Buddha accomplishes a different function in dependence upon the specific bodhichitta they generated as bodhisattvas on the path. For example, Tara promised to help all Kadampas with their Lamrim practice and to provide protection from diseases and so forth, Dorje Shugden promised to help arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment, and so forth.

The essential point of the union of appearance and emptiness according to highest yoga tantra, as I understand it at least, is the subtle conventional truths of objects are ultimate truths that abide inside emptiness. Inside the emptiness of the table is the subtle conventional truth of the table, the mere name table. We do not say emptiness in the abstract, it is always the emptiness of something, in this case the emptiness of the table. Inside the emptiness of the table is still the mere name and function of the table. There has always only been an empty table, yet it still accomplishes the function of a table. The name and function of a table does not cease when we realize its emptiness, but they exist and abide inside its emptiness. It remains a mere lack of inherent existence, but of something that does something.

The same is true of the emptiness, or truth bodies, of the different Buddhas. We can think of it like ice cream. Mint chocolate chip and cookie dough are both equally ice creams, but they definitely have different flavors. In the same way, the Dharmakaya of Heruka, the Dharmkaya of Dorje Shugden, the Dharmkaya of Medicine Buddha, and the Dharmakaya of Tara all all equally Dharmakayas, but they have different names and functions. Emptiness itself may not do anything, but all empty things have specific names and functions.

What is the practical value of this understanding? The main value is it removes completely anything and everything that obstructs the different Buddhas from bestowing their blessings on our mind and accomplishing their functions in our life.

For example, imagine you are experiencing a very difficult situation in life. If you dissolve everything you normally see that is creating such difficulty for you into Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya, we are not just saying none of these appearances exist. Dissolving everything into emptiness is not just a profound way of putting our head in the sand, thinking it will all go away if we don’t look. Dissolving everything into Dorje Shugden’s truth body is a way of offering that which is giving us trouble to Dorje Shugden, requesting him to transform it into a cause of our enlightenment and to perform his function to arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment. After we have dissolved the appearances into his Dharmakaya, when they re-emerge we will see and understand them from Dorje Shugden’s perspective. We will have the wisdom to see how this difficulty is exactly perfect for our swiftest possible enlightenment. Dissolving everything into his Dahrmakaya is a way of purifying the contaminated karma giving rise to the obstacles in the ocean his truth body. So the karma giving rise to those appearances which are indeed obstacles will be purified and even our external situation might change.

We might say how is this any different than just requesting Dorje Shugden to accomplish his function with respect to our difficult situation? It’s not different, it’s just a more powerful and more profound way of making the request. It is more powerful because it is making the request free from any obstructions grasping at inherent existence of ourself, Dorje Shugden, or our difficult situation. No obstructions to our request means more power to receiving his blessings. It is more profound because this is how we make definitive prayers and requests. Dissolving the disturbing appearance into Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya is how we definitively make a prayer and request to him to accomplish his function in our mind and life. Subsequent to our request, all appearances that arise will be experienced directly as the fulfillment of our prayer and request, gradually at first, but then later completely. What was experienced as an “obstacle” will now be experienced as “perfect for our practice.”

The exact same thing is true for the Dharmakayas of all the different Buddhas. Dissolving all phenomena into Heruka’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of compassion and non-dual appearance and emptiness. Dissolving all sick people and sickness into Medicine Buddha’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of healing outer and inner sickness. Dissolving all things into Tara’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of Lamrim, and so forth.

It is not unlike making mandala offerings. When we make a mandala offering, we offer all objects of attachment, aversion, and ignorance to our spiritual guide, freeing our mind from such delusions. Dissolving all phenomena into the Dharmakaya is like making a definitive mandala offering. Dissolving all phenomena into the different Dharmakayas of the different Buddhas is like making definitive mandala offerings requesting the specific blessing and function of each Buddha.

Making our offerings, prayers, and requests in this way takes them to a whole new level, increases their power, and enables us to train in the union of faith and emptiness every moment of every day. Faith and prayer are emptiness in action.

Embracing the Ruins of Our Life

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden , , , ,

Sometimes we find our life in ruins. Everything we have been working for and building has been wiped out or lay in ruins, with little hope of ever going back to how things were. Sometimes, even, we realize how our own past choices and mistakes led to such a state. It is easy at such times to fall into extremes of shame, guilt, hopelessness, and despair.

What to do?

Sometimes learning things the hard way leaves a deeper impression on our mind and so protects us from even worse in the future because we once and for all start avoiding repeating those same mistakes. Each time we confront the consequences of our past choices, we can take it as a reminder of these lessons.

But the key, I think, is to make sure we are 100% avoiding guilt and beating ourselves up about it. That just gets in the way, and in fact is its own form of self-anger, so still a delusion and negative action (self-harm).

We need to accept where we are at, both externally in terms of our situation and internally in terms of the nexus of delusions and negative karma that led us to our present circumstances and that still remain within our mind.

To accept where we are at means to be at peace with it. OK, this is where I find myself. I know how I got here and I am at peace with that too, free from any guilt or discouragement. Now, I rebuild from here. We need to accept the rubble of our past wars before we can start cleaning it up and building something new, something better.

When we confront the reality of our situation, such as ruined relationships, those we love falling into the abyss, financial difficulties, health problems, addictions, anxiety, depression, discouragement, bitterness or despair, we need to learn to accept that too.

These outer and inner circumstances give us an opportunity to let go of our attachments to these things. These attachments have led us to countless problems in the past. Our present circumstances give us the chance to finally let them go. This doesn’t mean we abandon, for example, our efforts to have healthy, meaningful relationships nor does it mean we don’t try improve our financial situation if we can, but it does mean we let go of our attachments thinking these things matter for our happiness. They don’t.

Our happiness depends upon whether our mind is at peace with both our external and our internal circumstance. Going forward, it depends on whether we deepen that peace through lamrim, lojong, and mahamudra. This is our task now, if we choose to accept it as the main purpose of what time we have left.

I, of course, realize as I write this that in truth I’m writing to myself. These are exactly the things I need to realize towards my own situation. As somebody close to me often says, “it is what it is.” OK, no problem, we build something new from here – both externally and internally. We try do so on the foundation of the lessons learned seeing the ruins of our present life and that of those we love. We can’t control whether others learn their lessons, but we can learn the lessons from their life for them with a bodhichitta motivation. We collect these realizations now so we can share it with them in the future when they are ready, or at the very least we set a good example they may or may not appreciate.

So yeah, sometimes it is a total wipeout. Sometimes we lose everything. Sometimes even we realize our own role in the situation we find ourself in. Great. We now learn our lessons, let go of any guilt, and get to work on building something new, both externally and internally. Something better, something healthier, something more stable, something more peaceful. The choice is ours. Our future is too. What our future looks like depends upon what we do now. Accept the ruins, yes; lament them, no.

Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, Dorje Shugden, Heruka, please fill my mind with your blessings to accept the ruins of my life, clean up its mess, learn its lessons, and build something better from here, for my own sake, for the sake of all those I love, and for the sake of all others who might find themselves in similar situations.