Abandon poisonous food. 

Here poisonous food refers to virtuous actions contaminated with self-grasping and self-cherishing.  This commitment advises us to not perform actions contaminated by these, which we have been doing since beginningless time.

It is very easy for us to misunderstand this vow.  On the surface, it seems to imply that we should not perform virtuous actions if they are mixed with self-cherishing and self-grasping, so we think it is somehow “bad” to do so.  This indicates a very important point in the Dharma:  when it comes to Dharma practice, there is no “bad”, there is only “good” and “even better.”  Engaging in virtuous actions mixed with self-grasping and self-cherishing is “good,” doing so without these contaminations is “even better.”  Just because there is an “even better” does not mean the “good” is somehow bad.  In short, we need to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Unfortunately, this is a mistake we make all the time with our Dharma practice, and many people develop all sorts of “dharma neuroses” because of it.  Let’s say we do the offerings on the shrine at our center, but we do it all wrong.  Is this good or bad?  It is good.  Of course, it is better to do it correctly, but just because there is this “better” doesn’t mean what we did is “bad.”  The same logic applies to all our Dharma practices.  Basically, we currently do everything all “wrong.”  We do nothing correctly.  But that does not mean our practice is “bad” or that we are doing anything wrong.  There are always “even better” ways of doing our practices, but we should never feel bad or guilty because we are not doing things perfectly.  Many people beat themselves up and become very guilty about the imperfections in their Dharma practice.  Some unskillful teachers focus only on what their students are doing wrong as opposed to what they are doing correctly.  This kills all joy in Dharma practice and just makes people anxious and worried about doing things incorrectly.  It is very important that we counter such attitudes and tendencies in our Dharma centers.  Our Dharma centers should be places where we learn to laugh, not become neurotic!

A good example is when it comes to cherishing others.  If we are honest, most of our cherishing of others right now is done with a mixed motivation.  Part of us cherishes others because we genuinely want them to be happy, but there is also part of our mind that cherishes others because we see how this will benefit us!  In other words, our cherishing of others is mixed with self-cherishing.  This is entirely normal and not a problem.  It is “good.”  We don’t not cherish others because we can’t do so with a perfectly selfless motivation.  If we adopted such an attitude, we would never cherish others at all.  Instead, we happily accept where we are at, but we do not remain satisfied with where we are at.  This is a subtle distinction.  We strive to do better and better, to cherish others with increasingly pure motivations, but we nonetheless remain perfectly happy with the fact that we are doing things only partially correctly.  Once again, there is no “bad”, there is only “good” and “even better.”  If we can maintain this attitude, then we will keep joy in our practice.  Without joy, there is no actual effort. 

This advises us to not wish for results from our practice for ourself alone, but we should dedicate all our merit to others.  It also advises us to not use Lojong for worldly goals.

In my experience, the biggest problem of those between year 1 and year 10 of Dharma practice is attachment to results.  This is the number one thing that creates problems for us in our practice.  Generally speaking, those who have been practicing for more than 10 years gave up on expecting results long ago.  They have realized it is a long slog, and each year that goes by they increasingly feel they haven’t really started practicing yet.  This is a good thing – it means we stabilize ourself in the mind of a beginner.

When we have attachment to results, several problems arise.  First, it takes away all the fun of practice.  If we enjoy our practice, results will naturally come, and then we will relish the opportunity to practice more.  If we are attached to results, then our practice is a source of constant frustration when they don’t come.  When we are concerned about results, we start having things like “good meditations” and “bad meditations,” where the former is one where things came easily and the latter is where we struggled the whole time.  When we let go of attachment to results, our assessment of what constitutes a “good meditation” completely reverses.  The one where we struggle is the better meditation because we know we are working through much more in our mind than when things come easily.  This doesn’t mean a formerly “good meditation” where lots of results ripen is a bad thing.  For a pure practitioner, it is equally good as the “bad” meditation, but just for different reasons.  It is not good because of the good results, it is good because with the new insight we can later go on to struggle with something deeper.

Attachment to results creates great tension in our mind as the gap between our intellectual understanding and our actual ability to practice grows.  When we expect results, we can quickly develop a Dharma neurosis where the more we learn about how we “should” be the more frustrated we become with “how we actually are.”  We think just because we know how a Buddha thinks and would respond that we are somehow supposed to already be capable of doing so.  The more we intellectually know, the more we judge our practice as faulty and inadequate and we quickly become frustrated.  But when we let go of attachment to results, the more we intellectually understand the better we get at practicing right where we are at.  We accept where we are at and therefore attend to improving the quality with which we practice. 

With attachment to results, we can easily grow discouraged and lose faith in our practices if results do not come right away.  We have countless aeons worth of bad habits built up in our mind.  It is completely unrealistic to assume just because we have been practicing for a few months, years, or even decades that we should somehow be able to respond in completely different ways.  When we can’t, we conclude the Dharma doesn’t work and we abandon our practice.  A pure practitioner is unconcerned with such things.  Their sole concern is the quality of their effort, not the results they attain.  They know that if the cause is created, the future result is guaranteed, so they worry not about results and instead care only about creating good causes for the future.

The function of attachment is to separate you from whatever you are attached to, so the more we become attached to results, the further we will remove ourself from them.  This is the cruel truth of attachment.  It is because we want to have results that we must completely let go of attachment to them.  When we do let go, then results start falling into our lap naturally.  And if they don’t, it is not a problem because we are focused on creating causes.  In the end, it is very simple:  if you want to experience a result, then you need to create the cause.  So there is no sense in grasping at results, only sense in focusing on creating its cause.

The opponent to all attachment to results is learning to be content to try.  We need to learn to enjoy practicing itself, independent of any results.  Probably the purest practitioner I have ever met was somebody who had spent the last 15 years in a mental hospital.  He had terrible psychotic tendencies which often manifested in psychotic thoughts towards the three jewels and especially towards Geshe-la.  Every day, he would be assailed literally hundreds of times with deeply negative thoughts.  Most people would either kill themselves or drug themselves into a stupor.  But his view was completely different.  He made a distinction between “the ripening of past negative tendencies” and “the new creation of good causes.”  When a psychotic thought arises in his mind, he recognizes it as the ripening of a past tendency.  In and of itself, this thought is only harmful if he assents to it – in other words he believes it to be true.  But if instead he trains in “not believing” and “not assenting” to it, then he is not only not creating new negative karma, he is actually creating incredibly powerful virtue.  It is said that one action of moral discipline of restraint is enough to create the cause for a higher rebirth.  In his view, if he had 50 negative thoughts in an hour, and he practiced not assenting to them 50 times, then he just created for himself the causes for 50 future precious human lives.  Who needs money when you can create karma like this?  For him, the ripening of deluded tendencies was simply an essential condition for him to train his mind.  Far from being discouraged, he thanked his protector for giving him continued opportunities to practice.  He would say, “we are living in increasingly degenerate times.  It will not be long before everybody has a mind like mine.  I have been given this mind now so that I can learn how to practice in the face of such an onslaught.  By learning this now, I will prepare myself to be the most helpful to others when times are at their most degenerate.”  I am not making this up.  This is a real person.  His name was Taro, and he was one of the most amazing practitioners I have ever met.  He was a shining example of what it means to practice without attachment to results.  Regrettably, he died in Summer 2021.

When we practice we should do so for the sake of others.  Our job is to learn how to control our mind so that we can teach others how to do the same thing.  Kadam Lucy once said to Geshe-la that her main job is to cause the Dharma to flourish, and Geshe-la sternly corrected her saying that her main job was to practice Dharma, and our ability to cause the Dharma to flourish flows directly from that.  Any other benefit we receive from our practice is a side effect of our main aim, which is to serve others.  We do receive benefit, but that is not why we are practicing.

Training in Dharma will actually make us more successful in all our activities.  Practically speaking, our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to focus on the task at hand.  Of course we should not use the Dharma for accomplishing worldly success.  Dharma is like internal physics, it is just how things work.  So it is possible to study Dhamra with a worldly motivation and use its science to succeed in our worldly aims.  This is like using hundred dollar bills for toilet paper.  This does not mean, however, that we shouldn’t use Dharma to solve our daily problems.  Of course we should.  The issue here is we learn how to use Dharma to overcome all samsaric problems for the sake of getting ourselves and others out!

Do not think about others’ faults. 

 

This commitment advises us not to dwell on the faults of others.  If we contemplate our own faults we can identify them and overcome them.  This is true wisdom.  Contemplating our own good knowledge and qualities leads to conceit, but contemplating the good qualities of others leads to respect and affection.

 

If we understood the previous commitment, then this naturally follows.  The main point here is Geshe-la takes things one step further.  In the previous commitment we are advised to stop talking about other’s faults, here we are advised to not even think about them!  But again, it all depends on our motivation.  If our motivation is sincerely cherishing love, then our thinking about other’s faults enables us to generate compassion for them instead of disdain.  Once again, it is very important to make a distinction between the person and their delusions.  A person is not their delusions.

 

The reality is this: the world we experience is the world we pay attention to.  If all we do is pay attention to the faults of those around us, we will live in a faulty world.  If all we do is pay attention to the qualities of those around us, we will live in a world full of qualities.  Ultimately, whether something is a fault or something is a quality has nothing to do with the characteristic itself, but instead has everything to do with how we mentally relate to that appearance.  If our wish is to not be bothered, then other’s delusions appear to us as a problem.  If instead our wish is to grow as a person, then their delusions are helpful for us.  From our own side, we don’t need them to change because their faulty behavior suits our practice just fine.  For us, it is a beneficial condition in our life.  Of course for their sake, we may wish for them to be free from the apparent fault, but from our side we have no such need.  When people sense this in us, they naturally respect what we have to say and readily take it on board because they know they can trust that we are only looking out for their sake.

 

At a profound level, faulty beings only exist and appear to a faulty mind.  The faulty others we see are nothing more than creations of our own mind.  We need to stop creating such beings, and that begins by stopping even thinking about other’s faults.  The truth is, they have no faults.  Any faults we perceive are coming from our own mind, so it is quite unfair to blame them for our projections.  Instead of seeing others as faulty, we should train in seeing them an emanations of Buddhas.  They may still act in conventionally “faulty” ways, but when we see them as emanations, we will find their “faulty” behavior to be a powerful Dharma teaching.  Seeing others as Buddhas is the most compassionate thing we can do.  It functions to ripen their pure potential – our pure view draws out their Buddha-like qualities.  Just as self-generation practice requires us to first dissolve the self we normally see into the clear light, so too we need to stop thinking about other’s faults before we can see them as emanations.

 

Purify your greatest delusion first. 

 

If we purify our greatest delusion first, we will find it easier to overcome all our others.  With persistent effort we will slowly diminish our delusions until they cease altogether.

 

I have a former student who at the beginning of every year would have a meeting with me where she would decide what delusion she wanted to primarily work on for the coming year.  This became her main project for the year.  The reality is sustained focus brings results, so by focusing on one delusion over an extended period of time we can bring about real change.  If instead, we jump from one delusion to another we will always feel like we are just putting out fires and not radically altering our mind.  This does not mean that we don’t also work on eliminating our other delusions when they arise, but in terms of what we focus on, we focus on whatever is our biggest delusion. When we are clear in purpose, we then look for and find opportunities to work on overcoming that delusion.  When we have a primary objective in mind, we know what we need to focus on in a given situation, therefore our priorities are always clear.  We should pick a delusion, make it specific, make it clear, and then make overcoming it the main focus of our practice.

 

How do we choose what is our greatest delusion?  We should start with the one that creates the most problems for us, or the one that does the greatest harm to those around us.  For example, we can choose our anger.  But we need to make it specific, not abstract.  So we can say our anger and frustration with our family.  We should also pre-plan what are the main opponents we will use to oppose this delusion.  Interestingly, if we plan ahead of time how we intend to overcome certain delusions when they arise, when the time comes, our use of that opponent is much more effective.

 

Generally, whatever we have the most difficulty with in the beginning of our practice will be the most important realizations for us later.  For example, when I first started practicing I was totally in agreement with all the Dharma except this whole faith thing!  To me, faith was for people who didn’t know how to think for themselves.  For me, faith was dangerous because I then opened myself up to be manipulated and betrayed.  I came into the Dharma because I wanted answers – and I was finding real answers – so the whole idea of having faith just made no sense to me.  I continued practicing in this way for many years until during a retreat once I absolutely hit a wall.  I had gone as far as one can go without faith and everything died.  It was as if I had been going 70 miles per hour on the freeway and all a sudden, all four wheels came flying off.  I didn’t know what to do.  So I called my teacher, who in turn just laughed at me.  She said, “you don’t know what to do, do you?”  I said, “no.”  She then asked, “so why are you relying upon yourself then?”  And then it hit me.  I then asked, so what should I do?  She said, “don’t ask me.  Go sit down on your cushion, generate a pure motivation, and ask for guidance.  Then do whatever is revealed to you.”  I then did as I was instructed, nothing came at first, but then a message came to me very clearly:  “I need to start over from scratch.”  I then asked how, and a reply came back, “I will guide you.”  And from there, my entire practice got rebuilt with reliance as the center of my practice.  I would now not have it any other way.  I think when we get in trouble with our practice, it is always a good idea to do as my teacher advised.

The reason why we focus on our biggest delusion first is because it is the most pervasive, and is often the cause of many of our other smaller delusions.  So by attacking the big one, we take out a whole bunch of little ones.  But if we attack the little ones, and not the big one, new little ones will grow back.  Further, the skills we learn in being able to deal with our big delusions enables us to more easily deal with our smaller ones.

 

In the end, delusions are nothing other than bad habits of mind.  There is nothing intrinsic about delusions to our mind.  So with persistence and familiarity, we can reduce and finally eliminate our delusions.  It is useful to recall the story of the man cutting an iron block with a feather.  People thought he was crazy and would never succeed, but he said, “look, I have already made a mark.”

This means we should not point out other’s faults without a good reason.  The criteria for pointing out other’s faults are (1) that our motivation is pure, and (2) we are sure they will benefit from it.  Otherwise, we will only make them upset and angry.

This advice is very important.  Often we think that others “they need to hear the truth,” and so we feel justified in criticizing others.  Of course we should only speak the truth, but the truth alone is not enough.  From amongst what is true, we should only say what is beneficial.  The so called “truth” itself has no independent value.  Besides, what we consider to be truth is in fact our own subjective perspective on things.  Ultimately, if we really want to hear the truth, the reality is any fault we see in somebody else is actually a reflection of the faults in our own mind.  So the truth we need to hear is we are the one’s responsible for all faults we perceive in the world, so it is highly misplaced to blame others for the projections of our own mind.

We think it will help the other person to hear about their faults because then they can change.  But if the other person is not genuinely open to discussing their faults and limitations, then our forcing them to do so just invites defensiveness and conflict.  They don’t change, instead they start to point out our own faults and defend why their faults are actually not faults at all.  Then, of course, they will also blame us for their faults – arguing it is due to our actions that they are acting the way they do.  So even if we are “right,” the only result of our “saying something” is they reject what we have to say, defend their faults as virtue, and wind up blaming others more forcefully for their problems.  How have we helped?  In general, if the other person is not open it is far better to not talk about their faults at all.  All that will do is make people unhappy and create problems. 

This is equally true when talking to people about the faults of others.  Most work environments and most circles of friends are plagued by talking badly about other people.  Quite often, we feel the only way in which people will accept us into their group is if we show them that we agree with their conclusions about how unreasonable and faulty certain other people are.  We may feel like it is OK because we are not talking about the faulty person with the faulty person, so their feelings don’t get hurt.  But when we talk about the faults of some people with others all we are doing is engaging in divisive speech.  We are also kidding ourselves if we think other people don’t know we are talking badly about them.  People are not stupid.  They know and it hurts.  And if they don’t know, then in many respects it is even worse.  How would we feel if we found out everybody who we thought was our friend was in fact secretly talking badly about us behind our backs?  How would we feel if we found out that in fact we were just part of a big joke of others who we thought were our friends?  As Kadampas, we simply don’t play this game.  As a general rule, we should never say anything bad about anybody ever. 

This does not mean we never talk about others’ faults, though.  If we could not ever discuss the faults of living beings, there would be no basis for discussing the Dharma at all.  What then are the conditions under which we can talk about other’s faults?  There are four that I use.  First, our motivation is sincerely pure and compassionate.  We know the difference between somebody who speaks about the faults of others from the perspective of a compassionate wish to help and when they do so with judgment in their hearts and a wish to criticize others as a means of aggrandizing themselves.  It is not enough for ourselves to have a compassionate motivation when speaking, others must realize that this is our motivation.  If they do not, then harm will still follow.  The second condition is we are certain that the other person is open and receptive to what we have to say.  This depends a great deal on whether the other person respects and trusts us.  It fundamentally depends on whether or not the person thinks we have some ulterior, selfish motive for saying something.  The reality is we are bothered by the fact that those around us are so faulty.  We wish it were otherwise.  We wish they were all free from delusions and always acted correctly.  We do not wish this out of compassion wanting what is best for them, rather we wish this because we are so tired of dealing with all their problems and serving as the object of their wrath.  When we try “help people overcome their faults” motivated by a simple aversion to their deluded behavior then they don’t trust us and don’t take our words as compassionate help.  Instead, they are received as a judgment and an attack.  We may be using Dharma words and saying Dharma wisdom, but in reality we are using the Dharma as a weapon to attack and judge others.  This is a terrible misuse of the Dharma.

The third condition necessary before we can talk about other’s faults is we ourselves don’t possess that fault.  It is quite rich to talk about other’s faults when we ourselves possess the same fault.  When we do so, others find us to be a hypocrite and feel we are hardly in a position to judge them.  So they reject what we have to say.  We do not have to be completely free from the fault before we can speak about it in others, but we do have to have the humility to fully and publicly own up to our possessing this fault.  One useful method to talk about other’s faults in a skillful way is to talk about our own faults.  We practice ‘owning other’s faults as our own,’ and then talk about other’s faults in the context of ourselves.  This shows humility and also allows others to hear what they need to hear without them growing defensive.  But we need to be sincere about it, because if we are talking about our own faults, but it comes across as insincere and a trick to talk about their faults, then it won’t work.

The fourth condition is when we speak about faults (of ourself or others) we do so clearly distinguishing between the person and the fault.  When we speak about somebody’s cancer, we don’t discuss it as a fault of the person, rather we discuss it as a sickness of the body.  In the same way, when we speak about somebody’s delusions, we don’t discuss it as a fault of the person, but rather as a sickness of their mind.  Grime on a diamond doesn’t defile the diamond itself.  Storm clouds in the sky aren’t the sky itself.  In the same way delusions cannot defile our mind and are not our mind itself.

The essential point is the only thing we have control over is ourselves, so our focus should be identifying our own faults and getting rid of them.  We should also be extremely gracious and open to others offering us constructive suggestions on how we can do better.  We need to actively seek others input for how we can do a better job, and really want to encourage others to help us see our faults.  In fact, those who criticize us are our best friends.

Through the practice of training the mind our aspirations will change, but we should not make any outward changes in our body and speech, we should remain natural.  We should keep our attainments and realizations hidden from others so as to attract fewer obstacles.

This is very important advice, especially in modern times.  When our family and friends learn we have become a Buddhist, their big fear is that we have run off and joined some crazed sect, or they fear we will become strange.  This is especially a problem for modern Kadampas because when our families Google “New Kadampa Tradition,” all their worst fears of us joining some sect can be quickly reaffirmed.  So how do we counter this?  We answer all such concerns by showing through our actions, not our words, that the more we practice the more normal we become.  Indeed, what will happen is we will become more “normal” than they are, and they will be the ones who seem unbalanced – even to themselves.  When this happens, all their fears will subside.    

By remaining natural we force ourselves to focus our practice on the interior.  Because we are such external beings, we tend to exaggerate external changes.  But Dharma practice is an inner practice.  By keeping this commitment, we force all change to be internal – which is what we want.  The only thing we have to change is our mind.

By remaining natural, we make the Dharma more accessible to others.  They see that the only thing they have to change is their mind.  A good example of this is being vegetarian.  We never say that people need to become vegetarian to become a Buddhist.  Why?  Because most people simply don’t want to be vegetarian.  If they think they have to become vegetarian before they begin, they will conclude that it is too hard to be Buddhist so they will not even start.  But if instead we say there is no such commitment and everyone is free to do as they wish, then people will start practicing.  They will then gain personal experience of how the Dharma naturally makes them a happier person.  At some point later they may decide for personal reasons to become vegetarian, but it is coming from their own side.  The same is true for essentially every other instruction.  Buddha’s teachings are not commandments given to us from on high, rather they are time-tested and proven methods for finding inner peace.  We are free to try them or leave them.  When we try them, they work.  It is that simple. 

By forcing ourselves to remain natural we learn how to integrate the real meaning of Dharma into a modern cultural context.  This is Geshe-la’s main project, really.  It is up to us to carry on the lineage in the context that we find ourselves.  Keeping this instruction enables us to do so.  Geshe-la said once that he has given us the Dharma.  Now it is up to us to integrate it into our modern lives.  Since the publication of Modern Buddhism, the central mission of the tradition has become to “attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.”  In this sense, we actually have an obligation to remain exactly as before externally.  Every life situation is equally empty, and so therefore every life situation is equally pregnant with spiritual possibilities.  Our job is to uncover how this is so.  When we do so, we then share our experience so that others who have lives similar to our own can come to understand how they too can seamlessly integrate the Dharma into their lives.  Paradoxically, the way we spread the Dharma far and wide is by externally not changing a thing.

This advice also serves as an insurance policy against us letting others know what our spiritual attainments are.  First, nobody likes a “holier than thou” person, so if we go around acting “all spiritual and deep” it is very off-putting.  If instead, we are completely normal, relaxed and easy going, then people will naturally want to be around us and want to know how we do it.  Very often in many different spiritual traditions we will see these people where the more “spiritual” they become the more uptight they become.  They become heavy and way too serious.  When they pray they get this strained look on their face.  Kadam Bjorn said there is not a single Dharma mind that is not spacious, open, and light.  If we are practicing correctly, the higher our spiritual attainments the more normal and down to earth we will be.  If this is not happening, it is a sign we are not practicing correctly.  Kadam Morten said there are two types of masters, those who show the final result and those who show the example of somebody going there, and in the end the latter is more beneficial.  It is much more useful to show the example of a humble practitioner. By remaining humble, people generate faith, whereas by being boastful, people develop suspicions

The commitments of training the mind

There are many benefits of following the 18 commitments and 22 precepts.  Keeping them is the supreme method for establishing and improving our moral discipline.  Moral discipline is the field from which all the crops of Lojong realizations grow.   Keeping these commitments is also a profound method for keeping our vows.  It protects us from falling into wrong paths and keeps us on correct paths in this and future lives.

The purpose of describing the benefits of our vows is to motivate us to practice them.  If we lack the desire to keep our commitments, then we should contemplate the benefits again and again until we want to keep them.  Training in the commitments and precepts of training the mind is the supreme method for strengthening our moral discipline.  In general, we say that moral discipline has three main parts. The commitments and precepts of training the mind enable us to accomplish all three.  The moral discipline of restraint is refraining from non-virtue when we would otherwise give in.  Each time we do this, we create the cause for a higher rebirth.  The only reason why we are enjoying our precious human life now is because in the past we refrained from being negative in the past when we otherwise would have been.  The moral discipline of practicing virtue is intentionally engaging in virtuous actions understanding the benefit of doing so, and the moral discipline of benefiting others is any virtuous action which brings benefit to others.

The commitments and precepts are a practical means by which we can put into practice all the Lojong instructions.  Training in the commitments and precepts themselves is the principal way in which we put the Lojong instructions into practice.  These commitments and precepts prevent us from taking a wrong turn.  They are like road signs that point us in our chosen direction.  They are like spiritual friends who always give us good advice.  They function as a fence which protects us from all suffering.

Always train in the three general points. 

The first of the three general points is do not allow your practice of training the mind to cause inappropriate behavior.  We should always act in a manner that is appropriate to our spiritual development, and not unnecessarily act recklessly or inappropriately thinking we are advanced practitioners.

This is very important advice.  If we don’t understand the Dharma correctly, it is easy for us to develop Dharma neuroses, where the more Dharma we understand the more problems we have.  Usually this comes from our taking the instructions to an extreme beyond our current capacity.  We have this big disjoint between our intellectual understanding and what we can actually do.  This disjoint can cause pain if we have expectations of actually being able to already do all that is described.  Dharma practice is not generating the minds of Dharma, it is trying our best to do so.  Problems can also arise if we become self-critical and angry at ourselves because we can’t do everything.  To overcome this, we need to separate our delusions from ourselves, and we need to just be content to try our best. 

 

Our practice should never feel forced, but should evolve naturally and gradually.  We should take each instruction in the context of the whole, not an individual instruction to an extreme.  The instructions as a whole function like a net, and we practice everything within the context of everything else.  This prevents us from taking things to crazy extremes.

 

The second of the three general points is do not allow the practice of training the mind to contradict your vows.  We should not abandon our other vows thinking that the commitments and precepts of training the mind are sufficient.  We need to work with all the vows.  We can think that our main vows are the pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and Tantric vows.  The commitments and precepts of training the mind are like supporting friends for our main practice of the three vows. 

 

The third of the three general points is do not practice training the mind with partiality.  We should practice cherishing others, etc., without partiality.  We should not say “I will cherish these people, but not those.”  Geshe-la says that we need to start with our close friends and family and then gradually extend the scope of our practice.  Why is this?  If in the beginning we try to “cherish all living beings” we will lack any feeling for what this means because it is too abstract and removed from our daily experience.  But if we just limit the scope of our compassion to our immediate family and friends it will not be enough to free us from samsara.  So we start with our immediate family and friends and generate authentic and qualified Dharma minds towards them, and then we gradually expand this feeling for more and more beings.  When we start to lose the feeling, we have gone too far, and when it feels insignificant, we have not gone far enough.  The optimal balance we are trying to strike is between the maximum number of people while still preserving some feeling. 

Not doing wrathful actions when appropriate. 

Sometimes it is necessary to act in a wrathful manner to prevent someone from committing negative actions, or to subdue their pride.  If we realize clearly that such a time has come, and we know that our wrathful action will greatly benefit them in the future, we incur a secondary downfall if for some incorrect reason we do not carry out that action.

In modern times, wrathful actions almost always backfire.  Unless we are in very specific circumstances and we know our action will help, we should probably avoid doing them.  What are these conditions?  First, the other person’s faith in us has to be greater than the amount of wrath we use.  If it is not, then our action will just breed resentment and cause the other person to reject what we have to say.  Second, the other person has to know our action is motivated by love, free from any selfish intent.  If we have some ulterior motive for our action, the other person will know this and reject our action as us just manipulating them.  Third, our mind has to be free from anger when we do it.  We often like to call our anger us being “wrathful,” but in reality our mind is still filled with anger.  Anger always makes things worse.  Anger solves nothing.  If our mind is angry, our action will simply function to destroy our relationship with the other person, thus closing the door to us ever being able to help them again.  Fourth, it is not enough to be “right” the other person has to have the capacity to realize that we are right.  If it is simply beyond their capacity to understand how and why, our action will not work.  Fifth, we must be reasonably certain that our wrathful action will actually help change the person’s behavior.  If not, then all we do is build up within the other person a resistance to our wrathful actions and then when they are really needed later, they won’t work.  Sixth, we need to have previously exhausted all other possibilities.  There are four types of actions – pacifying, increasing, controlling and wrathful.  As a general rule, we first try all the other methods before we try wrathful actions.  Assuming these six conditions are met, then it can be appropriate to engage in wrathful actions.

If we do so, it is vitally important that after everyone has calmed down, you share a moment of love with the other person, such as having a good laugh with them about how absurd everyone has been, or simply giving them a big hug and letting them know you love them.  When we harm another person, which in the short-run at least wrathful actions often can do, if we do not in very short order also have a moment of love the hurt can quickly transform into resentment, even if initially it was understood as you trying to help.  We should, at a minimum try to never go to bed with hard feelings between us and anybody else.  Set things straight before everyone goes to bed, if you can.

Not using miracle powers, threatening actions, and so forth. 

When we perform wrathful actions, we should use whatever miracle powers we have, otherwise we incur a secondary downfall.  Nowadays, however, it is most beneficial for a Bodhisattva to not display their miracle powers.

The reason why we do not display our miracle powers is doing so can invite lots of problems.  First, people who have harmful intent or who have committed past negative deeds can feel threatened if they think we can read their minds and we know what they have done.  Second, it attracts all the wrong people.  We do not want to fill our Dharma centers with people looking to do magic tricks, rather we seek people who humbly wish to become a better person.  Third, it distracts from what really matters, namely developing a good heart.  Geshe-la explains the true miracle power is the supreme good heart.  Being able to fly or see distant places, etc., are of little value if not properly motivated.  In fact, such abilities can be harmful with ill intent. 

Some people generate doubts when they hear talk of miracle powers.  They think it is absurd to say people can gain the ability to fly, see at great distances, read others’ minds’ etc.  Nagarjuna said, “for whom emptiness is impossible, nothing is possible.”  We only don’t understand how these things are possible because we grasp at all things as somehow existing independently of everything else.  But if we understand everything is a dream, it is perfectly possible.  If I am dreaming, in my dream I can move objects by simply thinking them in different places.  It is the same in the waking world, which is also just another layer of dream. 

Understanding emptiness may explain external miracle powers, but what about the ability to read other’s minds.  Since ultimately, others’ minds are not separate from our own – in fact, they are merely waves on the ocean of our own mind – if we have removed the veil of ignorance from our mind we can see directly others’ minds just as we can see our own.  Even conventionally, we can understand how this works by considering a parent and their child.  One of my former teachers had a well-developed ability to see right through me.  I often couldn’t understand how she did it until I myself had kids.  Parents often see right through their kids by virtue of knowing them well and simply having a maturity that sees a bigger picture than the kid can possibly be aware of.  Our kids think they are doing a good job of hiding that candy behind their back, but we know exactly what is going on.  It is the same when our teachers look at us.  We think we are hiding our delusions and wrong deeds well, but our teachers know the signs and just “see” what is going on in much the same way a parent does.  Such powers may seem miraculous to the child, but are just the natural byproduct of having walked a little further down the path.  All miracle powers should be understood in the same way.

Practically speaking, we are a long ways off from having miracle powers ourself.  But this doesn’t prevent us from having access to them right now.  The Buddhas already have perfected their miracle powers.  They know all moments – past, present, and future.  They know where all paths lead.  If somebody approaches us with some problem and we don’t know how to help or what they should do, we should bring our guru into our heart and pray that they reveal to us what to say.  If our intention is pure and our faith strong, a vision or understanding will emerge within our mind.  We will come to see how things are going to unfold, what pitfalls lie ahead for the person, and what they should do.  We then share our vision and understanding and let the other person decide what to do.  Of course, we don’t say “I am prophet, and this is your message from the holy beings,” but in reality a prophet is simply somebody who has a good heart and a mind of faith.  It is through such people that the holy beings speak and act in this world.  If we improve our motivation and faith, they can begin to act through us as well. 

Not acting in accordance with the inclinations of others. 

When relating to others we should try to please them by conforming with their wishes whenever possible, unless of course their wishes are wrong and would lead to great suffering.  If we ignore the wishes of others without a good reason, we incur a secondary downfall.

As a general rule, we are here to serve.  Everything we do should be reduced to this basic practice.  In fact, there are no exceptions to it.  However, how we serve must be informed by a wisdom which understands what is actually helpful to the other person.  It has been discussed in earlier posts some of the circumstances under which “helping” somebody is actually doing them a disservice.  We need wisdom.

In the end, the test is very simple:  if other’s inclinations are harmful to themselves or to others, we should not go along with them.  If other’s inclinations are good, or at least neutral, then we should go along with them.  Often, of course, we don’t know, so we do our best and learn from our mistakes.  Where things can grow complicated is when our decisions and actions affect more than one person.  Very often people’s wishes and inclinations are in conflict with one another, so by going along with one person we are often going against somebody else.  So what should we do in such situations?  Quite simply, we try to maximize the aggregate benefit taking everybody concerned as equally important.  So we need to take the time to consider how our actions or decisions will affect everybody involved, and even if there will be some people who are made worse off, if more people are made even better off then we go forward.  Again, we never know for sure and so we need to be open to learn from our mistakes.

Ideally, of course, we should try find some third way that leaves everybody at least “no worse off” due to our decisions.  For example, if the gains from a decision truly outweigh the losses, then it should almost always be possible to transfer some of the gains to those who are made worse off so that at a minimum they are made “no worse off” after your transfer of gains than they would be if you never made your decision in the first place. 

Not praising the good qualities of others. 

We should rejoice and praise the good qualities of others.  If motivated by delusion we do not do so, we incur a secondary downfall.

Venerable Tharchin says just as our rejoicing in others’ good qualities creates the causes for us to acquire those good qualities ourself, so too criticizing others for their apparent faults creates the causes for us to acquire those same faults ourselves.  So quite literally, we are sabotaging ourself. 

Praising and rejoicing in others’ good qualities is by far the easiest way to acquire such qualities ourself.  How hard is it really to see good qualities in others and praise them for it?  Yet we almost never do so.  Most of the time our self-absorption is so extreme that we simply don’t see anything outside of ourself – we are too busy looking at ourself.  Most of the time our pride is so extreme that we simply don’t see any good qualities in anybody other than ourself.  When others praise somebody else, our mind immediately generates a “yes, but they also have … fault.”  These are terribly counter-productive habits. 

Instead, rejoicing in others good qualities helps inspire us to adopt them ourselves.  It makes the other person feel good about themselves and encourages them to continue their good deeds.  Our praising sets a good example of how we should relate to one another, thus helping change the inter-personal dynamics of all those around us.  Only good comes from it. 

As always, we need to be skillful with this.  Our praising should be legitimate – praising somebody for qualities they do not possess often is taken as shallow, contrived, or even manipulative.  It should also not be exaggerated because otherwise it will not be believed.  Our praising should also be free from any selfish concern – praising our boss, even if merited, with the intention of personal advancement is not Dharma, it is brown-nosing.  Likewise, we should be mindful to not create jealousy in others.  Sometimes we praise publicly, but if doing so will cause somebody else to become jealous, etc., then we should pick our time, place, and method accordingly.  We should also try have our praise be widespread.  The bottom line is everybody has good qualities and everybody has something they can teach us.  Find this in them, praise them for it, learn from them, and be grateful to them.  In many ways, pride is the worst delusion.  If we have every delusion, but we remain humble, we can learn from others and eventually overcome all our faults.  But if we have pride, we feel we have nothing to learn from others, and this closes the door to changing anything.  Systematically praising others breaks down our pride like no other method.  It softens our heart, opens our mind, and allows personal transformation to take place.

If we have disciples, we must help them by guiding them along the path, as far as we are able to, provide them with whatever they need for their Dharma practice, and take special care of our faithful disciples.

Even if we are not a formal Dharma teacher, there may arise within this lifetime some people with whom we have a karmic relationship of providing them with spiritual advice that they are happy to receive.  Even though it would be wholly culturally inappropriate to refer to these people as “our disciples” we can nonetheless consider them as such – or at least consider them a similitude of such.  Ultimately, if we have bodhichitta, we view all beings as our future disciples because we have made the promise to assume personal responsibility to eventually lead them to freedom.  We view and relate to our spouse and kids differently than we do somebody on the street largely due to our imputing them as our spouse and kids.  Other than this imputation, there is no particular reason for us to think of them any differently than we do anybody else.  In the same way, if we impute “future disciple” onto all living beings, it completely reorganizes our mental outlook towards all them.  We start to view the present manifestation of our relationship with them in a much larger context of us eventually leading them to liberation and enlightenment.  When we know where we are going with a relationship, we know how to act in that relationship.

It goes without saying that we don’t go around and tell everyone that “their savior has arrived, and it is me!”  Such an approach would quickly cause them to flee in terror and land us in a mental hospital.  But internally, we should assume this mantle and strive to live up to its mandate.  Just as viewing all beings as our mother or as our children functions to ripen our virtuous qualities and actions towards them, so too viewing all beings as our special disciples ripens our mind and our relationship with them in special ways. 

Depending on our karma, we all have more or less a certain degree of karmic responsibility for others. For example, our kids, our employees, our close friends, our family, etc. The beating heart of bodhichitta is the mind of “superior intention,” a mind which assumes personal responsibility for the eventual liberation of somebody else. These are the people we are responsible for. In the beginning, it might not be many, but as our bodhichitta expands and becomes more qualified, quite naturally more and more people will fall under our care. Our ability to help them depends upon (1) us having useful realizations/experience to share with them, and (2) the quality of our relationship with them. So practically speaking, we work on improving both. Some people will be with us for our whole life and others only for a short while, but in any case, we do everything we can so that their interaction with us functions to bend the trajectory of their mental continuum in the direction of enlightenment. 

Venerable Tharchin says, “for every step we take towards enlightenment, we bring all living beings with us in dependence upon their karmic relationship with us.” This makes sense – if we are headed straight for enlightenment and others travel along side of us, even if only for a short while, they too are heading towards enlightenment – even if they don’t realize how it is so. 

Venerable Tharchin also explains that those who serve as the basis of our bodhichitta will be among the first ones we liberate when we ourselves become a Buddha. This also makes sense because when we generate the wish to become a Buddha for certain people, this pure karmic action will naturally ripen in a way that it becomes a reality.

Of course, none of this may happen in this lifetime. We do the best we can, bringing people along as best we can, but we accept that this is a work that will span many lifetimes. Nonetheless, from our side, we have the mind of the person who has come back for them and who, if they are willing, will see them to safety. If we are currently a teacher, obviously this vow has particular importance for guiding our relationship with our students.  If we were a teacher but are no longer, our responsibility towards our former students never ceases.  We never know when they may contact us for help, even if they abandoned the Dharma long ago.  We always stand ready to help, and they should know our door will always be open to them.  The bonds of family are for life, the bonds of Sangha are forever

When beggars or others in need of our charity approach us, we must try to give them something.  If we refuse for some invalid reason other than miserliness (which is a root downfall) we incur a secondary downfall.

If we live in a city, this is probably something we do all the time.  We see others begging in the streets, we judge them in some way with some ridiculous internal comment like “get a job” (as if it were that easy), we come up with some internal justification about how they are going to just spend it on alcohol or drugs anyways, and besides our giving just encourages them to continue to be lazy, so we don’t give.  Or we say, “the government where I live already provides for them, so I don’t need to do anything extra.  I am a taxpayer, after all.”  Or perhaps we just don’t give them a second thought and keep on going. 

Years ago, when Geshe-la would send Gen-la Losang to India to learn certain things, such as how to build the mandalas we now find in our temples, he would always give Losang change so he could hand it out to the beggars.  We should do the same with our kids.  The worst thing we can teach to our kids is indifference to the suffering of others, and every time we walk by without helping that is exactly what we are teaching. Even if nobody is looking, we should still make an effort to give something to help.  Venerable Tharchin explains that it does not matter how much we give, what matters is how frequently we generate the mind of giving.  If you have only one dollar to give away, it is better to give one penny one hundred times than one dollar once.  If we have no money to give, we can still give people our love and respect.  Imagine how hard it is to live on the streets, imagine how many people walk by considering beggars to be scum.  We can give people a smile, we can give people understanding, we can show them some respect, and we can give them encouragement.  We can also give people our time.  Stop, and ask them to tell you their story.  Listen to it, learn from it, and respect their struggles.  Yes, they will expect some money, but so what – give it to them. 

If we live in a democratic country, we should elect leaders who actually care about the poor and are willing to do something to help them.  Jimmy Carter once said, “if you don’t want your tax dollars helping the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don’t!”  We live in incredibly unequal times. In America, the top 1% owns more than 40% of national wealth, and the bottom 80% owns less than 10%.  Europe and Canada are slightly better, but the rest of the world is more like America.  It is true, going to the extreme of Communism would be a mistake, but surely protecting people from abject poverty is not that.  There are many studies done which show it is actually cheaper on society to give the homeless shelter and help them get on their feet than it is to leave them homeless.  When you add up the costs of policing, crime, mental institutions, prisons, loss of value due to urban blight, etc., it is simply cheaper to do the right thing.  Of course we don’t mix Dharma and politics, but this does not mean we cannot use Dharma values to influence our political actions, such as voting.  There is no contradiction between a Kadampa not mixing Dharma and politics and them nonetheless engaging in political advocacy for causes they believe in.  Democratic citizenship is part of modern society, and if we are to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life we need to learn how to unite the two without mixing the two.  Just avoiding all political action or thought is not the middle way.  If we can vote for those who will help and we fail to do so, then it does not seem a stretch to say we are perhaps committing this downfall.  Perhaps I am wrong, but it is something to think about.