I have spent the vast majority of my Dharma career being a Kadampa Vulcan, stuck in my head or intellectualizing or abstracting myself from all that I was experiencing. The Dharma just gave me powerful tools for doing that.

For me, one of the most important clarifications Venerable Geshe-la provides in Mirror of Dharma is when he explains the purpose of contemplation is to have the Dharma touch our heart, and it is only when it has touched our heart that we have found our object of meditation. For somebody who for decades viewed the goal of contemplation as arriving at clear intellectual understandings of the Dharma and the interconnections between the teachings, this was a revolution in my practice. This doesn’t mean we don’t also need to come to correct understandings intellectually, it means that is just the beginning. Our contemplation is not complete – we have not actually found our object of meditation – until we feel it in our heart. He then implored us, “please reverse this sad situation.” Mic drop…

When I was telling my story of all that had happened to myself and my family to my daughter’s therapist during a family session, the therapist said, “wow, that’s a lot. But the way you describe it, it is as if you are talking about it in the abstract or what happened to somebody else.” This was a pivotal moment for me because she was exactly right. I think it is my defense or coping mechanism for dealing with all the hurt I have encountered in my life. I guess it is a trauma response not that different than what I’ve heard sometimes happens when people are being raped – their mind goes some place else because it is too traumatic to be where they are.

But something unexpected, but perhaps entirely predictable, happened when I started trying to reverse this sad situation. I became filled with rage. Rage at my father for hating my mom more than he loved us and for all the different ways he judged both me and my family over the years. Rage at my mother for not being able to emotionally hold it together as we were growing up and for her committing suicide the day before my wedding. Rage at others close to me for things I’d rather not discuss publicly.

But anger is the worst of all delusions, so repress, repress, repress. No wait, can’t do that. I need to acknowledge and accept the existence of delusions in my mind, take the time to see them for what they are and examine where they come from (thank you Gen Wangden for pointing me to the right place, you have a real skill for that).

So where did the rage come from? Even deeper hurt. But letting that out of the bottle, especially when I’ve been repressing it for 50 years, well, hurts. Overwhelmingly so. When I came back to India after having been with my daughter at the clinic in LA, everything that I had been repressing came flooding into my mind and it was overwhelming – more than I could handle. It became urgent to not feel such things. But the turning point for me was when Jim Travis told me, “feel it, brother.” This gave me permission to allow myself to feel the hurt I had been abstracting myself from. I then spent a week on retreat putting myself back together from a near total emotional meltdown.

Along the way, a dear friend told me when we allow our feelings to somatically pass through us – accepting them wholeheartedly instead of pushing them down or rejecting them – it unlocks the wisdom we need to heal our hurt. This was definitely my experience at the time and has been on a few other occasions since, but the Vulcan habits run deep and it is easy to slip into my old ways.

Enlightenment is not just the completely purified aggregate of discrmination, seeing all phenomena individually as manifestations of their emptiness. It is also the completely purified aggregate of feeling that according to Sutra is essentially the supreme good heart of compassion and bodhichitta and according to Tantra is the mind that genuinely feels great bliss when encountering anything (I would say compassion and bodhichitta are the substantial causes of the mind of great bliss. Opps, I did it again, another intellectualization when I’m trying to speak from my heart…).

To reverse our sad situation, we need to learn to practice from our heart. When we first embrace this way of practice, the truth is we don’t become more Zen or more kind-hearted, we become much more emotionally volatile. Again, like Spock when his human side comes to the surface and he has to battle the powerful emotions he had previously been repressing.

But here we discover a different problem: Culturally, within our tradition, we create little space for each other to be deluded or emotionally troubled. This is especially true for the so-called “senior practitioners.” There is so much pervasive pretension within our tradition, with people emotionally pretending to be all put together to supposedly show a good example. This leads to all sorts of “conflict averse” behaviors where people just pretend to be OK with what is going on when in fact they are not and there is very little ability to actually discuss these things with each other without being accused of being deluded or being a trouble maker or disturbing the harmony of the center or whatever. It is because I love my tradition that I point such things out. It is not a criticism, it is a diagnosis.

The truth is there is a great deal to which modern Kadampas use the precious Dharma Venerable Geshe-la has given us to repress and pretend, not accept and dismantle. I would say “please reverse this sad situation” is true not just at the level of our individual practice, but also at the level of us as a spiritual community.

So to all those who have known me for many years, I’m sorry if I have been a bit more emotional of late, even angry. Sorry for pushing conversations to put squarely on the table what I perceive is going on, even if it is uncomfortable to hear said out loud and it is easier to just pretend that all is OK both within myself and within us as a spiritual tradition. But you know what? Sorry, not sorry. This is where I am at in my heart. This is me practicing from my heart. This is me trying to reverse my sad situation.

It’s odd how as Kadampas we sometimes (oftentimes?) feel a reluctance to admit we are hurting or deluded, even to Sangha. Strangely, this problem seems to grow worse the more years we are in the Dharma.

I think this comes from three things. First, our pride in wanting to pretend we are this great practitioner, perhaps even for seemingly “good reasons” like we are a teacher or senior practitioner and we want to set a good example.

Second, is attachment to being accepted by Sangha and feeling that if they knew how messed up we still are inside, they will no longer accept us, love us, or look up to us.

And third a collective delusion within the Kadampa community that does not really accept fellow Kadampas who are still deluded, sometimes heavily. There is in part a culture of victim blaming – you’re still suffering or deluded because you are a bad practitioner. We even blame people who take things as victim blaming – saying it is their fault they are taking things this way; which sadly, is a perverse form of gaslighting fellow Sangha as we deflect blame because we can’t admit Kadampa communities or ourselves still have a lot of work to do. Or it comes from a misunderstanding of faith, projecting onto our objects of refuge that they need to be perfect from their own side, and then we lose faith in them when they seem to still be deluded. This destroys our own faith and puts unrealistic pressure on our more senior practitioners.

For the first one, if we have pride, we don’t have refuge, it is as simple as that. We are just pretending to be a practitioner. Kadam Morten once said the best example is the one who shows the journey, not the end result. We need to peacefully accept it is perfectly OK to be where we are at and we grow from there.

For the second, attachment to what Sangha thinks of us or attachment to them accepting and loving us is still attachment and an object to be abandoned. Dharma communities are not social clubs, they should be healing clinics – with doctors, medicine, nurses, and we are all patients – and it is up to us to make them so.

For the third, we need to remember the essence of the Kadampa way of life is a mind of “everybody welcome.” This is not just a rule for who we accept into our centers, but how we position ourselves towards everybody in our life. If we have aversion to being around deluded people, our so-called bodhichitta is nothing but a sick joke. We are suffering because we are still in samsara. Our delusions are our mental sickness, like a broken leg or cancer, not a personal failing. We also need to make sure to not confuse projecting expectations of perfection onto the three jewels with faith. Pure view does not expect the three jewels to appear perfect from their own side, rather it is viewing and relating to the three jewels in a perfect way. Venerable Geshe-la taught that we should view our teachers as Sangha jewels, not Buddha jewels. For ourselves as fellow Sangha, we should view ourselves as loving nurses, not finger-waggers. Gen Tharchin said our primary refuge should be in the Dharma, not the person. If we put our primary refuge in the person, when they do something stupid, we lose everything; but if we put it primarily in the Dharma, when they do something stupid, we learn powerful lessons.

Once again, best to have the mind of a beginner. Best to have an open heart, including towards ourself.

Once we start loving others, we will begin to find their suffering unbearable and the desire to help protect them from their suffering will naturally arise.

Our first instinct will be to jump in to rescue them by offering all sorts of Dharma advice about how they can change their mind. But this usually proves counter-productive. They can find our Dharma advice as blaming them for their troubles, giving a pass to all those harming them, or not understanding their external problems. Our advice can also sometimes come across as proselytizing or cult-like. This in turn causes them to reject the Dharma – advice they needed – and us.

So how can we help? There are six steps I have found helpful and can be used in almost any situation.

The first thing we need to do is become at peace with them suffering – we need to accept they are suffering and it does not disturb our peace of mind. It is important to make the distinction between attachment to our loved ones not suffering and compassion. Both find the suffering of others unbearable, but the former believes they need to be free from suffering for us to be happy. The latter is able to peacefully accept they are suffering without it diminishing in any way our desire to help. If we are attached to them not suffering, we then start trying to control them so they get better so we don’t suffer from them suffering. If we have compassion, our happiness or peace of mind does not depend upon them not suffering. So, like a good doctor, we can offer advice without needing them to follow it. We leave them free to make their own choices and to ignore our advice if they wish.

The second thing we need to do is find within ourself the delusions the other person appears to be suffering from in their problem. Mind is the creator of all. This means the others we perceive are nothing more than reflections of our own mind and karma. They appear to have these delusions because we still have the same delusions within our own mind. We can view them as a mirror of Dharma revealing back to us what still needs to be healed within our own mind. They are helping us “train in the first difficulty,” namely identifying our own delusions.

By removing their same delusions within our own mind three magical things happen. First, we then naturally show the best possible example to others of somebody who lives free from the delusions that trouble them. Second, by removing their delusions from our own mind, we will gain the wisdom to know how to do so, thus enabling us to offer better advice based upon personal experience. Third, their delusions will actually start to dis-appear because ultimately they are coming from our mind anyways. This is a special spiritual technology for helping others – it is a scientific method that will work for any who try it for long enough. At a minimum, by abandoing the delusions within our mind, we will become that much closer to enlightenment, the only real way we can provide lasting benefit to them.

The third step is we need to check, “what are they asking of me?” It’s quite possible they are asking for nothing from us, they don’t want us involved at all. If they are not asking, offering any advice or help is almost invariably counter-productive. They reject what we have to say and us. This does not help them, indeed it creates the conditions for them to create the karma of rejecting Dharma and us. If they are asking for something, we need to check, “do they just want me to compassionately listen or do they also want advice?” If we are not sure, we can simply ask. I would say 80% of the time, people just want us to listen and understand. Providing them a safe environment in which they can verbalize their struggles often gives them the space they need to process their difficulties and find their own solutions. It is particularly helpful to share back with them what we have heard and understood from their story, showing that we get it and their feelings about it are normal. In sharing back with them, try not to implicitly give them advice – remember, they are not asking for that. And if they don’t think we understand their problem, they will assume all of our advice is misplaced. So check in with them to see, “am I understanding your situation correctly?”

Fourth, if they are also asking for advice, after you have listened empathetically to their struggles and repeated back to them what you heard to demonstrate you understood their situation, we should first provide them practical advice for how to address the external dimensions of their problem. Remember, for them, their outer problem is their problem. They don’t know yet about the difference between the outer problem and the inner problem. There are almost always external things we can change which can make the external situation less bad or even a little better. Sometimes Dharma practitioners wrongly think there is some fault in also providing practical advice, as if we should only give Dharma advice. That’s ridiculous and the opposite of what Geshe-la encourages us to do. We help in every way we can, both practically and spiritually, depending upon the capacity of the other person.

In the fifth step, if they are open to it, you can begin to provide some advice on how they can address their inner problem – the delusions that are arising in their mind in relationship to the situation. You can do this according to the teachings on “training in the three difficulties” from the book Universal Compassion. First, help them identify the delusions within their mind. Since at present we lack the ability to read others minds, we need to be very skillful at this stage. If you did the second stage above well, you can simply share your own experience how when you find yourself in situations like theirs, your mind starts generating this or that delusion, suggesting perhaps something like that may also be happening in their mind. Pause to see if they relate to that. If they do, then you can move to the second of the three difficulties – applying the opponents to reduce the delusions. Help them accept it is normal that they have these delusions so they avoid falling into the extreme of beating themselves up or self-hatred. Delusions are not us, they are clouds in the sky of their mind. We are the sky itself. From the space of their pure potential, help them realize this difficult situation gives them an opportunity to grow internally in some way. Almost all good Dharma advice has this as its common denominator – remember, bodhichitta is the quintessential butter that comes from churning the milk of Dharma. Share your own stories about how you have dealt with similar inner difficulties and ways of thinking that have proven helpful for shifting your point of view. The external situation is still what it is, but instead of it being a problem, it is an opportunity to develop ourselves into a better person. Err on the side of giving them too little advice than too much that they can’t process. Very often, less is more. Finally, you can move to the third difficulty – applying the antidote of the wisdom realizing emptiness. Most people aren’t ready to view everything as a creation of their mind, but most people can accept that their opinion about the situation depends upon how their mind relates to it. That’s a good enough start.

When offering advice, especially to non-Dharma loved ones, it is very important to express yourself in language that they can accept and understand. Avoid Dharma jargon. Dharma words may mean something to you, but if they don’t have prior exposure to the Dharma teachings, it will mean almost nothing to them. Use analogies, examples, and wisdom that they can relate to based upon their life experience. The great Dharma translators are not just those in the past who went to India to bring back the Dharma to Tibet, they are every day Dharma practitioners who are able to transmit the essential meaning of the Dharma in ways people of the modern world can relate to and understand.

It is also quite important when giving advice that you have no personal need whatsoever for them to follow your advice. Leave them completely free to take it or leave it, without the slightest trace of emotional penalty if they don’t. If they feel manipulated into following your advice, they will most certainly rebel against it, defeating the whole purpose of offering advice in the first place. If they find your advice helpful, great; if not, that’s OK too – you can just empathize with their struggles and let them know you are there for them if they need you.

Sixth, finally, you can pray for them. Buddhas accomplish virtually all of their virtuous deeds through the power of their prayers and dedications. Since we are training to become Buddhas ourselves, we should do the same. We are spiritual people, so of course prayer is actually our principal method for helping others. We may not yet be Buddhas ourselves, but we know the Buddhas and if we make pure prayers with deep faith free from any attachment, they can definitely help. Generally speaking, we don’t emphasize making prayers that people’s external problems go away. We can, but it is very easy for that to lead to all sorts of attachment and aversion, grasping at the external situation as the real problem. Instead, we should direct the bulk of our prayers to helping them overcome their inner problem. We can pray that they find strength, compassion, and wisdom. Above all, people need wisdom. I have found the most effective prayer is to Dorje Shugden, “please bless their mind so that this situation becomes a powerful cause of their enlightenment.” Dorje Shugden wastes nothing. It may not be immediately obvious how he will do so, but we can be certain he is on the job. If we have unshakeable faith in Dorje Shugden we can be certain he is working to accomplish our pure prayer – if not in this life, in future lives. We can also pray that their situation becomes a cause of our own enlightenment so that we can one day help our loved ones perfectly.

We can use these six steps with virtually anybody – our kids, our family members, our friends, our students, our co-workers, and even sometimes somebody we see crying alone on a bench. At first, we might not be very good at it, but with practice and familiarity, it will get easier and flow more naturally.

Geshe-la says it is not enough to know the Dharma, we need skillful means. The above is what I have personally found useful as I have tried to help those I love in my life. I don’t pretend to have mastered the method or that it always works – or that it is the only way to help – but it is hard-won experience that I hope others find helpful.

If we look at the flow of all living beings with Dharma wisdom, we will notice at any given moment, they are either moving deeper into samsara or they are moving out.

Geshe-la tells the story of the person who stood in a doorway and asked “am I going in or going out?” The other person correctly answered, “it depends upon your intention.” In many ways, this describes the situation of pretty much everyone every moment of every day. They stand in front of a choice – do they go deeper into samsara or do they head out?

Most people are completely unaware of the fact that this is the choice they face. They may not have even ever heard of samsara or nirvana, much less know the directions in or out. But that doesn’t change the fact that at each moment they have to choose between moving deeper into samsara or heading out. How they choose to act determines which direction their mind heads. Sadly, most people are like zombies heading straight for the cliff into the lower realms.

When we engage with others, we should not just meet them where they are at, but specifically we should meet them at the points in their mind where they face this choice of going deeper into samsara or heading towards the exit. This is where we need to meet them – at the gate. What form that takes will vary from moment to moment and person to person, but all beings are always standing at this gate. We just need to see it and meet people there.

When we stand at the gate, we of course should stand on the side of inside heading in the direction of enlightenment. We cannot force people to make the choice to head in our direction, they have to make that decision themselves. But we can position ourselves in such a way that it seems perfectly doable and sensible to take a step in our direction – we can’t be so far from where they are at that heading in our direction seems out of reach.

We adopt a posture of invitation, welcoming others to join us, but in no way manipulating or controlling them to do so. We don’t tell them what they should do, we simply embody the better choice in how we ourselves think, speak, and behave. We show an understanding of the difficult circmstances they are in and choices they have to make. We cast no judgment nor impose any emotional penalty if they make a choice to head deeper into samsara. They might not know any better or see any viable alternative.

If they move deeper into samsara, that’s OK, we just pivot with them, standing at the new gate they find themselves. Our door always remains open, no matter how far they may stray. We don’t join them, we remain on our side of the gate, but we show our compassion can expand to wherever they might find themselves.

If they ask for our advice or ask where we are headed, we can of course explain to them in a way that they can accept or understand. With some people, we can explain with Dharma words directly, but with most people we need to be skillful to explain things in a way they can relate to.

Je Phabongkhapa explained merely seeing a pure Heruka practitioner is a cause of enlightenment for others. A pure HYT practitioner is the real liberating by seeing, hearing, or wearing. We don’t need to say or do anything in particular, often our silence and stillness is our most effective way of being. We just need to be present as Heruka in their life, even if they have no idea what we are doing.

A Buddha is like a magic cystal that always spontaneously appears to each and every being every day in exactly the most appropriate way to inspire others to head towards them – towards enlightenment, out of samsara. We often don’t see them, but they are always there if we look. They are like a compass that always points towards the city of enlightenment. These are their emanations. They always stand inside the gate, inviting us to join them. If we wish to become a Buddha ourselves and have emanations that serve a similar function, we can start to train how to do so today. How? Meet people at the gate.

Many Dharma practitioners prefer their alone time to being with other people. We may even rationalize this with the teachings from Shantideva in Chapter 8 about the glories of being alone and the futility of dealing with the childish.

But this can also be a form of running away from others because, frankly, it can be tiring to be around deluded and needy people who only see faults in us anyways. This is just another form of attachment, aversion, and self-cherishing.

So how do we get it right? The test is what is best for all living beings. Sometimes it’s best for others to be directly with them, cherishing them, training in patience with them, overcoming the delusions we generate towards them, etc. Sometimes we can help them more by being away on retreat or quasi-retreat-like conditions. Sometimes the best way to help them is to not help them directly so they learn how to do things themselves. Theoretically, of course, Shantideva is right – we can help people more by attaining enlightenment as swiftly as possible for them, and retreat-like conditions are often the best way to do that. One way or the other, our motivation needs to be what is best for all living beings, and more profoundly, what is best for our swiftest possible enlightenment for their sake.

How then can we know if being directly with others or being alone is best, even if our motivation is this correct bodhichitta?

At one level, we just have to be honest with ourselves and examine our real motivations. Are we driven by a desire to get away from them? Are we using our time alone for deeper spiritual training? Are we really motivated by bodhichitta or are we just using the Dharma to rationalize what our delusions want? If we find ourselves falling short on our motivation, we can do the inner work to make our motivation more authentic and heartfelt. Perhaps that is why we are alone – to get past the intellectual and have the time to learn to make it genuinely heartfelt.

At another level, we actually don’t have a clue what is best for all living beings. But fortunately, we know a Buddha who does – Dorje Shugden. We can, with the most sincere bodhichitta motivation we can generate, request him to reveal to us and arrange whatever is best. If it is best for me to continue to have alone conditions, then please reveal to me why and keep them going. If it is best for me to be with others, cherish them directly, and train my mind in that context, then please reveal that to me and arrange the conditions for that to happen. Then, we accept whatever subsequently arises as what he is arranging for us. We need to continue to do this on a fairly regular basis because karma shifts and we need to be prepared to shift with it.

If we have faith in Dorje Shugden and our motivation is genuinely to do what is best for others, then we will be able to happily shift between times where we are with others and times when we are alone. We will understand this as basically like our spiritual high intensity interval training. The sign we have it right is we have genuine equanimity towards the two possibilities, seeing them both as equally good just in different ways, and trusting that Dorje Shugden is giving us exactly what we need.

Then, no problems.

Why do we turn to our delusions? It seems there are two main reasons. First, they seem to be our friends, promising us some benefit if we listen to them; and second, we don’t know who else to turn to that might be better.

Dharma practice largely comes down to finding new inner friends. We don’t need to beat ourselves up for having relied upon the wrong friends. Sometimes the best way to let them go is to thank them for their service, but say we’ve got this from here. Essentially, we don’t need them anymore because we can satisfy the need they used to fill in healthier ways.

At the end of the day, we all wish to be free from inner pain and to feel happy. Our delusions have basically been our different coping mechanisms we have been using. Dharma helps us see how ultimately, they don’t work. But we won’t be willing to let them go until we first come up with something to replace the need they seemed to fill. Otherwise, we will feel like we have to give up some of the protection they seemed to provide. When we’ve got something better, namely the Dharma opponents, we don’t need the delusions anymore. We can thank them for their past service – no point beating ourselves up with guilt, we did the best we could – but we no longer need them because we have new, better tools to meet those same needs.

So yes, as Shantideva says, we do need to be at war with our delusions, but we don’t need to be at war with ourselves. This is a very important distinction.

For example, our attachment to worldly pleasures promises us at least something good in what is otherwise our generally difficult lives. Better to have at least some moments of respite – or changing suffering – than none at all. We work really hard, we deserve some rewards for our labors. It can’t be all grind, grind, grind. Turning to them is a coping mechanism. But it leaves us vulnerable to our happiness being dependent upon external things and they never quite bring the satisfaction we hoped for. They gradually lose their effectiveness in lifting us up and eventually we need more and more to just not feel bad. In this sense, they are no different than addiction to drugs, just to different degrees. So they seem to be fulfilling some need, but not doing a very good job at it – and ultimately, they are causing us even more problems, the not least of which is keeping us going back into samsara again and again. All delusions are deceptive in this way – they promise us something, kinda deliver, but with a hidden cost that leaves us worse off.

Jealousy promises us to get whatever we covet that others have, but usually just drives it further away. Anger promises us protection from harm, but creates enemies who attack and leave us internally miserable. Self-grasping ignorance promises to help us know who we are, but leaves us chasing phantoms. Deluded doubt promises to protect us from believing something that isn’t true, but prevents us from believing anything that could help us. Pride promises self-respect and dignity, but makes us insecure and our sense of self-worth dependent upon what others think or their failure.

The key point is this: Delusions promise to fulfill legitimate needs. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, fulfilling our wishes, being protected from harm, knowing who we are, following the truth, or having self-respect and dignity. And there is an extent to which delusions kinda work. We have to acknowledge this or we won’t realize why we keep turning to them. But they don’t actually work. They don’t provide any real protection. And they always come with a hidden cost that leaves us worse off – both in this life and in all our future lives. Following delusons is always a Faustian bargain. In short, they are not reliable inner friends.

The various opponents taught in the Dharma are our new inner friends. The Buddhas introduce us to them, explain how we cultivate a friendship with them, and show why they are simply more reliable. We need reliable friends, healthy friends, that bring out the best in us. Such friends do not exist outside of us, but must be grown through our inner efforts. They will never arise on their own, though when we receive blessings we are given a taste of their friendship.

Contentment helps us be happy with what we’ve got. Rejoicing helps us be happy with what others have. Patience helps us accept things as they are. Cherishing others is the source of all our future happiness. Humility makes us stable. Wisdom realizing emptiness makes everything possible. These are more reliable inner friends. They actually meet our legitimate inner needs, but without the hidden costs.

When our delusions arise and we are tempted to believe them, what is actually happening is we have some legitimate need which is going unfulfilled, but we just don’t know any better method for fulfilling it, so we say, “f*ck it, let’s go.” Then we go down the wrong roads, it kinda works at first, but then we pay the price. Happens every time. We can’t blame ourselves for this process, we simply didn’t know any better. But now we do. We have been shown how these strategies – these mistaken coping mechanisms – just don’t work. We have also been given different, more effective coping mechanisms for meeting the same needs, namely the opponents.

So when our deluded tendencies arise in our mind, instead of developing guilt and quickly repressing them down since we are a Dharma practitioner and know we shouldn’t have delusions, take the time to ask yourself, “what legitimate need is this delusion trying to fulfill? Will it work? What could meet this need better?” When we ask ourselves these questions, we will know what to do. We will be able to tell our delusions, “thanks, but no thanks. I’m going to do this instead.” We won’t feel tempted to follow them and it won’t be a struggle to not. We don’t need to deny the legitimate need they represent, we just need to employ healthier methods for fulfilling them.

In short, we don’t need to be at war with ourselves. Like with our veterans of past wars, we can thank our delusions for their past service, embrace what they really represent (namely the wish to fulfill some legitimate inner need) into our mind, and begin to build a harmonious inner community among the different parts of our mind. In other words, we cultivate inner peace. Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible.