In the State Department, we rotate jobs every 2-3 years throughout our career.  The rationale behind this is simple:  the end goal they are after is forging us into Ambassadors, but an Ambassador needs to be good at everything.  Normally, after spending 2-3 years in a given job, you have learned probably 80-90% of everything there is to learn about the job.  Of course, you could always go deeper and become more of an expert, but the rate of learning shows diminishing returns.  So it becomes time to move on and gain a new 80-90% set of skills doing something else.  In short, moving around all of the time helps us avoid getting stuck in a rut.

An additional rationale for moving people around all of the time is to avoid the mistake of false universal assumptions.  Very often, when we are in one place (or situation) for a long time we get assimilated into the view of that place.  There are two dangers to this.  First, we can start to mistakenly think that everybody must view things in the same way as they do where you are at; and second, you can start to believe that the view of this area is superior to all others and therefore lose your appreciation for multiple perspectives.  In short, moving around all of the time helps us avoid being narrow-minded.

Within the human resources department, there is somebody called your “assignments officer.”  Their job is to match the needs of the Department with your career development objectives all in the optic of a long-term plan of helping you cultivate all of the skills you will need to operate effectively at the highest levels.

When you think about it, this is exactly the same as what happens within the Kadampa family.  The long-term goal is to train people up to become Ambassadors for all of the Buddhas (fully qualified Kadampa Spiritual Guides).  We are all moved around again and again.  Gen Lekma once said, “be wary of the day you get too comfortable, because that is the day Venerable Geshe-la will move you!”  A lot of people looking at this process, particularly as it relates to Resident Teachers, from the outside mistakenly view these constant moves as “punishments” or view VGL as “vindictive.”  Not at all!  He is rather telling us it is time to move on to our next assignment.  Sometimes we embrace this, sometimes we resist.  Sometimes he asks us to go somewhere, sometimes he fires us.  But the goal is always the same – it is time for us to move on so we can build new skills and realize new things.

For most Kadampas, however, we dont’ receive emails from VGL telling us where to go next.  So are we deprived of having an enlightened assignments officer?  No.  Rather, our assignments officer is the Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden.  His long term goal is to forge us int the Buddha we need to become, he knows what realizations we need to gain and in what order, and his job is to arrange all the outer and inner conditions we need to gain those realizations.  Of course, we have to do our spiritual assignments, but Dorje Shugden arranges for us the assignments we need to take the next step on our spiritual path.  Sometimes our moving on will be joyful and sometimes it will be traumatic, but in both cases it will be what we need to continue our spiritual growth.

Your turn:  Describe a major career or life change you have gone through and what did you learn from making that change?

Several people have contacted me recently asking for my thoughts on the recent turmoil in the world since I work for the State Department.  Before I provide my thoughts, I want to be very clear that I am providing my personal thoughts as a Kadampa not as official U.S. position on the crisis.  In no way should anything I say be misconstrued as U.S. policy, rather these are my own personal spiritual lessons I draw from recent events.  Our goal as Kadampas is to use all world events to realize how the Dharma is the truth.

First, we need to make a very clear distinction between legitimate freedom of expression and illegitimate expression.  In a free society, one can fully defend the legal right of the person who made the video to do so; yet at the same time as a human being we can condemn unequivocally the content of his message with our own free speech.  He has the right to say what he thinks, and I have to respect that right, but we also have the right to robustly disagree with his message and intentions with our speech.  In fact, the best response to bad free speech is not to restrict his speech, but rather for the rest of us to drown out his bad speech with our virtuous speech disagreeing with his insulting message. 

Likewise, the people in the Muslim world who were offended by this video have every right to protest the content of this video, but they have no right whatsoever to express themselves through violence.  If we are to be consistent, we need to equally defend the right of the people in these newly freed societies to protest whatever they want, but at the same time say that we unequivocally condemn their expressing themselves though violence.  As Kadampas, the bottom line is the same:  divisive and hurtful speech is morally wrong and should be condemned.  Individually, we should refrain from it always seeing how destructive it is. 

One of the main problems here is false generalizations.  In the Muslim world, some are falsely coming to the conclusion that all Americans or Westerners have insulting attitudes towards Islam and Muslims.  And some in the West falsely generalize that all Muslims are fanatics who take to rioting when their religion is insulted.  Both attitudes are wrong.  It is a very small minority in the West who hold such intolerant and insulting attitudes towards other religions, and it is a very small minority of Muslims who take to violence when their religion is insulted.  The majority in the West are ashamed to have such bigots in our midst who insult other religions, and the majority in the Muslim world are ashamed to have people who resort to violence when insulted.   It is like Terry Jones, the lunatic who wanted to burn the Korans, yes, he has the right to do it, but we can all vocally say we disagree fundamentally with his actions.  If one person does something stupid and thousands, in fact millions, express their disagreement with what the person said or did, then it is more difficult for others to falsely generalize that all Americans think like he does.  Likewise, if a few fanatics resort to violence and thousands, in fact millions, peacefully protest, then it is more difficult for people in the West to falsely generalize that all Muslims are terrorist fanatics.

As Kadampas, we can appreciate how an understanding of emptiness is the antidote to all of these problems.  When we grasp at inherent existence, we grasp at there being only one valid point of view – there is one inherently true perspective on things.  Therefore, we become threatened when people think differently than us because either they are right or I am right, but we both can’t be right.  Most religious wars have been fought due to this ignorance, with zealots violently defending that they have a monopoly on the truth and any who disagree must be destroyed.  Ridiculous!  When we realize emptiness, we can very comfortably respect other religions as being valid for those who follow that religion.  Islam doesn’t teach violence, ignorant people misunderstand Islam to commit violence.  Likewise, Christianity doesn’t teach hate, ignorant people misunderstand it and become hateful.  Islam and Christianity alike are religions of peace and love.  Islam works for some people to become more virtuous and Christianity works for others to become more virtuous.  As Kadampas, we can celebrate and respect any system of thought that encourages people to become more virtuous and condemn any system of thought that encourages people to become hateful and violent.  We don’t need everybody to follow the same point of view because our understanding of emptiness opens our mind to multiple points of view existing harmoniously and simultaneously.

I think we need to make a distinction between understanding delusion and agreeing with it.  We can understand why delusion is arising without condoning it or agreeing with it.  I think we need to view the situation from a broader perspective.  This video is not the cause of the recent violence, it is merely the match that lit the fire.  There are large swaths of the world that have been living under oppression for decades (and in some cases centuries).  These people are now freeing themselves from such oppression.  It is a historical fact that the West has a long history of crusades and support for oppressive dictators.  It is very understandable why those who have been the victims of such oppression will be angry at those who have oppressed them and at those who have backed their oppressors.  Our historical fear of Muslims and their radicalization are two halves of the same dynamic – namely that extremists on both sides feed off of one another and use the existence of the other to justify their own positions.  We have been wrong to support oppressors (even George Bush realized this) and they have been wrong to resort to violence in opposition to that oppression. 

Ghandi showed the way.  He appealed to the virtuous values of his oppressor while exhorting his followers to renounce giving those oppressors further cause to oppress them by resorting to violence.  Such an approach brings out the best of both sides.  So I can simultaneously understand why some people in the Muslim world are angry with the West while at the same time unequivocally condemn any violent expression.  I can appeal to the virtuous qualities embedded within the views of both sides as the answer to the wrong actions of both sides.  It is our mutual fear of the other which has driven both sides to wrong actions, and it is only through both sides applying effort to mutually understand and respect one another that peace can be found.  Ignorance and hatred bring conflict.  Love, wisdom and respect for others bring inner peace, and inner peace brings outer peace.  As Kadampas, recent events can teach us clearly that ignorance and hatred are the sources of all problems and wisdom and love are the sources of all good. 

Finally, as Kadampas we should never underestimate the power of prayer.  From our own side, we need to oppose our own deluded reactions or views on recent events, but for others we should pray that they find wisdom and love in their hearts.  Holy beings have the power to bless the minds of others to move in virtuous directions.  Our prayers will be as effective as our faith is strong, as our realization of the emptiness of ourselves, others and the Buddhas is complete, and as our motivation is pure.  Sometimes we think we pray only as a last resort when nothing else will work.  The reality is we should pray as our first resort because it is, in the end, the power of our prayers that enable the other things we might do to actually work.  In particular, we should pray to Dorje Shugden that he bless the minds of everyone on the planet that recent events become powerful causes of enlightenment for all those observing or participating in them.  Finally, we can pray that all those who have died as a result of recent events take rebirth in the pure land of their choice.

Once again, all of the above are my personal views and should be interpreted as such.

On July 23rd of this year, my family went to the U.S. for six weeks.  While of course I am sad to see them go and I miss them, I decided to really try use my Summer for retreat.  When I was in Geneva, I had the great good fortune to have a large chunk of my summer off where I could focus on the Dharma, go to Manjushri and the Summer Festival, etc.  This was really precious time for me, and it is one of the main reasons why I switched to teaching as a career at that time.  The last couple of summers were difficult in that respect, but this year I had a great opportunity.  I remember what Venerable Tharchin said:  if you have an opportunity to focus on your Dharma practice and you seize the opportunity, you create the causes to have even better opportunities to practice in the future.  But if you have a good opportunity and you squander it, you burn up the karma on your mind to have any time to practice and you will face more and more obstacles in your practice.  Principally for this reason, I made this summer my retreat.

But, as per my karma right now, my retreat had to be a non-conventional one.  Normally, when we do retreat, we want to cease all of our normal activities, go into solitude and focus on training our mind.  But I had to work and deal with my normal business during this time.  One of the biggest things my new life has taught me is that everything depends upon your mind.  If I adopt a “mind of retreat,” then I can transform any set of appearances into an experience of doing retreat.  And if we lack such a mind of retreat, even if externally we have all of the conditions of a retreat, we are not actually doing retreat at all.  So I view whatever appears to my mind once I “go into retreat” as the conditions that Dorje Shugden has arranged for me to train my mind with.  Different experiences at work, etc., then become emanted appearances during my retreat.  With such a view, we then naturally “take the bait” and work on training our mind in whatever way seems the most approrpiate given the circumstances.  In this way, our normal life becomes our retreat.  So anyways, this is what I tried to do this summer!

So what are my main conclusions:

1. It is so very important to reconnect with Sangha, especially at the international festivals.  I had the fantastic good fortune to be able to go to the first half of the second week of the Summer Festival.  Gen-la Dekyong gave the Je Tsongkhapa empowerment and a commentary to the practice of the Yoga of Buddha Heruka.  This is exactly my daily practice, so it couldn’t have been more perfect.  But it was also so very important to me to have had the opportunity to reconnect with my Sangha friends.  Without Sangha contact, it is very easy to have our practice gradually decline.  But when we have an opportunity to go to a festival, it recharges us and reorients us to be back in alignment with the tradition.  I realized very clearly from this experience how important it is to do whatever I can to make it to the major festivals (to the extent that my karma reasonably allows).  I am definitely going to try make it to Portugal.
2. It is likewise very important to always be on a study program of some kind.  From 1994 until 2010 I was on a study program.  Most of this was by correspondance but also at Manjushri.  But in early 2010 I simply couldn’t keep up with anything so I stopped.  This was a really big deal at the time.  But since then I gradually lost the desire to be on a study program.  But when I went to the Summer Festival and had a great conversation with my “mother” Gen Wangchog of Mexico, I realized how important it is that I restart my correspondance studies.  I then had a meeting with Venerable Tharchin, who I have been doing correspondance with for years, and I committed to restarting, though at a very slow pace.  He said “wonderful.”  So after I got back, almost every night I could, I listened to one of the classes (Heart of Wisdom).  This has really helped me get back to how I was before.  I am going to really try continue during the school year, but at the very least I am going to try use all of my summers in this way.
3. I recalled how my main (and indeed only) practice should be to rely upon my guru’s mind alone.  I once did a retreat many years ago where I came to this as a monumental conclusion.  This conclusion stayed with me until the end of my time in Geneva.  But like so many other things, gradually I lost this conclusion and this approach to my practice.  Two things this summer helped me recall this conclusion.  First, I watched the TimeLife DVD series on the Bible.  The Bible is basically one incredible story after another of people who relied upon God alone (basically, the same idea).  Second, Gen-la Dekyong’s teachings and example exuded one very clear message:  our main practice should be to rely upon the spiritual guide alone.  These two together helped me recall clearly my conclusion from my retreat from so many years ago.  Since then, I have been rediscovering what it means to do this in every aspect of our practice.
4. For me, writing is a method of meditation.  Geshe-la defines meditation very broadly by saying meditation is the mixing of our mind with virtue.  With this definition, we can be meditating all of the time in everything we do.  If we can master doing this, we can be just like the practitioners of old who dedicated their whole life to wandering the forest and practicing.  When I write about the Dharma, it forces me to clarify my own thinking and understanding, and in doing so, it helps reveal things to me like a giant contemplation.  I don’t know if my writings are of any benefit to anybody who might read this blog, but I do know that writing for this blog is for me a major part of my “meditation” practice.  I have done a lot of studies in my life, and this has trained my mind to think through writing (theses, dissertations, etc.).  So it is only normal that for me writing will be a spiritual practice.  It is the same for those who are into art, theatre, music or even different sports.  Different people express themselves and understand the world through a different experience and skill set, so it is only normal that the method of spiritual practice that will work the best for us is the one that corresponds with our experience and skill set.  Just as we need Kadampa bloggers, we need Kadampa artists, actors and playrights, musicians and why not sports teams (anybody for a Kadampa World Cup soccer tournament?).  But don’t worry, I will stick to writing…  😉
5. The NKT has completely reinvented itself around Modern Buddhism.  The feeling I got at the Summer Festival was Modern Buddhism has become the NKT’s main platform upon which it launches itself into the future.  When I first read Modern Buddhism, I realized it was the synthesis of everything that Geshe-la had taught us up until then.  It is his crown jewel.  But it has become so much more than that, it now seems to be the organizing principle around which the tradition will expand in the next era.  In particular, Geshe-la introduced two huge institutional reforms to the NKT.  First, he created a new study program called the Special Teacher Training Program.  The way it works is it takes 37 of the tradition’s best and brightest budding bodhisattvas who wish to become Resident Teachers, and it brings them to Manjushri for a 6 month intensive study of Modern Buddhism taught by none other than Gen-la Dekyong herself.  You just don’t get any better than that.  These 37 spend all day every day together for 6 months going over every word of Modern Buddhism and internalizing deeply its meaning.  They also form powerful karmic connections with one another (the class of 2012), creating a web of an extremely close and supportive Sangha.  These individuals are then sent to the four corners of the world to become Resident Teachers in some center somewhere in the world, yet due to their close connections and modern social media, they can stay very close to each other.  But they will all be teaching Dharma from the perspective of Modern Buddhism.  The second major reform he introduced was the new city program.  He wants to open centers in the busist parts of downtown (where the people are…) and teach Modern Buddhism and some other books as part of a new special program.  The people who go through these would then, quite likely, find themselves joining FP and TTP in traditional centers.  This means that for the most part going forward those who enter into the tradition will do so through the door of Modern Buddhism.  All of this has profound implications:  if we are to align ourselves with the tradition and the tradition itself is aligning itself with the presentation in Modern Buddhim, then it is a good idea for us as practitioners to align our own individual practice and understanding of Dharma according to the presentation in Modern Buddhism.  Everything that came before was the preliminaries…  😉
6. The biggest external thing that happened this summer was we found out we are going to China for our next assignment.  This has tremendous implications for the trajectory of the lives of everybody in my family.  So we have one more year in Brussels, then we go back to Washington, D.C. for a year when I will be learning Chinese, and then in April 2014 we head off to China.  The kids will probably stay behind in D.C. to finish the school year then go to Spokane until August like they usualy do.  Then they will join me in Chengdu!  Chengdu is the last major city before Tibet.  It is, for all practical purposes, China’s backwater.  This will be an incredible experience.  I obviously have a lot of karma with Tibet given that my Spiritual Guide is Tibetan.  China is also the fastest growing country and the new emerging superpower.  The relationship between the United States and China is probably the most important geo-political relationship the United States has.  I will be able to observe China’s rise and globalization from the perspective of its backwater.  It is an incredible vantage point on the world, when you think about it – it is where Tibet (where Lama Tsongkhapa emerged) interesects China while it is emerging as the next global superpower.  This will also be an incredible opportunity for my kids, because the story of their professional lifetime will be the rise of Asia in general and China in particular.  This will be incredibly valuable experience (especially if they learn some Chinese) for a wide variety of careers.  This assignment also makes it probable that I will do other assignments in Asia, such as Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Kuala Limpour, Bangkok, etc.  This is an area that the NKT is growing quickly in and where some of the tradition’s best teachers are stationed.  As Kadam Morten said, “everything we did in the West is really just the preliminaries for what is to come – Asia!” When we think about the direction the world is going, this makes total sense that this is where the tradition is going.

At the Summer Festival this year, Gen-la Dekyong said something astounding.  She said that Venerable Geshe-la admits to having only one realization:  “Faith in the wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa.  But this is enough.”  This was a message she emphasized many times during her teachings.  It was clear that her main and indeed only practice is reliance upon her Spiritual Guide.  This is our Guru’s main practice, and so therefore all of his teachings should be viewed through this lens.

How can we understand this?  First, we must understand who is Je Tsongkhapa and second we understand how faith alone is enough.  Who is the wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa?  He is the synthesis of all three jewels in Kadampa form.  He is the embodiment of all good in Kadampa form.  He is the union of all of the compassion, wisdom and spiritual power of all of the Buddhas in Kadampa form.  According to Highest Yoga Tantra he is known as Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka.  Guru means he is by nature our Spiritual Guide.  Sumati means he is the Je Tsongkhapa of Sutra.  Buddha means he is Buddha Shakyamuni.  Heruka means he is Buddha Heruka, in particular Dharmakaya Heruka.  Each of these four are aspects of one being, him.   In short, he is the embodiment of the Kadampa path of Sutra and Tantra.  For us Kadampas, he is the highest and supreme object of refuge.   Within our tradition, we view all of the different deities as being emanated by Je Tsongkhapa.  The main deities on the Kadampa path are Buddha Shakyamuni, Buddha Vajradyara, Manjushri, Avalokitehsvara, Vajrapani, Dorje Shugden, Heruka and Vajrayogini.  Reliance on Dorje Shugden deserves particular mention.  We are to very clearly understand that Je Tsongkhapa and Dorje Shugden are actually two different aspects of the same being.  So it is impossible for us to deny one and affirm the other.  Venerable Geshe-la has also made it very clear that we are to realize this dual nature of Je Tsongkhapa and Dorje Shugden.  All of the polemics with the Dalai Lama/Dorje Shugden issue can be seen in this light.

Why is faith in him enough?  We can understand this by understanding the relationship between faith and realization.  Faith begins with believing faith.  Believing faith is we believe in an object of Dharma based on valid reasons.  Valid reasons derive from logic and our own personal experience of the truth of Dharma.  When we have believing faith of an object of Dharma, such as cherishing others is the root of all happiness and cherishing ourself is the root of all suffering, then we naturally come to admire that object of Dharma, marveling at how incredible it is!  This is admiring faith.  When we admire something, then we naturally want that thing for ourself, for example wanting to have the realization that sees the truth of cherishing self and others.  This wishing faith then naturally leads to effort in our practice to gain this realization.  From our effort comes the actual attainments, in this case our realization of exchanging self with others.  So the meaning here is faith alone sets in motion this chain of events, which fall naturally and automatically like dominos.

So why is faith in the wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa alone enough to assure the final attainment of enlightenment?  Because the wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa is the very embodiment of the Kadampa path.  By generating believing faith in all of his amazing good qualities of body, speech and mind we will later naturally and automatically eventually attain all of the attainments of wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa within our own body, speech and mind.  The book Great Treasury of Merit is our root text for generating believing faith in all of his good qualities.  From this it is clear that faith alone in the wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa “is enough.”

It is quite significant that our Spiritual Guide has admitted to only one quality.  He is doing so to reveal to us that this is the most important thing.  It is not unlike Christians whose main practice is faith in Jesus.  Since Western and modern culture are profoundly influenced by Christian norms and values, it seems only natural that the adaptation of Kadampa Buddhism to the modern context would function best when faith in the supreme object of refuge of the path is the main and sufficient practice. Realizing this fully will take the tradition light years ahead in terms of being able to seamlessly integrate Kadampa Buddhism into modern life.  Gen-la Dekyong said that the mission of the tradition is to attain the union of modern life and Kadampa Buddhism.

This has helped me recall that reliance upon the Spiritual Guide is the sole activity on the path.  But more than this, it has deepened this understanding tremendously because it provides exact specificity as to how we are to do it – namely by generating faith in the wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa.  Thus I am going to make this my main practice at least between now and Portugal.  I’m excited to get started!