Once we have a deep appreciation of the benefits of our objects of meditation, and mixing our mind with them is genuinely felt to be the most important thing in our life, then we will not find training in concentration to be that difficult.  We train as follows: First, we contemplate the benefits of mixing our mind with our chosen object to generate a desire to do so.  Then we engage in the contemplations which give rise to our object of meditation as explained in the various books.  Once we have found our object, we simply try maintain the continuum of remembering it, in particular remembering its meaning.  In the process of doing this, basically without us being aware of it, our mind will gradually slip away and become distracted by something else.  At some point we will “wake up” and become aware of the fact that we have lost our chosen object of concentration.  When this happens, we then ask ourselves the question, “what is more beneficial, mixing my mind with this object of distraction or mixing my mind with my object of meditation?”  If we have done our preliminary work well of realizing the benefits of our objects of meditation, the answer to this question will be obvious and heart-felt.  We then, on the basis of this desire to mix our mind with our object of meditation, re-engage in the contemplations which lead to our object and we start the cycle over.  We continue in this way again and again for as long as we have time to actually meditate.

The actual attainment of tranquil abiding appears to be a very high attainment and appears to be very far off.  Given this, it is difficult for us to actually be motivated to train in tranquil abiding because it seems like an impossible task.  Venerable Tharchin explains if we do not think something is doable, we can’t really generate a genuine effort to do it. 

So it is useful for us to consider the benefits of the earlier mental abidings.  The first mental abiding is being able to remember our object for one minute.  This is the basic building block for all subsequent attainments in concentration.  Think of how revolutionary it was for early humans to develop the first brick.  Think how that one invention has changed the world.  It is the same with the first mental abiding.  The second mental abiding is being able to remember our object for five minutes.  These are the cornerstones of our future enlightenment.  Bricks are wonderful, but they can easily fall.  If, however, we have the ability to make solid cornerstones then the structure of the object within our mind will be very solid.  The third mental abiding is when we forget our object of meditation, we can quickly regain it.  This is the difference between having to laboriously make each brick by hand compared with having industrial equipment which can crank them out quickly and perfectly every time. 

The fourth mental abiding is the ability to go an entire meditation session, even one that is four hours long, without ever once completely forgetting our object of meditation.  We are able to maintain the continuum of our meditation without interruption.  This is, in many ways, our most important attainment along the entire path.  The benefits of this are countless.  First, once we attain the fourth mental abiding, we see directly that it is entirely doable to attain tranquil abiding.  Because we see it is doable, we can then easily generate the necessary effort to complete our training in concentration.  Once we attain tranquil abiding, enlightenment will come very quickly.  Getting to the fourth mental abiding is like entering into a slip stream that leads inexorably to the attainment of tranquil abiding.  It is said that once we attain the fourth mental abiding, if we enter into strict retreat it is possible to even attain tranquil abiding within six months.  Second, once we get one object to the fourth mental abiding it is fairly easy to get all the others to the same level.  Venerable Tharchin advises we take one object and get it to the first mental abiding.  Once that is stable, we then bring all the others to the same level.  We then do the same with the second mental abiding, the third mental abiding and finally the fourth mental abiding.  The attainment of each abiding is like a muscle.  Once we build up the strength of a given muscle to lift say 10 kilos, then it doesn’t matter if the object we are lifting is round or square, we can lift it.  It is the same with the muscle of concentration.  Once we get all our objects of meditation (the 21 lamrim meditation, the six perfections, the three bringings, and the generation and completion stage objects) to the fourth mental abiding, we will make lightening progress on the path.  This is a very important moment in our spiritual life.  Fourth, we will have built the foundation of our future enlightenment.  Bricks are nice, cornerstones are great, but without a solid foundation it is all vulnerable.  Getting all our meditation objects to the fourth mental abiding is like laying the entire foundation for our future enlightenment.  Everything that follows will be built on this foundation, and everything we subsequently build will not be lost nor fall down.  Fifth, the greatest benefit of attaining the fourth mental abiding is we can guarantee we will make it to the pure land at the time of our death.  Venerable Geshe-la explained at a summer festival many years ago when he first started teaching about the Mahamudra that if we attain the fourth mental abiding on the Mahamudra object, then it is guaranteed we will attain the pure land at the time of death.  Once we attain the pure land, we will be guaranteed to complete our training.  This means attaining the fourth mental abiding is, for all practical purposes, us reaching a point of inevitable emergence from samsara.  If we can just make it to here, we will make it all the way. 

In Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Venerable Geshe-la explains how we can reach the fourth mental abiding at various stages of our Mahamudra training and skip our way to enlightenment.  These are like shortcuts on the path – by attaining the 4^th mental abiding here and there, we take quick routes to our destination, enabling the attainment of enlightenment very quickly.

Attaining the fourth mental abiding is entirely doable.  We may not at present genuinely believe we can attain tranquil abiding, but if we put enough effort into it, we do feel that attaining the fourth mental abiding is something that is doable.  It will not be easy, it will take a lot of work, but surely it takes less effort to attain the fourth mental abiding than the amount of effort we put into the average professional career.  But just look at the difference in the rewards between the two!  A good career may create stable external conditions for the rest of this life; attaining the fourth mental abiding will create stable internal conditions for an eternity.  

Downfalls that obstruct the perfection of mental stabilization

Neglecting to train in mental stabilization. 

The attainment of Tranquil Abiding is necessary to achieve profound realizations.  Therefore, if we fail to make an effort in the following areas we incur a secondary downfall:  (1) to listen to and think about the instructions on tranquil abiding, and (2) to improve our concentration by training in tranquil abiding.

At the end of the day, we have been given perfect methods for attaining enlightenment.  We have been given everything.  All we now need to do is actually do them.  Our main problem is when we do our practices, our mind is filled with distraction.  So while outwardly it appears that we are meditating, inside our mind is wandering everywhere except where it is supposed to be, namely on our practice.  If we can learn to overcome this one problem, progress along the path will come very quickly.

Why is concentration important?  Ultimately, the strength of our concentration determines the extent of our spiritual power.  The more powerful our practice, the more quickly and profoundly we make progress.  It is no exaggeration to say we are fighting a war against our delusions.  It is an all or nothing battle.  Either our delusions defeat us or we defeat our delusions.  There is no middle ground, there is no peace treaty or compromise possible.  Either we exterminate them or they will not stop until we are pinned down into the deepest hell forever.  This may sound like exaggerated rhetoric, but it is not.  Delusions are relentless in their deceptions and they will never stop.  At no point will they ever be satisfied thinking this person is deluded enough, they will keep deceiving us until they drive us literally insane.  The more freedom we give our delusion to reign within our mind, the more they will seize control of us and make us do things which only serve to harm ourself or others.  They are an enemy without remorse.  They have no redeeming qualities.  The only reason why we do not see this or realize it is because they have us so firmly in their grasp that they have convinced us they are our friends.  Against an enemy such as this, we need power to defeat them.  Concentration is our power.

Concentration has two components:  (1) remembering our chosen object of meditation, and (2) realizing its object clearly.  In the beginning, our primary focus should be remembering the object.  To remember the object means to keep it in mind, to maintain the continuum of keeping the focus of our mind on the object of our choice.  The ability to do this is called mindfulness.  Mindfulness simply means remembering our object, or more practically, not forgetting it. 

If we check, there is really only one reason why we forget our objects of meditation.  It is because we think our object of distraction is more important or more interesting than our object of meditation.  To us, the value of our objects of distraction seem evident and seem immediate, whereas the value of our objects of meditation seem abstract and seem to be far off in some uncertain future.  If we want to remember our objects of meditation, we need to reverse this.  Remembering our objects of meditation has to become, for us, the most important thing in our life.  If we can remember our objects of meditation, we will find permanent freedom.  If we allow ourselves to forget them, we will quickly be swept away and become lost forever.  Again, this sounds like hyperbole, but it is not.  The stakes are this high, the choices are this stark. 

So if we want to remember our objects we have to want to remember them because we understand them to be the most important things in our life.  We accomplish this by meditating again and again on the benefits of each meditation we do.  If we check, a very large proportion of all Geshe-la’s books is simply an explanation of the benefits of the different objects of meditation.  We should not gloss over these and try jump straight to the object of meditation itself.  If we do this, we will quickly become distracted, receive almost no benefit, and then gradually abandon our practice.  If instead, we take the time in the beginning to focus most of our time and attention on contemplating and meditating on the benefits, then we will become very motivated to remember our objects when we are in meditation.  When we meditate on the benefits of a given object of meditation, the most important thing to focus on is not the “what” but rather the “why.”  In other words, just knowing what the benefits are will have little power if we don’t understand why the given object of meditation produces the actual benefit.  If we don’t directly see and understand the connection between the two, our desire to mix our mind with these objects of meditation will be superficial at best and lack the power necessary to remain with them.  When distractions come, we will eagerly go with them.  In particular, we should focus on realizing the benefits of meditating on death, the benefits of bodhichitta, the benefits of the self-generation object and the benefits of the Mahamudra object.  These are our main and most powerful objects of meditation.

If we spend much of our time engaging in senseless conversations out of attachment we incur a secondary downfall.

Earlier I explained that no activity is senseless from its own side, it only becomes senseless when we engage in it with a senseless mind.  The same applies to conversations.  But putting that aside, we can say that a senseless conversation is a conversation about nothing of importance.  There are countless examples of such conversations, but they all come down to a common denominator of the conversations help nobody.  They just fill time. 

It is surprising how many such conversations we have.  If we check our day, it is not uncommon for half or more of our conversations to fall into this category.  Like a bunch of nervous Nellies, we chatter away saying nothing to avoid awkward moments of silence.  Or perhaps our relationship with the other person is so superficial that there is no scope to discuss anything of substance with them. 

Does this mean we should become quiet and reserved and only engage in conversations with others if they want to talk about the Dhama, because after all, only the Dharma really matters!  No, that is an absurd way of thinking.  Because as explained earlier we need karmic relationships with others, we need to engage with others.  There is nothing decreeing our conversations with others have to be devoid of meaning.  It is not difficult to engage in substantive discussions with anybody.  It suffices to take a genuine interest in the person you are talking to and asking them about their life.  Within a few minutes you can be discussing something of value. 

But sometimes, yes, this is not possible.  There are some people who we seem to only cross occasionally in the elevator and the only thing that we can seemingly discuss is, “boy, it sure is cold today” before they get off on their floor.  So be it, it’s better than just ignoring them.  But in general, with minimal effort we can have meaningful conversations with pretty much anybody.

Downfalls that obstruct the perfection of effort

Gathering a circle of followers out of desire for profit or respect. 

If, for selfish reasons, we try to gather followers we incur a secondary downfall.  This includes doing so on social media.

This is actually a very difficult vow for us.  On the one hand, it implies that we are supposed to gather a circle of followers.  This makes sense because we are trying to attain enlightenment so that we can lead others to the same state.  But to actively seek to gather a circle of followers seems to us like proselytizing and unbelievably arrogant, so we don’t quite know how to generate the wish to gather a circle of followers without it seeming weird and deluded.  It is obviously incredibly unskillful to get on top of our soapbox and try gather people up.  So how can we understand this desire?

Perhaps some examples can help us get a feel for this.  If we bake some really good chocolate chip cookies, we naturally want to share them with our kids because they are so good.  We are happy to share them with others.  When we discover some new way of doing things that really works and we see others struggling with the same problem, we naturally want to share with them our strategy so that it is easier for them.  When we succeed in accomplishing something and we see others trying to do the same, we are happy to share our experience with them to help them along.  It is the same with the Dharma.  All these examples contain two key ingredients:  (1) an appreciation of the value of what we have, and (2) others who from their own side already want but don’t have what we have to share.  If we don’t ourselves appreciate the value of what we have and others don’t want what we have, then it is inappropriate to try gather people to share it.  But if we do have such an appreciation and others do want what we have, then it is entirely natural to want to share it with them. 

So how do we actually gather such a circle?  Obviously, if we belong to a Dharma center, regardless of whether or not we are the teacher of that center, we naturally want the center to grow and for more and more students to come to the center.  There is nothing wrong with this.  When we have something special, we naturally want to share it with others.  If we see the value of what the center has to offer ourselves, then we will naturally want others to also benefit from it.  So we will do things like help with publicity or we will tell some of our friends or relatives about the center if we think they might be open to it. But the best thing we can do is create a loving, open, fun, and accepting atmosphere at the center.  If the culture of the center is like this, then people will naturally, from their own side, want to stay.  So we really don’t need to do anything other than actually practice what we have been taught with the other people at the center.  When new people come, we don’t jump on them and try convert them, we just be friendly and open and let them discover things.  It is often better to offer them tea and cookies than Dharma advice.  We wait for them to ask questions before we start giving them answers. 

Outside of a Dharma center, we can recall the story of Venerable Tharchin I mentioned in a previous post, where Geshe-la said if he didn’t come out of retreat he would be a worthless Buddha because he didn’t have karmic relationships with living beings.  Our ability to help anybody depends upon our karmic relationship with them.  From a practical level this is obvious, if you don’t have any connection with somebody how can you help them.  Also, we see every day that we are able to more easily help those we are close to than those we hardly know or interact with. 

At a deeper, unseen level, the only way we can actually help people is through them receiving blessings of the Buddhas.  Geshe-la explains that living beings are basically incapable of generating a virtuous mind on their own.  Due to our past of having spent virtually all our previous lives in the lower realms engaging only in negativity, the overwhelming gradient in our mind is towards the negative.  We see this every day.  It is much easier to get angry at somebody than it is to do something nice to them without expecting anything in return.  This is where Buddha’s blessings come in.  Buddhas have the power to activate positive karmic potentialities on the minds of living beings.  They can find that needle in a haystack of negative tendencies and ripen it.  Once it ripens, we then are far more likely to engage in virtuous actions, which plants more positive seeds, which can then be ripened as well, gradually building up karmic momentum like a spiritual locomotive until eventually it becomes more natural for us to engage in virtue and it actually becomes hard to engage in negativity. 

We may ask, if Buddhas have the power to start such virtuous karmic cycles in the minds of living beings, why aren’t they doing it to everyone every day.  The short answer is they are doing the best they can, but from our own side we haven’t created the causes and conditions for them to do so.  It may be bright and sunny outside, but if all our windows are sealed shut, very little light can creep into our room. And this is where our karmic connections with living beings come in. 

Karmic connections are like invisible karmic fiber optic cables through which the light of the Buddha’s blessings can pass.  Because we are practitioners, we are actively trying to open up our windows to the light.  So light is flowing into us.  Then, through the karmic connections we create with others, this light can then flow out to others.  The more karmic connections we have with others, the more bandwidth our cables have, and the more light of blessings flow through.  It is for this reason that Venerable Tharchin said, “for every step we take towards enlightenment, we bring all living beings with us in proportion to the karmic connection we have with them.” 

Interestingly, apparently bad karmic connections with others are better than no karmic connections at all.  There are two stories which illustrate this point.  The first is (if I recall the story correctly, perhaps some scholar can help me get the story right), Buddhas first five disciples were actually beings in the past who had engaged in some serious negativity towards a previous incarnation of Buddha.  There is another story of a yogi who really wanted to help some local farmer, but the yogi and the farmer had no connection at all.  No matter what the yogi tried, nothing worked.  So the yogi came up with an idea – he went into the farmers field and smashed all his crops.  That got the farmer’s attention, and he came out saying he would kill the yogi who was running off gleefully.  The yogi knew that now, once the negative karma between him and the farmer had exhausted itself the yogi would have a close karmic connection through which he could help.  This doesn’t mean we should go around and intentionally destroy people’s work to create karma with them, but it does illustrate the power and importance of karmic connections.

Regardless of whether or not we are currently a teacher, we are all aspiring Bodhisattvas.  As such, we need a vast web of karmic relationships with as many beings as possible.  It is through this web of karmic relationships that we will eventually be able to lead everyone to enlightenment.  How do we build such karmic relationships?  By cherishing others, serving them, helping them and caring for them in every way possible.  We can also pray for others.  No matter what is happening, we can always pray for others.  Even when we ourselves are sick in the hospital dying, nothing can stop us from praying for others.

If we do not make a special effort to practice patience when we find ourselves getting angry, we incur a secondary downfall.

Anger will never go away on its own.  If we don’t get rid of our anger, it will destroy us.  Our anger ruins everything that is good in our life.  We may love our children very much, but because we get angry at them and fail to apologize for it, they harbor resentment against us and eventually come to reject everything we have to say and rebel against everything we stand for.  Later, when they have kids, they don’t want us to be part of their life and we are denied the opportunity to see our grandkids.  They blame us for all that is wrong in their life and despite all we have done for them, they want nothing to do with us.  This is not uncommon at all, and it is incredibly painful.  If we want to avoid this being our own story, we must bring our anger under control. 

Every time we get angry we not only hurt those we love, we also create the causes to go to hell.  This is a karmic truth, no matter how much we wish it was otherwise.  Is it worth it?  Is it worth it to destroy our relationships with those we love only to wind up in hell later for it?  This is no game, this is a fact.  Sometimes when we are forced to confront this karmic truth, it makes us feel guilty and we start to beat ourselves up over it.  But guilt too is a form of anger – anger against ourselves.  Or we start to freak out about how we are getting angry and can’t stop ourselves, and we get all tight and neurotic.  This doesn’t help either.  So then we think it is better for us to ignore this karmic fact and not think about it.  But that is just burying our head in the sand, and when the end of this life comes there will be no sand left to hide in.  We must work through these things and channel the emotions the karmic truth of this creates in us to productive purposes.

The first thing we need to do is apologize as soon as we can.  The longer we wait to apologize, the more time the karma has to take root within our mind.  In particular, we should never go to sleep before we have apologized.  Venerable Tharchin explains that falling asleep functions to plant the negative karma deeper within our mind and so makes it harder to uproot.  But if we apologize before we go to bed, then we can hopefully clean up the negative karma before it takes root. 

Second, we need to stop anger in its early stages of development.  The earliest stage of anger is inappropriate attention – we focus on the bad and then we exaggerate it.  Instead, we need to choose to focus on the good and we need to become an expert at saying “it doesn’t matter” for the bad. 

Third, we need to surrender our lives to Dorje Shugden.  We get angry because we wish things were different than they are.  When we rely on Dorje Shugden, he arranges all the outer and inner conditions so that they are perfect for our practice.  Perfect here doesn’t mean perfect for our worldly concerns – in other words it doesn’t mean they will be what our delusions want – rather, perfect here means perfect for our spiritual training.  If what we want is to grow spiritually, then the fact that things are so bad from a worldly perspective will be experienced as being a good thing from a spiritual perspective.  We will be happy things are so bad because we see how beneficial that is for our spiritual growth.  If things are “perfect” there is no basis for us wishing things were different than they are, and so therefore there will be no basis for ever getting angry.  I literally overcome about 95% of my own anger in this way.

Fourth, we can channel these feelings into a wish to purify.  If we made a big mess in our house, obviously we need to clean it up.  We live there, after all.  In the same way, if we made a big karmic mess in our mind, then we need to clean it up.  We can never escape residing within our own mind.  We can think, “if I don’t purify, disaster awaits me.  If I want to avoid that, I need to purify now.”  One of the most common obstacles to generating a strong wish to purify is we struggle to think of what negative actions we have committed that are so bad.  But every time we see somebody else commit some negative action, we can view that person as a mirror reflecting back to us what we have done to others in the past.  We are, from a karmic perspective, actually looking at our own past deeds.  This is true regardless of whether the other person is committing the negative action against us.  If we dream of somebody harming somebody else, where did these appearances come from?  Our own karma.  It is the same with the waking world.

Not apologizing when we have the opportunity. 

If we have disturbed another person by acting unskillfully, and later the opportunity to apologize arises but, out of pride or laziness, we fail to do so we incur a secondary downfall.

Just as others harm us all the time, we too harm others all the time with our unskillful actions.  Normally we internally excuse our wrong behavior on the grounds of the other person provoking us in some way, “it’s their fault!”  But nobody has the power to provoke us, we allow ourselves to be provoked.  Ultimately, we need to be responsible for all our behavior, regardless of what others do.  This is not easy, but its not being easy doesn’t make it the wrong thing to do. 

When we do harm others, such as saying something hurtful, then later, once we have calmed down, we need to make a point of apologizing.  I know a mother who has a bad habit of getting angry at her kid.  She is a very powerful and smart woman, and when she gets angry she can be downright nasty, controlling and hurtful.  But she also has an unshakable habit of always apologizing to her kid afterwards when she eventually calms down.  She tells her kid, “I’m sorry I got angry at you and treated you in that way.  Mommy’s anger just took over, and I am sorry.  When I get like that, I want you to know it is not your fault that I get so angry, it is my responsibility.  Just ignore me and know that it is my anger talking not me.”  Then she has a good laugh with her kid about how crazy she sometimes acts.  Because she has consistently done this, her son has learned how to take her mother’s anger in stride where it doesn’t affect him.  He knows she will later come apologize.  This doesn’t mean that he might not need to change his behavior if he has been doing something wrong, but it does prevent the anger from destroying the relationship and making things worse.  This mother’s habit of apologizing and having a good laugh not only disarms the harmful effects of her anger, it also teaches her kid how to relate to his own feelings of anger and what he should do when he himself gets upset. 

Until we are an advanced bodhisattva, getting angry is pretty much unavoidable.  But apologizing afterwards is completely within our control.

One last thing, sometimes we hold off on giving our apology because actually it was the other person who started it and clearly they are the one who committed the bigger harm, so we think surely they must apologize first.  This is a completely mistaken way of thinking.  First, if they don’t apologize then we start getting upset at them about not apologizing when we think they should.  Second, just because they did something wrong doesn’t in any way excuse or justify our own mistakes.  We need to own up to our mistakes and take responsibility for them.  Third, when we apologize it often creates the space for the other person to apologize as well.  And even if they don’t apologize in return (which of course will have the potential to really make us angry again), we can at least know we did the right thing by apologizing.  If the other person doesn’t apologize as well, that is their mistake.  But at least from our own side we have done the right thing.

Not accepting others’ apologies. 

If someone who has previously harmed us later apologies and, without a good reason but not out of resentment (which is a root downfall) we refuse to accept, we incur a secondary downfall.

Very often if we were in a fight with somebody and they later apologize but we haven’t yet overcome our own anger towards them, we will take advantage of their apology as a sign of weakness and then we attack them one last time.  When we do this, they then get angry back and the cycle can start over, or at a minimum they decide they better not apologize again in the future because when they do so they get their hand bit off.  This is obviously completely wrong.

When somebody apologizes, that is them admitting they were wrong and they are seeking to make things right again.  Why would we not want to cooperate with that?  As bodhisattvas, we want others to attain enlightenment.  If they generate regret for their negativity and try to do something nice to set things straight, we should be delighted and welcome fully their effort, even if they make a hash out of it.  From our own side, we should repay their apology with one of our own, and we should try have a good laugh with them about how sometimes we act silly.  Our accepting their apology is also a very powerful way of letting go of our own pent up resentment towards the other person.  Resentment is like a cancer within our mind.

The difference between a worldly person and a spiritual person is which life they are working for.  Worldly people work to enjoy good effects in this life.  Spiritual people use this life to create good causes for their future lives.  The road of our future lives is endless and it is guaranteed.  The road of this life is indefinite, and it could end at any time.  It doesn’t matter at all what happens in this life, any more than it matters what happened in last night’s dream. We are so obsessed with what we are “feeling.”  Who cares what we are feeling?  What difference does it really make?  It is only because we think we are important that we think what we feel is important.  But the self we think we are doesn’t even exist, so how could its happiness possibly be important?  And even if it was important, what is more important this one fleeting life or our countless future lives?  There comes a time in our normal life where we work hard now to have things easier in the future.  We voluntarily endure the sufferings of university so that we can get a good job and have a better life thereafter.  We happily work hard and save up our money to go on a special trip.  This involves sacrifice in the short run, which we gladly accept because we know the rewards are greater on the other side.  Such is the optic of the spiritual practitioner.

We cannot blame others for being so inconsiderate and harmful to us.  It is not their fault.  They don’t even exist, they are just karmic echoes of our own past harmful and selfish behavior.  We have nobody to blame but our past delusions which drove us to negativity.  If we did not have the karma on our mind to be harmed, nobody would even appear to harm us.  Our negative karma propels them to harm us.  When they do so, they create negative karma for themselves and they will suffer in the future.  From our side, if we accept the suffering, we purify our negative karma and so are better off; but from their side they accumulate negative karma and will have to experience similar suffering (or worse) in the future.  So who is better off and who is worse off?  It is we who should be saying sorry to them. 

This does not mean we should allow others to abuse us and take advantage of us.  There is a middle way between being a doormat and being a raging lunatic.  We do not help people by allowing them to abuse us, so we must break the cycle.  But we also don’t help them by retaliating, which just causes the cycle of mutual harm to continue.  Ghandi showed the middle way.  We accept the harm, but we refuse to cooperate with its wrong purpose.  We accept the harm as purification, but we don’t reward it by giving people what they want.  Blackmail only works when we give in.  If we refuse to give in, even if people throw everything they have at us, then we break the cycle.  We accept the harm in the short run to be free from it in the long run.  If people blackmail us and we don’t give in, they may try to blackmail us again in the future, but both they and we will know it won’t succeed.  We have stared them down once before, and we can do so again.  Eventually they give up trying.  This helps them and it helps us.

Of course, if we can avoid others harming us we should do so.  There are enough instances of people harming us where we cannot avoid it that we don’t need to needlessly expose ourselves to harm that is avoidable.  Sometimes not cooperating with others delusions means ending that particular relationship.  We do not stick around with others abusing us if we can leave.  But for the harm we cannot avoid, or for the harm that is too insignificant to warrant ending the relationship over, we accept it and refuse to cooperate with it.  We shouldn’t go to extremes with this.  In general, we should go along with others wishes as long as they are not harmful.  We don’t expect others to be perfect and always completely free from harm.  We need to accept others’ mistakes and give people the space to change.  But on important things, we need to fearlessly say no and not give in.