6. Special series

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Our actual refuge

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, Vows, commitments and daily life

To go for refuge to Dharma

It is not enough to wish to become an enlightened being, we must know how to do it.  Dharma usually has two different non-contradictory meanings.  The first is the Dharma is the set of instructions given by Buddha explaining to us, step by step, how we transform our mind from its current deluded state into that of a Buddha.  It teaches us how to identify within ourselves the states of mind we need to abandon and explains how to do so.  It also reveals to us the inner qualities we need to cultivate and provides methods for doing so.  It is a complete path that connects each and every mind to the final destination of enlightenment without any gaps or obstructions.  Just as all roads lead to Rome, so too all Dharma paths eventually lead to enlightenment.

The second meaning of Dharma is the realizations of the truth of Dharma within our own minds.  In other words, Dharma is not just the instructions for how to gain realizations, but it is also the realizations itself.  Because all our suffering comes from our delusions and negativity, Dharma is our real refuge because it protects us from these things.  If we have a realization of patience, it protects us from the harms of anger.  If we have a realization of love, it protects us from the dangers of self-cherishing.  If we have a realization of our precious human life, it protects us from wasting it on meaningless things.  Tantric realizations protect us from ordinary appearance and ordinary conceptions.  This is our actual refuge, and all other forms of refuge are ultimately aimed at building within our own mind the definitive refuge of our Dharma realizations. 

The root of refuge is understanding the nature of our inner problem.  Doctors say 85% of good medicine is correct diagnosis of the problem.  When the problem is correctly diagnosed, then the treatment becomes obvious.  Our fundamental problem is we are confused about the nature of our problem.  We are convinced our problem is what is happening externally, with some things being good and other things being bad.  So we put all our effort into changing our external circumstance and it seems to us that the Dharma is useless at best since it does nothing to solve what we perceive to be our problem.  Due to not understanding the nature of our problem, we gradually have less time and energy for Dharma because we are absorbed with other things.  But when we are very clear about the nature of our problem, the need to go for refuge to the Dharma becomes obvious.  If our problem is an internal one, it is clear that external things won’t help us solve our problem.  We will then look at different internal solutions, and investigate their different qualities, and eventually we come to see that the Dharma is the solution.  In particular, when we come to understand our problem is our mind is plagued by the wisdom grasping at inherent existence, we realize that only the Dharma can provide us with a solution because only it teaches emptiness.

Since Dharma itself has two meanings, to go for refuge to Dharma, therefore also has two meanings.  The first is to make effort to seek out Dharma instructions and to improve our understanding of what we need to do to actually train our mind.  Fortunately, Geshe-la makes this very easy for us.  He has given us a complete set of books that meticulously go over every stage of the path from our first steps all the way to the final goal.  He has struck the perfect balance of giving us everything we need and nothing we don’t need.  Likewise, he has established for us Dharma centers throughout the world so that we can receive teachings directly.  Having books is great, but having somebody we can go to and receive individually tailored instructions is invaluable.

The second way of going for refuge is to make the pursuit of the inner wealth of Dharma realizations our life purpose.  We see that our problem is our mind and we make effort to actually change our mind in the direction the Dharma teaches.  If what we want out of life is to increase our realizations, then we suddenly develop a genuine equanimity with respect to life’s ups and downs.  It really doesn’t matter what happens because we know how to use everything to train our mind.  Since every situation is equally empty, we realize every circumstance is equally good in terms of the opportunity it affords us to train our mind.  The driving force of business people is making money, and motivated by this wish they work incredibly long hours and devote tremendous energy.  With the same vigor, we pursue the inner wealth of Dharma realizations.  They are our bottom line.  If the pursuit of inner wealth is our life’s purpose, it doesn’t matter if we are young or old, rich or poor, powerful or not, sick or healthy, in every circumstance we can practice.  Nothing can interfere with us doing what we wish.  Because we know we are building for a better future we get something more fulfilling than temporary pleasure, we get inner contentment and confidence knowing we are on the right track.

But we should not fool ourselves.  Training in Dharma is not easy, in fact sometimes it can be very hard.  We have literally aeons worth of bad habits built up, and these do not change over night – they scarcely change even after decades of practice.  But they do change, and because the Dharma presents correct methods, if we never give up, it is guaranteed we will get there in the end.  In sports, we say “no pain, no gain,” meaning if it isn’t hurting, you are probably not making any progress.  It is the same with our Dharma practice.  When we actually try go against the grain of our delusions, in particular our attachment, it can be really difficult, even sometimes painful.  But like a rebel soldier fighting for a good cause, we gladly assume the difficulty because we know it is worth it in the end.

Happy Protector Day: Helping the Pure Kadam Dharma Flourish

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 9 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

All my harmful thoughts and actions
That have offended your mind, O Great Protector,
I confess from the depths of my heart.
Please purify them swiftly, and care for me with love, like a mother for her child.

With this verse, we can purify all the negative karma that obstructs our ability to receive the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.  Such negative karma is like interference preventing a reception of our mobile phones or junk clogging up the arteries of a person.  We can generate a regret for whatever we have done in the past which has created negative karma preventing us from receiving the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.  Then we strongly imagine from Dorje Shugden purifying light rays and nectars flow down and touch all the beings inside the protection circle, ourself included, purifying all of the negative karma obstructing us from receiving Dorje Shugden’s care and protection.  We then strongly believe that all of these being are now without obstruction.

I beseech you from the depths of my heart, O Supreme Deity,
Please cause the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa to flourish,
Extend the life and activities of the glorious Gurus,
And increase the study and practice of Dharma within the Dharma communities.

We can understand this as follows:  The key point here is we realize how the Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa is the solution to all the problems of all beings.  The reason why beings suffer is because they too are trapped in a dream-like world of suffering created by their own self-centered minds.  They need to wake up from this dream into the pure world of the Buddhas.  The Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa provides a solution for destroying this self-centered mind, thereby enabling all beings to wake up from their worlds of suffering.  This is the solution to all of their problems.

Please be with me always like the shadow of my body,
And grant me your unwavering care and protection.
Destroy all obstacles and adverse conditions,
Bestow favourable conditions, and fulfil all my wishes.

Here we request Dorje Shugden to accomplish his main function, namely to arrange perfect conditions and to eliminate obstacles to our practice.  There are two types of condition:   When we are confronted with a situation which we think could be better, we request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.  If the external situation changes, then we know the situation was beyond our capacity and we can use that to develop bodhichitta, wishing later to have a capacity that can transform anything and everything.  If the external situation remains the same (or gets worse) then we can know that we need to work on the delusions that this situation generates for us.  We can equally do this with internal conditions.  An important thing worth noting at this point is Dorje Shugden will arrange what is best for our practice, not what is necessarily best for our worldly concerns.  We might even say Mick Jagger is actually part of Dorje Shugden’s mandala when he sung ‘you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.’

Now is the time to show clearly your versatile strength
Through your four actions, which are swift, incisive, and unobstructed,
To fulfil quickly my special heartfelt desires
In accordance with my wishes;

Here we request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best in general, in his own mysterious ways and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function. Ask people their Dorje Shugden stories when you are at festivals, and you will be amazed.  If our motivation is pure, he can arrange anything.

Now is the time to distinguish the truth and falsity of actions and effects;

Here we request him to make clear the relationship between cause and effect for all the beings within the protection circle.  At present, we think negativity is entertainment and exciting and we think virtue is boring.  In reality, negativity creates the cause for enormous suffering and virtue is the cause of all happiness.  Here we request that Dorje Shugden to bestow special wisdom blessings on all beings within the protection circle so they naturally, from their own side, make good choices.

Now is the time to dispel false accusations against the innocent;

Here we request Dorje Shugden to enable all beings within the protection circle to stop making mistaken and false imputations on others, but to correctly impute onto everybody ‘emanation of my spiritual guide’ and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.  At present, we impute onto others ‘object of attachment’ ‘object of aversion’ or ‘irrelevant.’  These are false accusations we impute on others, and we relate to them as if they were really these things from their own side.  This creates all our problems.  The only valid imputation of anybody is ‘emanation of my spiritual guide.’  The ultimate nature of all things is the Dharmakaya, so it is correct to say that everybody is an emanation of my spiritual guide.

Now is the time to protect the pitiful and protectorless;

The reason why people are pitiful and protectorless is because we have been neglecting them.  Their experience is what we have karmically created for them in our empty dream.  So here we request that he provide protection for all the beings we have been neglecting and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.

Now is the time to protect Dharma practitioners as your children.

It is particularly important to provide care and protection for Dharma practitioners because by helping them directly, indirectly it helps all living beings since they have vowed to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.  It is like opening up a second cash register at the supermarket.  Everybody gets through the line twice as fast.

In short, from now until I attain the essence of enlightenment,
I shall honour you as the embodiment of my Guru, Deity, and Protector.
Therefore please watch over me during the three periods of the day and the night
And never waver in your actions as my Protector.

The biggest fear of a Dharma practitioner is the fear of losing the path.  If we do not lose the path, we have nothing to fear; but if we do lose the path, we have all of samsara to fear.  When we recite this verse, we are creating the causes to be able to meet Dorje Shugden and rely upon him again in all our future lives.  In this way, we maintain the continuum of our practice and go from joy to joy until we attain enlightenment.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  What does a Buddha see?

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, Vows, commitments and daily life

To go for refuge to Buddha

A Buddha is an enlightened being, somebody who has already completed the path.  Every Buddha was once just like us, an ordinary, ignorant person prone to mistakes and sorrow.  They realized the nature of their problem, put effort into improving themselves, and continued to do so until they became completely free from all delusions and the imprints of their past deluded actions.  Once they attained that state, the duality between them and everyone else (indeed, everything else) disappeared.  They ceased to be a being somehow trapped in just one body repetitively dying and being reborn, and they transcended into a higher state that is simultaneously beyond samsara yet still active to the beings who appear themselves within it.  Because they lack nothing, they give everything continuously. 

They realize that everyone can enjoy the same blissful state and so they work tirelessly to gradually lead everyone to freedom.  When someone we know dies, it feels to us as if they have left this world.  When we die and are reborn, we have no recollection of our past lives and everyone seems a stranger.  For a Buddha, even though their conventional emanations may cease, they never feel as if they die.  They remember their relationships with every living being and work to build upon them.  When somebody dies and is reborn, the Buddha just picks up where they left off with that person, just in a different karmically appearing context.  They can see directly into other’s minds in exactly the same way we currently see into our own.  But unlike us, they don’t judge anybody for their confusion or delusions, rather they realize all these beings are simply confused, indeed deceived by their deluded states of mind.  So they patiently try reveal the paths of wisdom while respecting everyone’s individual choice to follow it or not.  They do not feel as if they are in one place and not another, but they experience themselves as simultaneously being everywhere, equally fully present for each and every living being helping in every way possible every day.

Sadly the Buddha sees (from one perspective at least) that the minds of virtually all beings remain completely closed, and indeed blind to the fact that they are suffering from a schizophrenic hallucination that they believe to be real.  Driven by this confusion, living beings endlessly harm, rape, even kill one another.  They constantly create the causes for their future suffering, creating false divisions and differences between people.  Endlessly, they see beings being chewed up in the meat grinder of samsara, relentlessly without end.

But they also see when practitioners generate Buddhas within their own minds, such as in our sadhanas or Tantric practices, it is like a portal opens up between the infinite ocean of wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s mind and the mind of the individual practitioner.  Buddha’s blessings spontaneously pour through this opening in the same way water pours through the opening of a dam.  In this way, the Buddha feels as if they are nourishing the minds of living beings.  Gradually, over time, just like a baby growing in the womb of its mother, a living emanation takes root within the minds of some.  Most of the time, the being is closed off to this Buddha within their heart, but some are making sincere efforts to align themselves further and further with the Buddha within them.  They seek to stop identifying with their ordinary body and mind, and instead to start to identify with the Buddha emanating within.  Gradually, the duality between themselves and the emanation ceases, and then the duality between the emanation and the Buddha themselves ceases.  Then, like a magic crystal opening up, the being is able to reflect more and more purely the light and actions of the Buddha in this world. 

Some very rare beings reach the stage where they can do this most of the time, if not all the time, and their every action of body, speech and mind is actually that of the Buddha in this world.  Such a being is known as a “Spiritual Guide.”  A Spiritual Guide is like a sun within the darkness of the world, radiating out in all directions.  Normally we think of the sun as the ball fire in the center of our solar system, but in reality, can we say the rays of sun that reach the earth are separate from the sun itself?  In the same way, the countless emanations of Buddha in this world are not separate from or other than the Buddha himself. 

To go for refuge to Buddha, then, means to turn to this light.  To make effort to open our mind to it so that these blessings may flow down into us.  It is to realize there are immortal enlightened beings standing ready to enter our life and draw us back into their bosom.  It is to be inspired to become an instrument through which they work in this world.  It is to aspire to become just like them.  It is to long to unite inseparably with them for all time.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Building the body of a Buddha in this world

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, Vows, commitments and daily life

The six commitments of the family of Buddha Vairochana

The practice of the six commitments of the family of Buddha Vairochana function primarily to create the karmic causes to attain the form body of a Buddha.  The form body of a Buddha is a conventionally physical force that, while existing outside of samsara, nonetheless operates within it in a way that is perfectly consistent with virtue.  Its function is to provide a living example of how one acts in a way consistent with the Dharma and to provide living beings with whatever they need to enter, progress along, and complete the path to enlightenment. 

It is a mistake to conceive of the form body of a Buddha as somehow confined to the physical body of a single human being.  It is something much, much larger.  It is informative to use Geshe-la as an example.  Conventionally, we can say that Geshe-la’s body in this world is that of a Tibetan monk.  His speech in this world is the words that come out of his mouth and through his written words.  His mind is what is inside his body thinking about the rest of the world.  From one perspective, this is completely correct.  But from a deeper perspective, we can say his larger body in this world is all our bodies when we try put into practice his teachings with our body, his larger speech in this world is all our speech when we try say things consistent with what he has taught us, and his larger mind is all our own thinking to the extent that it has been influenced by his teachings.  After he passes away, this larger body will continue to exist, grow and function in this world.  Conventionally, we will say that he has died, but in a deeper sense he will live on in a different form.  We are, even now, part of his body, speech, and mind in this world.  Christians have a similar concept of the living Christ.  This is no different than the ways in which our loved ones “live on” through us when we carry forward and embody that which they have transmitted to us.  By extension, we can understand the living Buddha’s form body in this world by seeing the evolution and development of Buddhism in this world, in all its myriad forms, of which the Kadampa tradition is merely one part.  Geshe-la imputes his I on all that.

From a Tantric perspective, Buddha’s form body is not something that is somehow limited to just the things we would conventionally call “Buddhist.”  But we can literally “inject” Buddha’s body, speech, and mind into everything that appears to our mind.  Whether the world we inhabit is samsara or the pure land, in the final analysis, depends entirely upon our own mental choices.  One of the unique qualities of a Buddha is wherever you imagine them, they actually go; and wherever they go, they accomplish their function, which is namely to ripen and liberate living beings.  If I view my boss as an emanation, he will function for me as an emanation.  From his own side, he may see himself in a different way, but his view of himself does not limit in any way my view of him.  He can, for me, function as an emanation.  The same is true for everything we encounter, every physical form we come in contact with, every sound we hear, every idea or thought expressed.  Everything can be viewed – validly – as the body, speech, and mind of Buddha in this world.  With such recognitions, we will experience our living reality as everything being the unfolding of enlightenment in this world.

The first three commitments of the family of Buddha Vairochana are to go for refuge to Buddha, to go for refuge to Dharma and to go for refuge to Sangha.  In this post, I will explain in general what it means to go for refuge, and in the subsequent posts I will describe what it means for each one.

When people first encounter Buddhism and they hear the phrase “go for refuge” it sounds quite strange, almost cult-like.  But the true meaning is actually something very practical.  When you have a legal problem, you turn to a lawyer for help; when you have a dental problem, you turn to a dentist for help; when you have a delusion problem, you turn to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.  It starts with the recognition of the nature of our problem, then transitions into an appreciation of how these three can help us with our problem, and it ends with our applying effort to change our own mind and behavior.  The Three Jewels cannot help us fix our car, but they can help us have a better attitude about it breaking down.  The Three Jewels cannot solve our legal or financial problems, but they can help us transform such problems into the path to enlightenment.  As Buddhists we rely upon external help for our external problems just like everybody else, but we also rely upon the Three Jewels for our internal problem of our unhappy, negative, deluded states of mind.  We have two different types of problem (external and internal) and therefore two different types of solution (external and internal).  Our going for refuge to the three jewels is simply our turning towards them to solve our internal problem. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Build the five Buddha families within your mind

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, Vows, commitments and daily life

The nineteen commitments of the five Buddha families

It is very important to keep our Tantric commitments purely.  If we do, and on this basis we practice the generation and completion stages, we can attain Buddhahood in this life; but if we break our vows and commitments we create immense obstacles to our spiritual development.

As was mentioned earlier, our vows and commitments are the essential methods by which we practically bring our own actions in line with our spiritual intentions.  Each vow is like a road sign that points in the direction of enlightenment.  If we follow all the road signs of the refuge vows, we can maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our Buddhist practice in this or our future lives; if we follow all the road signs of the pratimoksha vows, we create the causes to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our path to liberation; if we follow all the road signs of the bodhisattva vows, we maintain the continuum of our path to enlightenment; and if we follow all the road signs of our tantric vows, we maintain the continuum of our Tantric path and we will swiftly attain enlightenment.  Just as the Dharma books have a “condensed meaning of the text” we can correctly view the vows and commitments as the condensed meaning of the various paths. 

In the Lamrim teachings, it says our chances of finding the Buddhadharma in any given life are about the same as a blind turtle at the bottom of an ocean the size of this world who rises to the surface only once every 100,000 years who manages to put his head right through a golden yoke floating on the surface.  I did the math once, and this is something like once every 640 billion lifetimes.  Finding the Tantric path is rarer still.  It is said only the 4th, 11th and last of the 100 Buddhas of this fortunate aeon will teach Tantra.  If we assume an aeon is 1 million years (I think it is much longer, but this is long enough to illustrate the point), and we assume that the Dharma of any given Buddha lasts about 5,000 years, it means the probability of Tantric teachings even being around when the turtle raises its head is only 1.5%.  This translates into our finding the Tantric path only once every 42.5 trillion lifetimes!  But miraculously we have found it in this lifetime.  If we do not want to wait another 42.5 trillion lifetimes to find it again, it would be advisable to keep our tantric vows purely in this life.  Doing so enables us to beat the odds and maintain the continuum of our tantric practice until we attain the final goal. 

Keeping commitments is the best means to attain success in our generation and completion stage practices.  It is the very life of Tantric practice.  When we keep our Tantric vows and commitments, we plant on our mind the karma which will ripen in the form of Tantric realizations.  Our practice of moral discipline plants the seeds, our actual practice of generation stage and completion stage function to ripen those seeds.  Even knowledge of these vows is like being given the secret code that enables you to unlock the mysteries of the universe.  Nothing is more important, and we should consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to even have the opportunity to know of these, much less have the opportunity to put them into practice.

The 19 commitments of the five Buddha families are the very methods by which we acquire the five completely pure aggregates of a Buddha.  At present we impute our I onto our five contaminated aggregates (form, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness).  These are essentially our contaminated body and mind.  The only reason why we experience the sufferings of a samsaric being is because we impute our I onto samsaric contaminated aggregates.  If instead we imputed our I onto the pure aggregates of a Buddha, we would experience the eternal bliss of enlightenment.  We already have an “I”, but the question is how do we generate qualified five pure aggregates that we can then identify with?  The answer is through our practice of the 19 commitments of the five Buddha families. 

These will now be explained in detail over the next several posts.

Happy Tara Day: May there be the auspiciousness of her presence

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

This is the ninth installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.

Offering the mandala

When we make a mandala offering, we imagine the entire universe is transformed into a pure land.  The highest offering we can make is one of our practice. For me, a mandala offering is a promise that we will work for as long as it takes before we actually transform the world we normally see into the pure land we are offering.  We will not stop until all living beings have been delivered to the pure land.  Geshe-la explains in many places that mandala offerings are one of the best methods for attaining rebirth in a pure land.  If we are offering to deliver all living beings to a pure land, we create countless karmic potentialities to attain a pure land ourselves.  Just as Tara was born from the tears of the protector of the three worlds, and arose to tell Avalokitshvara to not worry, she would help him; in the same way, when we make a mandala offering, we are telling Tara to not worry, we will help her.  We share the same wish to lead all beings to the pure land, and we promise to work towards that aim.

Requesting fulfilment of wishes

O Venerable, Blessed, Compassionate Mother,
May I and all countless living beings
Quickly purify the two obstructions, complete the two collections,
And attain the state of complete Buddhahood.

All living beings have Buddha nature.  This means that if we purify our Buddha nature of everything that is not enlightened, our natural Buddhahood will emerge.  In some respects, we don’t need to construct our Buddhahood, we just need to uncover it.  Our very subtle mind, once completely purified, transforms into the enlightened mind of a Buddha.  There are two obstructions on our very subtle mind – our delusions and their imprints.  Every action creates four karmic potentialities:  a tendency similar to the cause, an effect similar to the cause, a ripened effect, and an environmental effect.  The first is a tendency to generate delusions again – basically our bad mental habits to respond in deluded ways.  These are our delusion obstructions.  The other three are the imprints of our past delusions, also known as obstructions to omniscience.  They are so called because they ripen in the form of ordinary appearances – things appearing to exist from their own side.  Another way to think about this is there are two types of karma: contaminated and non-contaminated karma.  Contaminated karma is of two types:  negative and positive.  Negative karma ripens in lower rebirth and positive karma ripens as upper rebirth in samsara.  Non-contaminated karma, or pure karma, ripens as a pure rebirth outside of samsara.  To close the door on lower rebirth, we need to purify all of our negative karma.  To close the door on our personal rebirth in samsara, we need to purify all of our negative karma and all of our delusion obstructions.  To attain full enlightenment, we need to purify all of our contaminated karma.  Tara can accelerate the rate at which we do all of this. 

The two collections refer to the collection of merit and the collection of wisdom.  The collection of merit arises primarily from our practices of the vast path (all of the Lamrim meditations up to bodhichitta), and the collection of wisdom arises primarily from our practices of the profound path (specifically the meditation on emptiness).  According to highest yoga tantra, the collection of merit also includes generating the very subtle mind of great bliss that we use to meditate on emptiness.  Once we have completed the collection of merit, we attain a Buddha’s form body. Once we have completed the collection of wisdom, we attain a Buddhas mind, or truth body. The union of these two is full enlightenment. Since Tara is the Buddha of Lamrim, she can help us complete both collections. Understanding this, when we recite this verse, we generate a strong wish to rely upon Tara understanding she can help us from where we are now all the way to full enlightenment.

Throughout all our lives before we reach Buddhahood,
May we attain the supreme happiness of humans and gods;
And so that we may accomplish the omniscient mind,
Please quickly pacify and eliminate all interferences,

It is said that it is easier to attain enlightenment once born human than it is to attain a human rebirth if we have been reborn in the lower realms. There is no guarantee we will attain enlightenment in this lifetime. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that we do not fall into the lower realms. If we do, there is a danger we may not re-find the spiritual path for countless eons. All of the beings who we would have otherwise been able to help if we had attained enlightenment earlier will have to continue to suffer for all that time. Not to mention the fact that we ourselves will have to experience all of the sufferings of the lower realms. Sometimes we think generating fear of lower rebirth is a meditation for beginners. We want to engage in higher meditations, and indulge ourselves in the fantasy that we are somehow exempt from lower rebirth. Geshe-la explains in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that the main reason why we have not yet generated qualified refuge is because we lack fear of lower rebirth.  If we do not have even qualified refuge, it goes without saying we have no chance of gaining higher realizations. Geshe-la further explains we should be as terrified of lower rebirth as we would be if we were trapped in a circle of fire. Understanding this, we should generate a very strong fear of lower rebirth and then, with faith in Tara’s ability to protect us from lower rebirth, we request her protection. In dependence upon this, if at the time of our death we remember Taro, she will bless our mind and we will avoid lower rebirth, and remain in the human and god realms until we reach Buddhahood.

Evil spirits, hindrances, epidemics and sickness,
As well as the various causes of untimely death,
Bad dreams, ill omens, the eight fears
And all other forms of danger.

Samsara is a dangerous place.  In the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Geshe-la says Samsara is like a vast ocean of suffering and at any point we can be eaten by the sea monsters of the Lord of Death.  We never know what sea monster may arise and pull us down into the deep ocean of suffering.  Even if we avoid death for awhile, we are nonetheless buffeted by the violent waves of suffering.  There is no safety anywhere in samsara.  Nobody saw the Coronavirus coming, but in a very short period of time, it changed everything.  It is just a question of time before we wind up with some incurable sickness.  Tara can protect us from all of these dangers.  How?  First, by generating faith in her, we open our mind to receiving her blessings which prevent the negative karma already on our mind from ripening.  Second, she can help us purify our negative karma directly, much in the same way Vajrasattva can.  And third, if adversity does strike (which is inevitable), she will bless us with the wisdom to know how to transform it into causes of our enlightenment. 

May all mundane and supramundane collections
Of good fortune, happiness, goodness and excellence increase,
And may every beneficial purpose without exception
Be effortlessly and spontaneously accomplished.

Supramundane collection, I believe, refers to spiritual collections as opposed to worldly ones.  Normally we differentiate between worldly vs. spiritual, the former referring to things of this life and the latter referring to our future lives.  For example, if we engage in our spiritual practice for the sake of this life, it is said to be worldly; but if we are training for the sake of our future lives, it is said to be spiritual.  In other contexts, supramundane refers to virtues attained by superior beings – those who have attained a direct realization of emptiness.  Regardless, this verse clearly calls for all good things to increase.  When we rely upon Tara, for us, it will be an increasing time when spiritual development comes easily, even if for the world it remains a degenerate time, when bad things come effortlessly.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Do not wish for gratitude

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not wish for gratitude. 

When we help someone, we should not expect anything in return.  If we do, we turn the kindness into a sham.  We should direct all our efforts exclusively for the benefit of others, ideally with a bodhichitta motivation.

The difference between a kindness and a contract is whether we expect anything in return.  Since our primary goal is to create good karma for the future, we actually don’t want anything in return because we know we will then have burned up a portion of the good karma we worked so hard to create.  We do not have to formally ask for something in return for us to implicitly be requesting it.  I personally think the best form of kindness is the anonymous kind, because then we know we are not doing so for the sake of getting something in return. 

It is very rare for anybody to be kind to others without expecting something in return.  And when this something doesn’t come, we then find others to be very ungrateful and we begin to regret our acts of kindness.  We feel justified in at least wanting a thank you from others, and we are quick to condemn others when it doesn’t come.  Where do all these ungrateful people come from?  Our own past ungratefulness.

It is especially hard to not wish for gratitude when we have really gone out of our way to help somebody, and they nonetheless criticize us and even sometimes get mad at us for not helping them out correctly.  Gen-la Losang tells the story about how he was at Manjushri center and he was not on kitchen clean up duty.  It was at night, and he went down to the kitchen to get an apple and he saw that the kitchen still hadn’t been cleaned up since dinner.  So being the kind bodhisattva, he then proceeded to clean everything up.  Just as he was finishing, the person who was supposed to clean up the kitchen came down, and frustratedly said to Losang, “you missed a spot!”  That is when, Losang said, he knew he still had some work to do on giving selflessly. 

This sort of experience happens to us all the time.  We may help some people a tremendous amount, such as our children or our partner, and despite all that they still get mad at us.  When we are working hard and we need some help, they don’t lift a finger to help us.  They may be generally upset or going through a difficult time, and they project onto us that it is our responsibility to make them feel better, and when we fail to do so, they get mad at us.  Why are people so unreasonable with us?  Because this is how we have been with others in the past.  It is very easy for us to become frustrated at these people and resentful about how despite all that we do for them they still get mad at us.  But if our objective is to accumulate good karma for the future, we realize it is better this way.  We are learning how to give unconditionally.  We are not using up our virtuous karma on them expressing gratitude to us now.

Even though we should not expect gratitude, we should nonetheless always make a point of being grateful for what others have done for us.

When we are growing up, it seems entirely normal to us for our parents to do everything for us, and when they don’t, we feel let down and betrayed.  But the reality is nobody owes us anything.  The fact that anybody does anything for us should be welcomed as an act of extreme kindness.  But as we grow older and become parents ourselves, we realize it is not our parents that owe us anything, it is we who owe our parents for all that they have done for us.  Of course, everybody’s circumstance is different, but we should make a point of doing everything we can to look after our parents when they become older.  They were there for us when we needed it most, it is only normal that we are there for them when they need it most.

We should likewise make a special point of being grateful to all those who have taught us in some way.  The reality is we don’t know how to do anything on our own.  Everything we are able to do comes from the kindness of somebody else teaching us.  Even the things we have learned on our own ultimately come from the kindness of others because somebody taught us the skills we relied upon to be able to learn the thing on our own, for example even something as rudimentary as knowing how to read what is written.

Usually due to our inappropriate attention on what the person is not doing, we are unable to develop gratitude for what they have done.  Our resentment about the other person not living up to our expectations of what they should have done for us prevents us from developing gratitude for what they have done.  What good does this do anybody?  Our lack of gratitude for what they have done doesn’t exactly encourage the other person to do more for us, and even if it did, we would, in effect, be emotionally blackmailing the other person into giving us more.  We don’t want that karma on our mind.  Such an ungrateful attitude poisons our relationship with the other person, and frankly transforms us into an ungrateful jerk.  In contrast, being grateful is always well received.  When we are grateful for what others have done for us, they naturally want to do more for us. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Realizing we lack nothing

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not be unstable. 

Normally when we experience good fortune, we become overly excited and dance around in an absurd manner, and when we experience bad fortune we become completely depressed very quickly.  This precept advises us not to behave like that.

The fundamental reason why we are unstable is because we still believe there is such a thing as “an externally good” thing and “an externally bad” thing.  In reality, nothing is good or bad from its own side, rather they become so in dependence upon the mind with which we engage them.  When we engage things with our mind preoccupied by the eight worldly concerns, then of course some external things are seen to be ‘good’ and others are seen to be ‘bad.’  But we don’t have to view things in this way, in fact it is advisable that we don’t.  Why?  Because if we have such an outlook, we can’t be happy all the time.  We will go up; we will go down.  If instead we view all situations through the optic of the opportunity they afford us to develop our inner qualities, such as love, compassion, patience, wisdom, etc., then there is no such thing as a “bad” situation.  Every situation is equally good, just in different ways.  This is true freedom, the ability to go anywhere with anybody doing anything, and it is all equally good. 

The foundation of mental stability is the mind of contentment.  Normally, we always feel like we are lacking something or that we need something in particular.  This mind makes us unhappy all the time, even when we have pretty much everything.  We may long for a particular job, finally get it, and once we have it, we see the next horizon and can’t be happy with what we have.  We are always looking for a better home, a better job, a better partner, a better smart phone, whatever.  This mind of perpetual discontent is particularly destructive to our spiritual training.  No matter how many instructions we may receive, we never feel like we have what we need.  We always feel like we are lacking something, so we are always searching but never finding.  With such an outlook, we never get down to serious practice.

The mind of contentment is actually very easy to develop:  simply choose to be happy about what you do have, not unhappy about what you don’t have.  Everything can always be better than it is, and everything can also be much, much worse.  So if we have a mind of discontent, we will always be unhappy no matter what we have.  There will always be a basis for thinking how things could be better.  In contrast, if we can learn how to be happy with what we have, and this becomes our new mental habit, then we can be happy in every situation.  Every situation from its own side is equally neutral, it is our attitude towards it that determines whether we are satisfied or not.

One of the most liberating mental states a living being can experience is the mind that feels it lacks nothing.  If practitioners of old could be content with a cave, why can we not be content with our modern apartments?  No matter how much or how little we have, if we experience these things with the mind of contentment, we will always enjoy everything.  It is particularly empowering to realize in our spiritual life that we lack nothing.  When we feel we lack something we need to attain enlightenment, we don’t fully engage with our practice, and we spend our time trying to plug the perceived gap.  But when we realize we lack nothing and indeed have everything we need, then the only thing that remains to do is start practicing.  When you think about it, it is nothing short of a miracle that we have created the karma to literally lack nothing we need to attain enlightenment.  All the conditions have been gathered together, and if we push through, our enlightenment is guaranteed.  Our appreciation for the infinite kindness of our spiritual guide for providing us all these conditions literally pushes us to tears.  Our effort becomes effortless.

To not be unstable also explains how we can be of real benefit to people.  Virtually everyone around us is riding the wild waves of samsara, being buffeted up and down by their changing circumstances.  As a result, nobody has any reliable poles of support that they can hang on to to provide some stability in their life.  A Kadampa finds their stability within their own mind.  Because they know how to keep their mind stable, they are able to remain stable and calm in all circumstances.  When everyone else is freaking out, they remain unflappable.  Such a person is a real resource in any community, especially when times become particular chaotic or troublesome.  We become an immutable vajra in the world, unmoved, unchanged, undisturbed no matter what happens.  People know that if they remain close to us, then they can benefit from the stability of our mind.  This stability acts like the calm in the eye of a hurricane, a safe anchorage undisturbed by the waves.  This is in many ways the greatest gift we can provide others.

Happy Protector Day: Fulfilling our Heart Commitment to Dorje Shugden

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 8 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

Commitment, fulfilling, reliance, and appropriate substances,
Outer, inner, secret, attractive, and cleansing offerings, filling the whole of space,
I offer these to the entire assembly;
May I fulfil the heart commitment and restore my broken commitments.

This refers to an offering of our practice of the Heart Commitment of Dorje Shugden.  What does this mean?  It means to not be sectarian with our spiritual practice.  If we are sectarian in our practice, it will bring the Dharma into disrepute and it will create many problems for people being able to practice the path that leads to enlightenment, so it is very important for us to not be sectarian.  Gross sectarianism is when one tradition claims to have a monopoly on the truth and all the other traditions are wrong.  Many wars and much suffering have taken place due to this.  Subtle sectarianism is when we mix and match different traditions together.  Here, instead of saying one tradition is better than another in a general sense (as in gross sectarianism) we are saying that individual instructions from one instruction are better than individual instructions from another. 

To avoid sectarianism, Geshe-la encourages us to ‘following one tradition purely without mixing, while respecting all other paths as valid for others.’  Buddhas emanate many Buddhist and non-Buddhist paths depending on the karmic disposition of beings.  Different people will respond to different instructions, and so we are happy for anybody to follow any authentic spiritual path. 

This can be understood with an analogy of being trapped in a burning room.  If we were trapped in a giant burning room and there were many doors out, what would we do?  We would find the door closest to us and head straight out.  We would not start towards one door, then change to another, then change to another still because that keeps us trapped in a room.  We would not head towards the average of two doors because that would bang us straight into a wall.  We also would not judge other doors as being wrong for somebody else who is standing right next to it, instead we would encourage them to go out the door closest to them.  In the same way, if we are all trapped in the giant burning room of samsara and there are many different spiritual doors out, what do we do?  We find the one that is karmically closest to us and we head straight out.  We do not follow one path, then another, then another because then we complete none of them and remain in samsara.  We do not mix together two different traditions because this amalgam of our own creation does not lead to an actual door out.  We do not tell people who are closest to the door of another spiritual tradition, such as a Christian, that they should abandon their Christian path and follow our Kadampa path, instead we encourage them to go out through the emergency exit closest to them.  If somebody criticizes our practices and says that their practices are superior, we should not become defensive.  We can just say, ‘I am happy for you that you feel you have superior practices.  I hope you enjoy them.’ We then continue to do what seems best for us.  This avoids all problems.

So what is the Kadampa door?  It can be summarized in one sentence:  “relying upon guru, yidam and protector, I practice the path of Lamrim, lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra.”  If we are doing this, if we have chosen this as our path and we are following it purely without mixing while respecting all other paths as valid for others, then we are keeping our heart commitment to Dorje Shugden.  Taking such a commitment is our personal choice.  Nobody can force this on us, we do so voluntarily.   This is not a commitment of the empowerment, it has to be something from our own side we decide to do.

One of the core principles of the NKT is while respecting all other traditions, to follow one tradition purely without mixing.  This is an extremely vast subject.  Venerable Geshe-la (VGL) explains in Ocean of Nectar that we need to be careful when introducing the subject of emptiness to those who are not ready because doing so can lead to great confusion.  I would say even more so, we need to be careful when introducting the subject of following one tradition purely without mixing, as this is a special spiritual instruction that can easily give rise to much confusion and doubt, including thinking that such an approach is closed-minded, anti-intellectual and sectarian.  The attached document attempts to explain the rationale behind this instruction so that people can be happy with putting it into practice. 

Following one tradition purely without mixing – October 2020Download

To provide you with a snapshot, the attached document is organized as follows:

  1. References within VGL’s teachings on this advice
    1. On following one tradition purely without mixing
    2. On sectarianism
  1. The mind with which we examine this question
  2. How to understand this instruction
  3. Rationale for the spiritual advice to follow one tradition purely without mixing
    1. Considering valid reasons
    2. Contemplating useful analogies
  4. Refutation of objections to not mixing
a.      Objection 1.  We can gain a better understanding of a subject when explored from multiple perspectives
b.     Objection 2:  We can gain a higher and deeper understanding of universal truth through synthesizing multiple systems of thought.
c.      Objection 3 :  All religions say the same thing, just with different metaphors and means.  So what is the problem with me studying and reading other traditions.  Does that not also take me in the direction of enlightenment ?
d.     Objection 4:  OK, I agree we should not mix traditions.  I am 100% committed to VGL, I know what we are all about and I don’t want to mix.  So what is the problem with me reading other sources ?
e.      Objection 5:  But I do not have freedom because I cannot be an NKT teacher or officer of an NKT center if I still want to go to other things.  So I am not free to choose.
f.      Objection 6:  But it can be argued that just because one is in a relationship with somebody else does not mean that they cease to be friends with other people and other women.  In the same way, it is not mixing or violating my commitment to my spiritual path by reading other books, etc., as long as I am clear as to who is my Spiritual Guide.
g.     Objection 7: But we are Buddhist, so everything depends upon the mind.  Reading other sources is not from its own side mixing, it depends upon the mind with which we do it. 
h.     Objection 8:  Come on !  Certainly you are exaggerating to say it is a fault to even read or be exposed to teachings from other traditions.  Don’t be so paranoid !
i.       Objection 9:  It still seems very closed-minded to be so categorical in shunning anything that is non-NKT.
j.       Objection 10:  OK, even if I agree with all of the above, certainly it is more skilful to say nothing, since people will misunderstand and leave the Dharma as a result of this misunderstanding.
k.     Objection 11:  OK, I agree, something needs to be said.  But why do you have to do it in such a foreceful way. 
l.       Objection 12:  OK, point taken.  But what makes an action skilful is whether the action does not undermine the faith of the other person when you engage in it.
m.   Objection 13:  OK, fine !  Just tell me what I can and cannot do.
n.     Objection 14:  If that is the case, then why do different teachers have different policies and standards on this one ?
o.     Objection 15:  But how does your standard compare to that of the NKT as a whole ?  Are you more strict ?
p.     Objection 16:  Wait a minute !  I can understand why there would be an issue with Tibetan Buddhism in general, but certainly it is not a problem with Mt. Pellerin.  After all, their teacher was also a student of Trijang Rinpoche, he is friends with VGL, and they are Dorje Shugden practitioners.  Are they not basically a Tibetan version of us, and we are a Western version of them ?  So their teachings can help improve our understanding of VGL’s teachings.  We are all talking about the same thing, so there is no mixing going on.  So it should be OK.  It seems we should at least make an exception with them.
q.     Question 17:  OK, I understand all of this and it makes sense.  How practically then are we to implement all of this at the center given the sensitivities involved ?

In the next post, I will continue to explain verse by verse my understanding of the meaning of the Dorje Shugden part of the sadhana.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Defeating our greatest enemy

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Do not get angry. 

If someone behaves in an unpleasant manner towards us, we should not respond with anger. Cultivating this attitude is one of the best ways of gaining peace for ourself and others.  If everyone practiced training the mind, everyone would love everyone, and so there would be no basis for war or conflict.  If there is to be real universal peace, Dharma must flourish throughout the whole world.

There is no more destructive delusion than anger.  Anger destroys all our relationships, it burns up all our merit, and it throws us into the deepest of hells.  Anger destroys our peace of mind, so even if we get what we want, we still can’t enjoy it or be happy.  Anger causes us to lose respect for us, so even when we have something useful to contribute, they reject what we have to say out of hand.  Our anger engenders rebellion against whatever we ask.  People naturally resist somebody who is angry, and this can become the habit of our relationship with somebody.  Even when we are not angry at the other person, because we have done so in the past, they resist what we have to say even when we are requesting something entirely reasonable.  Anger causes others to fear us and want to flee us.  Angry people often find themselves abandoned by all those that they know and love.  When our anger doesn’t work to get what we want, we feel like we have no choice but to escalate our anger until we do, and suddenly we find ourselves to be an abusive person.  In the short-run, we may win compliance because the other person has no choice, but the first opportunity they have they will either run away or try get us back.  This leaves us trapped in a dynamic where we must continue to inflict harm on and invoke fear in the other person, otherwise they will attack us back.  We spend our time disgusted with all those around us, hurling insults at those we see on television, brewing inside.  We sometimes lose control completely and find ourselves acting like a raging lunatic.  We are unable to form stable and close relationships with others, because as soon as they see our darker side, they want to have nothing to do with us.  Anger is the root of all war and conflict in this world.  How many people have been injured or killed by anger?  How many children have been emotionally shattered by their parent’s uncontrolled rage?  No good has ever come from anger, and no good ever will.  Its only function is to harm.

We should recall that the main point of training the mind is great compassion, and that anger is the opponent of compassion.  Anger is a mind which mistakenly identifies something external as a cause of suffering, and then seeks to harm or destroy that.  Love and compassion are the opposite of anger.  Love wishes that the other person be happy, compassion wishes that the other person be free from all harm and suffering.  Wishing to harm and wishing to free others from harm are exact opposites.  Anger is rooted in two principal mistakes.  The first, is it thinks the external thing is an actual cause of suffering, when in reality our experience of any object depends only upon the mind with which we experience it.  The second is it thinks the other person is “not us,” they are somehow separate from us, when in reality we are all equally waves on the same ocean.  When the false duality between ourselves and others falls away, it becomes just as impossible to harm another person as it would be to harm ourselves. 

We usually get angry at those who we see as harming us in some way.  We feel that if we get angry at them, we will deter them from harming us again.  If we succeed in deterring them, they will still wish to harm us but be unable to, so their resentment will only grow and they will bide their time until they can.  If we don’t succeed in deterring them, then we invite immediate retribution as they strike back at us.  Sometimes we encounter people who themselves are angry people and for whatever reason do what to harm us.  When this happens, we should ask ourselves, “why is this person angry at me?”  Quite likely we have done something to cause them to get angry, so we should try to make immediate amends.  If we are unsuccessful, then we should view this other person as a karmic echo of our own past anger towards others and take it as a powerful reminder that if we don’t want people harming us in the future, we need to stop getting angry at others now.  Finally, we need to realize that the person who is behaving unpleasantly towards us has no control over their actions but are a slave to their delusions and anger.  When our anger is active in our mind, we have no control over our behavior.  Others are the same.  Delusions function to render our mind uncontrolled, we become a puppet on the strings of our delusions.  Very often we will say or do things while we are angry that we later regret when we calm down.  Others are no different.  When somebody gets angry at us, we should realize it is not them talking, it is their delusions.

If we want to get angry at something, we should direct our anger against our own and others’ delusions.  They are the real enemy; they are the real cause of all harm.  We should blame the person’s delusions, not the person themselves.  Indeed, we can view the other person as the victim of their delusions, and in the future, they will have to suffer the karmic consequences of their actions.  We should adopt the view of Buddhas, who love everyone and have compassion for them seeing that they are trapped and tormented by their delusions.