6. Special series

Ultimate stages of the path: Seizing our precious human life

Kadampa Ryan Ultimate stages of the path

This is part 3 in a 31 part series on my understanding of how to practice the ultimate perfection of each stage of the path.

We normally refer to this meditation as the meditation on our precious human life.  But it is important to understand that every stage of the path is a mental action, and therefore the actual meditation of each stage of the path is a verb not a noun.  So while we call this the meditation on our precious human life, we should understand that the meaning here is “the wisdom decision to seize the opportunity afforded by our precious human life.”  According to Sutra, the perfection of this is the wisdom decision to fully seize the opportunity afforded by our precious human life by using it to attain the final goal of full enlightenment so that we may guide all others to the same state.  According to Highest Yoga Tantra, we use our precious human life to attain the specific goal of becoming our Highest Yoga Tantra deity, such as Heruka or Vajrayogini.  The ultimate perfection of this stage of the path, therefore, is the perfection of this wisdom decision according to Highest Yoga Tantra conjoined with an understanding that our precious human life, our act of seizing and the final result we strive for are all empty.

Our “precious human life” can be understood to be empty in two ways.  First, our human life is not precious from its own side, rather it becomes precious in dependence upon our mental decision to use it to accomplish spiritual goals.  All life is, of course, precious, but that is not the meaning here.  Precious in this context means more than the mere existence of human life.  Here our human life is as spiritually precious as the extent to which we use it to accomplish spiritual purposes.  The higher our spiritual purpose, the more precious our life becomes.  If we use our human life to accomplish the highest goal of becoming Heruka or Vajrayogini for the benefit of all, then our human life is the most spiritually precious possible.  If we use our human life to attain personal liberation or to avoid a lower rebirth, our human life is still precious, but less so than if we use it to become a Buddha.  In this context, if we use our human life only to attain goals that concern this life alone, then our human life is not spiritually precious at all.  Thus, the preciousness of our human life depends upon our mind and so is therefore empty.

Second, we can understand the emptiness of our precious human life by understanding that the conditions which make our human life precious, namely the 8 freedoms and the 10 endowments explained in the lamrim teachings, are themselves mere karmic appearances of mind.  The 8 freedoms are in essence freedom from conditions which prevent us from practicing Dharma, such as being born in the lower realms.  The 10 endowments are in essence favorable conditions which give us the actual opportunity to practice Dharma, such as having access to teachings and the mental faculties and disposition necessary to actually practice.  A detailed explanation of these can be found in Joyful Path of Good Fortune.  Where do these 8 freedoms and 10 endowments come from?  They are the karmic results of our own past actions.  In the past we engaged in the actions which created the karmic causes and conditions which are now ripening in the form of our precious human life.  Karma is primarily mental action.  For example, our mental action of engaging in moral discipline created the karma for us to have a human life.  Our mental action of deciding to create the conditions for the Dharma to be available to others, such as by helping out at our centers in the past or giving Dharma teachings, created the causes for the Dharma to be available to us now.  What is the nature of these 8 freedoms and 10 endowments?  They are by nature mere karmic appearances of mind.  They are a mere appearance because each one can be shown to be nothing more than a mental imputation on the basis of a certain collection of parts.  They are a karmic appearance because the appearance itself of these conditions arises in dependence upon karma.  And the nature of these appearances is our mind itself, specifically the emptiness of our mind of great bliss appearing in the aspect of these freedoms and endowments.

Our act of seizing our precious human life itself is also empty.  The actor is our empty self, the object of our action is our empty human life, the action of seizing is a mental decision to change our mind in the ways indicated by the instructions and the effect of the seizing is the karmic potential to experience the inner results of attaining our spiritual goals.  The emptiness of ourself and our empty human life have already been explained.  The action of seizing itself is a mental decision to change our mind in a particular way.  Normally, we allow our mind to be pulled or pushed according to the uncontrolled whims of our delusions.  But the action of seizing is a mental decision to intentionally choose to mentally respond to our life in a different way, such as by avoiding negative actions understanding their karmic consequences or by seeing through the deceptive lies of our delusions and thus not following their misguided advice or by choosing to put the interests of others first.  Each such decision is a mental changing of the shape and inner dynamics of the ocean of our mind.  And the karmic fruit of these actions is a karmic potentiality which will ripen in the future as a mere karmic appearance of our body, mind, environment or enjoyments being those of a Buddha (or something that moves in that direction).

The final result we strive for is also empty.  As explained in the meditation on reliance upon the spiritual guide, a Buddha is empty.  Normally we grasp at our future Buddhahood as somehow being an inherently different being.  No.  Right now, the ocean of our mind is in the aspect of an ordinary contaminated being in an ordinary contaminated world of suffering surrounded by others experiencing a similar fate.  By training our mind in the stages of the path, we karmically reshape the ocean of our mind to appear in the aspect of the Vajra King Heruka in his universal pure land Keajra surrounded by all beings having been led to the final blissfully pure result of full enlightenment.  The ultimate nature of both appearances is the same – namely the emptiness of the ocean of our very subtle mind of great bliss – what changes is our realization of its ultimate nature and its assumed aspect or shape.  Samsara and Nirvana are equally empty, just two different aspects or shapes the emptiness of the ocean of our mind might take.

In short, we practice the ultimate perfection of seizing our precious human life by realizing that our freedoms and endowments are mere karmic appearances of mind, and in dependence upon that understanding we make the mental decision to reshape our mind in the ways indicated by the Dharma instructions for the purpose of creating the karmic potentialities which will ripen in the future in the form of the emptiness of the ocean of our very subtle mind of great bliss assuming the aspect of Heruka or Vajrayogini liberating all the other waves of living beings.

Ultimate stages of the path: Reliance upon the Spiritual Guide

Kadampa Ryan Ultimate stages of the path

Once again, every stage of the path is a mental action.  Just as the act of giving becomes a “perfection of giving” when the act of giving is motivated by bodhichitta, or the wish to become a Buddha, so too any stage of the path becomes an “ultimate” stage of the path when it is practiced from the point of view of ultimate truth, emptiness.  The ultimate perfection of any stage of the path, therefore, is to engage in the conventional action of that stage of the path motivated by bodhichitta and conjoined with and infused by the wisdom realizing emptiness.  Or more succinctly, the ultimate perfection of any stage of the path is engaging in that stage of the path motivated by ultimate bodhichitta.  The purpose of the next 30 posts is to explain my understanding of how to engage in the ultimate perfection of all of the stages of the path.  In this post, I will begin with the root of the path, reliance upon the spiritual guide.  This post is quite long, and for that I apologize, but taking the time to understand it will enable you to understand more easily all of the remaining posts in this series.

From a conventional point of view, reliance upon the spiritual guide is a two-fold mental action:  first, we generate a conviction that the spiritual guide is a Buddha (and therefore completely reliable), and second, on the basis of this faith, we put his/her instructions into practice to the best of our ability.  The perfection of reliance upon the spiritual guide is to rely upon the spiritual guide so as to become a Buddha with the ability to lead all beings to the same state.  The ultimate perfection, therefore, of reliance upon the spiritual guide is to rely upon the spiritual guide to become a Buddha understanding that the spiritual guide, ourselves, all beings and our reliance itself are all empty.

The emptiness of the spiritual guide can be understood as follows:  the “spiritual guide” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation that is “a person who is the synthesis of all three jewels.”  This is very profound.  As will be explained in a later post, according to Buddhism, the three jewels are the three main objects we turn to – namely, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha – in order to solve our inner problems of delusions and their karmic imprints.  “Buddha” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of “a person that has purified their mind completely of delusions and their karmic imprints and thereby realized fully within their own mental continuum all good qualities.”  “Dharma” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of “all of Buddha’s advice for how to become a Buddha ourselves.”  “Sangha” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of “all those who are striving to put the Dharma into practice.”  The “synthesis of all three jewels” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation that is “the synthesis of all of the Buddhas, all of the Dharma and all of the Sangha fully in mutually reinforcing harmony with one another.”  Synthesis, here, means “fully in mutually reinforcing harmony with one another.”  The synthesis of all three jewels in turn is comprised of “the synthesis of all of the Buddhas”, “the synthesis of all of the Dharma” and the “synthesis of all of the Sangha.”  So the synthesis of all of the Buddhas is how all of the Buddhas mutually reinforce one another in their common task of liberating all beings.  The synthesis of all the Dharma is an understanding of the resolution of all apparent contradiction between any of Buddha’s instructions combined with an understanding of how each instruction mutually reinforces every other instruction.  The synthesis of all the Sangha is the resolution of all conflict, even the most subtle, within the Sangha combined with the perfect harmonization of all of their efforts aimed at practicing the stages of the path and supporting one another in this endeavor.   So building back up, upon the basis of imputation that is the synthesis of all of the Buddhas, all of the Dharma and all of the Sangha we impute “synthesis of all three jewels.”  A person who realizes fully the synthesis of all three jewels as their basis of imputation for their “I” is a “spiritual guide.”   If we contemplate this fully we begin to glimpse the sheer magnificent splendor that is a spiritual guide and it is difficult to not start to cry.  The Spiritual Guide is simply the synthesis of all that is good.

The emptiness of ourselves is explained extensively in every book written by Venerable Geshe-la.  Quite simply it is realizing that our “I” is a mere mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of our body and mind, but if we remove our body and our mind completely there is nothing remaining that is the “I”.

The emptiness of others is also quite profound.  Normally we conceive of others as separate, independent beings.  I am here, they are there, and their is this unbridgeable chasm that stands between us.  We grasp at others existing inherently separate from us.  This is completely wrong.  In reality, each being, including ourselves, is a wave on the ocean of all living beings.  Out of ignorance we grasp at each wave as being inherently distinct from all of the others, but in reality they are all by nature the same ocean and thus inseparable from one another.  While we can nominally distinguish one wave from another, we cannot separate them from their underlying unity.  It is the same with all living beings.  My ignorance tells me I am just the wave called Ryan.  I grasp at this wave as being separate from all of the other waves, and on this basis I engage in actions which put the interests of the Ryan wave above the interests of all of the other waves.  And everybody else in samsara is doing the same thing.  No wonder the waves of humanity are so choppy, full of conflict and turmoil like in a violent storm.  But when I realize “Ryan” is just one wave on the ocean of all living beings that is my true self, then I seek what is best for the harmony and mutual stillness and peace of all of the waves.  When I conceive of myself as the ocean, as opposed to any individual wave, then each and every living being, including Ryan, becomes but a single aspect or part of my larger self.  If I kick the dog, it is one part of myself kicking another part of myself.  How senseless is that?  To see the emptiness of all living beings is to see how we are all part of one indivisible whole, and upon this basis harming others becomes non-sensical and dedicating our life to leading others to full enlightenment becomes entirely natural.

The emptiness of the mental action of reliance itself is at first difficult to understand because it is very difficult to understand the relationship between emptiness and action.  Normally we think if something is empty it can’t act and we think if there is action it must inherently exist.  But this too is completely wrong.  In reality, action is only possible because the actor, the action itself, the object of the action and the fruit of the action are all empty.  If the actor was inherently separate from the object of the action, how could it possibly act upon the object when there is no point of contact?  If the action itself was inherently separate from its fruit, how could it possibly produce any fruit since there is no connection between the two?  It is only because the actor and the object of action are part of the same entity that they can interact with one another, and it is only because the action and its fruit are part of the same continuum that cause and effect can exist.  If we conceive of the mind as a body of water, by changing our mind (the mental action) we change the shape of the body of water and thus cause one wave (the actor)  to interact with another wave (the object of the action) producing a new pattern of waves (the effect or fruit).  This too is very profound.  If we understand the empty relationship between actor, object of action, action and its effect then our understanding of emptiness is very qualified and there is great hope that we will be able to engage in the ultimate perfection of each of the stages of the path to enlightenment.

As this relates to the ultimate perfection of reliance upon the spiritual guide, the conventional action of reliance upon the spiritual guide is to first generate the conviction that the spiritual guide is a Buddha and to then, on the basis of that faith, put his/her instructions into practice to the best of our ability.  The actor, here, is ourselves.  The mental action is to put any Dharma instruction into practice with the wisdom conviction that the instruction is completely reliable.  The object of the action is the instruction itself.  And the effect, or fruit, of the action is to make the ocean of our mind more peaceful and calm.  The conviction here is particularly important because it is this mental conviction that gives our mental action force or power.  The greater our conviction or belief, the more power or force there is in the mental action.  Since the object of the action is the instruction and all instructions when practiced function to make our mind more peaceful and calm, the more power with which we engage in the action the more complete will be the resulting inner peace.  Venerable Geshe-la once told Venerable Tharchin that if he fully believed that his spiritual guide was a Buddha, he would attain enlightenment in an instant!  Such is the force-multiplying power of this conviction on all of our spiritual actions.  Understood in this way, the ultimate perfection of reliance upon the spiritual guide is not a singular mental action, rather it is a way of engaging in all of the other mental actions that are the stages of the path.  This is why reliance upon the spiritual guide is a transversal practice, in other words it pervades all of our other practices making them dramatically more powerful.  It is the root of the path because there is no path without it.  Why?  Because if we lack any conviction that the mental actions we are engaging in are reliable then our mental actions themselves will lack any power and thus produce no fruit.

Generating the conviction that our spiritual guide is a Buddha is actually easy when we understand his emptiness.  He is a Buddha because we have mentally constructed him as such (see above).  A person constructs themselves as a Buddha by imputing their I on a mind that has realized all of the stages of the path.  A person constructs themselves as a spiritual guide by imputing their I on the synthesis of all three jewels.  We construct someone as a Spiritual Guide by viewing not the person as an I imputed upon the ordinary contaminated aggregates of body and mind, but rather by viewing them, their instructions and their actions as the unfolding manifestation of the synthesis of all three jewels within the ocean of our mind.  This view alone functions to bestow upon our mind a wisdom that interprets them, their instructions and their actions as this synthesis of all three jewels unfolding within our mind, and as such we receive the wisdom and blessings of the synthesis of all three jewels  through this person even if from their own side they are a completely ordinary being!  As Venerable Geshe-la said, if we view our spiritual guide as a Buddha, we will receive the blessings of a Buddha; if we view them as a bodhisattva, we will receive the blessings of a bodhisattva; and if we view them as ordinary we will receive nothing.

In summary:  first we construct the mental object “spiritual guide” which is the synthesis of all three jewels.  Then we impute “spiritual guide” on everything.  From this, we will receive teachings from and the blessings of our spiritual guide through everything.  Powered by this, we put into practice what we have learned and the result will be a gradual calming of the waters of our mind until eventually it becomes the completely still and translucent clear light omniscience of a Buddha.

Ultimate stages of the path: Introduction

Kadampa Ryan Ultimate stages of the path

The fundamental reason why I am a Kadampa Buddhist is because I have been convinced of its merits on the basis of weight of argument.  In the Kadampa teachings, I have found valid and indeed definitive reasons establishing its truth.  On the basis of being convinced of its validity, I have put the instructions into practice and found them to be reliable – in other words, they work as advertised.  The definitive reason for every Kadampa teaching is the truth of emptiness.  Emptiness can be logically and experientially established as true – it does not require a leap of faith to believe, it can be shown to be true.  From this, the entire Kadampa path can be established as true.  Practicing the path conjoined with an understanding of its emptiness is the ultimate, or definitive, way of practicing it.  Therefore, it is quite important to understand the emptiness of each main aspect of the path.

Every stage of the path is a mental action.  Just as the act of giving becomes a “perfection of giving” when the act of giving is motivated by bodhichitta, or the wish to become a Buddha, so too any stage of the path becomes an “ultimate” stage of the path when it is practiced from the point of view of ultimate truth, emptiness.  For example, reliance upon the spiritual guide becomes “ultimate reliance upon the spiritual guide” when we engage in the conventional action of reliance upon the spiritual guide conjoined with and infused by the wisdom realizing emptiness.  The ultimate perfection of any stage of the path, therefore, is to engage in the conventional action of that stage of the path motivated by bodhichitta and conjoined with and infused by the wisdom realizing emptiness.  Or more succinctly, the ultimate perfection of any stage of the path is engaging in that stage of the path motivated by ultimate bodhichitta.  The purpose of the next series of posts is to explain my understanding of how to engage in the ultimate perfection of all of the stages of the path – specifically, the ultimate perfection of the 21 lamrim meditations, of the 6 perfections, of the two stages and of the final result.

For this reason, over the next series of posts I will explain my understanding of the emptiness of each stage of the path of both Sutra and Tantra.  I do not in any way claim that this explanation is correct, rather I am just sharing my understanding as it is in the hope that if there is some validity to what I am saying it might prove useful to others; and if it is wrong, somebody will correct me so that I can improve my understanding.

I have explained previously my understanding of emptiness.  You can find it under the “emptiness” category on the right.  But briefly emptiness says there is nothing other than mere creations of mind.  Everything is constructed by mind, and there is nothing real behind any of these constructions.  Everything is a mere karmic appearance of mind.  They nonetheless function as the dance, or inner workings, of the mind.  The key to understanding the Prasangika view of emptiness (the ultimate view according to Sutra) is to make the distinction between “the basis of imputation” and “the imputation itself.”

This can be illustrated with a couple of simple examples.  The basis of imputation of a “fleet” is “a bunch of ships.”  The collection of the ships is the basis of imputation and upon this collection my mind imputes the mental label “fleet.”  The fleet itself is nothing more than a mere mental projection or imputation.  If I go looking for a real fleet, I find none.  None of the individual ships is the fleet and if I take away all of the ships there is no fleet to be found anywhere.  From this, we can see that the “fleet” is nothing more than a creation or projection of mind.  Using the same logic, a “forest” is nothing more than a mere mental imputation on “a bunch of trees” and an “army” is nothing more than a mere mental imputation on “a bunch of soldiers.”  The fleet, forest and army are all mere imputations by mind.

We might object, “OK, yes, I see how fleet, forest and army are mere imputations by mind, but there are nonetheless ships, trees and forests that are actually there.”  But closer examination reveals this is incorrect.  What is a “ship”?  It is a mere mental imputation on a collection of “hull, engine, deck and interior rooms.”  The ship is not any one of these things individually and if I removed them all there is no ship to be found anywhere.  The same is true for the “engine”, it is a mere mental imputation on some pistons, belts, frame and spark plugs.  Each of these in turn is also just a mere mental imputation on the collection of even smaller parts.  We can continue this way until we get to the “atom”, which is just a mere mental imputation on “a collection of electrons, protons and neutrons.”  And even these are being smashed these days into smaller and smaller parts by particle accelerators.  No matter how small we go, we never find anything other than once more a mere mental imputation imputed on the basis of some collection of even smaller parts.  There is no end to this.  From this we can see that the entire world is nothing more than a giant Christmas tree of mental labels.  When you strip away everything that you can validly identify as just a mental label, you find absolutely nothing!  There is nothing there behind any of the labels – everything is dream-like creation of mind.

What then are these mental labels themselves?  They are the individual waves on the ocean of our mind.  In the ocean, there are many different waves which we can mentally distinguish one from another.  But in reality, they are all by nature the same ocean.  There are not actually distinct waves, rather it is just our mind that labels them as such.  It is the same with everything else.  Every phenomena, every person every thing, is just a different wave on the ocean of our mind.  They are not actually distinct from one another, rather it is just our mind that labels them as such.  As explained in the Tantric teachings, the conventional nature of our mind is omniscient great bliss and the ultimate nature of our mind is emptiness, so the final nature of the ocean of our mind is the union of great bliss and emptiness.  The Sutra Prasangika view establishes that all things are mental waves, the Tantra Prasangika view (the final, ultimate view according to Tantra) says the nature (or ocean) of these waves is our mind of great bliss and emptiness, and the two are inseparable – you cannot have a wave without its underlying ocean.

So what creates the individual waves?  Our karma.  Karma is mental action.  Each time we engage in a mental action, it reshapes in some way the ocean of our mind creating different waves.  By definition, virtuous mental actions function to make the waves of our mind more tranquil, peaceful and calm;  and non-virtuous mental actions function to make the waves of our mind more turbulent, unpeaceful and agitated.  Each and every stage of the path is a mental action.  Our training in the stages of the path is nothing more than a training our mind in abandoning those mental actions that make the ocean of our mind unpeaceful and agitated, and instead training our mind in engaging in those mental actions that make the ocean of our mind more calm and indeed translucent.

What follows over the next 30 posts will be an explanation of how we train in the 29 main mental actions on the path conjoined with ultimate bodhichitta, and how doing so functions to make the ocean of our mind increasingly peaceful until eventually it settles into a complete inner stillness of a blissful meaning clear light.  From this, we then arise as a “great wave” of a  Buddha that effortlessly functions to lead all beings to the same state.

Please don’t ruin the holidays for everyone else

Kadampa Ryan Cultivating healthy relationships with others

The holiday season is supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year, and that is exactly why it is generally the opposite!  What happens around the holiday season is people say, “it is supposed to be special”, and because it is “special” we have higher expectations for how things are supposed to go a certain way.  When they predictably fail to do so, we then get upset because things are not unfolding according to our expectations.  Then, because we get upset, we make everybody else around us stressed out as they try live up to our expectations or we just make them miserable because they become the objects of our frustration and anger.

What I typically do when faced with this dynamic is I then harbor all sorts of resentment that the other person is getting upset in this way, and then I starting acting all stupid saying things like “I want to do whatever you want to do” “I want to do whatever will stop you from being upset.”  I might not say these things, but my actions will speak louder than words.  My goal when I act like this is not to genuinely make the other person happy, but instead to try demonstrate to the other person that they are being unreasonable.  So unsurprisingly, they know I am not being sincere and then we enter into these snarky exchanges where each side is trying to give the other person what they want, but not really doing so, because the real objective is to highlight to the other person that they are being unreasonable.

Another typical way we ruin the holidays is project all sorts of expectations about how others need to be grateful for our giving or our acts of kindness, and then when they are not grateful, we get upset at them about that.  This then ruins our giving and robs them of any enjoyment.  Or we can generate all sorts of jealousy about how others are getting more gifts than we are or we generate resentment about how we gave to others more than they gave to us.

Another common thing that happens is we have our relatives over.  We project that they can sometimes be difficult people so we do everything we can to try engineer the situation and the kids so nothing happens that could possibly upset the relatives or guests coming over.  But because we are more uptight and trying to make everything perfect, we create a pressure cooker for our kids, so they feel this and inevitably start acting up.  We then clamp down on them and guilt trip them saying things like “So and so didn’t come here to just to see you fight and act up.”  This of course just causes us to enter into a fight with them, creating the very problem we were trying to avoid.  It also makes our kids feel bad about themselves, they feel like a failure because they have ruined the holiday, and then they enter into a self-pity/anger spiral.

One of my favorite ways that I ruin the holidays is quite ironic.  I have seen all of the dynamics above and gotten upset at my family for falling into them.  I want everybody to just relax and have a good time.  But then I am doing the same thing I am accusing them of!  I am expecting them to be more chillaxed and easy going than they normally are, and then when they show even the slightest frustration about anything, I then freak out completely and think “there you go again, ruining another holiday.”  I so insist that everyone be easygoing that I myself am the least easygoing of them all.  I then self-righteously lecture others about how they shouldn’t expect everything to be perfect on holidays, etc.

The other extreme I often fall into in the holiday season is thinking “holidays are just not worth the hassle – everybody just fights and gets upset anyways.”  Secretly, I wish that there weren’t any holidays at all so we didn’t have to deal with all of the drama.  But then others around me who do want to celebrate the holidays sense that I am being all bah-humbug.  They feel like I am not really into it and am bitter about the whole thing.  I then ruin their fun.  They then get upset at me about that, I of course deny that I am doing it, I then enter into my “whatever will avoid you getting upset martyrdom” mode, and this just makes things awful for everybody.

We deluded beings are quite funny creatures!  I just can’t help but imagine the Buddhas up in the pure land having a good-hearted laugh at it all.  The sign that our reunucination is qualified is our samsara makes us laugh.  I imagine that the sign that our bodhcihitta is qualified is we find samsara absolutely hilarious!  You just gotta laugh at how silly we sometimes act.

So this holiday season my objective is to just happily accept whatever happens.  I am going to try genuinely get into it and not be bah-humbug.  I am going to try not project expectations that everybody somehow miraculously stop being deluded on the holidays.  I am going to try be happy for others, think about others, and give them the space to be something less than perfect.  I am going to laugh at myself when I find myself getting all huffy-puffy.  I am going to try spend quality time just loving my kids, because at the end of the day that is what they want more than anything else.  I am going to try not to make them feel guilty if they don’t live up to my expectations.  I will probably fall short of my aspirations, but that too will be a great opportunity to learn, grow and laugh!

Your turn:  What are some funny ways in which you have ruined other’s holidays before?  What are you going to do differently this year so that you don’t ruin other’s holidays?

In praise of Jesus!

Kadampa Ryan My Kadampa understanding of the Bible

Anybody who knows me well knows that one of the things I take most seriously is the advice to follow one tradition purely without mixing.  The actual instruction is while respecting and appreciating all other traditions, we should follow our own tradition purely without mixing.  This is the middle way between fundamentalism on one hand (only I am right, everyone else is wrong) and inventing your own religion on the other (mixing and matching many different traditions according to your own views).  Both of these are extremes which lead to problems, whereas respecting and appreciating all other traditions while following one’s own tradition purely without mixing leads to harmony and personal spiritual progress.

But sometimes I see Kadampa’s forgetting the first half of this advice to genuinely respect and appreciate other traditions.  Many people who come into Buddhism do so from having been raised in and subsequently rejected Christianity.  Some people come with very hostile views, even, towards Christianity.  Others may have some arrogance thinking that Buddhism is just hipper and smarter because of the teachings on emptiness, so they speak disparagingly and arrogantly towards other religions.  I have done all of these things myself in the past, and all of this is wrong.

Last night I watched a movie on the life of Jesus.  There is an entire DVD collection on the main stories of the bible that won someting like 11 Emmy awards that was really well done, and I watched the one on Jesus.  While I was watching, my daughter came down and was wondering why I, as a Buddhist, was watching something about Jesus.  She thought because I follow one path I am somehow prevented from believing in and appreciating other paths.  She was relieved to know this was not the case because it helps resolve a tension within herself of having lots of Christian family and being raised in Christian cultures, yet I am Buddhist.

So I thought I would write some of the things I really appreciated about the life of Jesus.

  1. He had to do all that he did while being only human.  While being the son of God, he accomplished all of his deeds as a human, with human constraints and limitations.  He had to face the same temptations of lust, power, the opportunity to kick off the Roman oppressors, etc.  He faced the same challenges of people trying to undermine him, dealing with relationships, etc.  He endured all of his sufferings as a man.  This is an inspiring example that if he can do all that he did as a man, then so can we.
  2. He healed through the power of others’ faith.  Very often when he was to perform some miracle, he always asked whether the other person believed.  When they did, then they or their loved ones were healed.  It is not that he had the power from his own side to heal, but the healing occured in dependence upon other’s faith.
  3. At several points in the story, he or others were obliged to expereince some suffering or dificulty to expose their doubts so that others could come to believe.  Examples include him turning water into wine, walking on water to save the disciples on the boat in the storm, Lazarus being raised from the dead, his being crucified to take on the sins of all, and his resurrection to show that he can overcome death.  His power comes primarily from other’s faith in him, so much of what he did was designed to increase others’ faith.  Of course different things work to increase others faith today, but at the time, that was how things were done.
  4. He said “blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth.”  It seems the essence of the Christian way is to identify those in greatest need, those who are the most lost, those who are the most outcast, and to bring them into the fold.  He cared for the poor and the sick, he did not judge the prostitutes or the tax collectors, He said, “he is the way”, and I think this is a large part of what he meant.  He was not afraid to take on the rich and powerful (the temple marketplace, the Jewish establishment at the time, etc.).  It is not surprising that Christianity is dying in Europe but being reborn in Africa and Latin America.  It is a theology that liberates the oppressed and downtrodden, and sadly the powerful have a tendency to hijack religion for their own worldly ends, often giving religion a bad name (when in reality, the fault lies not with the religion but by those who misuse it).
  5. At one point, he asked his followers, “what do you want from God?”  And somebody said, “forgiveness.”  So he said, “then forgive others.”  Then somebody said, “love.”  So he said, “then love others.”  Bascially, whatever we would want from God (however defined) we need to give to others.
  6. He was always quite playful with others, not stuck up and tight; yet he always submitted to the will of God, even when that meant the ultimate price, never putting his own preferences first.  This is an extraordinary subtle balance to attain.
  7. Even though he only taught for a very short period of time, his example and teachings have inspired billions for thousands of years.  Who amongst us can say the same?  Even a very short period of pure deeds by one small man from a destitute family can change the world.
  8. He said he lives in the hearts of men and will be with us until the end of the world.  This is extremely profound and reveals his nature.
  9. He spoke of bringing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the pure land is not somewhere else.

Unrelated to his example, I find it interesting that much of world history of the last 2000 years has been driven by a family fued amongst the sons of Abraham.  Jesus emerged from within the Jewish community, yet revitalized it by exposing how it has become corrupted by power.  The Jewish establishment sought compromise with Rome as the means of preventing the people and the temple from being wiped out.  They were not necessarily wrong or corrupt, but didn’t know what else to do.  The relationship between the Jews and Christians has always been an interesting one, sometimes tragic as in the holocaust, sometimes familial as in Western support for Israel.

It will be interesting to see how things evolve as power in the world shifts, for the first time in a very long time, from the Abrahamic nations to the East. Our job as Kadampas is tied up in this process.  I have lived my whole life in the Western world, dominated by Christianity but evolving into a pluralistic society based on the freedom of religions as the resolution of the last 2000 years of conflict.  Yet, internally, I am 100% Kadampa.  So I must fully learn to undertand and appreciate Christian society if I am to live within it as a Kadampa.  Learning how to do this is part of this larger transition the world is going through.

In any case, I think there is much to appreciate and respect in pure Christianity, and coming to appreciate and respect it, while following my own tradition purely without mixing in my own practice, is part of my path.

Your turn:  Explain what inspires you about Jesus or Christians, and how this has helped you become a better Kadampa.

Dealing with attachment to what other people think

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

Attachment to what other people think is, in my view, one of the biggest problems in the modern world.  We basically think our happiness depends upon what others are thinking, and when they think something we don’t want them to think, we become unhappy.  This is ridiculous self-torture!

First, we can’t really say with any certainty what they are actually thinking becasue we  cannot read their minds.  More often than not, we simply project what they are supposedly thinking and then get upset about that.  Second, what they think does not in any way harm us, it harms them.  If somebody thinks I am great or somebody thinks I am a jerk, it has no power whatsoever to affect me, so why become upset by it?  We all know the phrase, “sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  But with what people are thinking, they are not even verbal words!  So how can it affect us?  Third, what other people are thinking is nothing more than a karmic echo of what we ourselves have thought about other people in the past.  So if you want people to stop thinking bad things about you, stop thinking bad things about others.  Additionally, their thinking bad things gives you a chance to purify your past negative thoughts towards others, so by learning how to accept and transform it, we set the stage for a much better future.

For me, one of my biggest problems is I do not worry so much about what other people think of me (well, I do, but I am also so arrogant that I often don’t care what other people think – but that is a different problem).  Rather, what really bothers me is when people are angry around me.  This takes three forms:  they are angry at me, they are angry at those I love or they are just angry at the world.

In all of these cases of other’s anger, there are two things in particular I need to focus on.  First, a doctor does not get upset about the fact that her patients are sick, rather helping heal them of their sicknesses is what gives meaning to her life.  Anger is a mental illness, the victims of which I need to develop compassion for.  Second, I need to accept that the very nature of samsaric life is to be surrounded by deluded people.  Why would it be any other way?  To expect otherwise is to not understand and truly accept the nature of samsara.  How can I pretend to be an aspiring bodhisattva, wishing to lead all beings to freedom from their delusions, if I can’t handle or stand being around deluded people?  That’s absurd!

If they are angry at me, I need to accept this as purification, use it as an opportunity to identify and overcome my own faults, and realize their anger is not my problem.  When they are angry at those I love, I need to do what I can to protect the person who is the victim of the other’s anger while accepting that it is also their karma and there is very little I can do about it.  I do what I can, but accept the rest.  When the other person is just angry at the world (or some annoyance in life), I need to view the other person as a mirror showing me the faults of anger, encouraging me to overcome it within my own mind.  It is particularly hypocritical to get angry at those who are angry simply because they are getting angry!

Overcoming our attachment to what other people think is not easy, but it is one of our principal trainings as a practitioner in this modern world.

Your turn:  Describe how you are attached to what other people think of you, and how this creates problems for you.

Why people have affairs

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

At the beginning of many relationships, there is this special magic you feel with the other person.  Your heart naturally feels warm when you think about them, they appear to you to be just a wonderful person, you see good in them, and every once in a while, they also feel the same way about you!  Magic!  This feels so good because in our heart of hearts, we all long to be linked with others by love.  It is as if our heart knows that this feeling of separation and isolation we feel is not the natural state of our relationship with others and we get a glimpse of the experience of loving interconnectedness.

The reason why people have affairs is because they lose this feeling with the person they are with (more on that below).  They then meet somebody (or refind a long lost love from earlier in life), feel that magical spark again, and since it feels so good they start heading towards it.  If there are sexual feelings towards this new person, and especially if the feelings are reciprocal, it is almost an irresistable combination.  They see the difference in the feelings towards their regular partner, become increasingly dissastisfied, and gradually the relationship erodes away.  Affairs are often not just sexual flings, they are usually a by product of having lost that special feeling with the one we are with, and then being hit with it with somebody else.

All of these dynamics occur because we mistakenly think these special feelings reside in and are dependent upon the other person.  We relate to the other person like we relate to any other samsaric object, really, where we believe that happiness resides within the other person and by “consuming” the other person we can get some of it.  The problem is as soon as we start relating to other people like they are samsaric objects that have the power to give us happiness, things start going south!  We start to relate to them like a drug, where we are trying to get our fix, and we need more and more of them to get the same high.  But then they are no longer able to provide us with the same good feelings they once did, and we become frustrated with them because they are not living up to our expectations.  We lose the magic.  We then are willing to do anything to get it back.  We start acting in all sorts of goofy ways towards the other person, alternating between being a sychophant to being a raging lunatic, and then back again.  The relationship grows increasingly dysfunctional, we increasingly blame the other person, and we start to hate ourselves for how we are stuck in such a dynamic.  We blame them for how we are, and so we start hating them.  We have invested so much in chasing the end of the rainbow with them we become willing to do anything to get some good out of the relationship to justify all that we have done.  But the more we run after the mirage, the more it escapes us.  Eventually, we decide to end it.  But we go back – again and again – caught in a vicious cycle.  Eventually, though, we realize it is a cycle and start to break free completely.  At some point we walk away and don’t fall back in.

But if we still grasp at other people as samsaric objects, it is just a question of time before we fall into a similarly dysfunctional dynamic with somebody else.

So how do we protect ourselves against this?  Simple, we need to realize that the magic is within us and within our own mind, and it is in no way dependent upon the other person.  This magic is called affectionate love, and we can cultivate it within our mind with training.  We can feel this magic towards everyone all of the time.  Our affectionate love can become like the sun which radiates out towards all around us.  The sun does not need the objects it illuminates to be a source of warmth, it simply radiates from its own inner fire.  It is the same with affectionate love.  When we know it comes from within and is not dependent upon or sourced in others, then we stop chasing the rainbow and instead we start becoming a loving person.  We learn how to feel affectionate love for everyone around us.  Of course we will express this love differently with different people depending upon our karmic relationship with them, but the warm, magical feelings within us remain within us all of the time.  We must apply effort to cultivate and sustain these feelings, but it is an internal project, not one of stalking and manipulating others to get them to do what we want them to do so we can regain the feelings.

So how do we generate these feelings?  Simple:  take the time to identify and appreciate the good qualities of others.  Each being has within them Buddha nature, so each being has within them all of the qualities and potential for all goodness.  We need to appreciate others.  See the good in others, draw it out, transform all of their faults into opportunities to practice.  Then you will appreciate all that they do, good and bad, and your feelings of affectionate love will be stable and ever lasting.

(Please note, no, I am not having an affair!  I am just reflecting on what I have observed and understood.  Just thought I needed to clarify that!  hee hee)

Your turn:  Describe how relating to others as an object of attachment has created problems in your life.

Cherishing others enough to listen to them

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

Our self-grasping ignorance falsely convinces us that we are just our ordinary body and mind.  It seems natural to cherish ourselves, but what we are confused about is who we really are.  In reality, we are the fully inter-dependent mandala of all living beings, of which our ordinary body and mind are but one small part, like one of countless limbs on the body of life.  We cherish all living beings not out of self-martyrdom but rather because doing so is simply more accurate in terms of cherishing who we really are.  Instead of seeking to optimize what is best for the small, ignorant conception of self; we seek to optimize what is best for our full selves, namely the ocean of all living beings.

People will not be open to your perspective if they do not feel you understand them.  If you speak without first demonstrating that you fully understand where they are coming from, they will dismiss what you have to say and they will spend their time trying to explain to you their perspective.  As banal as it is to say, it is impossible to demonstrate you understand somebody if you do not know how to listen to them.  People know when you are really listening and when you are actually just planning on what you are going to say.

If you look at all of the great examples within ours and other traditions what you find is people who actually know how to listen to others as an act of cherishing them.  How do we do this?  I would say there are four key elements to effective listening:

  1. Shut off completely your own inner commentary and just try to understand where the other person is coming from.  Generate a sincere desire to understand the other person.
  2. Accept the other person without judgement, regardless of what it is they are saying.
  3. Have no ulterior, selfish motive where you are in any way attached to or dependent upon what choices the other person makes.  In other words, you only want what is best for them.
  4. You filter everything you hear through the lens of how everything that is happening to the other person is actually perfect in terms of giving the other person an opportunity to work on improving themselves.

Developing the skill of listening well is one of the most important qualities we need to develop along the bodhisattva path.  Fortunately, this is a skill we can practice developing all day, every day.  Very often the mere act of really listening to somebody is all we need to do to help them.  They are able to verbalize what is happening to them, and by doing so they can better see and understand their own situation and how they should proceed.  When we accept them without judgement, they are able to accept themselves.  By seeing how what is happening to them is perfect, they miraculously start to see things the same way without us even having to say a word.

Your turn:  Give an example from your life where simply listening to somebody helped them.

To cherish others we need to understand their perspective

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

Most human conflict comes from a failure to understand the perspective of the people we are interacting with.  We interpret their actions through the lens of our own perspective, not theirs.  As a result, we misunderstand their intentions, conclude they are being unreasonable and enter into conflict with them.  The internet society, in which everyone cocoons themselves in a virtual world of people who share exactly their own perspective then reinforces this polorization of perspectives and amplifies the conflict.  The solution to this sort of conflict is to first take the time to understand the other person’s perspective and then to consider important for ourselves whatever is important to them.

How do we understand the other person’s perspective?  The starting point is to assume they are acting in good faith.  Most inter-perspective misunderstandings come from assuming that people are not acting in good faith, and as a result they misunderstand everything the other person is saying.  They then accuse the other person of not acting in good faith, the other person then goes on the defensive or starts to counter-attack saying the same thing.  Then the discussion becomes about each side defending against false accusations instead of real problem solving.  This dynamic is true between rich and poor, majority and minority, black and white, between any two countries and also between those who have a unicultural perspective and those who have an inter-cultural perspective.  This last one is playing itself out in virtually every country between those who are uniculturally whatever country or region they are coming from and those who are participating in the project of globalization.  At an interpersonal level, once again, most conflicts come from this same problem and pattern of misunderstanding.  So first, unless you have compelling proof otherwise, always assume the other person is acting in good faith, just with a different set of priorities, values and understandings of how things work.

The second thing we need to do is to learn to cherish what the other person considers to be important.  We talk all the time in the Dharma about cherishing others.  But practically speaking, how do we do this?  We primarily do this by taking the time to understand what is important to the other person and then to likewise take the time to realize how what they consider to be important has real value – in other words we need to learn how to realize the importance of what they consider to be important.  To cherish something means to consider it to be important.  We find out what is important to others and then we learn to appreciate the importance of that.  Of course, if what the other person considers to be important is wrong or harmful, we can reject that, but most of the time people just value different things.

The irony is this:  when we demonstrate that we understand the other person’s perspective and we also consider to be important what they consider to be important then they come to trust us and believe us when we speak.  Then they will be open to listening to what we have to say, and real communication can take place.  They can then also come to understand and appreciate our perspective and there is a real chance the differences can be worked out.

Your turn:  View yourself through the perspective of the person with whom you have the most problems.  What does this teach you?

Helping people make their own decisions

Kadampa Ryan Cultivating healthy relationships with others

When people come to me for advice, I have a terrible tendency to tell them what to do instead of help them come to their own decision.  Our job as bodhisattvas is to help people cultivate within themselves the wisdom to make their own sound decisions.  If we always tell people what they should do, then it may help them in their current situation, but it doesn’t help them learn to be able to make their own decisions in future situations.  As banal as it may seem, it is the whole “teach a man to fish” logic.  Likewise, when somebody makes their own decision, they “own it” and therefore it has much more power within their mind.

When we give people the answers, we also sometimes risk them rejecting our advice because they may feel like we are imposing something on them or somehow depriving them of their freedom to make their own choices.  Alternatively, if we give people the answers, we can sometimes create a spiritual laziness in the other person where they just let us tell them what to do without them doing the internal work of figuring out for themselves what they should do (and thereby improve their spiritual decision making).  In such a situation, it may seem like they have faith, but we are actually depriving them of developing their own wisdom.

Does this mean we should never give people advice of what to do?  Of course not.  But there are conditions for when we should do so.  First, we should make sure that they are actually asking for our advice.  If they are not, we should definitely not give them any (except under very extreme circumstances).  Second, we should make it absolutely clear that the other person is completely free to ignore our advice without there being any emotional or relational penalty.  Third, we should do so more in general principles of how to approach the problem, not the specifics of what they should exactly do (so you give them a direction, but leave them to figure out how the general principle specifically applies to their situation).  Fourth, and most importantly, we should always make sure the other person understands the “why” behind our advice, not just the “what” they should do.

When you do offer advice, do so in the verbal context of telling an illustrative story about something that happened to you once or about somebody else you know without directly applying the story to their situation (let them make that connection).  Or at the limit, say something like “if it was me, I would do …”

As a general rule, when we offer advice to others, we should do so as part of a general program of gradually weaning them off of us telling them what to do.  In the beginning, people will want us to tell them specifically what they should do.  This is not necessarily a bad thing because if they do so for enough time they will learn and gain some experience with spiritual decision making and understand the “why” they are doing things in that way.  Over time, they start to become familiar with these “whys” and see that the correct spiritual choice works, so they are then able to better make good decisions in the future on their own.  Then we gradually wean them off of us telling them what they should do by asking them more questions which then leads them to their own answers.  Eventually, they won’t need to come to us as much because they have become sufficiently familiar with the key principles of their spiritual decision making that they no longer need to come to us.

So as hard as it is for me, I have recently been putting a great deal of emphasis on holding back from telling people what to do and instead just talking generally or asking more questions.

(Ha ha!  I just re-read this post, and the whole thing is written in the language of me telling you, the reader, what you should do!  How ironic!  I was going to go back and change it to “I am trying to do …”, but I find it so funny the way it is that I decided to just leave it.  Have a good laugh!  I clearly have a long way to go!)

Your turn:  What skillful advice do you have about how to help people make good decisions on their own?