6. Special series

Emptiness and responsibility, part 3

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Ultimate stages of the path

In the first post of this series we looked at how emptiness can be understood as all phenomena are mere karmic appearances of mind, which is broken down into three parts, “mere appearance,” “karmic appearance,” and “of mind.”  In the last post we looked at how to actually practice “mere appearance” in our daily life, in this post we will look at “karmic appearance” and in the final post of the series we will examine “of mind.”

“Karmic appearance” shows the relationship between our actions and what appears to our mind.  Every action we engage in plants a seed on our mind which when it ripens takes the form of a certain appearance.  For example, if I yell at somebody, I create the karma for the appearance of somebody yelling at me in the future.  I also create the karma for the appearance of a rebirth that is of the same nature as the action I created, in this case a hot anger ripens as the appearances of a rebirth in a hot hell.  Likewise, if I engage in the action of being a good father, I create the karma to have the appearance of a good father for myself in a future life and, since it is virtuous, I create the cause for an upper rebirth.

If we understand this deeply, we realize that the world we inhabit is a creation of our own karmic actions.  The lower realms are the karmic appearances/creation of negative actions, the upper realms are the karmic appearances/creation of virtuous actions, and the pure lands are the karmic appearances/creation of pure actions.  One of my teachers always used to say, “if you don’t like your karma, change it.”  In the same way, if you don’t like your (karmically appearing) world, change it!  How?  By changing your actions.  We need to karmically create our pure land through engaging in pure actions.  If our world is anything other than a pure land, we have only our own past impure actions to blame.  It’s our karmic dream, it is coming from our mind, and ultimately from our actions, therefore we are responsible for all of it.

If we understand that everything that appears to our mind is part of our karmic creation, we will realize that we have a responsibility for everything that appears since our mind/actions created it all.  This is how we avoid the extreme of apathy or indifference that can sometimes come from thinking that nothing is really happening to anyone.  We have created a world of suffering that, while by nature is a dream, the people of the world believe to be real, and therefore they experience pain.  When we look at the wars, famine and disease in the world and realize we are ultimately responsible for all of, a very powerful bodhichitta wishing to clean up the karmic mess we have created for others will arise in our mind.
So how do we “karmically create” our new, pure world?  We harness the power of karma to our advantage.  If I give a flower to somebody, I create the cause for somebody else to give a flower to me in the future.  But when that being of my dream gives me a flower, they also plant on their mind the tendency similar to the cause to give more flowers to others in the future.  So they then give other flowers, create more good karma for themselves, which continues to ripple through the dream like a wave.  If I keep pumping out virtuous and pure actions, others in the future will continue to pump out virtuous and pure actions themselves until eventually everybody in my dream is always pumping out virtuous and pure actions.  The karmic result of engaging in virtuous and pure actions is to inhabit virtuous and pure lands.
In other words, if from this point forward I choose to only engage in virtuous and pure actions and I have the mental persistence to continue with this course of action for as long as it takes, it is a karmic inevitability that I will transform this world of suffering in which I have condemned all beings to misery into a completely pure world of bliss in which I have freed all beings forever.
Venerable Tharchin says, “when we understand how the Dharma actually works, generating effort becomes effortless.”  If we understand the relationship between karma and appearance we will understand the inner mechanism of reality and realize directly how to change it.  We know it can be done and we know how to do it and we know nothing can stop us.  This gives us an indestructible confidence and purpose that we then carry with us in all of our daily actions until we have attained the final goal!

Emptiness and responsibility, part 2

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Ultimate stages of the path

In the last post, we looked at what is the meaning of emptiness, namely all phenomena are mere karmic appearances of mind.  In the next three posts, I will try explain how I use this understanding practically as a solution to daily problems.  There are three main parts to the meaning “mere karmic appearance of mind”, namely “mere appearance”, “karmic appearance” and “of mind.”  Each one of these has its own main daily practices, which will be explained over the next three posts, but they all have as a common denominator to assume responsibility for everything and everyone.

First “mere appearance.”  Again, the meaning here is that all things are only (mere) appearances to mind, like dreams or mental holograms, and there is nothing other than these mere appearances.  So how do we practice this? 

The first distinction I make is between the appearance of a thing and my opinion of a thing.  One can argue (wrongly, in the end) that the appearance of something does not depend upon our mind – the thing is just there regardless or independently of my mind – but everyone would agree that our opinion of what appears is entirely dependent upon our mind.  As Hamlet says, “things re neither good nor bad, but thinking makes them so.”  Some people like Obama, others don’t, which shows different people can have different opinions of the same thing.  So our opinions of things are entirely created by our mind, therefore we are entirely responsibile for them.  We can have a good, bad or useful opinion of things.  It is true, from a worldly conventional perspective, getting cancer is bad and getting a rewarding job is good.  Of course they are not inherently so, but everyone more or less agrees about this.  But it is also entirely besides the point.  Everything can ge “good” for us if we change our outlook to be what is useful for our spiritual training.  This is a choice of mind, a choice to change our opinion of things by looking at them through a new optic of what is useful.  We don’t have to deny the conventional good and bad (though sometimes that is necessary too), it suffices to realize good and bad don’t matter, what is important is what is useful.  When cancer strikes, of course from a normal conventional perspective it is bad, but our experience of the cancer depends entirely on our opinion of it, which in turns depends entirely upon our mind – how we choose to relate to it.  If we choose to ask the question, “how can I use this for my spiritual training?”, then we will find ways in which the cancer is useful, and therefore welcome.  It will still be painful, no doubt, but through choice of mind, we can make that pain useful.  The pleasant and unpleasant experiences of our life are fleeting, but the mental habits and karma we create for ourself endure life after life.  Seeing that our mental habits and karma are more important, we are able to remain (more or less) happy in mind even through the most awful of things, cancer.  The same approach can be taken with whatever happens to us in life. 

Another powerful practice we can do with “mere appearance” is the power of “it doesn’t matter.”  We are all way too serious about everything.  We are all “drama queens” about pretty much everything.  Everything is so heavy and dramatic.  We make a big deal about whatever happens, and as a result we create all sorts of problems for ourself.  When we understand everything is just mental phantasamgora, a mental light show, we are able to take a step back like we are watching a movie.  If something terrible happens in a movie, of course it is bad in the movie, but ultimately it does not matter since it is just light being projected onto a screen – nothing is really happening.  In the same way, all of reality is just our mental movie being projected onto the screen of our very subtle mind.  Something terrible may happen in our movie, but ultimately it does not matter since it is just mere appearance – nothing is really happening.  We can still appreciate the good movies and laugh at the really bad ones, but we don’t get wrapped up in them or swept away by them.  We are able to let go, maintain some perspective and distance, and feel safe in our seat no matter what happens to appear.  So no matter what happens, I just keep repeating to myself like a mantra, “it doesn’t matter.”  I am able to let go.  This does not mean we become indifferent or apathetic towards what appears (we will talk more about this when we get to “karmic appearance”), but it does allow us to cut the drama.

So during the meditation break, I try focus on these two practices:  viewing things through the lens of what is ‘useful’ (instead of good and bad), and realizing how whatever happens is just a mental movie I am watching, and so ultimately ‘it doesn’t matter.’  Through these, we can assume full responsibility for our own experience of whatever happens to us and stop blaming others or external things.

Not getting angry at those who are angry

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

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

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

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

So how do we do this? 

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

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