Perform every suppression of interference by one. 

Here one refers to the practice of taking and giving.  We should overcome all obstacles, delusions, etc., through the practice of taking and giving.  This is the supreme method for overcoming our obstacles.

This may be too cultural of a reference, but in the 1980s in the U.S. there was a television show called “MacGyver.”  I can’t remember the details, perhaps he was some sort of spy, but every show he managed to solve every adventure with duct tape and a Swiss Army knife.  With these two tools, he could put together anything with whatever other materials he had at his disposal.  So prominent was this show, that “MacGyver” actually became a verb, namely “to MacGyver something.”  This meant to find an ingenious solution to something with whatever limited materials we had at our disposal.  For Kadampas, the practice of taking and giving is our duct tape and Swiss Army knife of overcoming obstacles.  With taking and giving, we can not only transform any adverse situation into the bodhisattva’s path, but we can actually overcome the obstacles themselves.

How does this work?  The starting point for the practice of taking and giving is others’ happiness is more important than our own.  The mind of giving says, “I have something good, I would rather others have it instead of me.”  The mind of taking says, “others have something bad, I would rather I have it instead of them.”  On Facebook there was a picture of a police officer who gave his shoes to a homeless person.  Why did he do this?  Because the police officer realized the homeless guy needed the shoes more than he did, and besides he can always get more shoes later whereas the homeless guy cannot.  The practice of giving is exactly the same.  We have all sorts of good things – our time, our body, our mind, our energy, our love, our wisdom, and we see others need these things more than we do, so we give them.  Besides, we know we have the means to get more of these things.  If we were walking down the street and we saw some old lady struggling to carry her heavy grocery bags, what would we do?  Quite naturally, we would carry the bags for her.  Why?  Because we realize we are in a better position than her to carry that burden easily.  The practice of taking is exactly the same.  We see others carry various burdens, physical or emotional, and we see that we are in a better position to carry those burdens than they are.  We know how to transform adverse conditions into the path, we have built up the strength of our body and mind through our previous bodhichita-inspired actions.  So we naturally assume the burdens and sufferings of others.

Perhaps the greatest example of this in the world is Christ dying on the cross.  We are told that he died to save us from our sins.  For many, many years this made no sense to me.  How could his dying help me in any way.  But Geshe-la explained again in Eight Steps to Happiness that Christ was most likely practicing taking and giving on the cross.  He had done nothing wrong, yet he took the negative karma of all living beings onto himself so that others could be free.  By generating faith in him, Christians align themselves with Christ’s special blessings which function to take their negative karma away and give back to them the Kingdom of Heaven.  How wonderful! 

The question may arise, “why would anybody want to do this?”  It is a good question, and on the surface it seems like a crazy thing to do.  We can barely handle our own problems, surely we would be crushed under the weight of taking on all the negative karma, delusions and sufferings of all living beings!  First, we need to make a distinction between our external practice of taking and giving and our internal practice of taking and giving.  Externally, we should only give that which we can afford to give or can relatively easily replace.  If we give away everything and find ourselves on the street unable to eat, then we are actually undermining our ability to give in the future.  Externally, we should only take on burdens that we can reasonably carry.  If we stretch ourselves too thin, we will be unable to accomplish anything and those who were counting on us will be let down. 

Internally, however, we can go wild with this practice.  How does this work?  The important thing to keep in mind is virtuous minds activate virtuous karma and negative minds activate negative karma.  The mind of taking and giving is a supremely virtuous mind, so it is impossible for it to activate any negative karma at all.  Quite the opposite, it will act as a force field protecting us from the activation and ripening of any negative karma.  But the trick to engaging in this meditation in a qualified way is we need to choose to completely forget this karmic loophole in the practice!  If we keep this loophole in mind, when we engage in the practice of taking and giving we will know we are not really doing it, and so our practice will lack power to move our mind.  Instead, we try to forget that we know it is a safe thing to do and we throw caution completely to the wind and with all our heart we take on all their negative karma, delusions and suffering and give back all hard-earned merit, realizations and happiness.  The more we forget it is safe, the more powerfully this practice will transform our mind.  We need to genuinely be willing to take it all on ourselves and genuinely willing to give it all away. 

The benefits of this practice are limitless.  We quickly purify all our negative karma with respect to the beings whose suffering we take on.  We generate powerful and close karmic connections between ourself and others, through which we will later be able to lead these beings to enlightenment when we become a Buddha.  We accumulate vast quantities of merit which in the future will fulfill all our wishes.  We completely eviscerate our self-cherishing mind because the practice of taking and giving runs completely counter to it.  We also quickly ripen our ability to actually be able to engage in the practice of taking and giving in the future, just like Christ could.  This practice is also a powerful method for transforming our love and compassion from some abstract notions to practical principles we live our life by.  This practice increases our wisdom understanding that suffering and happiness are merely imputed phenomena.  And almost miraculously, the more we engage in this practice in meditation the more circumstances will spontaneously arise in our daily life where we can practically, externally take the burden of others upon ourself and give to others all the good we have accumulated.   

We may ask, “I see that the practice of taking and giving is beneficial, but why should I suppress every interference with this one practice?  Surely it makes sense to use a wide variety of methods according to the varying circumstances I find myself in.”  While it is true that it makes more sense to use different tools for different jobs, it is still nonetheless wise to perform every suppression of interference with this one practice.  Why?  First, the effectiveness of any practice is determined by two main factors:  the natural function of the practice and the depth of our experience in using that practice.  It may be that some other practice might be a more exact opponent to our specific problem, but if we have not used that particular opponent very often in the past, it will lack power in our mind.  Instead, if we use a general purpose opponent like taking and giving in every situation, then our personal experience of this practice will deepen quickly, making it a very powerful method for overcoming any opponent.  There was once a boxer named Mike Tyson who for many years was simply unstoppable.  He had a crushing upper hook that was knocking out all his opponents in the first round.  He had so mastered this one punch, he basically needed nothing else.  It is the same for the seasoned practitioner of taking and giving.  The second reason why we want to focus only on this method is by directly training in taking and giving, we are indirectly applying every other method.  Taking and giving is a practice that directly or indirectly encompasses all the other practices.  Third, taking and giving is the principal method by which Buddhas benefit living beings.  Every day Buddhas are constantly taking on the delusions, negative karma and suffering of living beings and giving back their wisdom, pure karma and realization of great bliss.  It is one of their main methods of benefiting living beings.  Since we are training to become Buddhas ourselves, it is only fitting that we start acting like one now.

The precepts of training the mind

Do all yogas by one. 

This means that we should perform all our actions with the intention of benefiting others.   If we do all our other practices with the same intention, they will all have great meaning.

In one of his most famous lines, Geshe-la says in Eight Step to Happiness that the path to enlightenment is very simple:  we simply need to cherish others happiness more than our own.  All other realizations flow naturally from this.  There is a tendency amongst many to always thirst for new instructions and more instructions.  We easily become distracted or bored when we hear the same instructions over and over again, and become very excited when we hear something new.  We often like to contemplate the really deep and profound questions that require us to push our analytical reasoning skills to the limit.  We love the intellectual jujitsu of the debates on tenets.  Why?  Part of it may be our love of Dharma, but if we are honest a large part of it is we treat Dharma instructions like we do any other samsaric object, namely some external thing that has some power to give us some happiness.  The first time we try mint chocolate chip ice cream, we are in heaven.  But if we had to eat it every meal, every day, we would soon become disgusted.  We treat the Dharma the same way, and quickly become bored.  Dharma teachings no longer “do it” for us.  The high gradually wears off and we wander in search of something new.

The solution to this problem is realizing that Dharma instructions are not something that have any power to do anything to us, rather they are something we ourselves need to do with our mind.  If we are actually changing our mind with the instructions we have received, when we hear the same instruction again in the future we will get something new out of it.  Why?  Not because the instruction itself has changed, but rather because the mind understanding that instruction has changed.  If we find ourselves bored with Dharma teachings we have heard before, it is a perfectly reliable sign that we have not actually changed our mind with that instruction since the last time we heard it.  If we had changed our mind, even if only on the margin, hearing the instruction again would confirm and reinforce our own personal experience, and our mind would be blessed to see a new or deeper perspective on the instruction.

Many Dharma practitioners observe the fact that Geshe-la’s books don’t contain everything and there are many incredibly interesting avenues left unexplored.  So they set out to fill in the gaps with books and teachings from other traditions.  I remember once, shortly after I became a Highest Yoga Tantra practitioner, I set out to understand the symbolism of every single aspect of every single visualization within the Essence of Vajrayana sadhana.  If we check the books, we will realize that Geshe-la explains – at most – about half of the symbolisms.  I knew that Gen-la Losang knew the symbolism behind every single aspect, so I prepared a spreadsheet with each aspect and all the symbolisms I knew from the various books, and I asked him to help me fill in the blanks.  He wrote back saying he knew but said I didn’t need them.  This, of course, peaked my curiosity even more.  I knew he knew, but perhaps he didn’t know me and what a “sincere practitioner” I was.  So I wrote him back and lengthy email explaining to him all the valid reasons (with scriptural references, of course) as to why I did need these explanations.  I concluded by reminding that it was a bodhisattva vow to respond to all questions asked out of faith!  He then wrote back again saying, “It is unthinkable that Geshe-la would not give us everything we need to attain enlightenment.  It is also unthinkable that he would give us something we don’t need.  Why?  Because he wants us to focus on gaining deep and personal experience of what is important and not become distracted by what is not.  So instead of trying to make your Dharma understanding more complex, try to make your experience of Dharma more simple.”  For me, this is what the oral lineage teachings after Geshe-la has retired have so much meaning.  This is him refining his commentary for the modern world and creating two points of Dharma moving in time (his old books and his new books being understood to be in total harmony, pointing the way to enlightenment like two points of a line).

This was an incredibly powerful teaching for me, as I had become very attached to receiving more and more Dharma instructions and making my understanding more and more complete.  Now, my goal is to simplify my practice more and more down to the essentials.  When we do so, what we find is by practicing a few simple things directly we train in everything else indirectly.  So we actually lack nothing.  And if all Dharma is boiled down to one thing, it is cherishing others.

We may object, “but it says in the Lamrim teachings that the quintessential butter that comes from churning the milk of Dharma is bodhichitta,” so shouldn’t bodhichitta be the “one” we perform all yogas by?  The answer is no because bodhichitta is the last domino that falls naturally if we with effort topple the first domino of cherishing others.  If we cherish others and then consider their sufferings, compassion arises naturally.  If we have compassion and we consider we currently lack the ability to help others, bodhichitta arises naturally.  So the real beating heart of bodhichitta is cherishing others.

Shantideva says in Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life that cherishing others is the root of all happiness and cherishing ourelf is the root of all suffering.  He also observes that Buddhas cherish only others and samsaric beings cherish only themselves, and then he invites us to look at the difference!  There is no practice more important than cherishing others.  It is also one that we don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate.  It is the true universal panacea, accessible to all.

Do not seek happiness by causing unhappiness to others. 

This includes obvious things like killing and stealing.  It also includes wanting others to have misfortune so that we benefit.  Karmically speaking if we violate this commitment we create the causes for future misery, whereas if we follow it we create the cause for future happiness.

This vow is fairly simple and straightforward:  don’t sacrifice somebody else’s happiness for the sake of our own.  Every decision we make in life will involve trade-offs.  Our normal way of assessing such trade-offs is “others lose, I win” is good, “others win, I lose” is bad.  The Kadampa, in contrast, always seeks win-win solutions; and when they are not possible, they would rather the other person win and they be the one who loses.  The reasons for this have already been explained in detail in the discussion of the previous vows, such as the one on not being the first to get the best.   The real trick of this vow is to be mindful of all the different circumstances when it can arise.

This vow also advises us to not take sadistic pleasure in the suffering of others.  Venerable Tharchin says that when we rejoice in the misfortune of others, we create the causes to experience similar misfortune ourself in the future.  He gave the example of Palestinians rejoicing when an Israeli café is blown up, or Israelis rejoicing when Palestinian leaders are assassinated.  Think of Al-Qaeda’s rejoicing at 9/11 or American rejoicing in the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  Venerable Tharchin ominously said, “from a karmic point of view, rejoicing is no different than pulling the trigger ourself.” 

Those who are in positions of authority or who possess some degree of power constantly have to make decisions that affect the lives of others.  From an ordinary point of view, their decision making criteria is:  (1) maximize the benefit and minimize the harm to myself, and then (2) divert benefit to my friends and deflect harm to my enemies.  Since everybody is doing this, society quickly becomes a war of all against all, where only might makes right.  It is for this reason that some ancient practitioners used to pray to never become politicians or to occupy any position of power.

Modern Kadampas, however, take a different approach to such questions.  We are taught not to shun wealth, power, or position, but instead to use them to benefit others.  Bill Gates enormous wealth in and of itself is neutral, but it becomes incredibly useful when he uses it to help others.  Our mission as a tradition is to attain the union of Kadam Dharma and modern life.  Wealth, power and position are parts of modern life, so our job is to unite the Kadam Dharma with them. 

The question then becomes, “how can a modern Kadampa wield power in a correct way?”  First, they use their wisdom born from seeing the benefit of cherishing others to see how “win-win” decisions can be arrived at.  Given that everything is in fact intimately inter-related, there are actually very few circumstances where a “win-lose” is required.  This will be self-evident to the mind that knows how to transform adverse conditions into the path.  Second, they make their decisions from the perspective of “maximizing the aggregate benefit for everyone involved, irrespective of who enjoys such benefit.”  If the policy is a good one, then the aggregate benefits will exceed the aggregate costs.  This is different than a policy that might be very beneficial for one group but at the expense of everyone else.  Third, the “winners” of the policy decision should be made to compensate the “losers” of the policy decision in such a way as the losers are at least indifferent between the policy being enacted and it not being enacted.  For example, in a free trade agreement, the country as a whole might benefit, but within that country different groups are winners and losers.  For example, the country’s exporters and their consumers might win, but the country’s farmers and industrial workers might lose.  A correct policy would be one where the exporter and consumer winners are taxed in some way, and the proceeds are transferred to the farmers or industrial workers in the form of professional re-training, etc.  Finally, if there must be “losers” then the modern Kadampa decision-maker will structure things so “wisdom wins” and “delusions” lose.  For example, guaranteeing equal rights represents a tragic loss for those in positions of privilege, but it is a victory for society as a whole when oppression and discrimination lose.  As Ghandi said, “even the oppressor is unfree when they oppress, they just don’t realize it.” 

There may be some residual doubt in our mind about the wisdom of having wealth, power and influence.  Lord Acton famously said, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  But this is only true for a mind controlled by self-cherishing.  Therefore, as a practical matter, to protect ourselves against this danger, we should always make sure that our mind of cherishing others outstrips the power we wield.  If this is the case, we still need to be mindful, but we should be spiritually safe with such power.

Do not turn a god into a demon. 

God in this context refers to training the mind, and demon refers to delusions such as pride and attachment.  If we practice incorrectly, we may increase our delusions, such as pride, with our Dharma practice.  Therefore, we should try to study and practice with firm understanding and correctly.

Because our delusions are at present more powerful than our virtues, they have an uncanny ability to hijack our Dharma understanding and use it to make us even more deluded.  Pride is the most common example of this.  Ordained people can feel like only they are the real practitioners and everybody else just can’t let go of samsara.  Prasangikas read there is no enlightenment outside of the wisdom realizing emptiness and then conclude they have the monopoly on the truth.  Mahayanists look down on Theravadan practitioners as being “lesser.”  Dorje Shugden practitioners look down on the Dalai Lama’s followers as having sold out the pure Dharma for Tibetan politics.  Buddhists look down on devout Christians with their grasping at an external creator and denials of basic science.  Resident Teachers look down on those who are not “committed enough” to follow the study programs perfectly.  Center administrators look down on those who contribute little to the functioning of the center.  So called “scholars” look down on those with a simplistic understanding of the Dharma.  So-called “practitioners” look down on scholars as just intellectual masturbators.  Those from more established, successful Dharma centers look down on those whose centers are struggling to survive.  Those who have not yet been fired by Geshe-la look down on those who have been.  Those who have been fired several times look down on those who haven’t yet.  Those who have been around for many years look down on those who are naively enthusiastic in the honeymoon stage.  Those on ITTP look down on those just on TTP; those on TTP look down on those just in FP; those on FP look down on those just in GP.  Those who go to pujas at the center look down on those who don’t.  Highest Yoga Tantra practitioners look down on those who are not.  The list goes on and on and on.  It’s all the same though:  people look at some good aspect of their Dharma practice as being somehow superior to that of others, and they use this as a basis for generating pride.

It is not just limited to pride.  Our attachment to worldly pleasures can kidnap our understanding of the Tantric teachings to use them as a justification to indulge in our attachments.  Dharma Teachers’ attachment to people coming to their classes can kidnap their compassion and bodhichitta to use them as a justification to manipulate or guilt trip others into coming to class.  Center administrators’ attachment to growing the center can kidnap their wish to flourish the Dharma to take advantage of people’s time, labor, and circumstance.  Our wrong understanding of renunciation can cause us to feel we are somehow not allowed to be happy.  Our discouragement can kidnap the teachings on humility to become an excuse for not really trying.  Our doubt can kidnap our wish for wisdom and cause us to reject generating faith.  Our intellectual laziness can kidnap our faith and prevent us from pushing beyond faith to generating personal wisdom.  Our attachment to remaining with our partner can kidnap the teachings on cherishing others to remain in an abusive or dysfunctional relationship.  Our laziness can kidnap the instruction “don’t worry, be happy, just try” as a pretext for never getting serious about training in our vows and commitments.  Our aversion to our family, jobs and life circumstance can kidnap the teachings on our precious human life to convince us such things are obstacles to our practice instead of objects of our practice.  Our externally exaggerated understanding of what it means to be a Dharma practitioner can create tension in our mind when, due to our circumstance, we are unable to practice in such a way.  Our self-hatred can transform every Dharma teaching about the faults of our delusions into a whip we beat ourselves with.  Our judgmental attitude towards others can kidnap all the teachings and use them as grounds to condemn others for their shortcomings. 

If we think carefully, there is not a single Dharma instruction that can’t be taken wrong!  The teachings on reliance on the spiritual guide can make us cult-like.  The teachings on death can make us morbid.  The teachings on the hell realms can make us fatalistic.  The teachings on equanimity can make us aloof to others’ plight.  The teachings on compassion can make us depressed.  The teachings on concentration can make our mind rigid.  The teachings on emptiness can make us nihilistic or solipsistic.  The teachings on divine pride can give us a “Jesus complex.”  Every correct Dharma understanding is necessarily a middle way between two extremes.  One extreme is our normal samsaric views, the other extreme is some wrong understanding of the meaning of the instruction. 

How do we know if we have gone to the other extreme with a Dharma instruction?  Kadam Bjorn said, “there is not a single Dharma mind that is tight and narrow, they are all spacious and open.”  The function of all correct Dharma understandings is to make our mind more peaceful and calm.  So the test is simple:  if our mind is becoming more tight, narrow, agitated or judgmental we have gone too far; if our mind is becoming more open, spacious, peaceful and accepting we are on the right track.

Do not aim at being the first to get the best. 

If we own something jointly, we should not want to possess it all for ourselves. If we share something, we should not want the best parts for ourselves. 

Aiming to be the first to get the best is the natural tendency of this world.  The reason for this is very simple:  we live in a world where resources are finite and our desires are limitless.  We fear if we do not aim to be the first to get the best we may wind up with nothing at all.  In the workplace, the “successful ones” all seem to put the interests of themselves ahead of everybody else.  They seek the best jobs, they claim the most credit.  When it comes time to bear some unpleasant burden, they manage to maneuver themselves into a position of “management” while we are left to do all the work.  When there is cake being cut, we want the first piece; when we are waiting in line, we resent those in front of us; when we are in traffic, we cut in front of others; when there is a good seat, we try grab it before somebody else does; when we are at the supermarket, we pick the best fruit for ourselves, etc.  In short, we live our life as one giant scramble to take the last cookie in the cookie jar for ourselves, thinking it is better to have than to go without. 

A Kadampa does the exact opposite.  We strive to be the first to get the worst.  If somebody is to go without, we would rather it be us.  We volunteer for the worst jobs that everybody else tries to avoid, such as cleaning the toilets.  We take the smallest and worst piece for ourselves.  We give others credit for all successes and take the blame for all failures.  We would rather lose so others can win.  We provide for others instead of take for ourselves.

Venerable Tharchin goes so far as to say we should simply abolish from our mind any sense of “owning anything as our own.”  We should ban the thought “mine” from our mind.  Our house is not ours, it is what we provide for our family.  Our money belongs to all living beings, we are merely the present custodian managing it for their benefit.  Our body has been given away as a servant to others.  Our realizations are gained on their behalf.  We have literally given away our “self” to others, having transferred this imputation onto others.  We hold nothing back for ourselves. 

And here is the kicker:  we do all this gladly!  On the surface, the above does not exactly make for a good marketing slogan – “Become a Kadampa, get the worst of everything!”  Our reluctance to do this once again shows we have everything completely backwards. 

Why are we happy to do this?  First, because we value our future lives more than this present life, our priority in life is to store up good karma for the future, not exhaust it all now on fleeting samsaric rewards.  Second, because we realize samsara’s pleasures are deceptive, they seem as attractive to us as candy we know is laced with poison.  Third, because we have exchanged ourself with others, it is simply more important to us that others be happy than for ourself to be.  Fourth, because we have bodhichitta, we want to push ourselves to become a better person and scrupulous avoid being the first to get the best does exactly that.  Fifth, because we understand emptiness, we realize it is all a dream so there is no “best” to be had anyways.  Finally, because we are a tantric practitioner, we seek to bring the result into the path by emulated the actions of a Buddha now. 

Even in a worldly sense, avoiding being the first to get the best is simply a good life strategy.  Nobody respects the selfish, and everybody tries to knock down the arrogant.  Ghandi said his goal in life was to become the lowest of all.  Who does not hold him up as the highest of all?  Those who put the interests of others first, even at the expense of themselves, are venerated as the greatest statesmen and the world’s moral beacons.  When we start to live our life in this way, others around us begin to do the same.  Geshe-la famously says in Eight Steps to Happiness that somebody who cherishes others more than themselves is like a magic crystal that has the power to transform and purify any community.  Internally, most of our stress in life can be traced back to anxiety about getting our share and making sure we have enough.  All this vanishes when our priority is for others to get the best.  Many of the world’s externally richest people feel perpetually poor.  No matter how much they have, it never satisfies their desires and they always want more.  There is always somebody with a bigger yacht, a higher position, or a more beautiful wife. 

To be truly rich is to feel as if we lack nothing.  No amount of external possessions can ever create this feeling.  Such a feeling comes only from the internal mind of contentment.  The richest person in the world is the one who is most content with what they have, not the person with the biggest bank account.  The reality is we already have it all.  It is only our ignorance grasping at this small self we normally relate to as being “us” that deprives us from enjoying everything.  If everything is our karmic dream, all beings and all things already belong to us.  This small self is just one wave on the ocean of who we really are.  This larger us, the one that is indeed all living beings, already possesses everything, and it makes no difference who enjoys what because we are all one and the same. 

This vow does not mean we should shun wealth, position, power and so forth.  Such things are incredibly useful if used for the service of others.  But we do not need to seek them out.  If we live our life as a Bodhisattva, such things will effortlessly fall into our lap.  Our task is to simply use everything in service of others.

 

Do not misuse Dharma. 

 

Buddha’s main aim in giving Dharma teachings was to lead all living beings to liberation and full enlightenment.  If we use Dharma exclusively for worldly gain this is misusing Dharma.  Even if we can not practice purely now, we should think “I am studying Dharma now so that in the future I can attain liberation and enlightenment.”

It is sadly not at all uncommon for us to misuse the Dharma.  To realize how, we can consider a very simple test:  are we using the Dharma to change ourself or do we try use the Dharma to change others.  If we do the former, we are using Dharma correctly, if we do the latter we are misusing the Dharma. 

There are many different ways we do this.  Teachers or administrators in Dharma centers might use the Dharma to try to manipulate or guilt trip the people in their center to do more work for the center.  The teachers or administrators might rationalize this by saying, “but I want the Dharma to flourish for the sake of all living beings, so there is no fault.”  Such an attitude reveals a lack of understanding of what it means for the Dharma to flourish.  The Dharma is an internal thing.  If people are working very hard for the external developments of temples, publicity, etc., but internally they are doing so to avoid being made to feel bad by their teachers, then there is no Dharma flourishing.  Venerable Tharchin is very clear:  he says the size of a Dharma center is determined exclusively by the collective realizations of those who attend it.  If Dharma realizations of love, patience, wisdom, etc., are flourishing in the minds of the Sangha, that center is flourishing even if externally things are a mess.  If externally everything is growing, but internally there is disharmony, frustration, manipulation and guilt, then that center is dying.  Dharma teachers and center administrators have a strong wish for the center to flourish, but sometimes it is easy for them to wind up using the Dharma to manipulate others into fulfilling their wishes and vision for the center.  This is the exact opposite of a correct attitude.  The correct attitude of a teacher or a center administrator should be “how can I help fulfill the wishes and vision of the Sangha?”  In other words, we are there to serve them, they are not there to serve us.

Another common example of misusing the Dharma is we can’t stand all these deluded people in our lives (such as the members of our family or those at work), and we try change others by forcing the Dharma onto them.  For example, perhaps our partner suffers terribly from anger and we see clearly how if they practiced patience their problem would go away.  Since we are so sick of their anger, we try get them to practice patience so that our problem of having to deal with these deluded people will go away.  We may even get in fights with people and use the Dharma as a weapon to show how everything is actually the other person’s fault and to expose the other person’s faults and weaknesses. 

A pure Kadampa doesn’t feel the slightest need to change others in any way.  The fact that others are a deluded mess suits the Kadampa just fine because such deluded attitudes give the practitioner a chance to train in patience, cherishing others, and skillful means.  Dharma is a mirror with which we can see the faults within our own mind, not a magnifying glass for scrutinizing the faults of others.  The practical reality is this:  the more we try to change others with the Dharma, the more they will reject the Dharma.  Nobody is stupid and nobody likes being manipulated.  When we feel others are trying to change us, we naturally resist them.  So it is precisely because we want others to change (for their sake) that we need to completely let go of any need whatsoever that they change.  When others know we don’t need them to change, then they will trust us that we don’t have some hidden agenda, and they will take on board what we have to say precisely because we leave them free to disregard it if they wish.

On the surface, there may seem a contradiction between our bodhichitta wish to become a Buddha so that we can lead all living beings to the same state and saying a Kadampa has no need whatsoever for others to change, the fact that they are deluded suits the Kadampa just fine.  How can we reconcile this apparent contradiction?  First, the Kadampa has no personal need for other people to change in any way, but others may have a need to change for their own sake.  Second, and more profoundly, since others are nothing more than creations of our own mind, by changing our own mind we will change the beings of our karmically appearing dream.  If we dreamt last night of a highly deluded person, where did they come from?  Who created them?  In the same way, if at work or at home we encounter a highly deluded person, where did they come from, who created them?  By purifying our own mind directly, indirectly we purify all beings.  Instead of trapping all beings in the prison of our samsaric dream, they come to abide within the bliss of our pure land.

Practically speaking, we should only give people advice if they ask for it.  If they are not asking for it, don’t give them any unsolicited advice.  We all easily can see the error in ways of the person who gets up on their soap box outside a train station and yells at all passers-by that they are sinners and will go to hell if they don’t repent.  Yet we do the same thing all the time, just in perhaps more subtle ways.  When somebody does ask us for advice, we generally should just tell stories of experiences we have had and what we learned from them.  Then, we leave the other person free to draw whatever conclusions they wish from the story as to how it might apply to their own life and situation.  It is also generally a good idea to err on the side of not giving enough good advice than giving too much of it.  Sometimes we are so eager to help that as soon as somebody asks us for advice, we then drown them in a tsunami of “our help.”  Kadam Lucy says we should be like a mother bird, who only gives little bits of Dharma to our baby birds so that they don’t choke on it.  Trijang Rinpoche said it is generally better to end a conversation before it is actually finished because this creates the cause to meet again in the future.  Finally, we should be careful to know the capacity of those we are giving advice to.  Even if we are an accomplished Dharma scholar who can give the most sophisticated and profound explanations, it is often times much more beneficial to simply say, “let go.”  As a general rule, the more complex is our advice, the less useful it is.  As with all things, keep it as simple and short as possible.

Do not transfer your own faults and burdens onto others. 

We should not pass on our duties or responsibilities to others or try manipulate them into doing things against their wishes.  We should also not blame others for our faults, but acknowledge them honestly as our own.

Anybody who works with others should make this vow their screen saver on their computer.  Anybody who lives with others should do the same.  In most group endeavors, be it at work or at home, the strategy of most people is to try avoid the most unpleasant tasks and to pass the buck to others when things go badly.  A Kadampa does the exact opposite.

Our attitude should be “give me the worst jobs that everybody else wants to avoid.”  We should be the first to volunteer to assume responsibility for the things that everybody else is trying to get out of.  When something goes wrong, we should be the first to assume responsibility for what went wrong, even if it wasn’t really our fault. And we should do this without the slightest trace of making ourself a martyr, such as doing things with the attitude of “well since nobody else will step up, I’ll take on this task.”  Likewise, we shouldn’t take responsibility for what went wrong with a sardonic attitude that is really saying, “I am not really at fault for this and everybody knows it, but I’ll take the blame just to highlight that everybody else is avoiding it.”  No, we should assume the hard tasks and assume responsibility in a genuine and honest way.

These Kadampa ways run completely counter to our normal way of doing things, and so quite naturally many objections arise.  The main objection that arises is, “if I do this, then everybody will take advantage of me.  I will become everyone’s favorite doormat.”  Here we need to examine “what do we want out of life.”  At the end of the day, the difference between a worldly being and a spiritual being is what they want out of life.  A worldly being seeks to maximize the amount of karmic fruit they can harvest in this life, such as being able to live a life of ease enjoying praise and good fortune.  A spiritual being seeks to maximize the amount of karmic seeds they can plant for our future lives.  The two attitudes are completely different.  If the other people at our work or at home are worldly beings, what they want is to avoid anything hard or unpleasant.  If we are a spiritual being, what we want is to plant good karmic seeds for our future.  So our assuming the hard tasks and assuming responsibility is a win-win for everyone.  They avoid the unpleasant and we create good karmic causes for our future.  Everybody wins!  There is only a tension if we give lip service to being a spiritual being, but in our heart we share the same worldly wishes for a life of ease and praise like the others.

Even at a worldly level, this objection is misplaced. If somebody at work or at home is a genuine “team player” who sincerely puts the interests of the team ahead of themselves, this person is not viewed as a doormat, rather this person is viewed with respect.  Such an attitude, if done correctly and genuinely, can completely change the office or home culture and environment from being one of grumbling and constant complaining to a high morale environment where everybody feels they are contributing to something greater than themselves.  The bodhisattva naturally and without effort becomes a leader and an example with their community.  Without saying a word, they bring out the best in others and inspire others to do better.  People from their own side will see your example, and naturally start to emulate it taking on more responsibility themselves. 

Perhaps there will be some who might take advantage of the fact that you are doing everything, and they may even come to resent you for it.  But that is their problem, not yours.  In fact, we can say that their attitude should make them an object of our compassion.  What good karma will they have in the future?  They will be like the poor animal who stored nothing for the long winter ahead.  Such a person is really there to help you improve your skillful means.  Ultimately, they feel threatened by your attitude because it exposes their wrong attitude.  Instead of making them feel guilty for what they don’t do, try help them feel good about the contributions they do make.  When people feel like their contributions matter, they naturally do more.  If we make people feel bad because they “do nothing,” it is guaranteed, they will do even less in the future.

 

Do not offend others. 

This advises us to not act in ways that offend living beings, for example criticizing them, not complying with their wishes, or reciting wrathful mantras with a harmful intention.

The first task of any bodhisattva is to exchange self with others.  According to Sutra, this means to exchange the object of our cherishing from ourself to others.  The meaning of this is previously we considered our own happiness and welfare to be the most important thing and we worked diligently to try secure it.  But after exchanging ourself with others we then consider the happiness and welfare of others to be the most important thing and we work diligently to try secure it.  Clearly, if we consider the happiness and feelings of others to be important, we won’t do things that offend them.  We currently don’t like it when others offend us.  After we have exchanged self with others, we will similarly not like it when others are offended or harmed in any way.

According to Tantra, to exchange self with others means to change the basis of imputation of our “I” from the body and mind that we normally identify with to “others.”  In other words, when we look at others’ bodies and minds, we think “me.”  When we see them, we think they are ourself.  When we look at ourself, we think “others.”  In essence, we take the mere imputation “me” and impute it on all others, and we take the mere imputation “others” and impute it on what we formerly considered to be ourself.  This is a more powerful way of exchanging self with others, and is explained in detail by Shantideva in Chapter 8 of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  If we have exchanged self with others in this way, offending or harming others will be unthinkable.  We currently praise ourself all the time.  We currently do everything we can to tend to every need and wish of ourself.  When we exchange ourself with others according to Tantra, we will have a similar attitude towards others.  Offending them or harming them becomes impossible.

It is important, however, that we not misunderstand this commitment.  If our engaging in virtue, such as our Dharma practice, somehow offends or bothers others, we should not abandon our practice thinking we need to “fulfill their wishes.”  If their wishes are wrong wishes, such as wishing for us to abandon the path, then we should not go along with such wishes.  On the surface, they may become upset about this, but if we do abandon our practice to satisfy their wrong wish then we facilitate them creating horrible karma for themselves that will ripen in the future in the form of when they wish to enter the path others will emotionally blackmail them to abandon their practice.  If we go along with these wrong wishes of theirs, we are quite literally harming all living beings.  How so?  By our self not following the path, all the people who we otherwise would have helped will now no longer receive that help.  And in particular, we are harming the other person because now the possibility of the other person entering the path in the future will be blocked.  Nobody benefits.

With that being said, we should still try to be skillful.  When I first started practicing Dharma, my in-laws at the time were afraid that I had run off and joined some crazed cult.  They especially worried about this when they read all the venom on the internet related to the Dalai Lama/Dorje Shugden issue.  So they quite understandably created many obstacles to my practice, and indeed to my relationship with my then wife.  I wrote Geshe-la asking him what I should do.  He said, “You need to be skillful with what you show.  Dharma practice is primarily an internal thing.  You should not exaggerate the external.  Surely your future in-laws will not be opposed to internal qualities like kindness, patience, and love.  You need to be skillful.”  In other words, one extreme would be abandoning my practice and another extreme would be to rub it in their faces.  I can continue to do my practice as I wish, but I just don’t need to talk to them about all that I am doing and I don’t need to make too public or external of a display about it.  But internally, I can do as I wish with gusto.  Then, no problems.

Likewise, sometimes those in our life may object to our engaging in virtue.  For example, people may object we are too generous with our money or our time.  People may become jealous of our cherishing of other people, etc.  In the same way, all such wrong wishes of others should be ignored.  We do not help people by allowing them to deter us from engaging in the path. 

 

Do not wait in ambush. 

 We should not look to take revenge on others waiting for the best time to hurt them.

The mind of anger has one wish:  to inflict harm.  Sometimes we justify this harm on the grounds of “getting back” at the other person, other times we justify it as “deterring them” from inflicting harm on you again because they know you will strike back.  But this is completely wrong.  All we really do is guarantee that one day, when the opportunity presents itself, they will take advantage of our weakness and strike back. 

There is another way.  All bullies are the same:  they threaten if you don’t do what I want, then I will do X to you.  Because we don’t want X to happen to us, we go along with what the bully wants.  But this just keeps us forever hostage to their demands.  Instead, we do what is right, and let the pieces fall where they may.  If the other person inflicts some penalty on us for doing what is right, then so be it.  We accept this, but we do not change.  This is actually an act of great compassion.  If we allow others to manipulate us, they create terrible karma for themselves.  If we show that they have no power over us, they will eventually give up trying.  Thus, we protect them from creating such negative karma. 

 Do not retaliate to verbal abuse. 

If someone speaks to us harshly or criticizes us we should never respond with sarcasm or anger.  Sometimes it is justified to respond, but never with anger.  If we do not get angry in return, we can help the other person calm down, but if we get angry in return we just inflame the situation.

In today’s world, it is very rare for people to physically harm us.  From this perspective, we can say that the world we live in is far less hostile and violent than it was in the past.  But we have replaced our physical violence towards others with increased verbal violence towards others.  If we go on-line to non-Kadampa discussion groups, usually what we find is a bunch of people with anonymous names speaking rudely to one another.  We would never talk like this in person with people, but online we get sucked into all sorts of inane verbal battles with people we have never met.  When we are “live” with other people, we will rarely be rude to others directly, but once the person has left our presence we talk behind their back, saying all sorts of disparaging and nasty things.  Since we do this to others, of course others are doing the same towards us.  So we seek our verbal revenge.

Why do people say bad things about us?  Why do people verbally assault us?  The answer is simple:  we did the same to others in the past.  We may be good in this life, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have aeons of karmic nastiness just waiting to ripen.  Everything others do to us is what we did to others in the past.  If we retaliate, we keep the karmic cycle going and it never ends.  If instead, we learn to accept such verbal abuse, we can break the cycle once and for all. 

It is important, however, to make a clear distinction between “not retaliating” and “allowing others to abuse us.”  Sometimes people mistakenly think they should do nothing when others are abusive towards us, viewing it as our opportunity to repay some karmic debt.  Not wanting to get angry, they then allow others to mistreat us.  This is wrong.  We do not help others by allowing them to abuse us because the other person creates terrible karma for themselves for the future.  So of course we should use all the virtuous means at our disposal to prevent others from abusing us.  We just don’t retaliate in kind. 

The most effective way to disarm somebody else’s abuse is to simply sit down with them and try to work through your difference with a constructive attitude.  Apologize if you have wronged them in some way.  Genuinely seek to try understand their point of view and why they find you so objectionable.  Doing so will often reveal things about us we never knew.  Most people attack us out of some feeling of insecurity.  If you take the time to understand the basis for their feelings of insecurity and you address those, then often times their attacks will simply disappear.  Geshe-la famously said at the Toronto Fall Festival, “Love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.”  If the other person no longer views you as a threat because you have demonstrated to them you only seek to help, then their anger towards you will be “destroyed” and they will no longer be your enemy.  Sometimes, however, people aren’t interested in resolving their differences with you.  We need to accept this to.  In such a case, the best strategy is usually to say, “when you are ready and willing to work through our differences, my door is always open.”  But until that time arrives, it is generally best to just break off contact and avoid them.  This protects them from creating negative karma towards you.