The Bodhisattva vows include extensive advice on how we should conduct our daily lives by transforming all our actions into the Bodhisattvas way of life.  By putting them into practice we shall gradually complete the Bodhisattva’s training and eventually attain the supreme bliss of Buddhahood.

Just as the refuge vows primarily function to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our Buddhist practice between now and when we attain enlightenment, and the pratimoksha vows primarily function to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our path to liberation, so too our practice of the Bodhisattva vows creates the karma to enable us to maintain an uninterrupted continuum of our Mahayana path between now and our eventual enlightenment.  In other words, we create the causes to again and again refind a pure Mahayana path without interruption until we attain the final goal.  If we have wisdom, we realize the biggest thing we should fear it not non-virtue and delusion (though those are terribly scary), but our biggest fear should be the fear of losing the path.  If we keep refinding the path in life after life, we can gradually purify all our negativities.  But if we don’t refind the path, we will be lost for what could be incalculably long periods of time where our suffering will know no bounds.  If we genuinely fear this, we will realize just how precious our vows are, and how precious our Bodhisattva vows are in particular. 

If we incur a root downfall we actually break our Bodhisattva vows.  To incur a root downfall (except for the 9^th and 18^th) four binding factors must be present:

1. Not regarding the action as wrong
2. Not wishing to abstain from the action in the future
3. Rejoicing in the action
4. Having no sense of shame or consideration for others.

Praising ourself and scorning others. 

This downfall is complete only if someone hears and understands our words.  We incur this if we praise ourself with the motivation of deceiving others so that we might receive gifts or to enhance our reputation.  It also is incurred if we criticize others with the wish to hurt them.

This is something many of us do all the time.  In modern times, it is actually quite rare for us to physically harm others – there are too many social conventions against such behavior.  I do wonder, though, whether we have compensated for this with an increase in the amount of hurtful speech we engage in.  If our minds are just as critical and angry as they have always been (and a case can be made why in degenerate times it is actually worse), and we can conventionally no longer express this mind physically, it only stands to reason that there has been a corresponding increase in the amount of our hurtful speech.

And we see this everywhere we go.  A large number of the shows on TV these days are “reality TV shows.”  What makes for good reality TV is outrageously hurtful speech among the contestants.  Virtually all the news programming we see on TV or hear on the radio these days is one constant stream of critical and scornful speech.  In political discourse now, there is almost no discussion of the merits of the different policy options, everything is about personal attacks on the other person.  In many of our social circumstances, the price of entry into a given social group is agreeing with the dominant negative view of that group towards others.  We say hurtful things to show these people we are with them, and when we do, they then accept us into their group.  We so want to belong to other groups, that we are ready to commit all sorts of hurtful things just to feel like we belong.  This is very foolish.  It is better to be a group of one but think and say nothing bad about anybody than to belong to a group where what binds them is their mutual hatred or cynicism of another. 

Why is all this negativity so popular?  Because it reflects how our mind naturally works.  Psychologists have estimated that a negative opinion of someone or something will spread 10 times faster than a positive opinion.  In our own speech, we are constantly putting other people down in one way or another, at work, at home and in our social life.  When others around us say critical things of others and we agree, or even just nod our head, we are contributing to this storm of negativity.  When we laugh at jokes made at other people’s expense or agree with the rhetorical broadsides lodged against those around us, karmically it is the same as us using such hurtful speech ourselves.  Venerable Tharchin explains that just as rejoicing creates the causes to acquire the good qualities we rejoice in, so too being critical, scornful or judgmental of others creates the causes to acquire the bad qualities we criticize!  Seen in this way, our negative attitude is sowing the seeds for us to, quite frankly, be a horrible person.  We see a world filled with horrible people now, if we don’t change our ways, in the future we will be the sum of all horrible-ness we see.

We likewise are constantly praising ourselves.  If we check, we will see that virtually every time we put somebody else down or judge somebody else even in the slightest way, we are at the same time – even if only indirectly – affirming that we are not like what we are criticizing.  We are implying by our speech that we are somehow better than the person we are criticizing.  So even if we are not directly making boastful statements about ourselves, every time we put others down, we are indirectly doing so.  At work or at home, we quite often try to take credit for our good deeds, and even sometimes the good deeds of others.  When recounting what we do, we quite often exaggerate how hard everything was to create the impression that we have done such amazing work.  We easily feel put aside when others don’t appreciate the value of our contributions.  On Facebook, we check and see how many ‘likes’ our comments get and we compare it to others.  Even when we put ourselves down, we often exaggerate what we say in a sub-conscious effort to get the other person to say, “no, no, you are not that bad.”  If I am honest, almost everything I say is directly or indirectly saying how or why I am so much better than everyone else.  And we all do this.  How can I say this?  Because we all suffer from a terrible sense of our own self-importance.  If this is what we think, then our speech is going to reflect this one way or the other. 

Praising ourself doesn’t in any way increase our good qualities.  Most other people are not stupid and they are not fooled by our boasts, in fact they often think how pompous we are.  When we see people who think too highly of themselves and of their accomplishments, we may be polite to their face, but inside we are being quite critical and generating the wish to knock the other person down a peg or two.  A very common thing in Dharma circles is for somebody to mention somebody else in a positive light, and we will say, “yeah, that person is great,” but inside we are thinking “yeah, but…” and then our mind immediately races to something negative about the other person.  We almost never have a genuine good thought about another person.  I would say that karmically speaking praising ourself actually depletes our merit and good qualities. 

So what should we do?  In my own speech, I try live by three rules:  First, never say anything bad about anyone ever.  I don’t always succeed at this, but I do try.  My Grandmother, who lived to be 105 years old, basically never says anything bad about anybody.  The closest I have heard her say anything bad about anybody was during the first Iraq war, and she said, “Saddam Hussein, ehhhh, …”  And then she cut herself off.  Second, I try to never make any comparisons – ever.  When I make any comparisons between people, invariably I am putting somebody down.  When I make comparisons between myself and others, I invariably develop pride, competitiveness, or jealousy.  But if I never compare, then these minds don’t have as much occasion to arise.  Third, I try to never miss a chance to praise somebody for some quality I see in them.  Of course we have to be skillful with this.  Your compliments should be genuine and well grounded.  If somebody doesn’t actually have a good quality and you praise it, they usually know you are not being sincere and it just makes things worse.  Likewise, you can’t do this too much where it becomes obnoxious or uncomfortable for the other person.  But even though you might not be able to say all the compliments you would like to, mentally you can still think them. 

The bottom line is simple:  if criticizing others creates the causes for us to acquire the faults we criticize and praising others creates the causes for us to acquire the qualities we praise, it is pretty clear what we need to do.

Not to pretend to have good qualities or hide our faults without a special, pure intention.

There was a time within the tradition when it was quite common for people to pretend to be better than they actually were, especially if they were teachers or key officers in a center.  Many many people did this for what seemed like a good reason.  They allowed others to refer to them as “Buddhas,” and “having miracle powers,” etc., because they thought doing so helped the student develop faith, and with faith they would then gain more realizations.  So they allowed such views to develop among the students.  The results of this were predictably disastrous.

For the students, it tied them in all sorts of really strange knots where the teacher would be making some fairly obvious mistakes, but the student would have to try say it was actually correct because they needed to “maintain pure view.”  This caused students to repress their criticisms of their teacher, which far from increasing their faith served as a cancer gradually destroying any and all faith.  For the teachers, this was likewise terrible because they had to keep up this charade of being some holy being so they too had to repress their delusions (which just made them worse) and it deprived them of having any refuge of being able to go to their sangha friends when they had problems.  There were quite a few very high profile teachers who self-destructed due to this dynamic.  For those who were neither teachers nor regular students, this all seemed very strange and cult-like.  They were not fooled by the teacher’s pretentions so they had no faith, and seeing the slavish and strange sychophantry of the students made people think they had found some cult. 

Probably a good 20 years ago, Geshe-la tried to put an end to this bizarre dynamic.  He explained that our local teachers should be viewed as Sangha jewels, not Buddha jewels.  This was a monumental change, because up until that time it was standard practice to try view our local teachers as Buddha jewels.  He explained that when our teachers appear to make mistakes, we should go speak with them explaining our view with an open mind, and then through a healthy discussion either the teacher would realize their mistake or the student would develop a better understanding by seeing the teacher’s actions through a different lens.  There is still within the NKT some residual of this old way of doing things, but it is quickly fading away.  Now we are all practitioners doing our best and having a good laugh at ourselves and our own delusions.

This wrong view emerged from a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to maintain pure view.  Pure view does not mean we view everything as perfect on the side of the object itself, rather it means we learn how to view everything – the good, the bad and the ugly – in a perfect way.  Good, bad, and ugly are still good, bad and ugly, but no matter what is appearing it can be perfectly beneficial for our practice.  Viewing everything, even mistakes, as teachings enables us to receive perfect benefit from whatever appears.  This is viewing things in a perfect way.  So we can still call a spade a spade (say what is wrong is in fact wrong), but identifying it as wrong is not a problem for us because it teaches us something valuable.  If we view everything in a perfect way, then for us everything will be perfect, not because what is happening is perfect on the side of the object but because we know how to receive perfect benefit from whatever arises.  Pure view exists only on the side of the mind (or at least it starts there). 

Not to criticize those who have entered the Mahayana

Somebody who has entered the Mahayana is somebody who has committed themselves to becoming a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.  They are like a spiritual prince or princess destined to one day take the throne.  Just as we naturally treat with respect all those who we know will go on to become incredibly powerful, even if they are still a child now, how much more should we show respect to those who will go on to become the highest beings of all, fully enlightened Buddhas.  Ultimately, of course, we don’t know who has or who has not entered the Mahayana, so just to be safe we should assume everybody has and treat them all accordingly!

Criticism (of the negative sort) is a form of anger.  Anger is a wish to harm.  Harming an ordinary being is bad, but harming a Bodhisattva is karmically the same as harming all living beings because if you harm somebody who is trying to help everybody it is the same as indirectly harming everybody.  It is said that one moment of anger directed towards a bodhisattva creates the causes for countless lifetimes in the lower realms.

And let’s get real here:  we are criticizing the people in our centers all the time.  It is rare indeed (indeed almost unheard of) for there to not be some sort of tension or drama in a Dharma center.  There is a tremendous amount of judgment that takes place (why are they so deluded, why don’t they ever do work for the center, etc., etc., etc.).  If we check, there is usually in a Dharma center a fair amount of talking badly behind other people’s backs.  We know enough to know not to be critical of others to their faces, but then when they are gone, we share our real feelings with some people we feel we relate to.  Sometimes we are critical of our teachers and we encourage others to share our negative view.  If we were sick, we would not intentionally go sneeze in somebody’s face, so if we are sick with delusion, why do we run to go infect others with our negative views? 

This does not mean we should never say anything and pretend that everything is fine when it is not.  We should of course go speak with people when we have differences of opinion in a constructive effort to resolve them.  We all know the difference between being critical of somebody and making an honest effort to resolve differences. 

Another common transgression of this vow is when we are critical of those in other traditions, especially those that are critical of us and our tradition.  These are often people who have also entered the Mahayana, and it is just as much a transgression to criticize them as it is to criticize somebody within our own tradition.  It can be very hard to not be critical, especially when they are shunning us or saying we have joined some crazed cult or they speak to us with hurtful or divisive words.  Just because they are acting in deluded ways and not respecting their own vows does not give us license to do the same towards them.  Indeed, if we do so all we do is prove them right.  If we want to prove them wrong, then our actions need to be different.  We respond to criticism with understanding, wisdom, and respect. 

The objection may arise, but what about the protests that the NKT has done against the Dalai Lama’s policies?  We shout, “stop lying” and we lay bear all sorts of mistakes he is making.  Isn’t that a violation of this vow?  The short answer it can be if our motivation is delusion.  But if our motivation is the compassionate wish to protect him and his followers from the negative karma of criticizing us, then instead of it being a negative action it becomes a compassionate wrathful action.  This is not easy, I agree, but it is vital we get it right.  If we do not, then we will just be laying the seeds for others to criticize us again in the future.

Not to cause others to regret their virtuous actions

This can sometimes happen when somebody is particularly nice to somebody who is normally not so nice to others.  We think, “why are you being so nice to him when he is such a jerk to everyone else?  You are just encouraging him to treat others badly.” Another common form of this is when somebody is particularly generous to somebody else, especially if the person who does the giving is himself or herself not somebody who has a lot of means.  We think, “you shouldn’t give like that, you can’t afford it.”  While it is true we need to be wise with our giving and know when to practice the giving of keeping, in general we can’t afford to NOT give.  Sometimes we also transgress this when somebody goes out of their way to do a favor for somebody else, especially if their doing of a favor for somebody else somehow created some inconvenience for ourselves.  For example, they went to go pick somebody up and that made you wait for an extra 15 minutes. 

When we make people regret their virtues is harms both them and us.  It harms them because instead of being happy about their virtues, they start to think they are a sucker for being nice to others.  When they have regret for their virtues, it destroys the merit they have accumulated and makes it far less likely they will engage in virtue again in the future.  If they don’t engage in virtue, how will they ever be happy?  If we make them regret their virtues, we are condemning them to an unhappy future.  This also harms ourselves.  We all know that when we rejoice in other’s virtue, we accumulate a fraction of the virtue we rejoice in.  Through rejoicing we can accumulate a tremendous amount of virtue even if we ourselves do almost nothing.  But in exactly the same way, when we judge people as wrong for engaging in certain virtues we destroy our own merit from our own virtues.  If we criticize them, we create the causes for others to criticize us in the future when we engage in virtue, and as a result in the future we will develop regret for our virtues and become discouraged. 

A frequent, but more subtle form of transgression of this vow is to belittle others’ virtues as not being that big of a deal.  Quite often when we hear somebody being praised for something they did, internally we become jealous and start judging the other person for all that they do wrong.  We think, “yeah, what they did was great, but…” and we go on to list their faults.  Even if we just have this discussion in our own head, we still destroy our own merit and create the causes for others to judge us as well.  All this is extremely short-sighted.

Not to cheat or deceive our Preceptors or Spiritual Guides

There is nobody more kind in our life than our Spiritual Guides.  Our parents are extremely kind to us, but they are only interested in our welfare in this life alone.  Only our spiritual guide is primarily interested in helping us in all our future lives.  Since the duration of this life is highly uncertain, whereas the duration of our future lives is infinite, it is clear which is more important.  Even if others are concerned about our future lives, they don’t necessarily know the means by which we can secure happiness in our future lives.  But our Spiritual Guide does.  He has already provided us with everything we need to attain any spiritual goal we set for ourselves.  If we wish to avoid lower rebirth, he explains to us how.  If we wish to attain liberation, he explains to us how.  If we wish to attain the pure land or to attain enlightenment, he explains to us how. 

He not only explains these things to us, but he has arranged all the necessary conditions for our practice.  Without hardly any effort on our part, we have access to Dharma centers, Dharma books, sadhanas, festivals, everything.  He has laid at our feet everything we need to be a modern day bodhisattva, and all we need to do is pick it up and use it.  What Geshe-la has done with Manjushri center, we can do with our local centers.  In many ways, it is even easier for us because we are already starting with everything, whereas he had to start with nothing.

His greatest act of kindness to us is he is there to help us when we are in the greatest of need.  Later, when we are spiritually advanced, we will be able to receive teachings directly from Buddhas.  But right now, when our minds are dark and obscured, who is able to shine a light into our hearts?  Our Spiritual Guide.  He also blesses our mind, giving us the strength and wisdom we need to travel the path, joyfully and even easily.  When you think about it, it is impossible for anybody to be kinder to us than he is. 

Likewise our Dharma teachers at our local Dharma centers are just as kind.  A case can be made for why they are even kinder because we are only able to see Geshe-la very rarely, if at all, but our local teachers are with us all the time.  But any local teacher would say in reality they are doing nothing, that it is Geshe-la who works through them, so all credit goes to the Spiritual Guide.  Even if our local teacher grants us empowerments or vows, in reality it is our Spiritual Guide who is doing it through our local teacher.  Our local teacher is like a speaker connected to the spiritual stereo system of our Spiritual guide.

Why do I explain how kind our Spiritual Guide is?  To show how and why it is so terrible to cheat or deceive them.  To cheat or deceive somebody who is cruel or out to harm us is bad, but how inconceivably worse is it to cheat or deceive our Spiritual Guide who is so kind to us? 

What does it mean to cheat or deceive them?  Generally, if we are doing it, we know when it is wrong.  Any form of stealing or lying or deception would fall under this.  Ultimately, it is incredibly stupid to do.  First of all, it is impossible for him to be deceived, even if we try, because he is omniscient and so sees right through any of our deceptions.  Our local teacher we can perhaps deceive, but our Spiritual Guide (who is our real local teacher) can never be deceived.  Second, why would we want to deceive him?  He only wants to help us and he has only compassion for our shortcomings, so there is really no need to deceive him.

I think a far more common, but more subtle, form of breaking this vow is when we have pretentious pride with our Spiritual Guide.  I for one have a long history of being attached to what others think of me, especially what my spiritual teachers think of me.  For many many years (and even now, if I am honest), I try get my teachers to think I am better than I really am.  I do this because I think they will like me more if they think I am this great practitioner.  But actually, if I am so great, what need do they have to teach me?  So even if I am just trying to get them to give me more love, to pretend to be better than we really are is just counter-productive.  It is also, again, incredibly stupid to do.  Just as a doctor can only treat us effectively if we describe for them the symptoms we are actually suffering from, so too our teachers can only effectively help us if we describe for them honestly what is happening in our mind – humbly and honestly.

Another common form of deception that can take place is to exaggerate how great we supposedly think our local teacher is.  It can happen quite often that our local teachers are making all sorts of mistakes.  But because we think we are supposed to be maintaining pure view and we think it is disrespectful to talk to them about the mistakes they are making, we tell them how great they are when in reality we don’t think that at all.  This doesn’t help them.  It may coddle their ego, but how does it help them advance spiritually?  And how does it help us because we know it is not what we think.  Geshe-la says when we see our teachers making mistakes we need to approach them constructively explaining our perspective on their actions and asking them for clarification so we can better understand.  If they are wrong, they should then say, “thank you, you are right, I will try change this about me,” and if we are wrong, they should without defensiveness explain to us how our view is wrong at which point we learn something. 

Finally, in the context of this series of blog posts, it is a form of deception to pretend that we are taking our vows with the intention of practicing them, but in reality we do nothing about them and never really had any intention of doing better.  The first time we took our bodhisattva or refuge or Pratimoksha vows, for most of us it was a big deal, something we considered, something we discussed with our Sangha friends to make sure we were approaching it right.  But since then?  If others are anything like me, I have attended festival after festival, taking the vows again and again, and never really giving it a second thought.  In general, it is advisable before every festival or time when we are going to receive new vows that we make a point of examining the vows, seeing the different areas where we can do a little better next time, and then with a very specific motivation to do better, we retake the vows.  In this way, every month, every year our practice of the vows and commitments becomes a little bit more qualified. 

To accumulate merit and wisdom

To drive a car, you need two things:  gas and knowing how to get to where you want to go.  Gas is merit, knowing how to get to where you want to go is wisdom.  From a spiritual point of view, from where our mind is currently at to the city of enlightenment we are a long, long ways away.  The path there is also unknown to us because we have never travelled it before.  To complete the path, therefore, we need a lot of spiritual gas and a lot of wisdom. 

In general, we can divide a Buddha’s aggregates into their form aggregates (their body) and their mental aggregates (their mind).  Merit is the principal cause of attaining the body of a Buddha and wisdom is the principal cause of attaining the mind of a Buddha.  When we talk of the “two collections,” we are referring to the collection of merit and the collection of wisdom.  What does a Buddha’s body do?  It spontaneously emanates for each and every living being exactly what they need to attain enlightenment each and every moment.  Buddhas are doing this for us right now.  We just don’t realize it because we have different ideas about what we need than they do.  What we have emanated around us right now might not be perfect for the fulfillment of our worldly wishes, but it is definitely perfect for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  If we had wisdom, we would see and understand how this is true.  As but a small example of this, we can consider a dedication Buddha once made.  He had engaged in some virtue which created enough positive karma for him to be reborn as a Chakravatin king (a universal monarch) something like 50,000 times in succession.  Instead, he dedicated all this merit so that in the future pure Dharma practitioners would never want for the basic necessities needed to sustain their practice.  He transformed his merit into his future emanations of his body to take the form of these basic necessities.  In the same way, when a being reaches a certain critical mass of merit it transforms itself into a self-replenishing inexhaustible fountain of merit that spontaneously ripens in the form of countless emanations helping each and every living being every day.  This self-replenishing inexhaustible fountain of enlightened deeds is a Buddha’s body.  Shantideva refers to it as the reliquary a bodhisattva accumulates while on the bodhisattva path that they then leave behind when they attain enlightenment. 

The difference between the wisdom of an ordinary mind, that of a bodhisattva, and that of a Buddha can be explained as follows:  an ordinary person might know how to drive on certain main roads in the city which they live, but outside of that they are completely lost and don’t know how to get anywhere.  A bodhisattva is like a driver with a GPS.  With the GPS they can program it to take them to any destination anywhere and the GPS will plan the route.  The driver then follows the planned route and it delivers them to the city of enlightenment.  A Buddha’s mind is like that of a seasoned taxi driver that knows all the roads from anywhere to anywhere without needing the help of a GPS at all.  They always know the quickest way to get to any destination, and in particular they know how all routes for how to most quickly get to the celestial mansion at the center of the city of enlightenment.  Not only is it simply the mind of a single taxi driver, but the Buddha’s mind is able to manifest itself as countless taxis that they send out to each and every living being so that all the being has to do is hop in, say “take me to enlightenment” and as long as the passenger never gets out of the car, they will be swiftly led to their final destination, even if their starting point is the pit of the deepest hell.  Just as all roads lead to Rome, so too for the enlightened mind they know how to connect all mental roads to enlightenment. 

Understanding the value of merit and the value of wisdom, how do we actually accumulate them as the precept encourages us to do?  In general, anytime we help somebody else in any way we accumulate merit, or positive mental karma.  In general, anytime we realize how our delusions are deceiving us we accumulate wisdom.  The best way to accumulate merit is to engage in actions motivated by bodhichitta.  The power of our merit is multiplied by the number of beings upon whose behalf we engage in the virtue.  With a bodhichitta motivation, we seek to help countless living beings, so the power of our merit is multiplied by a factor of countless!  The best way to accumulate wisdom is to contemplate and meditate on emptiness.  Emptiness is the ultimate nature of things, and it explains that everything is mere karmic appearance to mind, a karmic dream.  There is nothing other than these mental appearances, and they are no more real than last night’s dream.  If everything is created by mind, by changing our mind we can change everything.  At present, we still grasp at things as somehow having some existence outside of our mind, somehow separate from our mind.  These things, we feel, can never change regardless of what we do with our mind.  We can change our mind, but they will remain the same.  This is grasping at the inherent existence of things, grasping at them having some existence outside of or independent of our mind.  When we contemplate and meditate on emptiness, we realize this is completely wrong and come to understand how everything is a mere karmic appearance, a mere karmic dream.  If there is nothing really there, then there is no basis for generating attachment or anger to karmic holograms.  Emptiness cuts the power of all delusions in exactly the same way that waking up dispels all fear of the monster chasing us in our dreams. 

The best way to accumulate both merit and wisdom simultaneously is the practice of guru yoga.  Guru yoga is a special mental recognition that views everything as an emanation of the spiritual guide.  Any virtue we accumulate towards a Buddha is non-contaminated virtue (this is like pure rocket fuel compared to leaded gasoline).  Any virtue we accumulate towards the Spiritual Guide is the same as engaging in that same virtue towards each of the countless Buddhas.  The reason for this is all the Buddhas enter into the spiritual guide to receive our actions, so engaging in one action towards the spiritual guide directly is karmically equivalent to engaging in that action towards all the Buddhas.  Just as a small TV can show an image of an entire city, so too a small emanation can reflect countless pure worlds.  Likewise, with guru yoga we can learn to rely upon the guru’s mind as our own.  His mind already has all the wisdom realizations.  Instead of going through the laborious work of gaining all these realizations ourselves, it is so much simpler to just adopt his mind as our own, and learn how to download and use his mind as if it were our own.  This is doable (see the series on Activating the Inner Spiritual Guide and Relying upon the Guru’s Mind Alone).  Just as through Google we can access all the knowledge of the entire internet, so too through the Guru we can access all the wisdom of all the Buddhas.  The spiritual guide is a portal through which we can directly communicate with all the Buddhas.

The ultimate way to accumulate both merit and wisdom is to train in ultimate guru yoga with a bodhichitta motivation.  Ultimate guru yoga is recognizing the emptiness of our very subtle mind of great bliss as the same nature as that of the Guru’s Truth Body Dharmakaya.  If we can learn to attain this mind directly, it is said we can attain enlightenment in merely a matter of months!   

Not to abandon any living being

This is an incredibly vast practice.  The meaning of this vow is we exclude nobody from our bodhichitta.  We seek to attain enlightenment for all living beings without exception.  At a very practical level, what this means is when we see somebody with some problem we never think, “not my problem.”  Any problem any living being has is our problem.  It is not our problem in the sense we have a problem with them having a problem, rather it is of our concern.  We should have a feeling of personal responsibility for every living being without exception.  If there is even one being for whom we don’t feel personal responsibility, then to a certain extent we can say we have abandoned that being.  Technically, however, we only actually abandon a living being when we make the active choice that we are no longer going to work for the benefit of a particular person.  We conclude, “they are on their own,” or “they are somebody else’s problem now.”  Or we say we will become a Buddha for all except this person.

This vow can give rise to a good deal of confusion.  This vow does not mean we can never leave a relationship with somebody.  Very often people hear the teachings on cherishing others and not abandoning others, and they conclude that it means they should stay with their partner despite the fact that their partner is abusive.  This is a completely wrong understanding.  Not abandoning others does not mean we don’t end relationships with people when they need to be ended, rather it means we never abandon caring for the other person.  When somebody is being abusive towards us, often times the best way we can express our caring for the other person is by leaving them.  We do not help people by letting them abuse us.  We do not help people by indulging them in their delusions.  Why?  Because we are letting them create all sorts of negative karma for themselves.  Every time we let them be abusive towards us, they create the karma to be abused themselves in the future.  Because we care about them and we don’t want them to create that karma, we need to end it or at least no longer cooperate with it.  I have discussed these points at length in the series on Cultivating Healthy Relationships, so you can find more detail there.

Another common confusion that arises with respect to this vow is how we help people.  Sometimes out of compassion not wanting others to suffer, we solve their problems for them.  We know if we don’t solve their problem for them, they are really going to struggle, and possibly fail, and we want to spare them from having to endure that, so we solve their problem for them.  If we don’t do so, it feels like we are abandoning them.  We know we could help them, but we don’t.  They then suffer, and cry out to us for help, they may even get mad at us and guilt trip us for not helping them.  For many parents, episodes like this tear them apart.  But the bottom line on this is very simple:  we are not helping people by doing for them things they can do for themselves.  Quite the opposite, if we do for them things they can do for themselves, we are actually dis-empowering them and allowing them to develop bad habits of viewing others as the solution to their problems, and making them think they have no power from their own side to solve their own problems.  This leads to some highly dysfunctional dynamics between people and ultimate drags both people down.  This is wrong compassion, it is compassion without wisdom.

If instead, we tell people, “Look, I could do this for you, but then you would never learn how to do it for yourself.  You would be forever dependent on other people.  This doesn’t help you.  Therefore, I am going to let you do this one on your own.  I am helping you more by letting you do it on your own.  It is because I love you that I realize the best way I can help you is by letting you handle this one on your own.”  At first, they may not understand this logic, but if you start with small things that you know are doable for the other person, they will eventually start to get it.  The key is finding the 110% threshold of the other person’s current capacity.  If something is 200% beyond their capacity, there is no sense in letting them deal with it on their own because they will inevitably fail and become discouraged.  You also definitely don’t want to do things that are say 80% of their capacity because that just makes them lazy and absolutely saps their self-confidence of being able to do even the most basic of things.  110% is the perfect threshold because it forces the other person to stretch themselves to succeed, but it is still within the range of doable.  It will take some trial and error before you start to develop a fairly reliable intuition for where the person’s 110% threshold is, but with blessings and experience it won’t take long.

The interesting thing is when you start to relate to people in this way, their own capacity quickly begins to grow.  What was 110% for them last week is only 105% this week, and will be 80% in perhaps a short period of time.  We keep upping the ante on them, we keep stretching them and growing them until eventually they are completely capable and self-sufficient in life.  You will know you are doing your job correctly when the other person has some problem, you go to help them, and they say, “no don’t.  Let me do this myself.” 

To remember the benefits of bodhichitta six times a day.

The benefits of bodhichitta explained in the lamrim are as follows:  We enter the gateway to the Mahayana, we become a Son or Daughter of the Buddhas, we surpass Hearers and Solitary Realizers, we become worthy to receive offerings and prostrations from humans and gods, we easily accumulate a vast amount of merit, we quickly destroy powerful negativities, we fulfil all our wishes, we are free from harm by spirits and so forth, we accomplish all the spiritual grounds and paths, and we have a state of mind that is the source of peace and happiness for all beings.  These are all explained in detail in Joyful Path and Meaningful to Behold.

The meaning of this vow is we should always remember the benefits of bodhichitta.  Why?  We are desire realm beings, which means we have no choice but to work for whatever it is we desire.  Right now, we desire the 8 worldly concerns.  We remember the benefits of these worldly concerns far more than 6 times a day, more like 60.  Because we are completely familiar with the benefits of these things, we spontaneously day and night want them.  All our actions are geared towards securing them.  This occurs naturally and spontaneously.  If we had the same desire for bodhichitta as we do to get rich or sleep with a certain person, we would already be enlightened.  Because we are desire realm beings, if what we desire more than anything else is bodhichitta, we would literally have no choice but to have all our actions be aimed at pursuing it!  Imagine how quickly we would attain enlightenment if this was the case.   This is why we must continuously contemplate the benefits of bodhichitta.

The secret to doing this is we need to realize how bodhichitta is the solution to all our problems.  We already have a spontaneous desire to be free from all our problems.  But we are confused about the method or means we need to use to solve them.  Because we still grasp at our outer problem as being our problem, we naturally have a desire to secure the external conditions necessary to solve the outer problem.  Of course we do need to solve the external problem, but the external problem is not our problem.  Our problem is our internal problem of the unpleasant feelings in our mind arising from our deluded reaction to whatever arises.  If we are crystal clear as to the nature of our problem, then we will spontaneously want to seek a solution to our inner problem in exactly the same way as we currently seek solutions to our outer problems.

Once we have made this distinction and we clearly see our inner problem, then we simply ask ourselves the question:  How is the mind of bodhichitta the solution to my current inner problem?  We then receive blessings and contemplate and develop an understanding of how bodhichitta is the solution.  We will then want bodhichitta.  We will see its benefits.  Practicing in this way, our problems then become the fuel for our wanting bodhichitta.  Since we have far more than 6 problems a day, we will have no difficulty remembering the benefits of bodhichitta 6 times a day.  It is generally best if we take an entire day, or even a week, to focus on this in the meditation break.  I find it is usually more beneficial to pick one specific Dharma practice to really focus on all day during the meditation break than it is to try practice a little bit of whatever during the meditation break.  When we focus on one practice, we gain some real experience with it, and then we can more easily carry this over into the rest of our life. 

To generate bodhichitta six times a day

If we practice in the way I just described, namely every time a problem arises we consider the difference between our outer and inner problem, and then we contemplate how bodhichitta is the solution to our inner problem, then the natural next step is to actually generate bodhichitta.  We want it, then we generate it.  Very simple.  Once again, since we have far more than 6 problems in a given day, we are able to generate bodhichitta easily more than 6 times a day.

What does it mean to generate bodhichitta?  While it is beneficial to recite the bodhichitta prayer, reciting this prayer in and of itself is not sufficient for generating bodhichitta.  We actually need to generate the mind of bodhichitta.  The short-cut for generating bodhichitta is to compare the state of our current mind and abilities with those of a Buddha.  We see our ordinary mind is weak and limited, but a Buddha’s mind is not; therefore we naturally want to abandon our ordinary mind and attain a Buddha’s mind. 

Sometimes people get confused thinking bodhichitta is a supremely arrogant mind.  Who do we think we are to aspire to become the savior of all?  It’s like we have some Jesus-complex or something.  But actually, pride and bodhichitta are exact opposites.  Pride thinks our ordinary mind is somehow special.  Bodhichitta fully accepts and acknowledges the limitations of our ordinary mind and sees how a Buddha’s mind is far superior.  So humility with respect to our ordinary body and mind are actually prerequisites for generating bodhichitta. 

Some people agree that drinking alcohol just makes us stupid and taking hard drugs is just too dangerous, but they then ask what about marijuana?  People who have smoked almost all agree that it makes them more mellow and often gives them insights which are very similar and profound like what we realize with the Dharma.  There are also a great number of medical studies about the health benefits of this drug.  Let’s face it, a very high percentage of Dharma practitioners have smoked pot in the past.  Here the case is much harder, but still it is not worth it.  Why?  First, just as alcohol functions to undermine our inhibitions, marijuana functions to undermine our desire to do anything other than more marijuana.  This is true, and anybody who has smoked knows what I am talking about.  Conventionally, people usually all agree that people who regularly smoke have less ambition and drive than they used to.  Whenever free time arises, their first impulse is to light up.  As we know from the lamrim teachings, desire is everything.  All the lamrim meditations are ultimately about building up within us an unquenchable desire for liberation and enlightenment.  Marijuana deflates our desires, and the more we smoke the less we desire anything else. 

Second, if we are even slightly prone to psychiatric disorders, marijuana is downright dangerous.  When I was in Geneva, there were three different practitioners who were mentally completely normal prior to smoking marijuana, but they had latent potentials for psychiatric disorders, and after smoking regularly for a period of time, they all three developed very serious psychiatric issues, so much so that all three of them have spent a fair amount of time in mental hospitals.  We don’t know what latent potentialities we have lurking under the surface, and smoking could activate them.  Perhaps we have smoked a few times without a problem and therefore think we are immune to this problem.  But we never know if we are just one joint away from tripping over some invisible karmic wire we didn’t know was there.

Third, marijuana is a gateway drug.  It is like crossing the Rubicon, and once we have done so the other drugs which before we said we would never even consider trying suddenly no longer seem that different.  Marijuana seems to be OK, perhaps Ecstasy, opium or a little blow might be OK too.  Geshe-la explains in the teachings on delusions that the easiest way to stop delusions is to do so early before they have gathered up steam.  Once we allowed them to run a little bit in our mind, they can seemingly take on a force of their own and become unstoppable in our mind.  It is the same with drugs.  Just as they say it is easier to attain enlightenment once we have become a human than it is to become a human if we have fallen into the lower realms, so too it is easier to avoid marijuana now than it is to avoid using other drugs once we have started using marijuana. 

Finally, sometimes people object saying that when they smoke marijuana it gives them deep insights into the Dharma, so how can that be bad?  Perhaps it is true that when we smoke up, suddenly emptiness makes sense.  We see all the connections between the different Dharma teachings.  Such experiences can quickly and easily be used to justify doing it some more “for valid Dharma reasons.”  So again, just like with the health benefits of drinking a glass of wine every day, let’s assume for the sake of argument that there are deeper insights to be had by smoking marijuana.  Once again my question is simple:  isn’t have a precious human life also good for gaining spiritual insights?  Every time we practice moral discipline for spiritual reasons, we create the karmic causes for an entire precious human life.  So what gives us greater opportunities to gain spiritual insights, 80 years worth of a precious human life or a few hours each week for 80 years?  And this is setting aside the fact that there are diminishing returns.  Perhaps the first time we get high we feel the subtle vibrations of the cosmos, but do we get that same feeling the 20^th time we get high?  Eventually, it starts to do very little for us.  So again, let’s assume you smoke once a week for your whole life.  By taking this vow, you will train in this moral discipline 3,120 times (assuming you are 20 and live until you are 80).  3,120 actions of moral discipline translates into 3,120 precious human lives or another 249,600 years worth of precious human existence.  What will give you the opportunity to gain greater spiritual insight, 250,000 years’ worth of precious human life or a few random insights from being high?  Again, math doesn’t lie.

The final thing I want to address is the situation of what happens if despite all the above, we are ready to take the Pratimoksha vows for everything except this one related to intoxicants.  We just can’t bring ourselves to do it.  Should we hold off on taking the vows?  I have heard some people within the tradition say yes.  I would say this is wrong advice, and a dangerous wrong at that.  It runs exactly counter to everything Geshe-la teaches about the working gradually and skillfully with all the vows.  It makes absolutely no sense to refrain from all moral discipline just because you can’t do one act of moral discipline perfectly.  How is that any better?  Now it is true that we can’t take all the Pratimoksha vows except the one regarding intoxicants, we need to work with all the vows, but we can work with each one at different levels according to our capacity.  Just as Buddha skillfully encouraged the butcher to no longer kill animals at night, so too we can skillfully promise to refrain from taking intoxicants in some circumstances, such as never do so while alone.  Or not on Tuesdays, whatever.  Start somewhere, and then gradually expand the scope.  What matters is that mentally you understand the value of moral discipline and you maintain the intention to one day keep even this vow purely.  It is better to get incomplete benefits from imperfect Pratimoksha vows than it is to get no benefit from no Pratimoksha vows.  Do don’t let this wrong understanding prevent you from getting started on the path of improving your moral discipline.

To abandon taking intoxicants 

This includes drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or taking drugs.  This is often one of the toughest ones for us to follow.  The object of this vow is obviously any intoxicant, whether it is legal or not.  Some people ask the question whether caffeine counts, after all it is highly addictive and many people relate to it no differently than other drugs.  And if coffee is an intoxicant, then aren’t all the centers and festivals and World Peace Cafes constantly encouraging others to break their Pratimoksha vows?

Some people don’t like the answer I am about to give, but I will give it anyways.  Yes, I think caffeine can be considered an intoxicant.  I think nothing is really an intoxicant from its own side and everything can be an intoxicant for us depending on how we relate to it.  As my diabetes shows, sugar is not an intoxicant from its own side, but if we adopt an addictive attitude towards it, then for us I would say it is and likewise should be brought under control.  Likewise, many people get addicted to porn.  This is a very common addiction in the modern world, especially with the ease of access on-line.  This too can be a form of intoxicant for us depending on how we relate to it.

Some objects, like cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs are in a somewhat different category because there express purpose is to alter our mind.  This is the main point.  If we understand that our problem is our mind and alcohol and drugs help us change our mind, then can’t we argue that with them we are at least solving the right problem?  From one perspective, I guess we can say that.  But it is still a completely wrong thought.  Yes, we need to change our mind, but we need to change our mind with our mind.  We can think of our mind as like a muscle.  The more we exercise it, the stronger it gets.  The more we become dependent upon other things to change our mind, the weaker that muscle becomes.  Ultimately, we need a very strong mind.  Further, alcohol and drugs function to render our mind uncontrolled.  Our goal is to make our mind controlled.  So these things may change our mind, but they do so in a way that makes our mind more uncontrolled, and thus they take us in the opposite direction of where we want to go.

Alcohol in particular generally just makes us stupid.  The reason why alcohol is so dangerous is it primarily functions to undermine our inhibitions.  Our inhibitions are often what hold us back from engaging in negativity.  If we harbor in our heart a good deal of negative impulses, then when we consume alcohol it erodes those inhibitions and our negativity is given free rein.  We all know stories.  Now, some people say that there is nothing wrong with being an occasional social drinker, especially if is done in moderation.  It is true that it is less bad, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good.  It is true that it is good to be social, but how will you grow more as a person, by using the crutch of alcohol or doing the deep inner work of overcoming those delusions which prevent you from being a socially engaged person?  I am now a diplomat and I attend quite a number of social gatherings where everyone – and I mean everyone – is drinking.  I walk around with a glass of water or even orange juice in my hand.  At first, I hated these gatherings because I have never liked parties.  But I forced myself to learn how to become socially engaged, to let go, relax and have a good time.  I learned how to be able to have a good conversation easily with anybody.  The secret to this is not complicated:  take a genuine interest in what others have to say.  Everyone has a lifetime worth of experiences waiting to be tapped, and all you need to do is be interested in finding out what they have to say.  Usually people only want to talk about themselves anyways, so it is not difficult to get the conversations started, and what you will find is because you have all your mental faculties about you, you are better able to cherish the other person and occasionally pepper the conversation with some wisdom. 

Other people object saying, but having a glass of red wine every day has been medically proven to be good for your health.  I am not a doctor, so I can’t say whether this is true or not, but let’s just assume it is.  My question is simple:  isn’t moral discipline also good for your health?  Let’s take a wild exaggeration of the benefits of drinking a glass of wine every day and say it adds 10 years onto your human life.  Surely that is extraordinary, is it not?  Surely that is enough justification to do it.  But every time we engage in the practice of moral discipline we create the substantial karmic cause for a rebirth in the upper realms, for example as a human.  If we assume an average lifespan of 80 years, what extends our experience of human life more, the 10 years or the 80?  And, just to take this a little further, if you practice this moral discipline every day from age 21 to 80, then that is 21,535 instances of moral discipline, each one of which creates the cause for at least another human rebirth of say 80 years, then keeping this vow will extend our experience of human life by 1,722,800 years!  Do the math.  Logic doesn’t lie. 

To abandon lying

The objects of lying are mostly included within the eight:  what is seen, what is heard, what is experienced, what is known; and what is not seen, what is not heard, what is not experienced, and what is not known. The intention requires that we must know we are lying, unintentionally providing mistaken information is not lying.  We must be determined to lie, and we must be motivated by delusion.  Lies can sometimes take the form of non-verbal actions such as making physical gestures, by writing, or even by remaining silent.  The action of lying is complete when the person to whom the lie is directed has understood our meaning and believes what we have said or indicated.  If the other person does not understand, then our action is not complete.

Of all the Pratimoksha downfalls, I think this one is our most frequent.  Most of us lie all the time, directly or indirectly, in big and in subtle ways.  A very fun way of seeing this is to rent the movie Liar Liar with Jim Carey.  In the movie, I can’t remember why, but he has to always tell the exact truth.  This helps show us the many different ways we lie throughout our day because we see how we would likely lie in those situations.  In a similar way, it is a very useful exercise to at least once a month take an entire day to focus on just this one aspect of our practice of moral discipline.  Make a concerted effort to pay attention that you never mislead people, even slightly.

Will this get us into trouble with others when they hear what we really think?  Yes, it will.  So we might say, “then wouldn’t it be better to not say anything to them so as to not upset them?”  In the short run, that might be true, but that is not a good enough answer.  The correct answer is we need to change what we think about others so that we can tell everyone what we really think, and instead of that making them upset it makes them feel loved and cared for.  We can always tell the truth if we only have loving kindness in our heart. 

I think it is also useful to make a distinction between lying and speaking non-truths.  The difference usually turns around whether there is delusion present in our mind or not.  Not telling your kids what you got them for Christmas, or even telling them something that is not true, is not lying.  Failing to mention that you are going to the Dharma center or to a festival to your relative who thinks you have joined some cult and you know saying something would just upset them is not lying, it is being skillful.  Ultimately, there is no objective truth, so the question arises what then is a valid basis for establishing the truth.  Geshe-la, Venerable Tharchin, and Gen-la Losang all say (in one manner or another) that “what is true or not true is not the point, what matters is what is most beneficial to believe.”  For example, we might say strongly believing we are the deity or that we have taken on all the suffering or living beings or that we have purified all our negative karma are lies because they are not true.  This is not the point.  The point is what is most beneficial to believe.  Believing we are a deity, have purified all our negative karma, or have taken on all the suffering and delusions of others is not true objectively (nothing is), but believing we have done these things functions to complete the mental karma of self-generation, purification, and taking practice.  Our training is to engage in these mental actions and believing we have done so is how we complete these mental actions, thus planting the desired karma on our mind.

Venerable Tharchin explains that from a Dharma point of view, what establishes what is true is “what is most beneficial to believe.”  So if it is beneficial to believe something, it is truth.  It may not be objectively true, but it is a belief that moves in the direction of ultimate truth.  In other words, believing any idea that takes us in the direction of ultimate truth can be established as “truth,” and so saying or thinking it is not lying.  Helping others believe these things is not lying, it is wise compassion. 

But if we are misleading others for selfish reasons, or out of anger, fear or attachment, then there is no doubt we are lying.  We need to know the difference.