Ultimate stages of the path: Seizing our precious human life

Kadampa Ryan Ultimate stages of the path

This is part 3 in a 31 part series on my understanding of how to practice the ultimate perfection of each stage of the path.

We normally refer to this meditation as the meditation on our precious human life.  But it is important to understand that every stage of the path is a mental action, and therefore the actual meditation of each stage of the path is a verb not a noun.  So while we call this the meditation on our precious human life, we should understand that the meaning here is “the wisdom decision to seize the opportunity afforded by our precious human life.”  According to Sutra, the perfection of this is the wisdom decision to fully seize the opportunity afforded by our precious human life by using it to attain the final goal of full enlightenment so that we may guide all others to the same state.  According to Highest Yoga Tantra, we use our precious human life to attain the specific goal of becoming our Highest Yoga Tantra deity, such as Heruka or Vajrayogini.  The ultimate perfection of this stage of the path, therefore, is the perfection of this wisdom decision according to Highest Yoga Tantra conjoined with an understanding that our precious human life, our act of seizing and the final result we strive for are all empty.

Our “precious human life” can be understood to be empty in two ways.  First, our human life is not precious from its own side, rather it becomes precious in dependence upon our mental decision to use it to accomplish spiritual goals.  All life is, of course, precious, but that is not the meaning here.  Precious in this context means more than the mere existence of human life.  Here our human life is as spiritually precious as the extent to which we use it to accomplish spiritual purposes.  The higher our spiritual purpose, the more precious our life becomes.  If we use our human life to accomplish the highest goal of becoming Heruka or Vajrayogini for the benefit of all, then our human life is the most spiritually precious possible.  If we use our human life to attain personal liberation or to avoid a lower rebirth, our human life is still precious, but less so than if we use it to become a Buddha.  In this context, if we use our human life only to attain goals that concern this life alone, then our human life is not spiritually precious at all.  Thus, the preciousness of our human life depends upon our mind and so is therefore empty.

Second, we can understand the emptiness of our precious human life by understanding that the conditions which make our human life precious, namely the 8 freedoms and the 10 endowments explained in the lamrim teachings, are themselves mere karmic appearances of mind.  The 8 freedoms are in essence freedom from conditions which prevent us from practicing Dharma, such as being born in the lower realms.  The 10 endowments are in essence favorable conditions which give us the actual opportunity to practice Dharma, such as having access to teachings and the mental faculties and disposition necessary to actually practice.  A detailed explanation of these can be found in Joyful Path of Good Fortune.  Where do these 8 freedoms and 10 endowments come from?  They are the karmic results of our own past actions.  In the past we engaged in the actions which created the karmic causes and conditions which are now ripening in the form of our precious human life.  Karma is primarily mental action.  For example, our mental action of engaging in moral discipline created the karma for us to have a human life.  Our mental action of deciding to create the conditions for the Dharma to be available to others, such as by helping out at our centers in the past or giving Dharma teachings, created the causes for the Dharma to be available to us now.  What is the nature of these 8 freedoms and 10 endowments?  They are by nature mere karmic appearances of mind.  They are a mere appearance because each one can be shown to be nothing more than a mental imputation on the basis of a certain collection of parts.  They are a karmic appearance because the appearance itself of these conditions arises in dependence upon karma.  And the nature of these appearances is our mind itself, specifically the emptiness of our mind of great bliss appearing in the aspect of these freedoms and endowments.

Our act of seizing our precious human life itself is also empty.  The actor is our empty self, the object of our action is our empty human life, the action of seizing is a mental decision to change our mind in the ways indicated by the instructions and the effect of the seizing is the karmic potential to experience the inner results of attaining our spiritual goals.  The emptiness of ourself and our empty human life have already been explained.  The action of seizing itself is a mental decision to change our mind in a particular way.  Normally, we allow our mind to be pulled or pushed according to the uncontrolled whims of our delusions.  But the action of seizing is a mental decision to intentionally choose to mentally respond to our life in a different way, such as by avoiding negative actions understanding their karmic consequences or by seeing through the deceptive lies of our delusions and thus not following their misguided advice or by choosing to put the interests of others first.  Each such decision is a mental changing of the shape and inner dynamics of the ocean of our mind.  And the karmic fruit of these actions is a karmic potentiality which will ripen in the future as a mere karmic appearance of our body, mind, environment or enjoyments being those of a Buddha (or something that moves in that direction).

The final result we strive for is also empty.  As explained in the meditation on reliance upon the spiritual guide, a Buddha is empty.  Normally we grasp at our future Buddhahood as somehow being an inherently different being.  No.  Right now, the ocean of our mind is in the aspect of an ordinary contaminated being in an ordinary contaminated world of suffering surrounded by others experiencing a similar fate.  By training our mind in the stages of the path, we karmically reshape the ocean of our mind to appear in the aspect of the Vajra King Heruka in his universal pure land Keajra surrounded by all beings having been led to the final blissfully pure result of full enlightenment.  The ultimate nature of both appearances is the same – namely the emptiness of the ocean of our very subtle mind of great bliss – what changes is our realization of its ultimate nature and its assumed aspect or shape.  Samsara and Nirvana are equally empty, just two different aspects or shapes the emptiness of the ocean of our mind might take.

In short, we practice the ultimate perfection of seizing our precious human life by realizing that our freedoms and endowments are mere karmic appearances of mind, and in dependence upon that understanding we make the mental decision to reshape our mind in the ways indicated by the Dharma instructions for the purpose of creating the karmic potentialities which will ripen in the future in the form of the emptiness of the ocean of our very subtle mind of great bliss assuming the aspect of Heruka or Vajrayogini liberating all the other waves of living beings.

Ultimate stages of the path: Reliance upon the Spiritual Guide

Kadampa Ryan Ultimate stages of the path

Once again, every stage of the path is a mental action.  Just as the act of giving becomes a “perfection of giving” when the act of giving is motivated by bodhichitta, or the wish to become a Buddha, so too any stage of the path becomes an “ultimate” stage of the path when it is practiced from the point of view of ultimate truth, emptiness.  The ultimate perfection of any stage of the path, therefore, is to engage in the conventional action of that stage of the path motivated by bodhichitta and conjoined with and infused by the wisdom realizing emptiness.  Or more succinctly, the ultimate perfection of any stage of the path is engaging in that stage of the path motivated by ultimate bodhichitta.  The purpose of the next 30 posts is to explain my understanding of how to engage in the ultimate perfection of all of the stages of the path.  In this post, I will begin with the root of the path, reliance upon the spiritual guide.  This post is quite long, and for that I apologize, but taking the time to understand it will enable you to understand more easily all of the remaining posts in this series.

From a conventional point of view, reliance upon the spiritual guide is a two-fold mental action:  first, we generate a conviction that the spiritual guide is a Buddha (and therefore completely reliable), and second, on the basis of this faith, we put his/her instructions into practice to the best of our ability.  The perfection of reliance upon the spiritual guide is to rely upon the spiritual guide so as to become a Buddha with the ability to lead all beings to the same state.  The ultimate perfection, therefore, of reliance upon the spiritual guide is to rely upon the spiritual guide to become a Buddha understanding that the spiritual guide, ourselves, all beings and our reliance itself are all empty.

The emptiness of the spiritual guide can be understood as follows:  the “spiritual guide” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation that is “a person who is the synthesis of all three jewels.”  This is very profound.  As will be explained in a later post, according to Buddhism, the three jewels are the three main objects we turn to – namely, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha – in order to solve our inner problems of delusions and their karmic imprints.  “Buddha” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of “a person that has purified their mind completely of delusions and their karmic imprints and thereby realized fully within their own mental continuum all good qualities.”  “Dharma” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of “all of Buddha’s advice for how to become a Buddha ourselves.”  “Sangha” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of “all those who are striving to put the Dharma into practice.”  The “synthesis of all three jewels” is the mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation that is “the synthesis of all of the Buddhas, all of the Dharma and all of the Sangha fully in mutually reinforcing harmony with one another.”  Synthesis, here, means “fully in mutually reinforcing harmony with one another.”  The synthesis of all three jewels in turn is comprised of “the synthesis of all of the Buddhas”, “the synthesis of all of the Dharma” and the “synthesis of all of the Sangha.”  So the synthesis of all of the Buddhas is how all of the Buddhas mutually reinforce one another in their common task of liberating all beings.  The synthesis of all the Dharma is an understanding of the resolution of all apparent contradiction between any of Buddha’s instructions combined with an understanding of how each instruction mutually reinforces every other instruction.  The synthesis of all the Sangha is the resolution of all conflict, even the most subtle, within the Sangha combined with the perfect harmonization of all of their efforts aimed at practicing the stages of the path and supporting one another in this endeavor.   So building back up, upon the basis of imputation that is the synthesis of all of the Buddhas, all of the Dharma and all of the Sangha we impute “synthesis of all three jewels.”  A person who realizes fully the synthesis of all three jewels as their basis of imputation for their “I” is a “spiritual guide.”   If we contemplate this fully we begin to glimpse the sheer magnificent splendor that is a spiritual guide and it is difficult to not start to cry.  The Spiritual Guide is simply the synthesis of all that is good.

The emptiness of ourselves is explained extensively in every book written by Venerable Geshe-la.  Quite simply it is realizing that our “I” is a mere mental label we impute upon the basis of imputation of our body and mind, but if we remove our body and our mind completely there is nothing remaining that is the “I”.

The emptiness of others is also quite profound.  Normally we conceive of others as separate, independent beings.  I am here, they are there, and their is this unbridgeable chasm that stands between us.  We grasp at others existing inherently separate from us.  This is completely wrong.  In reality, each being, including ourselves, is a wave on the ocean of all living beings.  Out of ignorance we grasp at each wave as being inherently distinct from all of the others, but in reality they are all by nature the same ocean and thus inseparable from one another.  While we can nominally distinguish one wave from another, we cannot separate them from their underlying unity.  It is the same with all living beings.  My ignorance tells me I am just the wave called Ryan.  I grasp at this wave as being separate from all of the other waves, and on this basis I engage in actions which put the interests of the Ryan wave above the interests of all of the other waves.  And everybody else in samsara is doing the same thing.  No wonder the waves of humanity are so choppy, full of conflict and turmoil like in a violent storm.  But when I realize “Ryan” is just one wave on the ocean of all living beings that is my true self, then I seek what is best for the harmony and mutual stillness and peace of all of the waves.  When I conceive of myself as the ocean, as opposed to any individual wave, then each and every living being, including Ryan, becomes but a single aspect or part of my larger self.  If I kick the dog, it is one part of myself kicking another part of myself.  How senseless is that?  To see the emptiness of all living beings is to see how we are all part of one indivisible whole, and upon this basis harming others becomes non-sensical and dedicating our life to leading others to full enlightenment becomes entirely natural.

The emptiness of the mental action of reliance itself is at first difficult to understand because it is very difficult to understand the relationship between emptiness and action.  Normally we think if something is empty it can’t act and we think if there is action it must inherently exist.  But this too is completely wrong.  In reality, action is only possible because the actor, the action itself, the object of the action and the fruit of the action are all empty.  If the actor was inherently separate from the object of the action, how could it possibly act upon the object when there is no point of contact?  If the action itself was inherently separate from its fruit, how could it possibly produce any fruit since there is no connection between the two?  It is only because the actor and the object of action are part of the same entity that they can interact with one another, and it is only because the action and its fruit are part of the same continuum that cause and effect can exist.  If we conceive of the mind as a body of water, by changing our mind (the mental action) we change the shape of the body of water and thus cause one wave (the actor)  to interact with another wave (the object of the action) producing a new pattern of waves (the effect or fruit).  This too is very profound.  If we understand the empty relationship between actor, object of action, action and its effect then our understanding of emptiness is very qualified and there is great hope that we will be able to engage in the ultimate perfection of each of the stages of the path to enlightenment.

As this relates to the ultimate perfection of reliance upon the spiritual guide, the conventional action of reliance upon the spiritual guide is to first generate the conviction that the spiritual guide is a Buddha and to then, on the basis of that faith, put his/her instructions into practice to the best of our ability.  The actor, here, is ourselves.  The mental action is to put any Dharma instruction into practice with the wisdom conviction that the instruction is completely reliable.  The object of the action is the instruction itself.  And the effect, or fruit, of the action is to make the ocean of our mind more peaceful and calm.  The conviction here is particularly important because it is this mental conviction that gives our mental action force or power.  The greater our conviction or belief, the more power or force there is in the mental action.  Since the object of the action is the instruction and all instructions when practiced function to make our mind more peaceful and calm, the more power with which we engage in the action the more complete will be the resulting inner peace.  Venerable Geshe-la once told Venerable Tharchin that if he fully believed that his spiritual guide was a Buddha, he would attain enlightenment in an instant!  Such is the force-multiplying power of this conviction on all of our spiritual actions.  Understood in this way, the ultimate perfection of reliance upon the spiritual guide is not a singular mental action, rather it is a way of engaging in all of the other mental actions that are the stages of the path.  This is why reliance upon the spiritual guide is a transversal practice, in other words it pervades all of our other practices making them dramatically more powerful.  It is the root of the path because there is no path without it.  Why?  Because if we lack any conviction that the mental actions we are engaging in are reliable then our mental actions themselves will lack any power and thus produce no fruit.

Generating the conviction that our spiritual guide is a Buddha is actually easy when we understand his emptiness.  He is a Buddha because we have mentally constructed him as such (see above).  A person constructs themselves as a Buddha by imputing their I on a mind that has realized all of the stages of the path.  A person constructs themselves as a spiritual guide by imputing their I on the synthesis of all three jewels.  We construct someone as a Spiritual Guide by viewing not the person as an I imputed upon the ordinary contaminated aggregates of body and mind, but rather by viewing them, their instructions and their actions as the unfolding manifestation of the synthesis of all three jewels within the ocean of our mind.  This view alone functions to bestow upon our mind a wisdom that interprets them, their instructions and their actions as this synthesis of all three jewels unfolding within our mind, and as such we receive the wisdom and blessings of the synthesis of all three jewels  through this person even if from their own side they are a completely ordinary being!  As Venerable Geshe-la said, if we view our spiritual guide as a Buddha, we will receive the blessings of a Buddha; if we view them as a bodhisattva, we will receive the blessings of a bodhisattva; and if we view them as ordinary we will receive nothing.

In summary:  first we construct the mental object “spiritual guide” which is the synthesis of all three jewels.  Then we impute “spiritual guide” on everything.  From this, we will receive teachings from and the blessings of our spiritual guide through everything.  Powered by this, we put into practice what we have learned and the result will be a gradual calming of the waters of our mind until eventually it becomes the completely still and translucent clear light omniscience of a Buddha.

Ultimate stages of the path: Introduction

Kadampa Ryan Ultimate stages of the path

The fundamental reason why I am a Kadampa Buddhist is because I have been convinced of its merits on the basis of weight of argument.  In the Kadampa teachings, I have found valid and indeed definitive reasons establishing its truth.  On the basis of being convinced of its validity, I have put the instructions into practice and found them to be reliable – in other words, they work as advertised.  The definitive reason for every Kadampa teaching is the truth of emptiness.  Emptiness can be logically and experientially established as true – it does not require a leap of faith to believe, it can be shown to be true.  From this, the entire Kadampa path can be established as true.  Practicing the path conjoined with an understanding of its emptiness is the ultimate, or definitive, way of practicing it.  Therefore, it is quite important to understand the emptiness of each main aspect of the path.

Every stage of the path is a mental action.  Just as the act of giving becomes a “perfection of giving” when the act of giving is motivated by bodhichitta, or the wish to become a Buddha, so too any stage of the path becomes an “ultimate” stage of the path when it is practiced from the point of view of ultimate truth, emptiness.  For example, reliance upon the spiritual guide becomes “ultimate reliance upon the spiritual guide” when we engage in the conventional action of reliance upon the spiritual guide conjoined with and infused by the wisdom realizing emptiness.  The ultimate perfection of any stage of the path, therefore, is to engage in the conventional action of that stage of the path motivated by bodhichitta and conjoined with and infused by the wisdom realizing emptiness.  Or more succinctly, the ultimate perfection of any stage of the path is engaging in that stage of the path motivated by ultimate bodhichitta.  The purpose of the next series of posts is to explain my understanding of how to engage in the ultimate perfection of all of the stages of the path – specifically, the ultimate perfection of the 21 lamrim meditations, of the 6 perfections, of the two stages and of the final result.

For this reason, over the next series of posts I will explain my understanding of the emptiness of each stage of the path of both Sutra and Tantra.  I do not in any way claim that this explanation is correct, rather I am just sharing my understanding as it is in the hope that if there is some validity to what I am saying it might prove useful to others; and if it is wrong, somebody will correct me so that I can improve my understanding.

I have explained previously my understanding of emptiness.  You can find it under the “emptiness” category on the right.  But briefly emptiness says there is nothing other than mere creations of mind.  Everything is constructed by mind, and there is nothing real behind any of these constructions.  Everything is a mere karmic appearance of mind.  They nonetheless function as the dance, or inner workings, of the mind.  The key to understanding the Prasangika view of emptiness (the ultimate view according to Sutra) is to make the distinction between “the basis of imputation” and “the imputation itself.”

This can be illustrated with a couple of simple examples.  The basis of imputation of a “fleet” is “a bunch of ships.”  The collection of the ships is the basis of imputation and upon this collection my mind imputes the mental label “fleet.”  The fleet itself is nothing more than a mere mental projection or imputation.  If I go looking for a real fleet, I find none.  None of the individual ships is the fleet and if I take away all of the ships there is no fleet to be found anywhere.  From this, we can see that the “fleet” is nothing more than a creation or projection of mind.  Using the same logic, a “forest” is nothing more than a mere mental imputation on “a bunch of trees” and an “army” is nothing more than a mere mental imputation on “a bunch of soldiers.”  The fleet, forest and army are all mere imputations by mind.

We might object, “OK, yes, I see how fleet, forest and army are mere imputations by mind, but there are nonetheless ships, trees and forests that are actually there.”  But closer examination reveals this is incorrect.  What is a “ship”?  It is a mere mental imputation on a collection of “hull, engine, deck and interior rooms.”  The ship is not any one of these things individually and if I removed them all there is no ship to be found anywhere.  The same is true for the “engine”, it is a mere mental imputation on some pistons, belts, frame and spark plugs.  Each of these in turn is also just a mere mental imputation on the collection of even smaller parts.  We can continue this way until we get to the “atom”, which is just a mere mental imputation on “a collection of electrons, protons and neutrons.”  And even these are being smashed these days into smaller and smaller parts by particle accelerators.  No matter how small we go, we never find anything other than once more a mere mental imputation imputed on the basis of some collection of even smaller parts.  There is no end to this.  From this we can see that the entire world is nothing more than a giant Christmas tree of mental labels.  When you strip away everything that you can validly identify as just a mental label, you find absolutely nothing!  There is nothing there behind any of the labels – everything is dream-like creation of mind.

What then are these mental labels themselves?  They are the individual waves on the ocean of our mind.  In the ocean, there are many different waves which we can mentally distinguish one from another.  But in reality, they are all by nature the same ocean.  There are not actually distinct waves, rather it is just our mind that labels them as such.  It is the same with everything else.  Every phenomena, every person every thing, is just a different wave on the ocean of our mind.  They are not actually distinct from one another, rather it is just our mind that labels them as such.  As explained in the Tantric teachings, the conventional nature of our mind is omniscient great bliss and the ultimate nature of our mind is emptiness, so the final nature of the ocean of our mind is the union of great bliss and emptiness.  The Sutra Prasangika view establishes that all things are mental waves, the Tantra Prasangika view (the final, ultimate view according to Tantra) says the nature (or ocean) of these waves is our mind of great bliss and emptiness, and the two are inseparable – you cannot have a wave without its underlying ocean.

So what creates the individual waves?  Our karma.  Karma is mental action.  Each time we engage in a mental action, it reshapes in some way the ocean of our mind creating different waves.  By definition, virtuous mental actions function to make the waves of our mind more tranquil, peaceful and calm;  and non-virtuous mental actions function to make the waves of our mind more turbulent, unpeaceful and agitated.  Each and every stage of the path is a mental action.  Our training in the stages of the path is nothing more than a training our mind in abandoning those mental actions that make the ocean of our mind unpeaceful and agitated, and instead training our mind in engaging in those mental actions that make the ocean of our mind more calm and indeed translucent.

What follows over the next 30 posts will be an explanation of how we train in the 29 main mental actions on the path conjoined with ultimate bodhichitta, and how doing so functions to make the ocean of our mind increasingly peaceful until eventually it settles into a complete inner stillness of a blissful meaning clear light.  From this, we then arise as a “great wave” of a  Buddha that effortlessly functions to lead all beings to the same state.

Drop by Drop – Some ideas I am working on

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

When we do retreat or intensive periods of practice, we will often have very deep and profound realizations that are sometimes earth-shattering.  This is, of course, a wonderful thing.  But sometimes what can happen after we have had such experiences is we can grow bored or dissatisfied when progress is being made little by little with small increases in our understanding.  It is kind of like the trap of taking your kids to Disneyland – once they have been there, then the old smaller parks you used to go to no longer seem as great.  This is a mistake because the reality of our spiritual path is cummulatively speaking we make far more progress with the drop by drop than we do with the occasional spiritual breakthrough.  So we should learn to appreciate and highly value these mini-realizations as the bread and butter of the spiritual path.  This is why I periodically publish posts that contain a list of some small insights.

So here we go:

  1. If you knew you were going to die very soon, would you spend your day in the same way?  I think if we realized death, we would.  We normally assume this means we would quit everything and go into retreat, but I am not so sure that this is what it would imply.
  2. We should get in the habit of always bringing our “A-game” to whatever we do.  As my grandma always said, “a job worth doing is a job worth doing right.”  While simultaneously making this our habit, we should strive to always do more and more meaningful things.  If we adopt these two life habits, how can we not make swift progress along the path?
  3. I sometimes make the big mistake of thinking that I will not eventually have to pay for my negative actions.  We cannot escape our karma.  We know what we have done wrong.  If we don’t purify, it is just a question of time before we will have to face the music.   The fact that the negative consequences are not ripening now does not mean “we got away with it.”
  4. Life is full of very hard trade-offs.  I am working harder now than I ever have in my life, both at work and at home.  I am really pushing things to the limit, and if I don’t take the time to rest and relax and do nothing (which yes, often times me vegging for about an hour in front of the TV every night) I run the risk of burning out and then being less effective at everything I do.  But this comes at a cost – I could be spending more quality time with my kids.  Sometimes they feel I push them away when I am having my veg time.  It is difficult for me to watch TV with them because they ask all sorts of questions and their goal is not to watch the show, but to hang out with me – which is then more work for me and then I can’t veg.  Difficult to balance these two.  I think I need to take the time to explain to them why I need my veg time and make it up by blocking some real quality time in other contexts.
  5. I think the biggest enemy of my spiritual practice is distraction.  I have very little time for formal practice, but I do make a point of doing about an hour every day.  But very often what happens is my mind is so busy that when I do find time to sit down and do my practice, I quickly get distracted and start thinking about other things going on in my life.  The more deeply and single-pointedly we mix our mind with virtue, the more healing effect we will enjoy in terms of it making our mind peaceful and clear.  It is because I am so busy that I simply can’t afford to not set aside my distractions.  It is hard not because I want to think about these other things, but just I have so much mental habit and intertia of doing so, I am easily swept away by my distractions.

Your turn:  What are some small insights that you are working with now?

Engaging in the actions of Heruka

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra

After the meditation on the self-generation, there are a number of practices we engage in.  From my perspective, it seems the main purpose of these practices is to gain some experience with engaging in the actions of a Buddha.  This serves a couple of different purposes.

First, by engaging in the actions of a Buddha now, we create the causes for the Buddhas to engage in those actions for us, which will then help accelerate our path to enlightenment.  As we advance further along the path, we can then engage in the actions of a Buddha in a more qualified way and thus create even better causes for the Buddhas to engage in these actions towards us.  This creates a virtuous circle, like a train picking up momentum along the track.

Second, by engaging in the actions of a Buddha now, we realize how incredible it is to be a Buddha.  This then greatly increases our desire to become one, making our bodhichitta more intense and qualified.  This then increases the power and effectiveness of all of our spiritual practices.

Third, we create the reliquary of our future enlightenment.  In Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva discusses how as a Bodhisattva we create the reliquary of a Buddha which continues to provide benefit to living beings even after we have passed into nirvana.  This is actually a very important concept to understand.  Basically, the actions we engage in as a bodhisattva set in motion a self-perpetuating series of actions that continue forever after our enlightenment.  There are a couple of analogies that can help us understand how this works.  Imagine an infinite ocean, and on one end I create a giant tsunami sized wave.  This was one action, but the wave will keep going in all directions long after the initial action.  This is how I understand “the great wave” of Je Tsongkhapa’s deeds.  Alternatively, in space there is no friction.  So if I have a rocket ship in space and for a period of time it expends energy/fuel pushing the rocket in a certain direction, then the rocket will keep going forever in that direction long after the thrusters have fired.  It is the same with our actions as a bodhisattva.  While a tantric bodhisattva, we engage in the actions of a Buddha – namely we train in liberating beings, bestowing blessings, making offerings, engaging in prayers, etc.  These actions are like the making of the initial wave or the firing of the thrusters in the rocket in space.  The effects of these actions will continue to provide benefit to living beings forever, even after I have already attained enlightenment.

With this understanding, what then are some of the main actions we engage in as a Buddha?

  1. Mantra recitation – these are special prayers and requests we make on behalf of all living beings, requesting that the function of the mantra be accomplished for the benefit of others.
  2. Torma offerings.  A torma offering is a mind that is happy to offer everything one has, to use all of the resources at one’s disposal, for the sole purpose of gaining Dharma realizations.  So by making torma offerings, we are creating the causes so all resources within our pure land are used for one single purpose – gaining Dharma realizations for living beings.
  3. Tsog offerings.  To make progress along the path, we need to be rich in merit.  Rich societies can accomplish their wishes more easily than poor ones.  When we make Tsog offerings, we are infusing our pure land with an extreme abundance of merit and inner wealth so that all beings within our pure land can easily fulfill all of their spiritual wishes for realizations.
  4. Great Mother practice.  Here we remove all obstructions for all of the beings in our pure land and create the echo of the Heart Sutra within our pure land which will resonate forever teaching the perfection of wisdom to all beings.
  5. Dorje Shugden practice.  Dorje Shugden’s retinue is like both the army of the pure land providing protection and security so people can focus on their practice and they are also our spiritual trainers like training officers at boot camp helping forge people into highly qualified “special forces” bodhisattvas.  So by engaging in this practice, we provide those services to all of the beings in our pure land.
  6. Dedication.  We should engage in our dedication practice while maintaining divine pride, viewing each dedication as a special prayer we make on behalf of all of the beings in our pure land, wishing that these prayers ripen for each and every being.

Your turn:  What are some enlightened actions you can engage in today?  What would Heruka do if he was living your life?

Please don’t ruin the holidays for everyone else

Kadampa Ryan Cultivating healthy relationships with others

The holiday season is supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year, and that is exactly why it is generally the opposite!  What happens around the holiday season is people say, “it is supposed to be special”, and because it is “special” we have higher expectations for how things are supposed to go a certain way.  When they predictably fail to do so, we then get upset because things are not unfolding according to our expectations.  Then, because we get upset, we make everybody else around us stressed out as they try live up to our expectations or we just make them miserable because they become the objects of our frustration and anger.

What I typically do when faced with this dynamic is I then harbor all sorts of resentment that the other person is getting upset in this way, and then I starting acting all stupid saying things like “I want to do whatever you want to do” “I want to do whatever will stop you from being upset.”  I might not say these things, but my actions will speak louder than words.  My goal when I act like this is not to genuinely make the other person happy, but instead to try demonstrate to the other person that they are being unreasonable.  So unsurprisingly, they know I am not being sincere and then we enter into these snarky exchanges where each side is trying to give the other person what they want, but not really doing so, because the real objective is to highlight to the other person that they are being unreasonable.

Another typical way we ruin the holidays is project all sorts of expectations about how others need to be grateful for our giving or our acts of kindness, and then when they are not grateful, we get upset at them about that.  This then ruins our giving and robs them of any enjoyment.  Or we can generate all sorts of jealousy about how others are getting more gifts than we are or we generate resentment about how we gave to others more than they gave to us.

Another common thing that happens is we have our relatives over.  We project that they can sometimes be difficult people so we do everything we can to try engineer the situation and the kids so nothing happens that could possibly upset the relatives or guests coming over.  But because we are more uptight and trying to make everything perfect, we create a pressure cooker for our kids, so they feel this and inevitably start acting up.  We then clamp down on them and guilt trip them saying things like “So and so didn’t come here to just to see you fight and act up.”  This of course just causes us to enter into a fight with them, creating the very problem we were trying to avoid.  It also makes our kids feel bad about themselves, they feel like a failure because they have ruined the holiday, and then they enter into a self-pity/anger spiral.

One of my favorite ways that I ruin the holidays is quite ironic.  I have seen all of the dynamics above and gotten upset at my family for falling into them.  I want everybody to just relax and have a good time.  But then I am doing the same thing I am accusing them of!  I am expecting them to be more chillaxed and easy going than they normally are, and then when they show even the slightest frustration about anything, I then freak out completely and think “there you go again, ruining another holiday.”  I so insist that everyone be easygoing that I myself am the least easygoing of them all.  I then self-righteously lecture others about how they shouldn’t expect everything to be perfect on holidays, etc.

The other extreme I often fall into in the holiday season is thinking “holidays are just not worth the hassle – everybody just fights and gets upset anyways.”  Secretly, I wish that there weren’t any holidays at all so we didn’t have to deal with all of the drama.  But then others around me who do want to celebrate the holidays sense that I am being all bah-humbug.  They feel like I am not really into it and am bitter about the whole thing.  I then ruin their fun.  They then get upset at me about that, I of course deny that I am doing it, I then enter into my “whatever will avoid you getting upset martyrdom” mode, and this just makes things awful for everybody.

We deluded beings are quite funny creatures!  I just can’t help but imagine the Buddhas up in the pure land having a good-hearted laugh at it all.  The sign that our reunucination is qualified is our samsara makes us laugh.  I imagine that the sign that our bodhcihitta is qualified is we find samsara absolutely hilarious!  You just gotta laugh at how silly we sometimes act.

So this holiday season my objective is to just happily accept whatever happens.  I am going to try genuinely get into it and not be bah-humbug.  I am going to try not project expectations that everybody somehow miraculously stop being deluded on the holidays.  I am going to try be happy for others, think about others, and give them the space to be something less than perfect.  I am going to laugh at myself when I find myself getting all huffy-puffy.  I am going to try spend quality time just loving my kids, because at the end of the day that is what they want more than anything else.  I am going to try not to make them feel guilty if they don’t live up to my expectations.  I will probably fall short of my aspirations, but that too will be a great opportunity to learn, grow and laugh!

Your turn:  What are some funny ways in which you have ruined other’s holidays before?  What are you going to do differently this year so that you don’t ruin other’s holidays?

Conquering Death

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra

Even though we don’t realize it, our biggest problem is we are trapped in a hallucenagenic cycle of ritual sacrifice where we are the offering put up for repeated slaughter.  We are caught in a dream that we believe to be real in which we are uncontrolledly and repeatedly dying, going through an intermediate state and then being reborn once again in another contaminated dream.  In short, we are trapped in a cycle of uncontrolled death, thrown from one contaminated dream to another, each one ending in us dying, often in very painful ways.  Most of the dreams we are thrown into are frankly too horrible for words, but through some miracle we have been born into a relatively mild dream of our present human life with access to a method to break free.

In Buddhism, this cycle of uncontrolled rebirth is called samsara.  Buddhism itself is a method for conquering uncontrolled death, breaking free from this cycle and intentionally choosing to take rebirth awoken from these contaminated dream worlds.  What makes a dream world a contaminated dream world is we do not realize it is a dream world – we think it is real.  When we escape from the cycle of samsara we do not leave dream worlds for real worlds, because there are no real worlds, rather we leave contaminated dream worlds that we think are real to pure dream worlds which we understand to be created by our mind in accordance with the laws of karma.  Since we have been born, we cannot escape death, but we can escape death’s hold over us.  We can, once and for all, break free from this cycle and emerge as a deathless being.  And not just any deathless being, it is possible for us to emerge on the other side as what Jesus called “a fisherman of men” capable of eventually (or instantaneously depending upon your perspective…) extracting each and every being from the deadly ocean of samsara and releasing them into eternal freedom.

In short, we are trapped in a cycle of death called samsara.  Buddhism is a method for conquring death.  When we do so, we will be capable of helping all others also find their way to everlasting freedom.

So the question is how do we conquer death in this way?  The answer is we use our entire life to train to purify the cycle of death, intermediate state and rebirth.  In short, we use our life to burrow an escape route out that we take at death.

To do so, we must build a series of way points, or stages that we must go through during the death process.  In our daily practice we construct these way points, familiarize ourselves thoroughly with them, train in passing from one to the other, and we do this every day of our life.  If we do so, there is a very good chance that we will break free at the end of this life.  If we fail to build for ourselves the way out, there will be no way out for us – ever.  So our choice is actually stark – either we intentionally do what it takes to build an escape route or we remain forever trapped.  There is no third alternative.

So what are these way points that we must build?  (Note, I will explain this in the context of Kadampa Buddhism.  By doing so, I in no way mean to imply that only Kadampa Buddhism has an escape tunnel.  Many other pure spiritual traditions and religions do so as well, but I am not familiar with how those work.  The tunnel I am trying to dig for myself is a Kadampa one because that is the one I know and the one I seem to have the most karmic connection with).

  1. Initial refuge.  To get out we must turn to one who has already gotten out and who has come back to get us (a Buddha).  We must make effort to put into practice the methods s/he teaches (the Dharma).  And we intentionally come under the influence of a good circle of friends seeking to do the same thing we are (Sangha).  Initial refuge is the opening of the escape tunnel, we must find it and go through it.
  2. Correct motivation.  Everything that appears is karmically created.  Our motivation, or intention, is the most important ingredient in whatever karma we create.  To conquer death, we must have the intention to do so in all our actions.  This intention will define the nature of the karma we create from our training, which will ripen later as an actual path out.  At a minimum, we can intend to get to a pure land so that we can continue with our training.  We can also intend to once and for all escape completely for ourselves, or we can intend to become a fully enlightened Buddha capable of freeing all others.  Any one of these three intentions will be sufficient, but obviously the latter is the highest.  It is called bodhichitta.
  3. Purify negative obstructions and delusions.  Since beginningless time, we have engaged in countless negative actions which serve as “iron chains” binding us in samsara.  We must break these chains through the practice of purification.  A prisoner may wish to escape from prison, but will be unable to do so if they do not break the chains binding them in.  There are several different methods for purifying our negative karma, such as the 35 confession Buddhas and Vajrasattva.  But the best method for purifying all of the negative karma towards each and every being is to generate a motivation of bodhichitta, wishing to become a Buddha so that you can save them from samsara as well.  This corrects for all of the harm you have ever done towards them, and thus is the supreme method of purification.  We must also pacify and ultimately abandon our delusions.  Delusions function to activate our contaminated and negative karma.  If we die with a deluded state of mind, it will activate contaminated karma and we will be thrown once again into an uncontrolled contaminated rebirth.  So we must train in keeping our mind free from delusions, most importantly through an anvil-like mind of patient acceptance, the supreme good heart of bodhichitta and the wisdom realizing the ultimate truth of emptiness.
  4. Accumulate sufficient merit.  Just as a rocket needs tremendous fuel to escape from the Earth’s gravity, so too we need tremendous mental fuel to escape from samsara’s gravitational pull.  We accumulate such fuel, or merit, through our virtuous actions.  There are countless things we can do to accumulate merit explained in the lamrim teachings.  One of the most effective methods is making mandala offerings to our Spiritual Guide with a bodhichitta motivation.  When we make a mandala offering, we are essentially offering a promise to do whatever it takes to transform the entire universe and all of the beings within it into a pure land.  When we offer it to our spiritual guide (normally in the context of our daily meditation practice) we create the same karma as offering it to each of the countless Buddhas.  And by doing it with a bodhichitta motivation, we multiply the merit by the number of beings for whose benefit we make the offering, in this case countless living beings!
  5. Receive blessings.  Just as a spark lights the fuel of a rocket, blessings light the fuel of our merit.  Buddha’s have the power to bless our mind, which basically means they have the power to activate our virtuous karmic potentialities.  The escape tunnel is built according to the following cycle:  we create a certain level of the karma necessary for its existence through the various practices, we then receive blessings activating that level of karma, then on the basis of experiencing this level we create the karma to experience an even higher or more robust level of the tunnel’s existence, and so on.  We continue in this way until the entire tunnel is complete, both in terms of the full length of the tunnel and it being sufficiently strong and consolidated that it won’t collapse along the way when we take it at the time of death.
  6. Dissolving the guru into and mixing his mind inseparably with our root mind.  If we want to get some place, we can walk ourselves or we can get into a taxi.  The taxi is faster and the driver knows where he is going.  It is exactly the same with getting out of samsara.  Mixing our root mind inseparably with our guru’s mind is like hopping into a spiritual taxi which then takes us to the pure land.  When we understand this deeply, we not only generate great confidence that we can indeed get out, but we also develop a great desire to ourselves become a spiritual taxi for others in the future!
  7. Purify uncontrolled contaminated death.  We do this through the practices of bringing death into the path of the Truth Body according to generation stage and through the mahamudra meditations of completion stage.  How to do this is explained in detail in the Tantric teachings.  But the short version is we train in maintaining the continuum of our mindfulness and alertness of our realization of emptiness as we go through the eight dissolutions of the inner energy winds up to and including the final dissolution after which we emerge into the clear light emptiness or Truth Body.  This final meditation on the clear light emptiness, which is explained in detail in the Mahamudra teachings, is the most important method for purifying the sway of death itself.
  8. Purify uncontrolled contaminated intermediate state.  We do this through the practices of bringing the intermediate state into the path of the Enjoyment Body according to generation stage and through the meditations on illusory body according to completion stage.  Again, these meditations are explained in detail in the tantric teachings.  But the short version is motivated by bodhichitta, we train in manifesting our subtle winds in the form of the seed letters of Buddhas while maintaining the continuum of our realization of emptiness.
  9. Purify uncontrolled contaminated rebirth.  We do this through the practices of bringing rebirth into the path of the Emanation Body according to generation stage and through training in the union of clear light and illusory body according to completion stage (all explained in detail in the tantric teachings).  The short version is we train in transforming ourselves into the pure land, including all the Buddhas who inhabit the pure land.  A pure land is a realm we emanate so that beings can take rebirth in and complete their spiritual training.  Meditating on the self-generation with a bodhichitta motivation is the principal method for creating the substantial causes necessary to take rebirth outside of samsara.  The importance of this meditation cannot be overstated.
  10. Engaging in the actions of a Buddha.  The way stations up until now (the 9 above) take us into and through the tunnel, but this final way station takes us outside of the tunnel and irreversibly delivers us to the other side.  After we conquer death, our work of liberating others begins.  We will do so through sending countless emanations into the realms of samsara to lead and assist all beings along the path from the deepest hell to the highest enlightenment.  To anchor this as our final outcome and to reinforce our bodhichitta motivation for making the journey we train in actually engaging in the actions of a Buddha.  During the meditation session we do this through the practices of mantra recitation, making offerings, purifying migrators, etc.  During the meditation break we do this through engaging in virtuous actions towards them, most notably by giving teachings and good advice.

Every single day of our life, we should train in each of these 10 way stations.  By doing so, we will gradually build within our mental continuum a reliable escape tunnel from the cycle of uncontrolled death.  At the time of death, we will then feel like we are on the cusp of an incredible journey to the pure land.  We will then effortless proceed through each of these same ten stages.  We will become a conqueror of death!

Your turn:  What is something practical you can do today to prepare yourself for (and indeed conquer) death?

Stop trying to change others

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Before I found the Dharma, I believed others were the source of my problems, thus to solve my problems I felt like I needed to change others around me.  I especially did with my partner and family.  After I found the Dharma, I believed it was my spiritual duty to lead each and every being to enlightenment, so I still felt like I needed to change others.  Very often, if I am honest, my real motivation for wanting to change others continues to be my core believe that they are the source of my problems, but I fool myself into thinking my wanting to change others now is motivated by great compassion and bodhichitta.

Another reason why I seek to change others is doubt and insecurity about my own views.  Perhaps I am doing something wrong but don’t want to admit it to myself, so I will try try get others to share my view so that they don’t force me to confront that I am doing something wrong.  Or perhaps I am not sure if I am right, and so if I can convince others of my view then if enough people view things the same way I do it will help reassure me that I am right.  Of course this is a flawed reasoning, since a majority of people believing something doesn’t make it right.  Everyone believes in an inherently existent world, but that doesn’t make the view correct!

Trying to change others is, from a pragmatic point of view, self-defeating.  People are not stupid, and they know when we are trying to change them motivated by our own attachments and aversions, and so they naturally resist the change we are trying to bring about in them.  So instead of helping them change, our trying to change them actually just causes them to cling more tightly to how they are.  If we try change others through overwhelming them with force, we may bring about the external appearance of them changing, but internally they just harbor resentment towards us and the change we want, and as soon as our threat of force subsides, they will revert back to how they were.  Trying to change people in this way also creates the causes for others to try change us in this way in the future, so we just set ourselves up for being manipulated and controlled in the future.

I am gradually learning that the best way to get people to change for the better is to leave them completely free to change themselves.  We just focus on changing ourselves – honestly identifying our faults and applying effort to overcome them.  We can seek to change ourselves to gain the realizations necessary to help others who seek to change themselves, but we must wait for them to come to us asking for advice and help.  Offering unsolicited and unwanted advice rarely, if ever, works unless the person already has a lot of faith in us.  Generally speaking, we try to change others because we see faults in them, so when we see faults in others we make them defensive, they feel judged by us, and then they seek to internally justify why we are wrong.  So trying to change others actually causes them to lose faith in us, not increase it.

Even though intellectually I know I should just focus on changing myself and how trying to change others is counter-productive, what I now often times find myself doing is talking indirectly where it is not immediately obvious from a literal and direct reading of my words that I am directing them against somebody, but anybody with knowledge of the context knows who and what I am talking about.  So externally, I maintain plausible deniability, but internally I am really saying somebody else is wrong and I am trying to change them by trying to be all skilful by talking indirectly.  This rarely fools anybody, and just results in them talking indirectly back.

It is a very fine mental balance to write a blog and not have it be trying to change others.  I see faults in others and in my tradition, and my motivation is often a mix of wanting to genuinely cherish others by helping them do better and good old fashioned attachment or aversion.  I could fall into the extreme of not doing a blog at all until my motivation is completely pure, but how will I ever be able to do things perfectly unless I do things imperfectly and learn from my mistakes?  So while I know I am doing things imperfectly, I try nonetheless to do better each day.

I think the middle way between trying to change others and doing nothing for others is to do our best to change ourselves with the intention of gaining the realizations necessary to help others who seek to change themselves.  We then share what we are learning and hope others find it helpful in their own demarche.  If they don’t, then we keep trying, and at a minimum our sharing helps us clarify our own understanding by forcing us to express it in words.  This is how Shantideva began his Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  I always read it as a false humility, but actually, like everything else in his Guide, it is profound advice and an immaculate sincere example.

Your turn:  Describe some (funny?) failure you have had trying to change others?  What did you learn from the experience?  

Our three requests to Dorje Shugden

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

Dorje Shugden’s function is to arrange all of the outer, inner and secret conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment.  We can invoke his function for the sake of ourselves and for the sake of others.  The power and effectiveness of our requests to him are dependent upon the strength of our faith, the purity and scope of our motivation, and the extent to which we realize the emptiness of ourselves, Dorje Shugden and what we are requesting.  If our faith is unshakable, our motivation bodhichitta and our realization of emptiness all encompassing, there is literally no limit to what Dorje Shugden can do.  From a practical point of view, I rely on him for everything I do.

There are three main requests I make to him.

  1. Please arrange all of the (outer, inner and secret) conditions necessary so that everything is perfect for the swiftest possible enlightenment for everyone, including myself.
  2. Please bless me with the wisdom to see clearly how everything that has happened, is happening and will happen is perfect for everyone, including myself.
  3. Please arrange the conditions and bestow upon me the skilful means necessary so that I can share my perspective of how things are perfect with others when they are ready and in a way that they can accept and put into practice.

In general, a condition is perfect if it enables us to identify clearly our delusions, train in overcoming them, or it reveals to us in some way the truth of Dharma.

I believe that through relying upon Dorje Shugden in this way we can accomplish all of our spiritual wishes.

Your turn:  Describe a situation where initially you thought something was a problem, but later you realized it was actually exactly what you needed for your practice.

A Kadampa view on the tragedy in the U.S.

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

As everyone is now aware, a gunman went on a rampage at a school in the U.S., killing more than 20 and mentally scarring a nation and a world.  The question then becomes how are we, as Kadampas, able to relate to this in a positive way.

The difficulty with events such as these is it just seems wrong to maintain pure view saying that it is all emanated.  If we are not careful, we wind up sounding like that one Senate candidate that said a rape is God’s will, so therefore God is a rapist.  Of course there are other forces at play – delusions – and this is what they lead to.  Delusions drove the gunman and delusions drive the angry response.  Events like this are a powerful reminder of where delusions lead.  Seeing where the path of delusions lead we realize the folly of even going down them a little bit in our own life.

As Kadampas we make a distinction between the person and their delusions.  Just as those children were the victim of the gunman, so too the gunman was a victim of his delusions.  Our normal reaction is we do not want to generate compassion for the gunman so we resist this.  But we need to check our own behavior, and if we do so honestly we will have to admit that the more our mind is overrun by our delusions, the more we lose control over our actions.  How many times have we all gotten angry, said or done something hurtful, and then later regretted it?  How many times have we been seized by attachment to somebody we find attractive and found ourselves engaging in all sorts of stupid behavior even though we know it just creates more problems?  What will now follow in the press is a debate about whether the gunman was insane or not.  I’m sorry, the answer is obvious, only an insane person would do something like this.

Saying somebody is the victim of their delusions does not, however, absolve them of the personal responsibility for their actions.  In each moment we have a choice to follow our delusions or to not.  Sometimes the choice is a very hard one to make, such as maintaining one’s commitment to never smoke again, but we do have this choice.  So we are responsible for our actions, no doubt.  But if we have never learned that it is even possible to say no to our delusions and we have never learned methods for how to do so and we have no history or habit built up of doing so, it is not difficult to see how our delusions can overwhelm us.  Look at Gen-la Samden.  Here is somebody who clearly knew the Dharma, was a very sincere practitioner, very close to enlightenment no doubt, yet he too was overwhelmed by the trickery of delusions.  So there is no contradiction between acknowledging delusions render us uncontrolled and maintaining that we must each assume personal responsibility for the continuum of our actions.

On this basis, a Kadampa response to events such as these begins with compassion for the victims, the families and the community.  But it also extends to the gunman and to those who now want revenge on him.  The gunman is no doubt in hell now.  Rejoicing in this only guarantees that we will soon join him.  A Kadampa wants noone in hell and wants all in a pure land.

So the question then arises, how can we maintain pure view of events such as this.  We can do so only internally, not externally.  Pure view is a personal thing informed by an accumulated wisdom of knowing how to look at tragedy in a beneficial way.  From a conventional point of view, this is horrible, plain and simple.  Conventionally, we must acknowledge that.  But horrible things contain within them powerful lessons about why it is better to be pure and good.  Pure view does not mean that we say horrible appearances are perfect  from their own side, rather it means we know how to internally receive perfect benefit from whatever appears.  We know how to learn something pure and perfect from even the most horrible appearances.

Nothing is emanated from its own side, but it becomes “emanated” depending upon our view.  With faith and wisdom we can derive spiritual lessons from tragedies and therefore use them as powerful motors pushing us along our path to the final solution of enlightenment for all.  We may feel “guilty” about receiving benefit from something so bad, but this is not correct.  In fact, we can say the only way to truly honor the dead and make their loss have meaning is if we use it for something good.  If we don’t, then it is only tragedy.