6. Special series

Happy Tara Day: Tara can fulfill all our pure wishes

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

This is the seventh installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.

They will attain greatness here
And advance to the ultimate state of Buddhahood.

Greatness here does not mean high position, but rather the great scope of Lamrim, namely the precious mind of bodhichitta.  Atisha’s Lamrim has three scopes – initial scope, intermediate scope, and great scope.  In the initial scope, we abandon lower rebirth; in the intermediate scope, we abandon samsaric rebirth; and in the great scope, we abandon solitary peace.  In other words, we abandon merely seeking our personal liberation, and instead we seek to become a fully enlightened Buddha with the complete power to lead all living beings to the same state.  The essence of the great scope is bodhichitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all.  Since Tara is the Lamrim Buddha, we can be certain the greatness we will attain through our reliance upon her is becoming a great scope being.  Once we attain bodhichitta, our eventual enlightenment is guaranteed.  This is why it is said we prostrate to the new moon of bodhichitta, not the full moon of enlightenment because the former is the definite cause of the latter.

Their violent and great poisons,
Both stable and moving,
And even those that they have eaten or drunk,
Will be thoroughly eliminated by remembering her.

They will be able to prevent all suffering
That arises from spirits, diseases or poisons;
And be able to help others in the same way.

There are two types of poison – outer and inner.  Outer poisons, including intoxicants, pollution, and unhealthy food, are extremely destructive.  Every year, smoking kills 7 million people globally, alcohol kills 2.8 million, and drugs kill 750,000; bringing the global death toll from intoxicants to 10.5 million people every year.  Pollution each year kills 4.8 million globally.  Unhealthy food is even more deadly, with 2.8 million dying from obesity, 1.6 million dying from diabetes, and a whopping 17.9 million dying from heart disease, the overwhelming majority of which comes from unhealthy diets.  All of these are outer poisons, with a cumulative death toll of almost 38 million every year.  Outer poisons are the leading cause of death in the world by a significant margin.  But the reality is outer poisons only have the power to kills us due to our inner poisons of delusions that run towards these causes of death as if they were causes of happiness.  Our inner poisons of attachment and ignorance conspire to make us voluntarily consume or create outer poisons, which in turn kill tens of millions every year.  Thus, if we have any hope of actually preventing the suffering that arises from outer poisons, we must abandon their deeper cause – the inner poisons of delusions. 

But ultimately, outer poisons can only kill us in just this one life.  The inner poisons of delusions harm and kill us in all of our future lives without end.  The scale of the destruction is beyond imagination.  Delusions are the cause of all death, since beginningless time.  There will be no end to the slaughter until the inner poisons of delusions are abandoned once and for all.  Relying upon Tara ends the inner poisons, both for ourself and for all other living beings.  She not only blesses our mind to prevent them from ripening, but more definitively she bestows upon us Lamrim realizations which lead us to permanently abandon all delusions.  All delusions, directly or indirectly, find their opponent in the Lamrim.  Our gaining Lamrim realizations is the only lasting way to end samsara’s ongoing devastation.  People rightly dedicate their lives to fighting for justice in the world, but there will be no justice, no peace, no end to suffering until the tyranny of delusions has finally been defeated.  The only way to do that is through gaining Lamrim realizations, and reliance upon Tara supercharges our practice of Lamrim.  

If they recite these seven times, six times a day,
Those who wish for a son will attain a son,
And those who wish for wealth will attain wealth.

Typically at least once a year, most major Kadampa centers will do a 24 hour Tara puja, which involves a session every four hours engaging in this practice reciting the praises seven times.  When the Coronavirus broke out, Geshe-la encouraged us to rely upon Tara, and many centers started doing the 24 hour Tara Puja every month on Tara day.  For those unable to join such practices at a center, Manjushri center livestreamed the practice on Tara day every month, so we could join in from anywhere in the world.  I pray one day they resume doing this, even if the pandemic has passed.

If we are unable to do all six sessions referred to in the sadhana, it is perfectly good to do as many as we can.  Some is always better than none.  There is something particularly powerful about engaging in group pujas.  Gen Tharchin says that every time we engage in a group puja, we create the causes to do the same thing with the same people again in the future.  It is like an insurance policy for refinding our Kadampa Sangha in life after life until we attain our final spiritual goals. 

“Son” here refers to the son or daughter of the Buddhas, namely becoming a bodhisattva.  We can wish to become a son or daughter of the Buddhas ourselves, and we can also wish that multitudes of sons or daughters of the Buddhas arise from within our Kadampa centers around the world.  Wealth here refers to the inner wealth of Dharma realizations.  Outer wealth can be helpful if our motivation for using it is virtuous, but it can be dangerous if our motivation is not.  The inner wealth of Dharma realizations, in contrast, is an unalloyed good.  The more we give it away, the more it reproduces itself.  It makes us content in this life and provides for us in all our future lives.  The inner wealth of Dharma realizations is an inexhaustible fountain of good fortune.

All their wishes will be accomplished.
No more obstacles will arise for them,
And those that have already occurred
Will all be completely destroyed.

This refers to Tara’s ability to also function as a Dharma protector.  Dharma protectors arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  Normally, Dorje Shugden is the principal protector of the Kadam Dharma, but Tara also accomplishes a similar function.  There are two types of obstacle to our Dharma practice – outer and inner.  Ultimately, though, outer obstacles do not exist.  They arise only due to a lack of imagination or experience for how to transform adversity into the path to enlightenment.  But temporarily, outer obstacles can exist due to current limitations in our wisdom.  Tara can prevent outer obstacles from arising (or minimize the extent to which they do, based on our karmic possibilities).  Our job is to then use the space to practice she creates for us to then gain the inner wisdom necessary to transform any adversity into the path.  If we can succeed in doing that, then no more “obstacles” will arise for us because we will not impute anything as an obstacle.  Everything will push us towards enlightenment.  Existing obstacles are destroyed, either through purifying the karma giving rise to their appearance or through gaining the wisdom that knows how to see them all as causes of our enlightenment.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Gather a circle of followers for the right reasons

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

 

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.

Happy Protector Day: Protector of the Bodhisattva’s Path

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 6 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

And on his head he wears a round and yellow hat.

This symbolizes his ability to help us gain the correct view of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality.  We can understand how all things are like a dream, and how if we change our actions, we can change our karma and that will change the dream that appears to our mind.  In this way, we can become the architect of our own destiny, and cause this world of suffering to cease and the pure world of the Buddhas to arise.  If ever we have difficulty understanding emptiness, we can recall his hat and request that he bless our mind to be able to gain a correct understanding of emptiness.  We then imagine we receive his blessings and return to our Dharma book (or the teaching we are receiving) and try again.  If we still do not understand, we once again request blessings and repeat the cycle.  We can continue like this for as long as it takes.  Eventually, through the power of his blessings, we will understand. 

His hands hold a sword and a heart of compassion.

This symbolizes his ability to help us engage in Lamrim meditation, in particular the union of the vast and profound path.  The vast path is all of the Lamrim meditations for developing a good heart, leading up to bodhichitta, the wish to lead all beings to enlightenment.  The profound path refers to the wisdom realizing emptiness, that everything is like a dream.  Just as we did with trying to understand emptiness, when we are having difficulty with our Lamrim practice, we can recall this function of Dorje Shugden, request his blessings, receive his blessings and then try again.  Practicing in this way dramatically increases the power of our Lamrim meditation. 

To his followers he shows an expression of delight, but to demons and obstructors he displays a wrathful manner.

This symbolizes Dorje Shugden’s ability to love and care for us while destroying our delusions.  We need to make a distinction between ourselves and our delusions.  Just as a cancer patient is not his cancer, we are not the cancer of our delusions.  Many people fear Dorje Shugden because they know he can be quite wrathful, but this fear only arises because they identify with their delusions.  So when their delusions are challenged, they feel like they are challenged.  Whenever we have a delusion arise strongly in our mind, we can immediately remember Dorje Shugden and request his blessings to be able to happily accept our difficult circumstances understanding that what is bad for our delusions is good for us. 

He is surrounded by a vast, assembled retinue,

Such as Kache Marpo and so forth.

Dorje Shugden is like the general of a vast army of Dharma protectors, each of whom accomplishes a different function.  These can be understood from the explanation of the nature and function of Dorje Shugden in the book Heart Jewel and the Praise to the five lineages of Dorje Shugden explained in the extensive Dorje Shugden sadhana Melodious Drum Victorious in All Directions.  It is customary for large Dharma Centers around the world to practice Melodious Drum on every Protector Day, or at least once a year.  We can do so on our own at any time, including every Protector Day.

The five lineages of Dorje Shugden refer to the five principal deities of his mandala.  Each one corresponds with one of the five Buddha families, the five completely purified aggregates of a Buddha, and the five omniscient wisdoms.  Each of the principal deities is like a specific protector for each one of the five Buddha families, and through relying upon them we will be led to attain the five purified aggregates and the corresponding five omniscient wisdoms.

The principal deity is Dorje Shugden himself, who is the protector of the Akshobhya family, will guide us to completely purify our aggregate of consciousness and attain the wisdom of the Dharmadhatu.  The wisdom of the Dharmadhatu is an aggregate of consciousness completely purified of all our past contaminated karmic potentialities (also known as the two obstructions) and that knows directly and simultaneously all phenomena as manifestations of bliss and emptiness.  Vairochana Shugden is the protector of the Vairochana family.  Through relying upon him, we will completely purify our aggregate of form and gain mirror-like wisdom, which sees directly all phenomena as manifestation of bliss and emptiness.  Pema Shugden is the protector of the Amitabha family.  Through relying upon her, we will purify completely our aggregate of discrimination and attain the wisdom of individual realization, which is able to discriminate all objects individually as manifestations of bliss and emptiness.  Ratna Shugden is the protector of the Ratnasambhava family.  Through relying upon Ratna Shugden, we will purify completely our aggregate of feeling and attain the wisdom of equality, which experiences all phenomena equally as bliss and emptiness.  Karma Shugden is the protector of the Amoghasiddhi family.  Through relying upon Karma Shugden, we will purify completely our aggregate of compositional factors and attain the wisdom of accomplishing activities, which enables us to use a Buddha’s completely purified and developed mental factors as if they were are own.  For a more in depth understanding of the five aggregates, see How to Understand the Mind.

Dorje Shugden is also surrounded by the nine Great Mothers, the eight fully ordained monks, and the ten wrathful deities.  The nine mothers arrange the secret conditions necessary for our Dharma practice.  They are comprised of Lochanna, Mamaki, Benzharahi, and Tara which arrange the earth, water, fire, and air elements respectively for our practice; and the five offering goddesses who transform all of the various forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile objects into conditions for our practice.  The eight fully ordained monks arrange the inner conditions necessary for our practice.  They are the eight main bodhisattvas, including Vajrapani, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, and Maitreya.  They manifest whatever is needed to tame disciples and protect those with commitments like their only child.  The ten wrathful deities arrange all of the outer conditions for our Dharma practice.  They subjugate the malevolent and guard all directions with various guises.  Kache Marpo is like the commander of the Dharma protector special forces who directs all the oath-bound attendents (spirit kings, wealth gods, nagas, celestial spirits, and so forth) who perform a host of actions to help arrange the mundane conditions for our Dharma practice. 

Light rays from my heart

Instantly invite the wisdom beings
From the sphere of nature
And from all the different palaces where they abide.
They become inseparable from the commitment beings.

We visualize a vast array of mundane and supermundane Dharma protectors filling the whole of space, all working tirelessly under the direction of Dorje Shugden to arrange all the outer, inner, and secret conditions for our Dharma practice.  As Heruka, we then imagine that light rays radiate from our heart and invite the wisdom beings – the actual deities of Dorje Shugden’s mandala – to enter into the commitment beings (those we have visualized). We then strongly believe that all of these protector deities are actually in the space in front of us and filling the universe accomplishing their special function.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Make effort to control your anger. 

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

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.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Apologize and accept apologies

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

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.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Responding without retaliating

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

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.

Happy Tara Day: Tara can dispel all outer and inner obstacles

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

This is the sixth installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.

Praising Tara by her divine actions of dispelling conflicts and bad dreams

Homage to you who are honoured by the kings of the hosts of gods,
And the gods and the kinnaras.
Through your joyful and shining pervasive armour
All conflicts and bad dreams are dispelled.

These are particularly practical ways we can rely upon Tara.  We all, from time to time, experience conflict and bad dreams in our life.  Every time we find ourself in some sort of conflict, we can recall Tara’s swift ability to dispel conflicts, and recite her mantra with strong faith requesting that she do so.  Ultimately, all conflict is sustained by anger, attachment, and self-grasping – in either ourself of those we are in a conflict with (usually both).  When we recite her mantra, we should request that she dispel the inner causes of our conflict from all concerned.  For myself, much of my work revolves around the U.S.-China relationship, which is obviously plagued by different types of conflict.  To help dispel this conflict, I try generate pure view of my work and those I encounter as emanations of Tara and request that through them both, all conflict between China and the United States can be dispelled. 

Tara is also helpful for dispelling bad dreams.  When I was very young, I had a few particularly scary bad dreams, and became terrified of having more.  Every night when I would go to sleep, I would pray, “please please please please (repeated millions of times) protect me from bad dreams.”  It actually worked, and after I started praying like this when I went to bed, I had very few bad dreams.  Later, when I became a father myself, my kids started having bad dreams, and I taught them Tara’s mantra and gave them small Tara statues to hold in their hand as they went to sleep to protect them against bad dreams.  Their bad dreams became much less afterwards, almost without fail.

Praising Tara by her divine actions of dispelling diseases

Homage to you whose two eyes, like the sun or the full moon,
Radiate a pure, clear light.
Saying HARA twice and TUTTARA,
You dispel the most violent, infectious diseases.

When the Coronavirus first broke out, Geshe-la advised Kadampas around the world to do Tara practice due to her power to dispel violent, infectious diseases.  Some centers did 24-hour Tara pujas on Tara day every month for some time.  The way these work is every four hours, one engages in the Liberation from Sorrow sadhana, and recites the praises to the twenty-one Taras seven times each session.  While it is true the coronavirus still spread all over the world, we cannot say it would not have spread worse if such actions were not performed.  If we have faith in Tara, there is no doubt that such actions help and perhaps saved many, many lives. 

Praising Tara by her divine actions of subduing evil spirits and zombies

Homage to you who have the perfect power of pacifying
Through your blessing of the three thatnesses;
Subduer of the hosts of evil spirits, zombies and givers of harm,
O TURE, most excellent and supreme!

In many ways, this verse is like the summary of all of the previous verses.  It refers to her power to pacify, bestow blessings (in particular of the wisdom realizing emptiness, or thatness), and subdue outer and inner obstructions.  She truly is most excellent and supreme!

This concludes the praise of the root mantra
And the twenty-one homages.

Normally, we talk of these praises as to the twenty-one Taras, but here we are also reminded that these are also praises of Tara’s mantra.  In Buddhism, we often describe things as existing at gross, subtle, and very subtle levels.  Green Tara is the gross deity, her mantra is like a subtle emanation of Tara, and the Dharmakaya is the very subtle version of Tara.  In this way, we can understand the mantra as like a bridge between the Tara we normally know and definitive Tara.  With sufficient faith in and understanding the nature of the mantra, reciting the mantra has exactly the same function and power as reciting the twenty-one homages. 

Benefits of recitation of this Sutra

The wise who recite this with strong faith
And perfect devotion to the Goddess,
In the evening and upon arising at dawn,
Will be granted complete fearlessness by remembering her.

A qualified mind of refuge has two main parts, fear of samsara and faith in the three jewels.  Normally, we don’t have much difficulty generating faith, but for our faith to have any meaning, it must be informed by an appropriate fear of samsara.  Without this, our Dharma practice just becomes feel-goodism.  But with healthy wisdom fears of samsara and faith in the three jewels, we are pushed to engage in Dharma practices, such as relying upon Mother Tara.  Through this we attain fearlessness in two ways.  First, because we will have a powerful protector at our side; and second, because we will gain inner Dharma realizations, which provide us with permanent protection from all suffering.  In particular, we need the wisdom that knows how to transform adversity into the path to enlightenment.  Normally we fear things that can harm us.  Most of samsara’s sufferings can harm us only because we don’t know how to transform experiencing them into causes of our enlightenment.  But through relying upon Tara, we can gain this wisdom, and then we will have nothing to fear.  We receive this protection merely “by remembering her” because wherever you imagine a Buddha, a Buddha actually goes; and wherever a Buddha goes, they perform their function, which is to bestow blessings.  In other words, by merely remembering Tara, she comes swiftly to our side and then blesses our mind to gain wisdom realizations.  The sadhana says we need to rely upon her with perfect devotion.  What does that mean practically?  It means we move beyond simply having faith in her to actively working to accomplish her wishes in the world.  Somebody who is devoted moves beyond inner faith to practical action.  Tara’s main wish is for the pure Kadam Lamrim of Atisha to flourish throughout the world, both externally and internally.  If we are to enjoy complete fearlessness, we need to not only rely upon her, but to actively devote ourselves to realizing her pure wishes.

Through the complete purification of all negativity
They will destroy all paths to the lower realms.
They will swiftly be granted empowerment
By the seventy million Conquerors.

The cause of lower rebirth is negative karma on our mind.  The quality of mind we generate at the moment of our death determines the quality of our next rebirth – a negative mind will activate negative karma resulting in a lower rebirth, a positive mind will active virtuous karma resulting in an upper rebirth, and a pure mind will active pure karma resulting in a rebirth outside of samsara.  Avoiding a negative mind at the time of death will help protect us from a lower rebirth, but the only way to destroy all paths to the lower realms is through the complete purification of all our negative karma.  If we have no negative karma remaining on our mind, even if we generate a negative mind at the time of death, there will be no negative throwing karma to activate and it will be impossible for us to take lower rebirth.  Tara’s blessings can help us purify swiftly all of our negative karma, and we can recite her mantra as a practice of purification similar to Vajrasattva practice. 

Relying upon Tara also creates the causes for us to receive the empowerments of all the Buddhas.  What is an empowerment?  During an empowerment, our Spiritual Guide places within our mental continuum a personalized emanation of the deity who will remain with us between now and our eventual attainment of that deity.  This emanation is our personal yidam, or personal deity.  By virtue of this emanation, we can gradually learn to identify with the pure body and mind of the deity and gain the ability to use these as if they were our own.  Tara is the mother of all Buddhas, and all Buddhas respect and are devoted to their mother.  When we rely upon Tara, all of her children – the Buddhas – then come into action to help fulfill their mother’s wish for us.  They do so by granting us empowerment.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Do not retaliate to harm or abuse (but don’t cooperate with it either)

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

 

Downfalls that obstruct the perfection of patience

Retaliating to harm or abuse. 

If out of impatience we retaliate to harm or abuse we incur a secondary downfall.

We are harmed or abused by others all the time.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise.  We have spent countless aeons in the lower realms where we ourselves harmed and abused others as a way of life.  Even in this life, despite having received Dharma teachings, we continue to lash out at people when they have done basically nothing wrong.  So it is only natural that now we experience the karmic echoes of our past actions.

People criticize us all the time.  People put us down, directly or indirectly, all the time.  People snap at us all the time.  People blame us for whatever ails them all the time.  People get mad at us for no reason all the time.  When we make the slightest mistake, people respond disproportionately against us all the time.  Our bosses or coworkers blame us for things we are not responsible for, and they take credit for our accomplishments.  People cut us off on the road or cut in front of us in line.  People ask us to do their work for them, and then they get mad at us when we don’t do it as they wanted.  We can do everything we can to make others happy, but they still get upset at us, judge us and are never grateful for what we do.  We give to others, and they take.  When we ask for something in return they say no or make a problem.  People take advantage of our kindness and then forget us on our birthdays.  We make a point of investing in them, but they don’t really care what is happening in our life.  When something important happens in our life, they fail to notice or care.  Our political leaders play games and make the world’s problems even worse.  No matter how much work we do for others, they never give us a break.  They take, take take without end and give almost nothing in return.  When we become tired or frustrated they get mad at us for not being in a good mood.  Our business leaders drive the global economy into ruin for the sake of their own personal enrichment.  Companies pollute the earth, shortening lives, destroying the environment for future generations, all to make a little extra money for themselves.  People suffer from homelessness, hunger, and crime, but nobody lifts a finger and indeed they blame the victims for being lazy.  In short, we live in a world with countless causes for frustration.  It is a small wonder that we are not in a perpetual war of all against all.

If we allow these myriad causes of frustration to get to us, it is very easy to begin lashing out at those around us.  Sometimes we rationalize it thinking we need to get angry to deter people from taking advantage of or harming us, but usually it is just our frustration that boils over.  Because we are Dharma practitioners, we know we are not supposed to get angry, so outwardly we pretend to be calm, but internally we are just repressing our frustration until it eventually blows up in some dramatic fashion.  We develop deep resentment for those who put us down again and again and again, and sometimes we can no longer keep it in and we lash out.  This is the nature of samsaric life.  When we do lash out, it invariably makes things worse.  We then either “double down” on our anger and get mad again, or we start repressing again waiting for the next volcanic eruption to occur. 

How do we stop this hellish cycle?  We need to stop it at its root.  Once anger has started, it is very difficult to rein back in.  But we cannot repress our anger, because doing so just guarantees one day it will explode.  The root of anger is wishing things were different than they are.  We wish those around us weren’t so difficult.  We wish life wasn’t so difficult.  We wish we could just have a moment to take a rest.  But the tighter we grasp onto things needing to go well, the more painful it is when they do not.  Samsara is wave after wave of aggravating circumstances.  This is its very nature.  This will never change.

The root of the problem is we want the wrong things.  We want what our eight worldly concerns want (pleasant experiences, happiness, a good reputation, praise, etc.).  In short, we want to experience good effects.  This is the root of our problem.  Instead, we need to want to create good causes.  Bad effects now are the karmic echoes of our past bad causes.  Good causes now are the karmic seeds of future good effects.  We cannot take with us into our future lives the good effects we experience now, but we can take with us the good karmic causes we create for ourselves.  They are our real inner wealth.  The inner wealth of good causes is to bodhisattvas what money is to business people or power is to politicians. 

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Avoid a bad reputation and negativity

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Not avoiding a bad reputation. 

If we unnecessarily engage in actions that cause us to receive criticism or a bad reputation we incur a secondary downfall.  However, if our actions benefit others, cause the Dharma to flourish, or are necessary to preserve our moral discipline, it does not matter if a few people criticize us.

I would say in modern times our biggest attachment that creates the most problems for us is attachment to what others think about us.  First our parents, then our friends, then society, then our kids, etc.  We need to break completely free from this and make our own decisions about what is the right thing to do, and if other people have a problem with it, then frankly it is their problem, not ours.  We shouldn’t let their misunderstanding of what is best for us prevent us from doing what is in fact best for us (and them) in the long-run.  Buddha showed this example when he left his father’s palace.  This was not his father’s first choice, but because Buddha’s motivation was pure and his father eventually came to see this, he agreed to let his son go even though he didn’t necessarily want to. 

But we also need to be careful to not go to the other extreme with this.  In general, we should go along with others’ wishes for us unless doing so is somehow harmful.  We should try be of service to whoever we meet and do whatever is the most beneficial for others.  We should not unnecessarily antagonize others with our actions nor should we abandon our conventional responsibilities.  Unless the situation is extreme and we have received very clear indications, we should not abandon our partner or our children thinking we need to do so to pursue our spiritual goals.  We also need to assume our full parental and professional responsibilities.  If we don’t do so in the name of supposedly following our spiritual path, we run a real risk of bringing the Dharma into disrepute and causing others to reject it.  Who does that help?  There is no contradiction whatsoever between living up to our normal modern responsibilities in the world and being a Kadampa.  If there were, it would be impossible to attain the union of the Kadam Dharma and modern life.  As explained by Geshe Chekewa, “remain natural while changing your aspiration.”  We live our external lives completely as normal, but inside we change everything.

Not helping others to avoid negativity. 

If we have the ability and the opportunity to help others avoid committing negative actions but, without a good reason, fail to do so we incur a secondary downfall.

As a general rule, we shouldn’t get into other people’s business or tell others what they need to do.  Our job is to make our own actions correct.  The more we try tell others what they need to do, the more they will rebel against us and the Dharma which they know is behind our proselytizing.  There is nothing wrong with sharing our own experience if people are open to hearing it, but we should leave it up to them to apply our experience to their own circumstance.  This is why quite often when you ask a Kadampa teacher some question about what you should do they won’t answer you directly but they will instead tell some story from their own experience (or that of their friends).  They leave it up to you to apply the story to your own life and situation as you see fit.

With that being said, situations do arise where we have some degree of influence over others and they are about to engage in some negative action and if we say something we could stop them (or at least get them to think twice).  When such situations arise, we should not just sit on the sidelines, we need to act.  Basically, if we can help somebody we need to do so.  Our ability to do so depends entirely on whether the other person trusts us that we have their own best interests at heart.  If they feel like we are just trying to manipulate them for our own purposes, or we are wanting them to stop due to our own attachment to them doing the right thing (attachment to others happiness is quite different than love and compassion), then they will just reject what we have to say.  But if they know we have no hidden agenda and only want what is best for them, and ultimately we don’t need them to make the choice we want them to make, then they will be open to listening to what we have to say.  We never know when somebody we know and love might start doing stupid, self-destructive things, so we need to cultivate trusting relationships with everyone in our life so that if the day does come where we need to intervene, they will listen to us. 

Our intervening doesn’t guarantee that the other person will stop, and we need to be prepared for them to engage in the negative action anyways.  But at the very least we will be able to say we did all that we could, but ultimately the other person’s actions are beyond our control.  When this happens, we can renew our bodhichitta saying may I one day become a Buddha so that I can always be there for this person and gradually lead them along correct paths.

Happy Protector Day: The nature and function of Dorje Shugden

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 5 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

In this post, I will explain the nature and function of Dorje Shugden.  In the subsequent posts I will explain how to rely upon him outside of formal meditation and then I will explain how to rely upon him during the formal meditation session. 

What is the nature and function of Dorje Shugden?  In short, his nature is the same as our Spiritual Guide, but in particular he is by nature the Wisdom Buddha Manjushri.  Manjushri assumes two forms, Je Tsongkhapa to lead us along the path and Dorje Shugden to arrange the conditions for our practice of the path.  His function is to arrange all the outer, inner and secret conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment.

To understand this in more detail, we can consider the meaning of the invitation prayer to Dorje Shugden that we recite every day in the context of our Heart Jewel practice.  The Sadhana beings by saying,

HUM, I have the clarity of the Yidam.

With HUM we dissolve everything into the clear light Dharmakaya and recall that the definitive nature of Dorje Shugden is the Truth Body of our Spiritual Guide.  ‘I have the clarity of the Yidam’ means we engage in our Dorje Shugden practice self-generated as our personal deity.  We do this for two reasons.  First, it is more effective.  Heruka is much closer to Dorje Shugden than we are, so by requesting Dorje Shugden as Heruka we tap into their close karmic connection.  It is similar to knowing somebody who knows somebody very powerful.  We may not know the powerful person ourselves, but if we know somebody who does know them, if they ask the powerful person to fulfill our wishes on our behalf, it is far more likely we will get the response we want.  The second reason why we do this is the practice of Dorje Shugden can be engaged in for the sake of ourself or for the sake of others.  When we eventually become Buddha Heruka our work is not finished – we will still need to lead all other beings to enlightenment.  At that time, we will need powerful allies who can help living beings, such as Dorje Shugden.  Training in the practice of Dorje Shugden while maintaining divine pride of being the deity is a very powerful method for having Dorje Shugden accomplish his function for all those that we love.

Before me in the center of red and black fire and wind.

Here, we imagine that encircling all the living beings we are visualizing around us is a large proection circle of Dorje Shugden made out of five-colored wisdom fires.  It is like a giant sphere which completely envelopes all of these beings and the entire universe.  I like to imagine that all living beings are now inside of the protection circle and everything that happens to them is perfect for their swiftest possible enlightenment. 

On a lotus and sun trampeling demons and obstructors is a terrifying lion powerful and alert.

The function of Dorje Shugden’s lion is to dispel all fear.  It is a bit like in the movie Narnia, when people were in the presence of Aslan, they knew they were safe and they had nothing to fear.  If ever we are in a situation where we are afraid, we can remember the protection circle of Dorje Shugden and we can remember his lion and strongly believe that we are protected and that we receive his blessings which pacify all of our fear. 

Upon this sits the Great King Dorje Shugden, the supreme heart jewel of Dharma protectors.

Dorje Shugden is the principal deity of the visualization.  There are a couple of different analogies we can consider to get a feeling for who he is.  He is our karma manager.  Rich people give their money to money managers to manage their money in an optimal way.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is the supreme karma manager.  He will manage our karma in an optimal way for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  He is also our personal spiritual trainer.  When people want to get their bodies in shape, they go to a personal physical trainer who gives them the specific exercises they need to get in the peak of physical health.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is our personal spiritual trainer who gives us the specific exercises we need to put ourselves in the peak of spiritual health, full enlightenment.  He is our spiritual father.  Our father protects us from danger and provides us with everything we need.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is our spiritual father, who will protect us from all danger and provide for us everything we need to accomplish our spiritual goals.  He is the director of our spiritual life.  When people make movies or plays, there is a director who organizes and puts together all the appearances.  In the same way, Dorje Shugden is the director of our spiritual life, who will create a play of appearances around us for the rest of our life that are perfect for our spiritual path.  In a future post, I will explain how he has the power to help us not just in this life and right now, but in all our past and future lives as well.  Yes, we can go back within our past and transform what happened into a cause of our enlightenment!

His body is clothed in the garments of a monk.

This symbolizes his power to assist us with our practice of moral discipline.  We all have bad habits we are trying to abandon, such as smoking, getting angry at people, and so forth; and vows we are trying to keep, such as our refuge, pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric vows, but we are not very successful in doing so.  Dorje Shugden can give us the strength and wisdom we need to abandon these bad habits.  Whenever we feel tempted to break our moral discipline, we can recall Dorje Shugden in front of us dressed in the garments of a monk and request his special blessings to give us the strength to keep our moral discipline.