For the longest time, I have equated “needs” with “attachments,” and rejected entirely the notion of needs. I thought one of the goals of Dharma practice was to get to the point where we have no needs. I now think this is a big mistake.

The mind of attachment thinks, “I need X external thing to be happy,” and “without X I can’t be happy.” Such thninking is obviously wrong and clearly the mind of attachment. Thinking this towards any external object just sets us up for misery as we chase after X and fall into despair without it. In truth, we don’t actually need these things, therefore it is wrong to even call them needs. Only our ignorance does so.

But this does not mean we don’t have needs. We need Lamrim realizations, for example. It is clear all the stages of the path of Sutra and Tantra are our inner needs, and there is nothing wrong with striving to attain them and thinking we can’t be happy without them. We must rely upon a happy mind alone. This is also fairly clear.

What has been a gray area for me is those external things which are conducive to my inner needs. This is where it gets a bit tricky. Obviously things like adequate food, shelter, and a healthy body are all examples of things we need. But what abour our emotional needs? For example, getting a proper night’s sleep makes a big difference for my mental well-being. Being over-extended or over-committed for long periods of time makes me cranky. Not feeling loved has been a recurring theme in my life, hardening my heart as a defense mechanism. Being appreciated has provided me with great encouragement to continue. Having a happy, functional, healthy family is conducive to the members of it having a happy, functional, and healthy mind. Atisha said avoid places that disturb your mind. The corrolary is seek out conditions that are conductive to inner peace.

The mistake I have made is basically over-applying the definition of attachment to tell myself I don’t “need” any of these things, and when my karma doesn’t provide me with these things, my response has been to harden my heart and say to myself, “this is just attachment, you need to get to the point where you need nothing.”

This is clearly an unhealthy extreme which quickly leads to burnout as we over-extend ourselves or fail to get adequate rest, or it leads to a detached Vulcan-like understanding of the Dharma that it is all about eliminating our emotions, or it leads to thinking we have to go at it alone without friends or support. If I’m honest, these are all extremes I have fallen into, and I don’t think I am alone.

I think the key distinction here is we have to accept where we are at in our heart, not where our intellectual understanding is. Sure, a Buddha might not need these things, but I am not a Buddha yet. So having adequate rest, not over-extending myself, feeling loved by those around me, feeling appreciated for my virtues as encouragement, etc., are all legitimate needs. I don’t need to say I don’t have needs, nor should my goal be to get to the point where I have no needs. I can have legitimate external needs without it being the mind of attachment. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging our genuine needs, knowing them, stating them, and even working towards fulfilling them.

Now, just because we have legitimate needs does not mean we can’t be happy if they go unmet. There will be times when we don’t get adequate rest, when we are shunned by all those around us, when nobody appreciates our efforts, etc., etc., etc. Just because we have legitimate needs does not mean they will always be met. Indeed, they will often not be met. But this does not mean we should deny we have such needs, it means we need to patiently accept our karma when they go unmet.

Thinking about this reminds me of the story of Buddha Shakyamuni in his time with the aesthetics. He tried that path and realized he was just destroying himself in the process and he needed certain things to optimize his ability to practice. We clearly don’t need to be physical aesthetics, but we also don’t need to be emotional aesthetics either. We can have emotional needs and we can pursue their fulfillment, while practicing patient acceptance when these needs go unmet. But we don’t need to deny we have those needs. It is simply where we are at.

If we look at the history of our tradition, it seems there are ample examples of where our failure to understand this has led to burnouts (too many to count!), pre-mature ordinations, repression until disrobings, misplaced self-hatred and guilt, Vulcan interpretations of Dharma, callousness instead of empathy when people are struggling, and moralistic judgments and condemnation of those who are still deluded (which, um, is all of us…).

At a personal level, it also leads to an extreme form of practice which presents a terrible example for others. Our inner understandings of Dharma become distorted, meaning they are not bringing us the inner peace we seek, causing us to eventually reject the Dharma when in truth our problem is our misunderstanding of it. It also leads to us pursuing a self-sacrificing model of Dharma and cherishing others and causes to us enable others to abuse us or others. We give terrible advice to others based upon our own misunderstandings, causing others to become miserable as well and eventually abandon the Dharma altogether. People look at all this and think, “if that’s what it means to practice Dharma, I don’t want that.” This helps nobody.

In short, perhaps, quite simply, we can say the needs of our self that we normally see are attachments, but the needs of our Buddha nature are our legitimate needs. We don’t need to abandon all needs thinking they are objects of abandonment. We can become atuned to what our legitimate needs are moment by moment and pursue them with confidence, all while practicing patient acceptance if those needs are going unmet. This seems a much more healthy way to approach our Dharma practice, more humble, more acceptable to modern society, and frankly more in line with Buddha Shakyamuni’s example.

My mom committed suicide the day before my wedding when we were in the middle of the biggest fight of our lives. She had lost both her parents, one right after the other. Prior to her losing them, she had already purchased tickets to come visit us in France for Christmas. She debated coming, but finally decided to come hoping it might help her feel better.

But on Christmas Eve, she became upset about not sight-seeing enough, which of course wasn’t the real issue, and then she drank a whole bottle of wine and insisted on leaving. We said no, she said yes, we said no, she said yes; finally, we said “fine.” We took her to the airport and the security guard said, “go home people, don’t do this,” but my mom insisted. By the time she sobered up, she was on a plane and convinced herself that we kicked her out on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, I discovered Venerable Geshe-la a few days later when I ran into Meaningful to Behold in the bookstore. This is my origin story for finding the Dharma.

I spent the next three, four years trying to contact her and re-establish relations with her, but was met with total silence. I’m not even sure if she ever opened my letters (this was pre-internet). I then got engaged and my mother found out through the grapevine. About a month before our wedding, she contacted me wanting to come. My parents absolutely hated each other and my mother ruined my brother’s wedding because she couldn’t hold it together with my father there. I didn’t think it was a good idea for the first time I see my mother to be at my wedding when my father was going to be there, so I said no she couldn’t come. I said I would come after the honeymoon and we would work everything out. She then killed herself the day before my wedding, which was also the anniversary of her own parents’ marriage.

If I look within my mind, I don’t really have much guilt about her having committed suicide. That is not on me. But what I didn’t see until now (thanks to a dear Sangha friend helping me see it) was how this created in me an absolute hyper-aversion to my relations being bad with anybody, especially prior to any extended separations, such as when my kids head off for college or I get posted to an assignment for my work where the family can’t join me.

In practice, this takes three forms. First, when for whatever reason relations are bad with those I love, I can’t handle it. Everything must be OK and resolved now, now, now, or certainly before any big separation. So I push them to resolve their issues immediately, which is of course ridiculous and unfair. Second, I chase after people’s forgiveness. When they are mad at me, it really messes with my mind, and so I go through all sorts of contortions trying to get things back to OK, but in effect it enables abuse and dysfunction when I probably should have walked away long ago or just been OK with them being mad at or disapproving of me. Third, at a more subtle level, it helps explain in part why I have projected expectations on my family that they always think and act in enlightened ways because I see any delusions within their mind as precursors of things potentially going badly.

All three of these forms are completely counter-productive, creating the very problem I am trying to avoid – namely having bad relations with those I love, having them be mad at me, or things ending badly before a big separation. Sadly, it is this aversion to any relations being bad that has in fact made virtually all of my relations bad. I think this is the hidden echo of the impact of my mom’s suicide on my mind that I have not seen until now.

The solution here is I need to create the space in my mind for this discomfort of not having things resolved with those I love. I need to create the space in my mind to give others the time they need to process things in their own way, even if that means they need to separate themselves from me or be very angry with me. It’s not fair for me to push everyone around me to resolve everything immediately just because I can’t handle it, but that is exactly what I have been doing. Creating the space for others to process their own things in their own way in their own time, therefore, is part of my practice of compassion for them. And part of my practice of protecting my own mind from this crippling, yet stealthy aversion.

Indeed, I see now how it was unfair of me to expect my mom to not act like she did when she came to France. She just lost both of her parents and that’s hard, she needed her own time to process. Likewise, a mother being told she can’t come to her son’s wedding must be completely devastating for her, and it is unrealistic of me to expect her to have processed it all on my timeframe. Creating the space for others to process their hurt in their own time and thier own way is part of our practice of compassion, and to expect them to do so in a manner that suits us is completely misplaced.

This will probably take a long time for me to become OK with, and I will likely continue to make many mistakes on this front. But I see it now. Hopefully I will become increasingly aware of how I do this and I will gradually stop. This, paradoxically, will actually help me heal over time a lot of the current bad relations I have with those I love.

Delusions are just awful! This aversion has been functioning in hiding within my mind, undermining everything important to me. I share all of this in the hopes that others don’t make the same mistakes I have.

We all have observed how people often treat nice people the worst. There are many reasons for that. Typically life is hard and most people are jerks, but others can’t say anything to those people without them doubling down on their jerkiness – striking back and creating negative karma for themselves in the process. But we know nice people don’t retaliate, so people take out their frustrations on them. Usually the nice person becomes everyone’s favorite scapegoat, the person you can safely blame. They are the people that can be falsely accused of being the problem, even when in fact they are not.

Kadampas are particularly prone to falling into this role – or should I say trap. We know the teachings on karma, so when people falsely accuse us or blame us, we accept it as our karma to be falsely blamed, made the scapegoat, or be mistreated or disrespected. We know the teachings on emptiness, so we accept even ultimately we are responsible for everything that happens and appears to our mind. Because we know these teachings, when people falsely accuse us of things or make us the scapegoat for all the problems in our families or work environments, we sometimes go along with it – accepting it as purification, transforming the adversity into the path, taking it as a powerful teaching on emptiness, training in the patience of non-retaliation, etc. And for us, it is entirely possible that we are able to do so purely, and other’s disrespectful actions towards us do function as a wrathful empowerment. We may receive genuine benefit from being mistreated this way.

But sometimes, perhaps most of the time, we are not able to entirely transform things in this way and it can hurt us badly. Worse, sometimes we may even internalize other’s false narratives that we are the problem and start thinking we are such a terrible person, terrible bodhisattva, etc., thinking we are the one who needs to do all the changing and others are perfect. In essence, people gaslight us and we assent to that, thinking we really are so bad and that we are the source of the problems, etc.

Sure, if we are making mistakes, we should admit them and change. No doubt. But that doesn’t mean we need to accept everybody’s false accusation against us as true. Accepting defeat does not mean accepting false accusations as true. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our protecting ourselves and our own mind by rejecting their false accusations as true and refusing to play the role of the scapegoat.

But even if we are able to transform everything, it seems to me our compassion compels us to – even forcefully if necessary – also reject these false accusations and being made the scapegoat with others. It doesn’t help them to allow them to falsely accuse us and scapegoat us. Indeed, it gives them a pass on their own wrong behavior and enables them to evade their conventional responsibilities in the situation.

While it is our karma to be falsely accused and everything is just a karmic manifestation of our mind, conventionally speaking – according to normal worldly conventions – sometimes we AREN’T the problem, even if everybody in the situation sees us that way. We are being falsely accused. We are being unjustly scapegoated. Assenting to these things lends credence and credibility to what is in fact relationship dysfunction.

Overcoming ordinary conceptions means to stop assenting to ordinary appearance. Just because things may appear to exist in a certain way doesn’t mean they in fact exist in that way. In exactly the same way, assenting to false accusations or assuming the role of scapegoat in situations helps nobody. It is a form of voluntarily assenting to ordinary conceptions. It keeps the relationship dysfunction going.

Pushing back on these false accusations and refusing to continue to play the role of scapegoat will definitely create turbulance in our relationships. People are used to blaming us, it’s convenient for them to do so. But it certainly doesn’t help them because they never then assume responsibility for their own actions, their own lives, and their own experiences. It also enables them to create all sorts of negative karma for themselves. It makes them feel justified in their anger towards us.

It’s worth recalling the negative karmic consequences of being angry with a bodhisattva. While we may not be a bodhisattva yet in the sense of having generated spontaneous bodhichitta, we are a baby bodhisattva, a similitude of a bodhisattva, we are striving to become a Buddha for the benefit of all. Harming us, being angry at us, disrespecting us, falsely accusing us, scapegoating us, etc., creates terrible karma for them. Allowing them to do these things towards us allows them to create such karma for themselves. Where is the compassion in that? Who does that help?

So yes, while we accept false accusations and scapegoating as purification of our negative karma and yes we don’t retaliate, conventionally our wisdom and compassion compels us to push back against them and refuse to assent to them. We can admit our mistakes and change where their accusations are justified, but we are under no obligation to do so where they are not. There is nothing selfish about protecting ourselves from internalizing their false narratives. Indeed, it is an act of compassion to not. Our refusal to do so will create waves in the short-run, but it will create accountability and healthy relationships in the long-run. We always play the long-game.

It is possible that people will end their relationships with us if we no longer play the role of scapegoat. So be it. That relationship isn’t actually helping them anyways. It is “compassion” and “cherishing others” without any wisdom. And if we are not actually able to fully transform their narratives into the path, then we are also protecting ourselves from internalizing their false accusations and developing self-loathing and misplaced guilt. And who knows, perhaps our refusal to accept their false accusations or play the role of scapegoat will eventually help them wake up to what they are doing and they stop.

Abandoning Doormat Dharma is a vast and important practice. Rejecting false accusations (while accepting them as purification) is a critical part of Venerable Geshe-la’s example, one we need to fearlessly and confidently adopt.

We all know the saying “give someone a fish and you feed them for a day, teach them to fish and you feed them for life.” In popular culture, this is often frankly used as an excuse to NOT help people, and we almost never actually teach them to fish either! The retort of course is “do both.” Give them fish while you are teaching them how to do so. While in theory, this makes sense, practically many complications arise based upon how the other person responds to our approach.

People will often want us to solve their problems for them and then get mad at us if we don’t. How’s a bodhisattva to react? First, we need to check the capacity of the other person – are they capable of solving the problem on their own or do they need us to do some aspects for them. Second, we need to offer as much help as necessary to help explain to them HOW they can solve their problems on their own, but leave them to actually do the work. Third, we make ourselves available to answer specific questions that might arise as they go about solving their problems on their own, while preserving a clear boundary about what we will or will not do for them. Fourth, we need to accept that they often will get upset at us if we are not doing their work for them, especially if we have frequently done so in the past. We need to accept this upsetness as purification for our past mistakes and manipulative behavior of others in the past.

Fundamentally, a big part of this is loving the other person enough to believe in them that they can do it. Sometimes we wrongly don’t believe in them, especially when they don’t believe in themselves. When they do it on their own and succeed, their confidence and capacity will grow. If we do it for them, their confidence and capacity will diminish, and they will become either increasingly dependent upon others or never flourish in life always stuck in perpetual doubt. It is, in some cases, a profound act of love to say, “sorry, I can’t help you, you will have to do it yourself. I believe you can do it, and I’m here for you to provide support and guidance as you do so.”

In the long-run, they will likely come to realize our motivation is love wishing for them to become self-sufficient and to know how to solve their own problems on their own. They may resent us in the short-run, but perhaps thank us in the long-run. Even if they don’t and they hate us forever, it doesn’t mean we didn’t do the right thing by relating to them in this way. No, none of this is easy, especially with our kids.

All of this is equally true with being a good Sangha friend helping people along the path. We can’t do their work for them, but we can skillfully help support them as they do their own work.

The challenging case comes when the other person is not willing to do their own work. They wait until the last minute and come to you asking for you to do their work for them, and if you don’t step in, then they will fail and the consequences on their life could be extreme. This is a situation I often find myself in, actually. Sometimes, this situation creeps up gradually, with small instances in the beginning and eventually extreme issues as it becomes a habit. It’s best to arrest this process in the early stages because it becomes harder when we wait until the more extreme situations. When we say “no, we won’t do your work for you,” it will almost always create a negative reaction in the other person. This is normal, and something the other person is just going to have to get used to. They step up or they down, the choice is theirs. Sadly, their reaction is most often to go find somebody else to manipulate into doing their work for them.

But if the consequences of them not getting it done are low, saying no early to small things is often a good life lesson that avoids future more extreme situations. But sometimes the consequences are unacceptably severe for not stepping in and doing their work for them. At such times, you can say, “this is unfair of you to put me in this situation, but I understand the consequences of me not stepping in are too severe. Therefore, I’m telling you now, this is the last time I will do this. Next time, I will let you fail, regardless of the consequences. I don’t help you by doing your work for you, and since I’m only trying to help you, I have to say no. I’m telling you now so you can plan accordingly and not find yourself in a similar situation again in the future. If you fail becuase you didn’t do your work, it will be on you. I can help support you do your work, but I’m not doing your work for you.” They will usually agree to this at the time because what choice do they have – if they don’t get your help now, they’re screwed.

Once the task is done, again, tell them “never again.” Then, tell them again early on when they are given large assignments that you won’t be doing their work for them and they need to plan accordingly. If they then come to you with some urgent situation like before, you will need to hold the line and say no. They very well may fail and they very well may hate you for it for a long time, but you are looking at a larger picture. Our goal is to help everyone become not only self-sufficient individuals, but eventually sources of refuge for all living beings. They will only gain that capacity if they embrace the ethic of wanting to do their own work because they know that is how they grow.

To not do this is to either (1) not believe in them, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and (2) indulges them in not only their laziness but creating negative karma for themselves of manipulating others. At some point, life will require them to perform and they won’t be ready because you haven’t loved them enough to say no to helping them earlier.

The war currently unfolding in Ukraine is, in many ways, the biggest geopolitical event in most of our lifetimes. It’s the first ”great power conflict“ since the Cold War. Thousands of people are dying, millions are fleeing in terror, tens of millions are either trapped or choose to stay and fight, cities are being destroyed, and the geopolitical order that has (more or less) maintained the peace since WWII is potentially unravelling, with the risk of ushering in a 21st century version of the Cold War between Russia/China and the other major world powers. The rest of us can seemingly only watch on helplessly. All of this is coming on the heals of global pandemic which has killed millions. It’s hard to not feel like the world is falling apart and going to hell. So what do we, as Kadampas, do with all of this? How can we help? How do we transform such appearances into the path? What follows is my answer. How do we help? Geshe-la says our job is to pray. How do we transform these appearances into the path? Geshe-la says we should learn from this that the Dharma is the truth. But our ability to do this will depend on not falling into either of the two extremes associated with mixing Dharma with politics.

Our Job is to Pray

Gen-la Dekyong asked Geshe-la if he had a message to the Kadampa community regarding the war that is unfolding. During a special global Prayers for World Peace, she shared his answer. For those interested, they can hear her teaching and engage in the prayers by following the recording, which can be found here:

He said, “Our job is to pray.” My understanding is he then referred to the teaching he gave when he opened the temple in New York in which he said, “Nowadays, we can see in the world so many problems, people experiencing so many difficulties. Storms, famines, floods, incurable diseases, wars, earthquakes, etc. People are asking me, what should we Buddhists do to help these problems? I replied, we cannot be involved in any political problem or it becomes worse. Our job is, we pray, we pray for these obstacles to be pacified. We pray for people to pacify their negativity, wrong views, their extreme views, through prayer. Our job to solve these kinds of problems is we pray for everybody to become friends. To have harmony, good relationships, to pacify their wrong views of selfish intention. This is our job. I believe it is the best method to help. It is the best method to benefit. This is our job. If we try physically, verbally, it makes things worse. We pray for every area to pacify negative attitudes and intentions and for people to experience correct views and correct paths. So through receiving blessings our wishes will be fulfilled. I promise. This is our Buddhist way of helping; this is our Buddhist way of benefiting to solve these kinds of problems. I believe you will solve the world’s problems gradually through these methods. Our prayers work for three reasons. First is our pure intention. Second, the power of the prayers themselves. Third, the powerful blessings of the holy beings.”

Gen-la Dekyong then asked what particular prayers we should make for this situation? Geshe-la’s answer: “Of course, we engage in Prayers for World Peace – Tara prayers. It is very clear without compassion and wisdom, there is no possibility to be released from this kind of tragedy. We should learn from this that the Dharma is the truth.”

I don’t have a transcript of it, but when the Iraq war broke out, Geshe-la gave two main pieces of advice. First, he said ”we should pray that our leaders receive wisdom,” and “love is the nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.”

How to Increase the Power of our Prayers

There was so much good advice in Gen-la Dekyong’s talk that I won’t try to paraphrase it. Those interested can listen to it. Instead, if our job is to pray, I want to say a few words about how we make our prayers powerful. We do so through our pure intention, our karmic connection with those we are praying for, our karmic connection with the Buddhas we are praying to, and the extent to which we can mix our prayers with the correct view of emptiness. All four of these factors can be strengthened. Buddhas primarily accomplish all of their deeds through the power of their prayer. Wishing to become a Buddha practically means wishing to gain their power of prayer. It is our main training.

Our pure intention, of course, is great compassion. Compassion is the wish to protect others from their suffering. Great compassion is vaster than normal compassion along two axes: first, it is compassion for all living beings. In this specific case, that means praying of course for the victims of the war, but also praying for those perpetrating the war (on both sides), and also praying for everyone else in the world looking on, generating delusions and negativity with regards to what they are seeing. The second axis is the three different types of suffering. Of course we pray for the alleviation of the manifest suffering of the war itself, but also the changing suffering realizing cease fires or even the end of the war is not happiness, but just a reduction in the suffering of war. Further, we pray for freedom from the pervasive suffering of being born with contaminated bodies and minds in realms where things like war happen.

The strength of our karmic connections with those we are praying for and with the Buddhas essentially determines the bandwidth through which the blessings can flow from the Buddhas to the objects of our prayers. The more karma we have (and the more pure that karma is), the greater the bandwidth and the more powerful the blessings. We can pray, for example, that wisdom enter Putin’s mind, but if we were his closest advisor or his mother and we made that prayer, it would be much more powerful due to our closer karmic connection. Likewise, if we almost never build karmic connections with the Buddhas, our prayers to them will not be as powerful as they would be if we are praying to them all the time and we have very close karma with them. We can strengthen our karma with those directly involved with the war by reading their stories or thinking about the situation and what they are experiencing. We can strengthen our karma with the leaders by trying to understand their respective perspectives and understanding how their decisions will shape the evolution of this. We can strengthen our karma with all those looking on by talking to people about it or simply thinking about the karma they are creating due to their views of the situation. Everyone in the world is creating karma with respect to the war right now.

We can strengthen our karma with the Buddhas by engaging in our practices in general and self-generation in particular. Every time we put any Dharma instruction into practice, we are creating karma with the source of that instruction (as a side note, this is how we find Geshe-la again in our future lives – by putting the instructions he has given us in this life into practice). Finally, we can purify our negative karma with respect to those directly involved in the war, those looking on, and all the Buddhas through purification practices such as Vajrasattva, 35 Confession Buddhas, etc. The more we purify our negative karma with respect to these three groups, the less obstructed our prayers will be.

And we infuse our prayers with the wisdom realizing emptiness by contemplating the emptiness of the three spheres – those we are praying for, those we are paying to, and ourselves doing the praying. Grasping at these three spheres as being inherently separate from one other essentially cuts completely the power of the prayers by erecting mental barriers to the blessings ever being able to reach their intended targets. How can the blessings flow if there is no point of intersection between the Buddhas, ourselves, and those we are praying for? In truth, all three spheres of our prayers are parts of our mind. None of the three spheres are separate from our mind, but rather different places within our mind. There is no creator other than mind, so all three spheres are created by and are parts of our mind. We are directing one part of our mind (the Buddhas) to channel the flow of their pure winds (their blessings) to another part of our mind (the objects of our prayers). It is like we are a magician who has the power to direct the currents of water within the ocean of our mind, which is itself, not separate from us. We, in effect, transform the aspect of our mind itself from the state of war to the state of eternal peace. In my view, prayer is emptiness in action. The more we understand the non-duality between appearance and emptiness and the non-duality between emptiness and the laws of karma, the more powerful and effective our prayers will be.

Some people are very engaged with this issue – reading updates on line many times a day – others are simply aware it is happening, but not too engaged. Regardless of what is our case, each time we engage we should recall Geshe-la’s advice: our job is to pray. With respect to everything you read, pray; every person in the story, pray for them; pray, pray, pray while strengthening our intention, our karma with the Buddhas, our karma with those we are praying for, and our wisdom realizing the emptiness of the three spheres. We are not limited to doing this with regard to the war in Ukraine, but can likewise do this with regard to every tragedy we see unfolding before us while we remain in samsara – pandemics, famines, sexual violence, racism, homophobia – whatever animates us and we feel passionate about.

Avoiding the Extremes of Mixing Dharma and Politics

Geshe-la says when we see things like the war, we should learn how the Dharma is the truth. What appears is the war, but what we understand is the truth of the Dharma. In addition to praying, this is also our job.

Before we can get into how to do this, we first need to say a few words about mixing Dharma with politics. We all know we should not mix Dharma with politics, so sometimes the question arises as to how we can think about political developments in a Dharma way without mixing Dharma with politics? This especially becomes complicated when different Kadampas have different political opinions about what is happening in the world, such as different views about the pandemic, about masks, about the war, about political leaders, about racism, etc., etc., etc.

Knowing we should not mix Dharma with politics, sometimes Kadampas go to the extreme of saying we should not talk about political developments or politics at all. They say talking about political developments is ”non-Dharma” and therefore have no place in Dharma discussions. Other people think Kadampas need to be neutral on all political developments – some form of spiritual ”both-sidesism” or some sort of “false equivalency” with respect to every situation saying, ”everyone is equally bad.” For them, to be a Kadampa means to be some uber-Centrist on all things condemning everyone equally. Geshe-la says our job is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life. Political developments, such as wars, elections, protest movements, pandemics, whatever, are all part of modern life. Therefore, our job is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and these developments. How? Geshe-la says by having these developments teach us the truth of Dharma. Milarepa said he does not need Dharma books because all phenomena teach him the truth of Dharma. We should not run away from engaging with political developments in the world, we should view them clearly and learn Dharma truths from them.

There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with Kadampas having political views – whatever they may be. Some people will be conservative, some liberal, some far right, some far left, some anarchist, some communist, whatever. It doesn’t matter. We should have political opinions about what is going on because our opinions matter for shaping the world around us. We have to have opinions about what is happening in the world because we have to act in the world. We should not renounce all political power we might have fearing it is somehow inherently tainted, we need to use whatever political power we have (our voice, our vote, our professional position, our activities, whatever) in virtuous, compassionate, and wise ways. This is part of attaining the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.

The other extreme sometimes people fall on is saying ”if you believe in the Dharma, then you need to have XYZ political view,” or its cousin, ”holding that political view is contrary to the Dharma.” We see this all the time about the controversial issues in the world – race, the pandemic, wars, elections, whatever. This can become a real problem when Dharma practitioners of different political stripes start discussing political matters. Divisions can quickly arise in the Sangha, with both sides thinking, ”how can you possibly be a Kadampa and think that way?” This is why some people say, ”let’s not discuss divisive political matters at all to avoid creating divisions in the Sangha,” and they fall right back into the first extreme described above. It’s an understandable position to take because certainly no political issue is worth creating a division in the Sangha for. But simply silencing the conversation just pushes the division under the carpet where it festers and continues to divide. It doesn’t actually solve the division. Instead, we need a framework to allow for Kadampas to have a wide variety of political views, yet all remain equally, 100% Kadampas.

In my view, the middle way is understanding we each occupy a different karmic positionality, and as a result, the world will appear to us in different ways. The political views that make sense to us will be entirely dependent upon how the world appears to us. With the war, for example, some people will blame Russia, others will blame Ukraine, others will blame the United States, others will blame China, others will blame Europe, and from these perceptions, different political solutions will seem appropriate. The same is true for racism in society, the pandemic, whatever. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. We don’t all need to see the world in the same way. What matters is that whatever political views we have be infused with wisdom and compassion relative to how we see the world. We need to respond to the world as it appears to us with wisdom and compassion. Since the world will appear to us in different ways, what is ”wise” and what is ”compassionate” policy will differ. There is nothing wrong with that at all.

In this way, we can all have different political views (based upon our karmic positionality) but we are all equally responding to how the world appears to us in wise and compassionate ways. This creates the space for ”everybody welcome” to also include everyone regardless of their political point of view. We don’t need to try convince others to see the world as we see it, we only need to help others respond to how they see the world in wise and compassionate ways. We can completely disagree in how we see the world and what political conclusions we arrive at, but be in total agreement that we all need to respond to whatever appears in wise and compassionate ways. It doesn’t matter how we see the world, it only matters that whatever is appearing teaches us the truth of Dharma. This, in my view, is how we attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life with respect to politics. No problems. No contradictions. No divisions.

We should learn from this that the Dharma is the truth

With this background in mind, how then can we have things like the war teach us the Dharma is the truth? It’s simple: We pray! We pray, ”please reveal to me how the war (as it appears to me) teaches the Dharma is the truth?” We apply the suggestions on praying above to our prayer that what appears reveals to us the truth of Dharma. We can contemplate and pray, ”how does this teach me the truth of the lower realms, karma, samsara, the faults of delusions (in particular self-cherishing), bodhichitta, emptiness, etc.” We can quite literally go through each of the 21 meditations of the stages of the path and ask ourselves (and ask our guru at our heart) how the war reveals the truth of each of the stages of the path of Sutra and Tantra. Then, as Geshe-la suggests, we can ”write our own commentary.” Then the war will be, for us, a Dharma book – just like Milarepa.

If we want, we can then share our perspective with others. But when we do, there is a risk some people may then start to ”debate” with us about differences of opinion with respect to how they see the war, so therefore they learn different Dharma lessons from what appears. Our answer to that should be, ”It doesn’t matter to me how you see the war, as long as how you are seeing it is teaching you some Dharma truth.” We can try understand their perspective and learn the Dharma lessons they are learning from how it is appearing to them, even if it is different than our own point of view. What matters is that we maximize the Dharma lessons we learn from what is appearing. If we refuse to learn the Dharma lessons those with different political views are learning, we are, in effect, prioritizing our political views over the Dharma. We are depriving ourselves of learning a Dharma lesson because we are unwilling to politically see the situation in the way the other person is. This is also mixing politics with Dharma. Instead, we should learn whatever Dharma lessons we can from our political view and then try to understand other’s political points of view and learn what Dharma lessons can be learned from that view as well. Then, no problems, just learning the truth of Dharma. And in the process, we may heal some political divides as well.

How Does the War Teach Me the Truth of Dharma?

So how do I see this? What Dharma lessons am I learning?

We can metaphorically say the vast ocean of samsara is comprised of countless water drops, each of which is a living being. Some are drops on the surface (humans), some are in the clouds (upper realms), but most are beneath the surface (lower realms). In the center of this ocean is the island of enlightenment which is by nature the wheel of Dharma. On its shores are all our Dharma temples, centers, teachers, sangha, Dharma books, etc. They are conventionally appearing in samsara (which is their true miracle power, since by nature they exist outside). The water drops that wash up onto the shore (a microscopic number of the total) are like refugees from the ocean of samsara that make it to our Dharma centers. Once somebody goes for refuge and starts embarking on the path, they enter the charnel grounds. The charnel grounds are like the foothills of Mount Meru. They are the bridge between where we are now and the pure land. From one perspective, they are still part of samsara, from another perspective they are part of Keajra pure land.

From a practical point of view, practitioners primarily remain in the charnel grounds from after they go for refuge until they reach the pure land. Within the charnel grounds, the primary practice is overcoming ordinary conceptions. Once we reach the pure land itself, the primary practice is overcoming ordinary appearances. To keep it simple, pure appearances are things that appear to be emanations of Buddhas and ordinary appearances are things that appear to be something other than an emanation of a Buddha. Pure conceptions are we understand appearances to be emanations of Buddhas and ordinary conceptions are we think things are something other than emanations of Buddhas. The function of a Buddha is to reveal the path and bestow blessings.

In the charnel grounds (where we are now), we are surrounded by seemingly ordinary appearances – things appear to us to be samsaric-like (wars, famines, disease, drug addiction, birth, aging, sickness, death, etc.). At the very beginning of the charnel grounds, we conceive of these appearances as mostly being ordinary; but then by the time we reach the end of the charnel grounds, we conceive of every appearance as mostly being pure, and indeed, things start to appear differently. Instead of seeing samsaric bodies, we see zombies, smell-eaters, etc. What is a samsaric body other than a walking corpse anyways?

In the early stages of the charnel grounds, we mostly overcoming our ordinary conceptions through the Lojong training of transforming adverse conditions into the path. In the latter stages of the charnel grounds, we mostly overcome our ordinary conceptions through the practices explaining in the tantric texts of how to practice during the meditation break of both generation stage and completion stage (the explanation in Tantric Grounds and Paths for how to train in isolated body during the meditation break is particularly sublime). The point is it’s like a volume knob in which we turn down our ordinary conceptions and turn up our pure conceptions. But all of it – Lojong and tantric meditation break practice – is fundamentally about changing our conceptions regarding what appears, while what actually appears gradually shifts. If we make it through the charnel grounds, it is quite easy to enter into Keajra Pure Land itself. It’s simply our next step along the path. It is not some distant place, but gradually starts to become our lived experience until it is stable and irreversible. This is how I see the charnel grounds. I believe all of us Kadampa practitioners currently are in the charnel grounds – sometimes we forget, but more and more we remember.

So where is the war taking place? Is it in Ukraine? Is it in samsara? For me, it is happening in the charnel grounds? The charnel grounds are like a hologram – from one perspective, it looks like samsara; from another perspective, it looks like the pure land. When I see it from a samsaric perspective, I generate delusions – such as hatred for Putin or frustration with China enabling the war. When I see it from a pure perspective, I generate virtues – such as compassion for the victims, gathering all blame into one, seeing how karma plays out in the world, etc. When I read the news, I at first wind up generating delusions, but then I try pray and contemplate what Dharma lesson this can teach me. When I discuss it with others, out of attachment to my views, at first I try get them to see the world the way I see it, but then I try help them respond to how they see it with wisdom and compassion. If all sides are responding to how they see the war with wisdom and compassion, we may all start out in different places, but we will all wind up in the same destination – peace.

For myself, I am a diplomat with the U.S. government stationed in China near the Russian border. Korea, Japan, Australia, France, and Germany are all diplomatically present here. I stand at the intersection of all of these forces. I’m engaging in conversations about the war with all of these different parties. The views I have will shape how they think about things and how they advise their governments how to respond. I view this as a profound responsibility. I need to make sure what I say is wise and compassionate, and conducive to peace not just in Europe, but in East Asia as well. This summer I will transition to India. The war or its aftermath will continue. Relations between great powers will forever be altered by this. I view my job as to be a Kadampa in the middle of all of this. I believe we need bodhisattvas in all walks of life, each bringing wisdom and compassion to their respective professional domains.

I have not found it helpful to debate the political aspects of the war with my fellow Kadampas. With them, I want to focus on the Dharma lessons (of which this entire post is what Dharma truth I’m learning from all of this). With my diplomat friends or with my old college debate buddies, I engage in different discussions. There, I try help everyone view this situation with greater wisdom and compassion. This is what I feel I need to do because this is my karmic positionality. Whether we are a Kadampa in the UK or a Kadampa mother in Russia or wherever we may find ourselves, we will all have different karmic positionalities and therefore need to respond in different ways depending upon what is appearing to us. There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, this is us assuming our place in Geshe-la’s mandala. Our job is to pray. Our job is to learn how this situation reveals the truth of Dharma.