Become acquainted with the three non-degenerations.  

The three non-degenerations are:  faith in Dharma, effort in our practice of Dharma, and not allowing our mindfulness to degenerate. 

Many people come into Buddhism motivated by a rejection of faith-based forms of religion.  For the modern, scientific mind, Buddhism can easily be understood as an inner science.  Indeed, we are encouraged to practice in this way, testing the instructions for their validity and usefulness in our life.  Blind faith is rejected, and we are encouraged to develop our own wisdom realizing the truth of the instructions for ourselves.  We are explicitly told to not believe somebody just because they are called a Buddha, but instead to examine things for ourselves.  Many people think of Buddhism more as a philosophy of life, or a time-tested form of auto-psychotherapy.  All these things are true, and such an approach very much appeals to the modern mind.  I remember when I first started practicing, I told my teacher, “I agree with and have no problem with basically everything in the Dharma, except this whole faith thing.”  For me, faith was for people who didn’t know how to think for themselves.  It was a convenient means of avoiding having good answers to the hard questions.  In fact, faith, to my understanding was where any religion was weakest, and wherever we were told to have faith is exactly where we should worry.  When we hear people talking about “faith” and “blessings” and “Geshe-la said this and Geshe-la said that” we quickly become very critical and we wonder whether we have found ourself in some crazed cult! 

Many people come into the Dharma with similar attitudes.  But there comes a point in our practice where faith and reliance become the giant elephant in the room we can no longer avoid.  I had been practicing for many years without really relying or having much faith at all.  I was then doing a retreat, everything was going quite nicely, and then all a sudden, I came to a screeching halt.  Nothing was working.  I was dead in the water.  I didn’t know what to do.  I then called up my teacher and explained what had happened, and she laughed at me.  She said, “you don’t know what to do, do you?”  And I said no.  She said, “you can’t do anything can you?”  And I said no.  She then said, “well I don’t know either nor can I help you.  You need to start your practice completely over from scratch.”  I asked, “how?”  And she said, “go sit down on your cushion, generate a wish to rebuild your practice from scratch and then with faith request blessings for guidance as to what you should do.  When you get an answer, do that.  When you need clarification, ask for guidance again.  Continue in this way until you have rebuilt your practice.”

Feeling like I had tried everything else, I then gave it a go.  At first, nothing.  But then, an “idea” popped into my head, so I started running with that.  Then another, then another.  I felt like I was being guided by the hand, step by step, being shown how I should rebuild my practice.  But this time, the fundamental difference was, I was being shown how to practice through reliance, not through my own effort with my own mind.  Instead of reciting the words of the sadhana in my mind myself, I request that the guru practice in my mind for me.  Instead of trying to understand the meaning, I request blessings that the meaning be revealed.  Instead of trying to understand the points of contemplation myself, I request the guru to explain it to me in a way I can understand.  What used to be just me with my mind turned into me with my guru.  I realized what still to this day is the single most important thing I have realized on the path:  If I am truly intelligent, I will rely upon my guru’s mind alone. 

If we have a choice of using a bicycle or a Ferrari, which do we pick?  If our choice is between a hammer or a nail gun, which do we use?  In the same way, if our choice is relying upon our ordinary mind or relying upon the guru’s mind, which do we do?  I consider myself pretty intelligent, but I am a fool compared to the guru.  His powers of reasoning and concentration far surpass my own; his heart of love and compassion warm the entire universe; his wisdom illuminates all.  In our Tantric practice in particular, the inner engine which makes it work is faith.  The guru-deity is already enlightened, all we need to do is impute our I onto his body and mind, and the rest happens effortlessly.  Once we have a taste for reliance, we can’t help but ask ourselves, “why would we practice any other way?”

Gen-la Losang said, “at the end of the day, there is really only one practice, and that is faith.”  One of my other teachers said, “we normally pray as a last resort after we have tried everything else, but we are spiritual people.  Praying should be our first response, not our last.”  I cannot speak to other religions, but in Kadampa Buddhism, with our teachings on the wisdom realizing emptiness, faith is best understood as emptiness in action.  Venerable Tharchin said, “what is true or not is not important, what matters is what is most beneficial to believe.” Because everything is empty, it is believing that makes things true.  It is because things are empty that we can believe in different ways and actually reconstruct a new, pure reality.  If things were not empty, we could not do this, and faith, frankly, makes no sense.  But it is because things are empty that faith works.  We have faith in things not because they are somehow objectively true, but rather because by believing in them we rewire our minds and karmically reconstruct our world. 

We continue with our discussion of the three main causes of our Dharma practice.  The second main cause necessary for our Dharma practice is to rely upon a Spiritual Guide who teaches the Dharma.  When we have a legal problem, what do we do?  We rely upon a lawyer.  When we have a dental problem, what do we do?  We rely upon a dentist.  In exactly the same way, when we have an inner problem of delusions, what do we do?  We rely upon a Spiritual Guide.  If we don’t know how to get to where we want to go, we stop and ask for directions.  If our wish is to get to the pure land, we quite naturally need to stop and ask for instructions. 

Many people think they don’t need a spiritual guide.  They may think, “I will rely upon Dharma books.”  But who wrote the Dharma books?  A Spiritual Guide.  If there are some points that we don’t understand, what are we to do?  Other people think, “Buddha Shakyamuni did it on his own, so will I.”  Besides this being an incredibly arrogant thing equating ourselves to Buddha Shakyamuni, from a purely practical point of view isn’t it far easier to rely upon somebody who has already travelled the path than to forge out on our own.  Even if we were successful in the end, surely it would take us longer to get there.  And during that time, we would suffer more and all those who we would otherwise have been helping if we had already attained enlightenment earlier will be left to suffer for longer.  Why should they be made to suffer just so we can prove we can do it on our own?  But the reality is we most likely couldn’t succeed in the end.  We would become lost or discouraged.  We might be able to make some progress, but it is far more likely we would get stuck somewhere.  There is nothing in samsara that points to it being all a dream.  We can look everywhere within the dream and not have a clue we are dreaming, much less have any indication for how to wake up.  Only the Spiritual Guide, a being who abides beyond the dream but who nonetheless has the power to enter our dream, can lead us out. 

The Spiritual Guide helps us in more ways that just giving us flawless instructions of what we need to do.  He also blesses, or inspires, our mind to put them into practice.  His blessings encourage our effort, and his blessings ripen previously planted seeds within our mind in such a way that the light of wisdom begins to dawn within our mind.  If truth be told, it is impossible for us to engage in any virtue without the blessings and inspiration of the Spiritual Guide.  The tendencies within our mind are almost all negative.  We know this because we know what a struggle it is to do the right things.  Absent the Spiritual Guide’s blessings, we wouldn’t stand a chance.  All virtue arises in dependence upon blessings.  Absent these blessings, we would never have engaged in any virtue.  Without virtue, we would know no happiness. 

When we start practicing the Tantric path, reliance upon the spiritual guide becomes almost the totality of our practice.  The logic here is simple:  the Spiritual Guide’s mind already possesses all the realizations and qualities of a Buddha.  We merely need to download them into our mind and then we will too.  Having access to a source from which we can download these realizations is essential. 

The third and final main cause for our Dharma practice is having all the necessary conditions for our practice.  Externally, these include access to teachings or books, time to practice, adequate food, clothing, and shelter, and that’s about it!  Internally, these include the wish to practice, faith in our teacher’s instructions, and the wisdom which knows how to use any circumstance as an opportunity to practice.  Since everything is equally empty, everything is equally potentially perfect for our Dharma practice.  The problem is not the circumstance, it is our lack of wisdom which sees how the circumstances we have are in fact perfect for us.  To assemble this third main cause, externally of course we need do whatever it takes to gain access to teachings, make time to practice, and have enough money for food, clothing and shelter.  But internally, our main task is to rely upon our Dharma protector, Dorje Shugden.  Dorje Shugden’s main job is to arrange all the necessary outer, inner and secret conditions we need for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  In dependence upon our reliance upon him, he will activate the karmic potentials on our mind to have the necessary outer conditions and he will bless our mind with the wisdom to see how what has been emanated is in fact perfect.  He attained enlightenment to do this for us.  All we need to do is ask for his help.  If we do, he will be by our side forever.

 Practice the three main causes. 

 There are three main causes that are essential for successful Dharma practice:  the wish to practice Dharma, relying upon a spiritual guide who teaches Dharma, and having the necessary conditions to practice Dharma.  Each of these is fairly self-explanatory, if we do not wish to practice Dharma, we won’t do it.  If we don’t rely upon a Spiritual Guide to who teaches the Dharma, we won’t know how to practice.  And if we do not have the necessary conditions to practice Dharma, we won’t be able to even if we want to.  If we have these three main causes, then there is nothing that can stop us.  We will continue to practice and progress until enlightenment is attained.  So the relevant question is how do we assemble these three main causes.

We assemble the first cause, the wish to practice Dharma, by correctly identifying what our problem is.  Normally we think our problem is a lack of money, the annoying people in our life, and our government.  Geshe-la says we need to distinguish between our outer problem and our inner problem.  To illustrate this, he uses the example of our car breaking down.  If our car breaks down, we normally say, “I have a problem.”  This is not correct.  Our car has a problem, we do not.  Our problem is our deluded mental reaction to our car breaking down.  This deluded reaction creates an unpleasant feeling within our mind which leaves us unhappy.  Dharma has no power whatsoever to fix our car, we need a mechanic for that.  But Dharma practice can solve our inner problem of our unhappy mind.  If we solve our inner problem, we have no more problem.  We still need to get our car fixed, but it will not be a problem for us.  The same reasoning applies to all our other outer and inner problems. 

The lamrim meditations are, if we check, nothing more than a series of meditations helping us identify what exactly is our problem.  If we correctly diagnose the problem, then the solution becomes self-evident.  It is because we are confused about the nature of our problem that we apply the wrong solutions, and despite considerable effort on our part, we remain unhappy.  In this life, our problem is our deluded reaction to what happens in our life.  Looking beyond this life, we realize our problem is we will eventually die and due to all the negative karma on our mind, we will quite likely fall into the lower realms.  If we die with a negative state of mind, a common reaction we have to unpleasant circumstances, of which death is the most unpleasant, then it will activate negative karma, which will propel us into a lower rebirth where we can remain trapped for incalculably long periods of time. 

Looking deeper, even if we manage to avoid a lower rebirth in our next life, since our mind is still controlled by delusions, in particular by self-grasping ignorance, we have no freedom or control to choose our next rebirth.  Without choice, at the time of our death, we will spin the roulette wheel of samsara, and no matter where we land we lose.  For as long as we are in samsara, we are, for all practical purposes, in a perpetual slaughterhouse where we are born only to be tormented and eventually slaughtered, only to be revived again to start the whole process over again.  Such a situation is completely intolerable and we must break free.  In reality, we are trapped in a perpetual nightmare from which we can’t wake up.  This is our situation, and we must escape from it.

But we are not alone.  All our friends, family and loved ones – indeed all living beings – are likewise trapped in the same nightmarish slaughterhouse.  It is not enough for us to escape, but we must help everyone break free.  No one need suffer.  Everyone can abide in the eternal bliss of enlightenment.  At present we lack the ability to help others escape.  This is our problem.

If we understand our problem, then we naturally look for a solution.  There is nothing in samsara that can help us solve the problems of being in samsara.  Samsaric solutions, such as mechanics, dentists, lawyers, etc., can help us with our outer problems, but they can do nothing for our inner problems of delusions, negative karma and so forth.  What can help us?  If our problem is our mind, we need something that can help us change our mind.  The Dharma is exactly such a method.  It teaches us how to maintain inner peace in this life; it teaches us how to purify our negative karma, accumulate merit and receive the special blessings of the Buddhas at the time of our death; it teaches us how to gain complete control over our mind by permanently eradicating all our delusions, thus enabling us to wake up from the nightmare of samsara; it teaches us how we can develop within ourselves all the qualities of a Buddha, such as the minds of great compassion, love, generosity, patient acceptance, moral discipline, effort, concentration and wisdom.  It teaches us how to acquire these qualities quickly by explaining how we can effectively download them into our mind from our highest yoga tantra deities.  In short, the Dharma provides us with a solution to all our problems in this and all our future lives, and it gives us the ability to help others do the same.  It is the solution to all our inner problems.  Seeing this, we will naturally be very motivated to practice Dharma and we will have assembled within our mind the first of the three main causes.

We continue our discussion of the three difficulties.  The third difficulty is eradicating our delusions altogether by applying their antidotes.  The antidote to all delusions is the wisdom realizing emptiness.  In the discussion of the second difficulty, we said applying opponents to delusions is like two waves cancelling each other out leaving calm waters.  Applying the antidote is like realizing there are no waves, indeed there is no water. 

First, it is useful to say a quick word on what is the wisdom realizing emptiness.  Normally, we look out at the world and we think there is something really there.  We are merely observing what is there, and our mind and sense of perception have no bearing whatsoever on bringing these things into existence.  As such, we think, “even if I change my mind about this thing, it actually changes nothing because the thing is still going to be there.”  So changing our mind might make us feel a bit better, but fundamentally it changes nothing.  We strive to realizing an objective truth of things.  We recognize that everybody is biased and subjective in one way or another, so we try to strip away all that bias, look at things from multiple points of view simultaneously in an effort to distill the fundamental objective essence of a thing.  In science, we strive to remove the influence of the observer on the thing we are trying to test so that we can look at the relationship in and of itself, independent of those observing it. 

In reality, all this is completely wrong.  In reality, there is nothing really there.  It is all a giant karmic light show, with no more reality to it than last night’s dream.  We look out the window and see other buildings, but what we are really seeing is the reflection of karma on the surface of our mind.  Right now, we are a dream person sitting at a dream computer reading dream words.  Everything is created by mind through the force of karma, and none of it is real.  We have never actually spoken with anyone, we have never actually gone anywhere, we have never really done anything.  Our body, mind and self are merely one wave amongst many on the ocean of our mind.  For some strange reason, we think we are just this one wave, and that this wave can somehow be separated from its underlying ocean.  The things we see are nothing more than mere karmic appearances of mind.  “Mere appearance” means other than the appearance itself, there is nothing actually there behind it.  It is a mere reflection, a hologram, a hallucinogenic specter.  “Karmic appearance” means the appearances themselves are generated through the force of our past karma.  Each appearance is like a karmic echo of our past actions that has come back to us.  The aspect of the wave is shaped by the force of the karmic seed that has ripened.  “Of mind” means the nature of these appearance is mind itself.  “Nature” in a Dharma context roughly means “made of.”  So when we say an object is by nature mind, what we are really saying is the object is mind shaped in the aspect of the object.  Mind is like the playdough, karma shapes it, and in the end, it resembles an object.  It is like the gold of the gold coin.  It is like the ocean of the wave.  In the end, though, there is nothing there other than mere appearance.  The only thing that is actually there is the appearance of something actually being there.  Besides this mere appearance, there is nothing.

While it is interesting and fun to philosophically consider such things, the practical question is how can we use this understanding as the antidote to our delusions?  Some examples can help illustrate this.  Imagine for example you suffer from attachment to what others think about you.  This is a very common worry in the modern world, and we generate a lot of anxiety and stress about it.  We actively try to change what others think, and if they think something bad about us, it makes us very unhappy.  The reality, however, is there is nobody there thinking anything about you!  There is the appearance of somebody there thinking something about you, but actually this is just a karmic echo of you having thought something about somebody else in the past.  If you want to change what others appear to think about you, then change what you think about others.  If you only think good things about others, then the karmic echos which will appear later will only be others thinking good things about you.  This is how everything works. 

Another example is imagine you are afraid of something.  There is some thing that might happen or someone who is threatening you in some way.  So we are naturally afraid.  But in reality, we are jumping at shadows.  The things of this world can’t hurt us anymore than the dinosaur in the movie can eat us.  There is nothing there, and neither are we.  There is nothing in the world of appearances that can even touch our essential clear light essence.  In reality, we abide completely beyond appearance, but we don’t realize it.  Like somebody in a bad hallucinogenic trip or a schizophrenic, we grasp at projections of our mind as being actually real.  So what is there to fear?  Nothing.

Nagarjuna says for whom emptiness is impossible, nothing is possible; and for whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.  We abide in a world of suffering only because that is the world we have karmically created.  If we change our karma, we can change our world, not just for ourselves but for all the being inhabiting our dream.  We currently mentally construct others as friend, enemy and stranger; but we can karmically reconstruct them as our kind mothers and indeed emanations of Buddhas.  What are they really?  Nothing.  But their function changes dramatically depending on how we impute them.  If last night we dreamt of somebody in a wheelchair, who put them there?  We did.  They are a being of our dream, so we are responsible for everything.  In the same way, if we see in the world a car accident, who caused it?  We did.  These are two waves of karmic appearance we previously set in motion which have collided.   Thanks to emptiness, we have it within our power to completely karmically reconstruct our dream from a world of suffering into a pure land.  We have it within our power to deliver people from the contaminated aggregates we have trapped them in to the completely pure and blissful aggregates of an enlightened being.  For whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.

Of all the objects it is important to realize the emptiness of, our own mind is the most important.  In particular, our main task is to realize the emptiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss.  Why?  All our infinite previously accumulated contaminated karma is currently stored on our very subtle mind.  It is like a cosmic hard-drive which stores all our karmic movies.  If we realize emptiness directly, then when a particular karmic movie appears even though it may appear to be real, we will not be fooled by it, nor sucked into it, and so no matter what appears it will have no power to harm us.  But the movie will still play.  Things will still appear to be there.  But if we realize the emptiness of our very subtle mind, we uproot the contaminated karma giving rise to the movie itself.  When we realize the emptiness of our very subtle mind, it doesn’t just purify individual contaminated karmic seeds, it uproots all them simultaneously.  We can understand how this works by analogy.  If you have a wheel with a hub and spokes, if you shine a light inside any one spoke, it will illuminate that spoke.  But if you can place the light in the hub of the wheel, it will illuminate all the spokes directly and simultaneously.  In the same way, by realizing the emptiness of any one individual object, we illuminate the truth of that object.  But by realizing the emptiness of the very subtle mind upon which all our karma is equally planted, we illuminate the truth of all objects directly and simultaneously.  This is why Buddha said, “if you wish to attain enlightenment, realize your own mind.  Do not look for enlightenment elsewhere.”

We continue our discussion of the three difficulties.  The second difficulty is temporarily pacifying our delusions by applying their opponents.  Every delusion has an opponent.  When we apply the opponents, we reduce the power of the delusions within our mind.  I like to think of things in terms of waves.  If a wave with an amplitude of -1 is hit with a wave with an amplitude of +1, the result will be still water.  Each delusion is a different type of negative wave on the ocean of our mind.  To make the waters of our mind peaceful and calm, we need to neutralize these waves by applying the appropriate opponent waves.  The more we do this, the more peaceful and calm our mind will be, and the more genuinely happy we will be.  Many of our deluded states of mind are actually an interaction of many different delusions feeding off of one another.  So, quite often, we need to apply a variety of opponents.  This is no different than people who take several different medicines to counteract different illnesses within their body. 

Kadam Bjorn says the power of the opponents within our mind depends upon two factors:  our personal experience of having used a particular opponent and the strength of our desire to be free from the given delusions, and of these the latter is the more important. 

The lamrim texts explain in detail the different opponents to the different delusions, for example rejoicing is the opponent to jealousy, patient acceptance is the opponent to anger, seeing samsara’s pleasures are deceptive is the opponent to attachment, wisdom is the opponent to ignorance, etc.  But it is not enough to just “know” what the opponents are, their effectiveness depends on how skilled we are with using them.  An apprentice and a master craftsman use the same tools, but the quality of their work differs greatly.  In this light, it is generally advisable to pick a few key spiritual tools and to become highly skilled at using them than it is to use a little bit of everything ineffectively.  Over time, through decades and decades of practice, you will gradually become more and more skilled with more and more spiritual tools.

For me, I overcome almost all my delusions with my faith in Dorje Shugden.  This is the most developed tool I have in my spiritual toolbox.  The way I use it is as follows.  If I am suffering from attachment, wanting something in particular, I request, “with respect to X, please arrange whatever is best.”  Or “with respect to X, if it is supposed to happen, please arrange for it; if not, please sabotage it.”  “Best” here means best for my spiritual training, not what is best for satisfying my worldly concerns.  Then I no longer worry.  I know Dorje Shugden is managing the situation, and whatever happens will be exactly what I need for my spiritual training.   

If I am suffering from anger or frustration about something, again I request, “with respect to X, please arrange whatever is best.”  Anger, at its core, is a non-acceptance of things as they are.  It is a wish that things were different than they are.  Dorje Shugden’s job is to arrange the perfect outer, inner and secret conditions for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  If Dorje Shugden has arranged what is perfect and what is best, then how could I possibly wish things were different than they are?  Knowing it is perfect and for the best, I can then accept the aggravating circumstance.  Because I can accept it, I don’t suffer from it.  It is not a problem for me.  It can happen that I accept that something is for the best, but I don’t understand why it is for the best.  Here again, I rely on Dorje Shugden.  Dorje Shugden is first and foremost a wisdom Buddha.  A particular external circumstance is neither a problem nor perfect from its own side, rather they become so in dependence upon our view and imputation.  Something is an obstacle only for a mind that imputes obstacle.  Something is perfect only for a mind that imputes perfect.  But it is not enough to just say “it’s perfect.”  For this imputation to have power and meaning within our mind, we need to realize how and why it is perfect.  So I request Dorje Shugden, “please reveal to me clearly how and why this is perfect for my practice.”  In dependence upon this faithful request, he will gradually bless our mind bestowing upon us the wisdom that sees how and why this is true.  On this basis, we can accept.  If we can accept, there is no basis for anger or worry.

But Kadam Bjorn said what is more important than experience with the opponents is the strength of our desire to be free from our delusions.  Here we need to look carefully and honestly.  All delusions promise us if we listen to them they will make us happy, but in the end they deceive us and make us suffer more.  Attachment, for example, tells us if we stare at that hot babe, take that drug, or eat that last piece of chocolate, then we will be happy.  But what really happens is the hot babe thinks we are creepy, we become addicted to drugs, and we get diabetes from overeating!  All the while, we are left unsatisfied.  It is like drinking salt water, the more we drink the thirstier we become.  It is like licking sugar off of a razor blade, we get some sweet but are cut painfully in the process.  It is like feeding the dinosaur which will eat you, the more you feed it the stronger it gets and the more quickly it devours you. 

Anger tells us if we harm the object of our anger it will stop harming us, but the more we harm it the more it wants to harm us.  Jealousy tells us if we are jealous we will be able to hold onto our loved one for ourself, but in reality it just causes them to want to flee even further away.  Doubt tells us it will protect us from believing something that is wrong, but in reality it prevents us from believing anything, even what is right.  Our selfishness tells us it is the only one looking out for us, but in reality it is the root of all our negative actions and its sole purpose is to deliver us to the pit of the deepest hell.  Ignorance grasping at inherent existence tells us we are seeking objective truth, but in reality, we are believing in things that don’t even exist.  All delusions lie.  All delusions deceive us.  But yet we still believe in them.  We want to believe their lies.  We like to think this time it will be different, and it will work.   

We can know all the opponents in the world, but if we don’t really see how delusions are our enemy, if we don’t really want to remove them from our mind, then our application of the opponents will lack any power.  It is not enough to contemplate how delusions are deceptive in general, but we need to make it personal.  We need to take the time to consider how our specific attachments have created specific problems in our life.  We need to reflect upon how our anger has always backfired and harmed those we love.  We need our personal examples of how our jealousy has pushed away those we wish were closer.  The more clearly we see the harm our delusions are causing in our life, the more motivated we will be to eliminate them.  Then, when we do apply the correct opponents, our practice will have great power.

In effect, this sort of contemplation helps us develop a deep seated, Viking-style, sense of vengeance against our delusions.  We see how they have tortured and harmed us forever, all while pretending to be our friend.  They are the worst, the greatest betrayers.  We develop a desire to eradicate them completely, showing no mercy.  We look forward to going on Viking raids with the Dakinis against our delusions.  Our dominating motivation for all that we do is revenge, not just against our delusions, but all delusions who have tortured everyone for aeons.  We determine to not stop seeking our vengeance until this foe is completely destroyed with no prospects of ever coming back to life.  Certainly Valhalla Pure Land awaits for such a Viking-like bodhisattva!

Train in the three difficulties. 

The three difficulties are things that we find difficult to do.  It is difficult to recognize our delusions, but it is even more difficult to overcome them.  And it is the most difficult to eradicate them altogether.

First difficulty:  recognize our delusions.  Gen Lekma was my first teacher, so in many ways she is my spiritual mother.  In my mind she is a saint, and my proof of this is she put up with me!  I was about as obnoxious as a new student could be.  I was incredibly arrogant and I doubted everything.  So I would alternate between being a “know it all” and somebody who wouldn’t stop asking probing questions about every little detail.  Come to think of it, I was like my kids who never stoped asking “why?” about everything!  So if you know her and then see her, please give her a hug from me, and tell her I say thank you for putting up with me! 

Gen Lekma patiently and persistently answered all my questions.  Probably every day I would send her a list of about 20 new questions I had, and she would answer them, each time giving me valid and definitive answers to my questions.  The reason why I kept asking was because I felt like I had found a spiritual gold mine – I was getting real answers and I couldn’t get enough. 

At one point, though, she had other things to do and started falling behind with my questions.  They kept piling up, and I started growing anxious.  Several days went by, hundreds of questions were going unanswered, and then I received from her a very short email.  It said, “with respect to all the questions you have asked, there are good answers.  Please go find them.  Love, Lekma.”  At first, this felt a bit abandoned, but then I started to think deeply about what she said – there are good answers.  Up until that point, doubts and questions for me were an object of stress and uncertainty.  If there are not good answers to my questions, then the Dharma was perhaps unreliable, and then I would go back to having nothing.  But here she was saying, “there are good answers.”  So I didn’t need to worry, questions didn’t have to be a problem.  In Understanding the Mind Geshe-la explains that there are two types of doubts, doubts tending towards delusion and doubts tending towards the truth.  Before, my default would be if I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t believe it.  But with this answer, my mind shifted where my default was if I wasn’t sure, I could trust that it was true I just don’t understand how or why yet.  So instead of being a source of anxiety and worry, my doubts became an inexhaustible fuel for joyfully plunging ever deeper into the Dharma.  Her answer also said, “please find them.”  In other words, I didn’t need to ask somebody externally, I could look for myself, cultivate my own discriminating wisdom, and find my own answers within the Dharma.  This helped me break my transforming my teachers into objects of attachment.

The reason why I bring up Gen Lekma is in my last meeting with her as my teacher before I moved to Europe, I asked her for some final advice.  She said, “train in the three difficulties, in particular identifying your own delusions.”  The most dangerous thing about pride is it makes you blind to your own faults and delusions.  If you can’t see them, you can’t overcome them.  Once we become aware of a sickness in our body, we are naturally motivated to find a remedy and to apply it.  It is the same with the inner sickness of our delusions.  Most doctors all agree medicine is 80% correct diagnosis, 20% cure.  Once the illness is correctly diagnosed, the cure is usually self-evident.  Again, the same is true with our inner sickness of delusions.

At that time, most of my delusions revolved around my relationship with my then girlfriend (now wife).  In my view, it was very clear that the only worthwhile thing to do with one’s life was to practice Dharma.  But I had this job, I had this girlfriend, I had this life, and they all seemed to me to be obstacles to “practicing Dharma.”  Gen Lekma told me, “she is not an obstacle to your practice, she is your practice.”  These words, to me, hold the keys to our mission of attaining the union of the Kadam Dharma and modern life.  Our normal view is those thing which provoke our delusions are obstacles to our practice.  Quite the opposite, they are our practice.  Just as angry people are an essential condition for our training in patience, those in need are an essential condition for out training in giving, those who provoke delusions within us are an essential condition for our practice of training the mind.

So training in the first of the three difficulties is actually very easy – just interact with living beings!  Family, kids, co-workers and people on the road are all especially skilled at provoking delusions within us.  We should be incredibly grateful to them for this service they provide, because without them we would have incredible difficulty identifying our delusions.  If we don’t see our sickness, then our training in Dharma lacks any power.  We are told in the Lamrim teachings that the way we should listen to Dharma is the same way as a patient told they have some terrible sickness would listen to the doctor explaining their cure.  If we don’t have our own inner sickness in mind when we listen to or practice Dharma, it will remain abstract at best.  Most likely we will listen to the Dharma with a clear understanding of the inner sickness of delusions of all our family members, and we will think, “oh, my wife really needs to hear this!”  No, all the Dharma is personal advice for us. 

The world is filled with deluded people.  This is why they are so precious.  This is why we don’t need them to change.  This is why we can accept them just as they are.  Their highly deluded behavior suits us just fine because that is how we are able to identify our own inner sickness.  These people are the field of our practice, they are in fact emanated by our Dharma protector to give us an opportunity to progress along the path.  The bottom line is this:  modern people are lazy.  If we weren’t forced to overcome our delusions, we wouldn’t and we would remain trapped forever.