You don’t need friends, you need to be a friend.  You don’t need people to love you, you need to love people.  You don’t need others to do things for you, you need to do things for others.  Other people don’t need to like you for you to feel fulfilled, you need to simply like others.  Don’t be upset when others don’t contact you, rather contact them.  Don’t wait for others to come to you, go to them.  Don’t let anything be an obstacle, make it an opportunity to grow.  Don’t want, instead give.  Don’t wait for things to satisfy you, rather bring satisfaction to them.  Don’t expect anything from others, rather be grateful for what you have.  Don’t judge people if they don’t live up to your expectations, rather strive to live up to your own expectations for yourself.  Don’t fish for compliments, rather give them unconditionally.  You don’t need to say anything, you need to listen.  You don’t need others to understand you, you need to understand others.  You don’t need anybody to do anything for you, you need to do things for others.  You don’t need to receive anything from others, you need to offer things to others.  Don’t blame others for your experience of life, take responsibility for it.  Don’t wish you were with somebody else, be delighted to be who you are with.  Don’t judge a situation in terms of what it can do for you, rather look at what you can do in  a situation.  Don’t create problems, resolve them.  Don’t judge, accept.  Don’t focus on what you are doing, focus on why you are doing it.  Don’t expect things to change quickly, just be happy to create causes which take you in the right direction.  Don’t keep going down roads you know lead nowhere, just decide to do the right thing.  Don’t base your sense of self-worth on what others think of you, rather base it on your potential to get better with effort.  Don’t try to change others, change yourself.  Don’t blame others for your problems, blame your delusions.  Don’t wish things were different, realize they are perfect just the way they are.  Don’t waste your time chasing rainbows, spend your times planting seeds.  Don’t get angry when confronted with the truth, realize it is your pathway to freedom.  Don’t waste the days you are given, make the most of them.  Don’t expect yourself to already be perfect, rather joyfully but patiently work on perfecting yourself.  Don’t lament that things are unfair, just treat others fairly.  You don’t need to be anywhere else, you need to be where you are.  You don’t need to be with anybody else, you need to love who you are with.  Don’t take half-measures, deal with things definitively.  Stop making excuses, know you can do it.  Don’t try go it alone, pray for the strength to change.

An extreme I often fall into is the extreme of trying to change others with the Dhama motivated by attachment. 

Bodhichitta is the wish to become a Buddha so that we can lead all other beings to the same state.  We talk all the time in the Dharma about how everything we need to do needs to be for others and how it is only by abandoning our delusions that any being can find happiness.  I have a highly inflated sense of how much wisdom I actually possess and how I know exactly what everybody else’s delusions and problems are and what they need to do to overcome them.  Call this pretentious wisdom!  As with all prides, this pretentious wisdom is often accompanied by an attachment to everyone else sharing my exalted view of my own wisdom, and so I feel the need to go around and “save everybody” by getting them to realize how I am right about everything – “if only they saw things as I did, they would not suffer…”

At the same time, I am still very much controlled and dominated by my delusions, in particular I still have a strong aversion to people being deluded around me and a strong attachment to people “succeeding” around me, in particular with my family.  If I am honest, I still have a “need” for others to change around me.  I still think my happiness depends upon whether those around me are happy.  Out of an attachment to a life of ease, I wish those who I interact with often had no problems so that I didn’t need to deal with their problems.  In short, I also have a strong attachment to those around me changing.  Additionally, an attachment to others changing actually functions to block any wisdom knowing how to help others from arising in our mind.  Instead of thinking about how to help others motivated by compassion, we “meditate” on their faults motivated by an anger wishing them to change.  Any “solutions” to their problems that such “meditations” produce, no matter how much they sound like Dharma wisdom, will not be the right ones.

These two together, namely pretentious wisdom and an attachment to those around me changing, are a very dangerous cocktail.  I tell myself I am being the good bodhisattva trying to bring wisdom to others, but in reality I am trying to change others with the Dhama motivated by an attachment to them changing.  People are not stupid.  They know when we are trying to change them, and they know when we are doing so motivated by an attachment.  Unless the other person already possesses great wisdom (and if they do, who are we to try chang them?), if we try change others motivated by attachment the only thing it does is cause them to reject the very advice we are trying to give and to resist the “help” we are trying to offer. 

Using the Dharma in this way is quite simply abusing the Dharma.  It is using it for our own purposes to fulfill the wishes of our attachment.  It also destroys our relationships with others because we start fighting with them and having all sorts of problems.  It is also the exact opposite of the bodhisattva path because it causes people to reject the Dharma.

So what should we do instead?  Just focus on changing ourselves and working on our own delusions.  This can still be bodhichitta in that the main activity of the bodhichitta wish is improving ourselves.  It is only after we have actually acquired some wisdom and skilful means and are completely free from the need for others to change that we can then start helping others.  Who we are is a far more effective “teacher” than anything we have to say, so it is only by ourselves living the example of somebody working on improving themselves without trying to or needing to manipulate or change others that we can help bring about change in others.  In short, if we are saying all the right things but still trying to change others motivated by attachment, we will create only problems and help nobody.  If we say nothing, but just be the example (not try “show” the example) of somebody working on themselves, we will help everybody around us.

We therefore very easily fall into the extreme of trying to change others with the Dharma

There are certain interpersonal dilemmas which come up again and again in modern life.  It is very important for Kadampas to learn how to respond to these situations with wisdom.  I don’t pretend to know what is the best way to respond to these situations, but I figure it might be useful for me to share some of the dilemmas which I have observed and what lessons I have learned for how to respond to them.  If other people have other examples and lessons learned, I am sure we could all benefit from learning from one another.

One of the most common such dilemmas is the “I’ll change honey, I promise…” dynamic.  Very often people find themselves in abusive or dysfunctional relationships.  The dynamic is as follows:  one person consistently mistreats the other and the other just generally accepts and goes along with it because they do not want to lose the relationship with the abusive person because sometimes there are “good times” that they don’t want to lose.  The abused person eventually realizes that it is unhealthy and they have had enough, so they say, “I am leaving.”  The abusive person then starts acting all nice, offering flowers (metaphorically or literally), and tells the other person that they will change, they promise.  The abused person then “sees the good” in the abusive person and decides to take them back.  But as soon as they do, the abusive person then starts to (gradually or quickly) relapse back into thier old ways and becomes abusive again.  Then the cycle starts all over again. 

Clearly, it does not help people to allow them to abuse us.  They are engaging in negativity against us, and if we allow them to continue to do so, we are enabling them to create bad causes for themselves for the future.  Likewise, it is not good for us because like a drug addict it erodes our sense of self-worth as we become increasingly ready to sacrifice all that is healthy and good in our lives in a desperate attempt to hold on to what little good remains.  I have a cousin who was once in an abusive relationship, she told the guy “If you hit me one more time, I am leaving.”  He became nice again for awhile, but then hit her again.  Without saying a word, she packed her bags, grabbed her kid, and never looked back!  Not only is that the right thing to do, it also is a powerful lesson to her daughter that we do not allow people to do these things to us.  In contrast, I know many people who for years allow these things to drag on, to the detriment of all.  Of course, physical violence is an extreme case, but the same dynamic plays itself out in many lesser forms.

So does this mean we should just leave and show total non-cooperation with any and all dysfunction in our relationships?  Of course not.  If we did, we would very quickly find ourselves without any relationships at all since everybody in samsara, at one level or another, is under the influence of their ignorant delusions and so is necessarily acting in deluded and dysfunctional ways. 

The test I use is the following:  if the other person is genuinely aware of their problems, is actively trying to change themselves (on their own, not due to your outside pressure), and you are providing some sort of positive influence in their process of change, then it is perfectly appropriate to remain in a relationship and to support the other person in their path of personal change, even if that means sometimes having to serve as the object of their abuse and dysfunction.  But if the other person is oblivious to their problems and doing nothing to change (except in response to your threats to leave), then it is better to let the relationship go and move on.  Of course, you still should always love the person and pray for their well-being, but you can do so without having daily intereaction with them. 

Will this mean you lose the “good” that you sometimes get from the relationship?  Yes, it does, but only in the way that a drug addict has to give up the “good” that comes from drugs – the honey they lick off of a razor’s edge.  So yes, you will have to give up some good feelings or times, but what you gain is self-respect, self-confidence and freedom from the constant troubles inherent in a dysfunctional relationship. 

When the other person realizes that they have permanently lost you due to their abusive behavior, there is a chance that they will then genuinely change.  We should pray that they do, but even if they do, we should never take the person back because doing so will just reproduce the old pattern.  But sadly, more often than not, even our absence in their lives is not sufficient to change them because they are completely possessed by the demons of their own uncontrolled delusions.  Their not changing when we cut the relationship does not mean we made a mistake to do so – it was and still is the right decision both for them and for ourselves – but rather it is a commentary on how powerful delusions can be and therefore it serves as a powerful reminder of the need for us to not allow ourselves to remain under the influence of our own delusions and for us to never abandon our bodhichitta wish to become a Buddha so that we will be able to have the time, wisdom and skilfull means to gradually and eventually lead these people we love to freedom.

We watched recently a documentary about the election of Barack Obama.  It was a behind the scenes look at the people who actually ran and executed the campaign.  There were thousands of 20-somethings who volunteered themselves 15-20 hours a day over a period of 20 months to get him elected.  While they were exhausted, they felt like they were contributing to something of great meaning, they felt like they were fulfilling a higher purpose.  And so they did so joyfully and with genuine enthusiasm.  In many ways, you can say it was they who got him elected.

This reveals a great many things.  First, Obama in his previous lives must have volunteered himself smililarly hard and enthusiastically thousands and thousands of times (or perhaps once with a bodihchitta motivation, which would have the same karmic effect, such is the power of bodhichitta…) to help others fulfill their wishes.  This is what created the karma to have all these people help him.  If he didn’t have such karma, they wouldn’t have worked for him and he never would have gotten elected.  Second, when people feel like they are fulfilling a higher purpose and their project is one of great meaning, then even if they are working very hard and long hours, they do so joyfully and enthusiastically.  It is not the financial rewards or the status that motivates good people, it is the meaning of the purpose for which they work which drives them. 

So how does this then apply to us? 

1. First, if in the future we want to accomplish the project of liberating all beings, we will need a lot of help to get the job done.  Like Obama, we will need many many volunteers who will help us out.  How do we get these volunteers?  By ourselves volunteering to help others fulfill their virtuous wishes.  If we do this with a bodhichitta motivation, understanding how our activities will benefit countless beings in countless future generations, then it karmically multiplies the value of our volunteerism.  For me personally, I have always been very bad at this.  I am happy to work on my projects, but I have always been bad about volunteering myself to help others accomplish their projects.  If I continue like this, in the future even if I have a virtuous wish, I will have nobody to help me fulfill it.
2. In our own lives, we need to see how our activities are building towards fulfilling a higher purpose.  It is this higher purpose which will give us literally unlimited energy to work hard and keep going, and to do so enthusiastically and joyfully.  What higher purpose can there be than bodhichitta?  What higher purpose can there be than the project of building a pure land in which all living beings can take rebirth and complete the path?  If I grow tired or I lose my enthusiasm to work, it is because I have strayed from this purpose.
3. We have an incredible opportunity to right here and right now be like a volunteer for Barack Obama, but instead of volunteering to work work to fulfill a politician’s worldly purposes (even a virtuous politican’s virtuous worldly purposes), we can volunteer to work to fulfill the living Je Tsongkhapa’s spiritual purposes in this world.  VGL’s wish and project is a ‘campaign’ to lead all beings to enlightenment.  His project is give people everything they need and to inspire them to take up the path which will permanently free them and all that they love from all suffering.  What can be more meaningful than that?  If we feel anything less than joy and enthusiasm in our work for fulfilling VGL’s wishes, it is because we do not really share them or we are not really working to fulfill his wishes, but rather our own.  If we do the work to put our mind genuinely behind this wish, then we will find literally endless energy to work continuously towards this end.  Even if our motivation is not perfect, the nature of the object towards which we work is so pure that the karma we create by volunteering ourselves is limitless. 
4. We need to rely upon Dorje Shugden as the ‘campaign manager’, or our boss, in terms of assigning us our individual task.  The campaign manager has the big picture in mind, and his job is to assign work to the volunteers so as collectively their efforts produce the final result.  So we should request him to reveal to us and arrange the conditions for us to assume our job in the spritual campaign.  In ALL situations, our number one job is ALWAYS to gain Dharma realizations.  Externally, my current situation is I can help through caring for my family.  If I provide a good childhood for 5 kids, then I create the causes to be reborn at least five times in good families.  This will make a big difference in terms of my future.  Likewise, I am making this blog/website so that I have access to ample good teachings in the future (assuming what I have to say is good, that is!!! hee hee).  I am trying to learn how to transform a very normal life into a deep spiritual retreat, which I hope will benefit countless living beings in the future who live ‘normal’ lives.  This seems to be the conditions Dorje Shugden, my campaign manager, has arranged for me. 

Conclusion:  I need to see my living my life as my volunteering myself to fulfill the virtuous wishes of VGL in his project/campaign to liberate all living beings.  If I maintain this recognition as the purpose behind all of my actions and the context of my life, then this is the karma I will create.

VGL says in Eight Steps to Happiness that the path to enlightenment is very easy, all we need to do is change the object of our cherishing from self to others and everything else will come naturally.  The essence of the Mahayana path is to have our every action be for the benefit of others.  Once we have made this shift, then we naturally look for ways of increasing the quality of the benefit we bestow upon others through our actions.  The most valuable thing we can do for others is help them overcome the real cause of their problems, their delusions.  To do that, we need to gain the wisdom knowing how to overcome delusions.  We acquire that through our own practice of Dharma.  Once we have this logic, then it is just an issue of taking things to their logical conclusion.  If only Dharma realizations provide any lasting freedom or happiness, then we should not stop gaining realizations until we have gained them all – in other words, attained enlightenment.

But the linchpin to all of this process is making this change in the object of our cherishing.  It is not enough to just mentally know we should or understand this logic, we need to bring about a genuine transformation in the reason or purpose behind our every action.  Every day, no matter what our circumstances, we are engaging in actions.  The easiest and most important method for transforming our life into a retreat is to mentally do everything we are normally doing anyways, but do it mentally for the benefit of others.  If we can do this, then our transforming the rest of our life into a retreat will come naturally.  If we fail to do this, then it will be impossible to really transform our life into a retreat.  Like with the path itself, this is the key step.

In the beginning, we should not worry about trying to do our every action with a bodhichitta motivation, but even just simply train in doing our actions for the benefit of others.  We happily serve others.  So in our work, we help our boss and clients/students, at home we help our kids, with our partner we support them in their goals and help with a disproportionate share of the household work, with our friends we try help them be happy, on the road we let others go first, when we are with strangers we give them a warm and friendly smile, when we bathe we do so so others don’t have to smell our bad human odors, etc., etc., etc.  We are doing all of these things every day anyways, we just need to change our reason for doing them from doing them for our own benefit to doing them for the benefit of others.

There is no mental habit more important than this to develop.  From this mental habit, the rest will come naturally and essentially effortlessly.

It is obviously hypocracy at its finest to get angry about the fact that others around us are angry, but this is something we do all of the time (or at least, I do).  Learning how to constructively relate to the angry people in our life is one of our greatest personal and spiritual challenges.  But the need to do so is definite.   In this post, I am primarily going to discuss dealing with people who are angry at their lives.  In a later post I will discuss how to deal with people who are angry at us.

The first thing we must do is protect ourselves from being swept away by our own anger.  Anger is one of the most infectuous diseases which very quickly can spread like wildfire.  If we too get swept away by our own anger, any hope of being helpful will evaporate completely.  We will become part of the problem, not part of the solution. 

So how do we not get angry ourselves when surrounded by angry people?  We must first understand the cause of anger, which is, quite simply, wishing things were different.  In this context, it is wishing that the people around us weren’t so angry.  Many Dharma practitioners know they are “not supposed to get angry”, but they usually just wind up repressing it – either pretending that they are not angry, when in fact they are; or just holding it in.  Repression never works.  The pressure just builds, our fuse just grows shorter, and eventually we blow.  To prevent our own anger, we must stop wishing the people around us weren’t so angry, and instead generate the mind that wouldn’t have it any other way.  This obviously doesn’t mean we want others to be deluded, rather it means that for the purposes of our own training, their being deluded is perfect for us.  Since we view it as perfect, we let go our attachment to it being different, and as such, we do not ourselves get angry about them being angry.

So how do we do this? 

1. Accept that this is just how things are.  We live in degenerate times in which the people around us will likely grow more and more angry.  This is the nature of samsara.  Samsara is populated by deluded beings, to expect it to be any different is to not understand the nature of samsara. 
2. Realize it is a reflection of our own karma and our own mind.  I am surrounded by angry people because I have been so angry myself in the past.  The world I inhabit is a karmic echo of the world I have created for others in the past with my own anger.  If I want this cycle to stop, I need to not get angry myself now.
3. View dealing with the angry person as part of your larger training.  In Offering to the Spiritual Guide, it says we must strive “for complete enlightenment with unwavering compassion; even if I must remain in the fires of the deepest hell for many aeons for the sake of each being.”  We first learn how to constructively relate to the angry people in our life as a training for becoming the courageous bodhisattva who can enter into the deepest hells and lead beings out.  Demographically speaking, most of the beings of samsara are either already in or they are en route to the hot hells, which are nothing other than the karmic consequence of angry minds. 
4. Realize it is not your problem.  We must make a distinction between what is their problem and what is our problem.  Their problem is their anger towards their life, our problem is our anger towards the fact that they are angry.  Our anger tells us that the way to solve our problem is for the other person to stop being angry.  So motivated by this, we try to change them.  But this just makes things worse.  If the other person is angry, that is not my problem, it is their problem.  So I shouldn’t let it bother me or become my problem.  If other people are angry at their lives, that does not harm me in any way, so their being angry is not my problem.
5. Take it as a lesson of what not to do.  Everytime we see somebody doing something wrong, such as being angry about their lives, we can view the other person as a skilful teacher showing us what not to do.  If we are learning something from what we are observing, we are growing from it, and then it is not a problem for us.  Quite simply, we tell ourselves, “I need to not be like that.”
6. Generate compassion for them realizing that they are possessed by their anger.  Anger is a demon which seizes us quickly and we lose total control.  When we are under the influence of anger, for all practical purposes it is as if we have been seized by a demon and we are no longer in control.  We say and do and think all sorts of things which just make our situation worse, both in the short term and also for the future as we create the causes for others to get angry at us in the future.  Seeing people are possessed by their anger, we can generate compassion for them.
7. Not cooperating or going along with their anger.  When others are angry, they will harm those around them.  Because we don’t want to become the object of their anger, we will often go along with them or cooperate with their harmful wishes.  Unless we are in a position to do so, we usually cannot stop others from harming those around them, but we can ourselves choose to not do the same.  If others get angry at us for not doing like them, then we can explain why we feel getting angry and harming others will make things worse and so we do not want to do so.  They may still get angry at us for not going along with them, but they can never make us actually go along with them.  It remains our choice.
8. Know when to remove yourself from the presence of the angry person.  We should remove ourselves from the presence of angry people when we are not able to keep our own anger under control or when our continued presence implicitly enables the other person getting angry or acts as a de facto approval of their behavior.

All of these things are difficult, but they are all essential parts of our training.