Contributing to, not taking from the world

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

Every moment of every day we face a choice in terms of our strategy for engaging with the world.  It all turns on what we are trying to do at any given moment.  The choice is between contributing to the world in some way or seeking to take from the world in some way.  The former accumulates merit and creates the causes for a future of abundance (material, emotional and spiritual).  The latter burns up our merit and creates the causes for a future of impoverishment (material, emotional and spiritual).

The question we should ask ourselves in every situation is “how can I add value?”  Normally, however, the question we are asking ourselves is “how can I get what I want?”  Sometimes we are tring to get somebody to do something for us.  Sometimes we are cleverly not doing what we should be doing in the hopes that others will do it for us.  Sometimes we are chasing after some pleasure.  Sometimes we go fishing for compliments or affirmations that others see value in us.  Sometimes we are trying to steal the limelight or the credit for what was in fact the work of a team.  Sometimes we are seeking for everybody to be in agreement that we are the best, and that those we are threatened by are morons.  If we are not adding value to the world, but instead are constantly trying to harvest samsara’s goodies, how will we know anything but destitution in the future?

In our relationships, we are constantly trying to manipulate others into doing what we want – sometimes what we want is for them to like us, sometimes we want them to just leave us alone, sometimes we want them to do some work for us, sometimes we are trying to get them to live up to our expectations for them.  Often times we just want to feel loved.  But the more we grasp at these things, the more elusive they become, leaving us feeling despondent, frustrated, needy and bitter.  What kind of life is that?

John F. Kennedy famously said, “ask now what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.  In his prayer, St. Fancis of Asisis said “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.”  In the Tao Te Ching it says “if you want to be given everything, give everything up.”  Ghandi sought to place zero demands on the world, but to only give.  Shantideva said considering ourselves important is the root of all suffering and considering others important is the root of all happiness.  What are all these poining to?  In every moment we need to seek to give, not get; to contribute, not take; to invest in the future, not consume our future now.

Of course the choice is ours.  The reason why we choose to take instead of to contribute is because we value our happiness now more than our happiness in the future.  The irony is the satisfaction, even in the present, that comes from investing in a better future far outstrips the temporary pleasure that comes from taking now.  It is hard to make this switch in life strategy, but all of the holy beings guarrantee us it is worth the effort!

Your turn:  Give an example of how you are currently taking from the world.  What are you going to do differently now?

Please make dedications for Paul Ashton

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

He is a close Sangha friend of mine who was just diagnosed with cancer.

For details, please read:  http://realkadampa.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/prayers-for-paul-ashton/

The world is the nature of mind

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

The entire universe and everything within it are one single entity – my mind.  It is like a giant play dough that assumes different aspects in dependence upon which karma is ripening.  Samsara is uncontrolled rebirth in an uncontrolled world.  Why is the world and our rebirth uncontrolled?  Because our mind is uncontrolled.  Since the world is the nature of our mind, if our mind is uncontrolled our world and rebirth are uncontolled because these are one and the same thing.  Because my mind twists and contorts in deluded and contaminated ways, the world, which is the same entity as this mind, also twists and contorts in an uncontrolled and contaminated way.

If I bring my mind under control, then the world will also come under control, again because the world and my mind are the same entity, like two names for the same thing.  The Lamrim cycle is like the ultimate anti-delusion mental multi-vitamin.  Directly or indirectly all delusions find their opponent in the lamrim.  A systematic, daily practice of the lamrim carried out over the course of a lifetime will gradually pacify all delusions and bring our mind (and by extension our world) under control.  There may be times when we need to pay particular attention to applying more direct opponents to specific delusions which are arising, but our main emphasis for our whole life is a systematic practice of the lamrim.

Within the context of our tantric practice, we try gain expereince of the recognition that the nature of the world is our mind, but the nature of our mind is the ocean of bliss and emptiness.  The world is the bliss and emptiness of our mind assuming the shape or appearing in the aspect of the world.  Our job is to transform through our generation stage practice the shape of the ocean of our mind of bliss and emptiness into a Keajra.  We transform all the beings of our world, who are likewise aspects or waves or parts of the same entity of our mind of bliss and emptiness into pure beings abiding in this pure world.  To get some feeling for this, the key recognition is to feel like our mind of bliss and emptiness is like the ‘land’ in Pure Land.   In this sense, pure land and pure mind are synonyms, or even two different names for the same thing.  It is not enough to just intellectually understand this, but try to experience your world in this way.

One thing that can easily give rise to doubts about the relationship between our mind and the world is it seems like we can change our mind, but the world remains exactly as it was before.  In other words, by changing our mind we change nothing.  We observe this and then falsely conclude that changing our mind changes nothing or that there is no relationship between the world and our mind.  The answer to this doubt is to understand karmic inertia.  Once a karmic seed has ripened, it cannot be stopped until it has run its course.  Every karmic seed when ripened creates effects for a certain duration of time.  The world as we know it is the collective effect of countless karmic seeds that have ripened.  Each one of these seeds will have a certain duration to them, and no matter how I change my mind, those seeds will still need to run their course and I need to accept this.  But, if starting now I create new karmic seeds and I activate new karmic seeds, then gradually the karmic inertia can shift in new directions.  I create new karmic seeds by engaging in new actions, and I ripen these seeds through creating a hospitable environment for virtuous seeds to ripen (I make my mind rich in virtue through generating and maintaining virtuous minds).  If I do these two things, together with rely completely upon Dorje Shugden, then gradually the karmic inertia within my mind can and will shift – oftentimes quite quickly and dramatically once the old karma has burned itself off and once the new kamra has reached a critical mass creating a ‘tipping point.’

We engage in our generation stage practice of generating a pure land and then believing that we are abiding within it not because it is objectively true or our living expeirence, but because generating and believing in the pure land is a virtuous action which then plants new karmic seeds on our mind which when they ripen will be as we imagined.  Further, the generation stage environment is a virtuous environment that is propitious for virtuous and pure seeds to ripen, so it accomplishes both of the conditions necessary for changing our karmic inertia.  If we do these things with sufficient quantity of seeds and over a sufficiently long period of time, our karma can and will shift, bringing about the new world which is reflective of the nature of our mind.  Our mind is like an enormous mass whose outer aspect may currently be in the shape of a samsara, but if deep within this mass we are generating and pushing outwards new shapes, it will eventually start to reshape even the outer aspect of our mind (the world).

Your turn:  Take the biggest problem in your life – now realize that this problem is the nature of your own mind.  How does this change your perspective on the situation?

The Kadampa “Assignments Officer”

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

In the State Department, we rotate jobs every 2-3 years throughout our career.  The rationale behind this is simple:  the end goal they are after is forging us into Ambassadors, but an Ambassador needs to be good at everything.  Normally, after spending 2-3 years in a given job, you have learned probably 80-90% of everything there is to learn about the job.  Of course, you could always go deeper and become more of an expert, but the rate of learning shows diminishing returns.  So it becomes time to move on and gain a new 80-90% set of skills doing something else.  In short, moving around all of the time helps us avoid getting stuck in a rut.

An additional rationale for moving people around all of the time is to avoid the mistake of false universal assumptions.  Very often, when we are in one place (or situation) for a long time we get assimilated into the view of that place.  There are two dangers to this.  First, we can start to mistakenly think that everybody must view things in the same way as they do where you are at; and second, you can start to believe that the view of this area is superior to all others and therefore lose your appreciation for multiple perspectives.  In short, moving around all of the time helps us avoid being narrow-minded.

Within the human resources department, there is somebody called your “assignments officer.”  Their job is to match the needs of the Department with your career development objectives all in the optic of a long-term plan of helping you cultivate all of the skills you will need to operate effectively at the highest levels.

When you think about it, this is exactly the same as what happens within the Kadampa family.  The long-term goal is to train people up to become Ambassadors for all of the Buddhas (fully qualified Kadampa Spiritual Guides).  We are all moved around again and again.  Gen Lekma once said, “be wary of the day you get too comfortable, because that is the day Venerable Geshe-la will move you!”  A lot of people looking at this process, particularly as it relates to Resident Teachers, from the outside mistakenly view these constant moves as “punishments” or view VGL as “vindictive.”  Not at all!  He is rather telling us it is time to move on to our next assignment.  Sometimes we embrace this, sometimes we resist.  Sometimes he asks us to go somewhere, sometimes he fires us.  But the goal is always the same – it is time for us to move on so we can build new skills and realize new things.

For most Kadampas, however, we dont’ receive emails from VGL telling us where to go next.  So are we deprived of having an enlightened assignments officer?  No.  Rather, our assignments officer is the Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden.  His long term goal is to forge us int the Buddha we need to become, he knows what realizations we need to gain and in what order, and his job is to arrange all the outer and inner conditions we need to gain those realizations.  Of course, we have to do our spiritual assignments, but Dorje Shugden arranges for us the assignments we need to take the next step on our spiritual path.  Sometimes our moving on will be joyful and sometimes it will be traumatic, but in both cases it will be what we need to continue our spiritual growth.

Your turn:  Describe a major career or life change you have gone through and what did you learn from making that change?

To cherish others we need to understand their perspective

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

Most human conflict comes from a failure to understand the perspective of the people we are interacting with.  We interpret their actions through the lens of our own perspective, not theirs.  As a result, we misunderstand their intentions, conclude they are being unreasonable and enter into conflict with them.  The internet society, in which everyone cocoons themselves in a virtual world of people who share exactly their own perspective then reinforces this polorization of perspectives and amplifies the conflict.  The solution to this sort of conflict is to first take the time to understand the other person’s perspective and then to consider important for ourselves whatever is important to them.

How do we understand the other person’s perspective?  The starting point is to assume they are acting in good faith.  Most inter-perspective misunderstandings come from assuming that people are not acting in good faith, and as a result they misunderstand everything the other person is saying.  They then accuse the other person of not acting in good faith, the other person then goes on the defensive or starts to counter-attack saying the same thing.  Then the discussion becomes about each side defending against false accusations instead of real problem solving.  This dynamic is true between rich and poor, majority and minority, black and white, between any two countries and also between those who have a unicultural perspective and those who have an inter-cultural perspective.  This last one is playing itself out in virtually every country between those who are uniculturally whatever country or region they are coming from and those who are participating in the project of globalization.  At an interpersonal level, once again, most conflicts come from this same problem and pattern of misunderstanding.  So first, unless you have compelling proof otherwise, always assume the other person is acting in good faith, just with a different set of priorities, values and understandings of how things work.

The second thing we need to do is to learn to cherish what the other person considers to be important.  We talk all the time in the Dharma about cherishing others.  But practically speaking, how do we do this?  We primarily do this by taking the time to understand what is important to the other person and then to likewise take the time to realize how what they consider to be important has real value – in other words we need to learn how to realize the importance of what they consider to be important.  To cherish something means to consider it to be important.  We find out what is important to others and then we learn to appreciate the importance of that.  Of course, if what the other person considers to be important is wrong or harmful, we can reject that, but most of the time people just value different things.

The irony is this:  when we demonstrate that we understand the other person’s perspective and we also consider to be important what they consider to be important then they come to trust us and believe us when we speak.  Then they will be open to listening to what we have to say, and real communication can take place.  They can then also come to understand and appreciate our perspective and there is a real chance the differences can be worked out.

Your turn:  View yourself through the perspective of the person with whom you have the most problems.  What does this teach you?

Helping people make their own decisions

Kadampa Ryan Cultivating healthy relationships with others

When people come to me for advice, I have a terrible tendency to tell them what to do instead of help them come to their own decision.  Our job as bodhisattvas is to help people cultivate within themselves the wisdom to make their own sound decisions.  If we always tell people what they should do, then it may help them in their current situation, but it doesn’t help them learn to be able to make their own decisions in future situations.  As banal as it may seem, it is the whole “teach a man to fish” logic.  Likewise, when somebody makes their own decision, they “own it” and therefore it has much more power within their mind.

When we give people the answers, we also sometimes risk them rejecting our advice because they may feel like we are imposing something on them or somehow depriving them of their freedom to make their own choices.  Alternatively, if we give people the answers, we can sometimes create a spiritual laziness in the other person where they just let us tell them what to do without them doing the internal work of figuring out for themselves what they should do (and thereby improve their spiritual decision making).  In such a situation, it may seem like they have faith, but we are actually depriving them of developing their own wisdom.

Does this mean we should never give people advice of what to do?  Of course not.  But there are conditions for when we should do so.  First, we should make sure that they are actually asking for our advice.  If they are not, we should definitely not give them any (except under very extreme circumstances).  Second, we should make it absolutely clear that the other person is completely free to ignore our advice without there being any emotional or relational penalty.  Third, we should do so more in general principles of how to approach the problem, not the specifics of what they should exactly do (so you give them a direction, but leave them to figure out how the general principle specifically applies to their situation).  Fourth, and most importantly, we should always make sure the other person understands the “why” behind our advice, not just the “what” they should do.

When you do offer advice, do so in the verbal context of telling an illustrative story about something that happened to you once or about somebody else you know without directly applying the story to their situation (let them make that connection).  Or at the limit, say something like “if it was me, I would do …”

As a general rule, when we offer advice to others, we should do so as part of a general program of gradually weaning them off of us telling them what to do.  In the beginning, people will want us to tell them specifically what they should do.  This is not necessarily a bad thing because if they do so for enough time they will learn and gain some experience with spiritual decision making and understand the “why” they are doing things in that way.  Over time, they start to become familiar with these “whys” and see that the correct spiritual choice works, so they are then able to better make good decisions in the future on their own.  Then we gradually wean them off of us telling them what they should do by asking them more questions which then leads them to their own answers.  Eventually, they won’t need to come to us as much because they have become sufficiently familiar with the key principles of their spiritual decision making that they no longer need to come to us.

So as hard as it is for me, I have recently been putting a great deal of emphasis on holding back from telling people what to do and instead just talking generally or asking more questions.

(Ha ha!  I just re-read this post, and the whole thing is written in the language of me telling you, the reader, what you should do!  How ironic!  I was going to go back and change it to “I am trying to do …”, but I find it so funny the way it is that I decided to just leave it.  Have a good laugh!  I clearly have a long way to go!)

Your turn:  What skillful advice do you have about how to help people make good decisions on their own?

Having the Buddhas raise your children through you

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

There is no doubt that being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  School, work, friends, no problem.  Being a parent, HELP!  It is non-stop, we never know what the right thing to do is, everything we do seems to backfire, there is nothing rational about it, and everybody is expected to somehow already know how to do it.  And the stakes are high, if you make a mess of things, you literally can ruin your kid’s entire life.  We are loathe to ask our own parents to help out, either because we are too proud or they are too busy, too old or just simply too obnoxious to have around!  We can’t afford to hire an experienced nanny to help out.  So what to do?  We need to accept that we don’t know what we are doing, and instead call in for enlightened help!

A wise person once told me, “it is only when you have tried everything else and realized that you can’t do it on your own that you are ready to go for refuge.”  Our ability to have the Buddhas raise our children through us depends first and foremost on our have humbly accepted that they would do a far better job than we can.

Wouldn’t it be great to have fully enlightened beings raise our children?  They would certainly know how to respond in every situation.  They never tire.  They have the power to be with our children 24/7, even when we are not around.  Most importantly, they have the power to bless their minds.  A blessing functions to turn the mind away from wrong paths and towards correct paths.  It comes from the inside, where the individual knows from within what the right thing to do is, not the outside like some external control.  This is exactly what our kids need!  Buddha’s know the past, present and future directly and simultaneously, so they see the big picture and how to prepare our children for the challenges that lie ahead.  They have perfect wisdom that knows how to transform any situation into the path.  Certain Buddhas have the power to prevent obstacles from arising and to arrange all of the perfect outer and inner conditions so that everything that happens to us becomes a cause of our enlightenment.  They are completely selfless and completely reliable.  How much better would they be at raising our kids than we are!

So assuming we want them to raise our kids for us, how practically can we bring that about.  There are several things we can do:

  1. When you go to spiritual teachings or study and practice the Dharma, do so with the intention of gaining the realizations necessary to be an enlightened parent for your children.  The motivation with which we practice determines the nature of the fruit of our practice.  If this is our intention, then as we receive teachings our mind will be blessed in a special way where we understand how to apply what we are learning to becoming a better parent.  But we should be careful to not fall into the mistake of listening to the instructions by thinking, “this is what my kid needs to hear and understand.”  No, we should listen to the instructions as personal advice for what we need to hear so that we can become a better parent for them.
  2. Always keep your spiritual guide at your heart.  One of the unique qualities of a Buddha is wherever you imagine them, they instantaneously go.  And wherever a Buddha goes, they accomplish their function, which is to bestow blessings.  In particular, it is taught that the Spiritual Guide is a gateway through which we gain access to ALL of the Buddhas.  So by imagining our Spiritual Guide at our heart, we in effect bring all of the Buddhas into our heart.  We need to come to view our ordinary body and mind as a vehicle or as tools.  They are not us.  We mentally hand over our body and mind to the Buddhas, requesting them to work through us to raise our children for us.  We might object to having somebody else take over control of our body and mind, but the profound truth is who we think we are does not exist at all, and who we really are is in fact one with all of the Buddhas.  They are our true selves, and it is only our ignorance which prevents us from realizing this.  So we are not really handing our body and mind over to somebody else, but rather allowing them to come under the control of our true selves.
  3. Whenever you don’t know what to do, request guidance for what to do.  Venerable Geshe-la explained a special method for doing this.  We first imagine that all of the Buddhas are at our heart, and we generate strong faith that they are indeed there and have united inseparably with our own root mind.  We then generate a very pure compassionate and loving motivation, free from any attachment, that our children be free from all suffering and come to enjoy perfect happiness.  In particular, we generate a pure motivation that we be blessed with the wisdom to know how to help and guide our children through whatever difficult time they are facing.  While holding this pure motivation and a mind of deep faith, we allow our mind to become completely still and quiet so that we can “hear” the answer to our prayers.  Eventually, a plan or image or understanding will arise within our mind.  We will understand the problem, know the solution, and see how everything fits together.  It will simultaneously feel like an answer that is coming from “somebody else” while at the same time being realized as our own understanding.  If at first we don’t get an answer, we can engage in some purification practices, trying to purify all the obstacles to our receiving a reply, we can offer a mandala to accumulate some mert, and then try our request once again.  When we get a partial answer, we can then go through this process again and again seeking further clarification until we know exactly what to do and how to do it.
  4. Post a permanent guard around our children!  Some really rich people hire special body guards to be with their children all of the time so that they never get into any danger or trouble.  We obviously can’t afford to do this, and our kids would probably come to resent it anyways.  But there is alternative, and it is free!  There is a special Buddha called a Wisdom Dharma Protector, and his job is to eliminate all obstacles and create the perfect conditions for our enlightenment.  Dharma Protectors can be requested to perform this function either for ourselves or for others, such as our children.  So we make the request with deep faith and again a pure motivation, “forever and always (meaning 24/7 for the rest of eternity), please always stand watch over my children, protecting them from obstacles and arranging for them the perfect conditions for their swiftest possible enlightenment.  Please bless them with the wisdom to always know how to transform any situation into an opportunity for their personal growth.”  Then imagine that the Wisdom Dharma Protector emanates a powerful protection circle around our children and everything that appears to their mind is now in fact emanated by the Wisdom Dharma Protector for their benefit.  It is important to remember that the Dharma Protector is only interested in our children’s enlightenment, not their comfort!  They are not a babysitter or a maid.  They will push our children to their limits, giving them unique challenges, but as parents we can know that these situations are exactly what our children need to grow and become better people.

If we do these four things, at worst we will become a much wiser and more effective parent, and at best we will become an open channel through which the Buddhas can directly raise our children.  Once we know how to do this with our children, we can then extend the same practice to our intereactions with everybody else.  The Buddhas stand ready to help us in every domain of our life, work, family and on the meditation cushion.  We simply need to accept we need their help, develop faith in them, generate a pure motivation for receiving their help, and then quiet our mind to be able to receive their guideance.  Once we become experienced with this, our daily practice will literally feel like a one-on-one daily session with our Spiritual Guide where he provides us with all the wisdom and guidance we need, both in and out of meditation.  This experience later becomes the basis for a very qualified divine pride in our Tantric practice.  Eventually this experience transforms into our becoming of one nature with all of the Buddhas, in other words, our own full enlightenment.

Your turn:  What is the most difficult situation in your life where you see clearly it would be better to have the Buddhas work through you than to have you deal with it on your own?

Quick path to being a boob!

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life

One of the things I have observed at work recently is the quickest and most effective way to self-destruct is to have a massively over-estimated sense of your effectiveness and importance.  There is a certain high level individual at the Embassy who truly believes that he has the power to single-handedly charm and convince his way on every subject.  What he doesn’t realize is people are just being polite around him and “agreeing” with what he has to say because they realize there is no point in debating with him.  He comes out of every meeting thinking he has moved the world, when in reality he has convinced noone.  People see clearly that he really seems to think he is super effective yet in reality everyone knows he is completely clueless.  This makes him look like a total boob.

One main lesson can be drawn from this:  I need to not be like this!  I too have a tendency to think I am the greatest thing to hit the face of the earth and that my views and opinions on basically everything are the ultimate and definitive word on every subject.  I relate to myself, largely as an overcompensation for my own insecurities, as if I am a real hot shot and rising star.  I do this not only in the context of my work, but I have been doing this for decades in the Sangha.

You gotta laugh!

Your turn:  Give an example of when you have done this.

Overcoming attachment to gratitude from our children

Kadampa Ryan Cultivating healthy relationships with others

Normally, when we are kind and generous towards somebody, at the very least we expect a little gratitude and appreciation for what we have done.  When it is not forthcoming, we become bitter towards the other person and develop regret for having been kind and generous.  We likewise develop the thought, “well, if they are going to be like that, then I won’t help them again in the future.”  What really drives us crazy is when we take our time to really help somebody, often times helping them do something which is not even our job, and then they criticise us for having made a mistake when we helped them!  Gen Losang tells the story of how he went into the kitchen at Manjushri Center and saw that the person who was supposed to have cleaned the kitchen did not do their job.  So, like a good bodhisattva, he decided to clean up the kitchen for them (this is a very big kitchen).  Then, just as he was almost finished, the person who was responsible for the kitchen came down, and instead of saying thank you, told Gen Losang in a critical way, “you missed a spot.” Just imagine how we would respond…

Being a parent is truly a thankless job.  When our children are babies, of course they don’t express any gratitude and we don’t expect them to because we know they are not capable.  But we do quite quickly become attached to them smiling back at us or giving us a coo or a kaw.  Generally speaking, though, we are able to give fairly unconditionally to babies.  Later, however, our attitude changes.  As our kids enter the middle to late toddler years, they grow extremely impatient with us.  They are so used to having us do everything for them, they are still not very capable of much, and they have a heightened sense of themselves being the center of the universe.  So if you don’t help them immediately, they start to get upset at you.  You do everything you can to help them learn how to do things on their own, and when they are finally capable of doing so, they get upset at you when you are no longer willing to do it for them.  When they reach 9 or 10, they learn the phrase “you are ruining my life”, and we hear this often.  When they become a pre-teen and early teenager, we become nothing but a source of embarrassement for them and they don’t want to have anything to do with us.  When they become a teenager, it is as if they are programeed to rebel against us and reject all that we stand for.  Also from about 9 on, we never stop hearing about how their friends have XYZ and they don’t, and how we are such bad parents because of that.  Or they say their friend’s parents never fight or never get upset at them, that we are the worst parents on earth.  As they get older, our function is reduced to being an ATM, and no matter how much money we give them it is never enough.  We may put them through college, enduring incredible sacrifices, but then they resent us for not having also paid for graduate school.  They then never call, never let us know what is going on, except when they get in trouble when they expect us to bail them out, and get upset at us if we do not.  When they have kids, their principal objective is to make sure they do not repeat all of the many mistakes we made when they were growing up.  At some point, life gets really hard for them and they can’t cope.  They then turn to modern psychology which explains that it is our parents fault that we are so screwed up!  So we become the object of blame.  Finally, when we are old and in need of their help, they are too busy with their own lives to be there for us.  They may help, but they do so with resentment, and we cannot help but feel miffed about their lack of gratitude.

One might look at all of this and think, “those little bastards, why would anybody want to have kids in the first place!”  But this is completely wrong.  In reality, we should be grateful for our kids being so ungrateful, because it is through their attitude that we can learn to give and care for others unconditionally.  Most of our interactions with everybody else in our life is some form of transaction, “I will do this for you if you do that for me.”  But with our kids, it is different.  We are willing to do things for them without expecting much in return except gratitude, but when they deny us even this, we can then learn to fully purify our giving and caring of expecting anything in return.  We give and we care because we want to train in love and virtue.  Virtue is its own reward.  If we take advantage of this opportunity, we will be able to quickly develop the minds of unconditional love and compassion, which are essential stepping stones on the path to enlightenment.

But we may object, “isn’t it our responsibility as parents to teach our kids to be grateful.”  The answer is, yes, of course.  But we have to make a very clear distinction between attachment to their gratitude for us and wanting them to learn the human quality of being grateful for their own sake.  If what we really want is gratitude for all our hard work and we nag our kids about showing gratitude, then we will get external expressions of gratitude but inside we will engender in them resentment towards us.  The attitude we should have is, “I don’t need your thanks, but as a human being you need to learn to be grateful for anything anybody does for you.”

But even though we ourselves don’t need their gratitude, from their side they still need to learn how to be grateful human beings.  So our job as their parents is to help them cultivate this grateful attitude.  The question is how?

There are several things we can do to help our kids learn gratitude.

  1. Set a good example of always being grateful for what others do for you.  When they see you having this attitude, they will naturally model it on their own (unless of course you nag them about how they need to be like you).
  2. Never be upset when people do not show gratitude towards you.  If they get upset about how others are not grateful towards us, then we can explain to them that we give because it is the right thing to do not because we expect anything in return.
  3. Develop within your own heart a genuine gratitude for your own parents, teachers, and those who have shown you kindness.  If you feel such gratitude, you will naturally express it and it will be naturally contagious to your children.  As you use roads, cars, buildings, tools, etc., develop a feeling for how kind everyone is for providing these things for you to use.
  4. Show gratitude for everything your kids do do for you.  It is especially important to be grateful when they show kindness to you because then they can learn the dynamic.
  5. Help them show gratitude towards others who help them, such as their teachers.  Help them really appreciate all that their teachers do by yourself being grateful and helping your kids do special cards or give special presents of thanks.  But you shouldn’t help them be grateful towards you, just others.  Whenever somebody does something nice for them, it is OK to encourage them to say thank you (just don’t nag them about it).
  6. Take advantage of birthdays, Christmas and mother’s/father’s day to help them get in the habit of showing their gratitude.  For example, as a father I should take the time to go to the mall with my kids so that they can get a gift for mother’s day.  On their mother’s birthday, I should help them realize if it weren’t for their mother being born, they wouldn’t be.  At Christmas, help them understand the cause of receiving (which is what they want) is they themselves giving to others in thanks.
  7. Help them realize, “nobody owes you anything.”  It is true, we tend to think that others, especially our parents, are obliged to do things for us.  But why is that?  Nobody is obliged to do anything for us.  If we expect people to do things for us and they do them, we dismiss their act as “normal”.  But if we expect nothing from anybody, and then somebody does anything for us, then we are naturally grateful.  It is all about our expectations.  If we can help our kids understand that nobody owes us anything, then we can help reset their expectations.

If we do these things, there is a good chance that our children will learn themselves to be grateful, but then again, maybe not.  We should not ‘need’ them to become grateful.  What we need is to learn how to give and love unconditionally.  One could even say it is our forewarned knowledge that we will likely never receive gratitude from our children, and in fact we will likely become the object of blame, that makes our giving and caring for our children today that much purer.  So we should embrace this fact, and indeed be grateful for it!

Your turn:  What act of kindness are you currently engaging in for which you still have attachment to receiving gratitude?

Compassion without wisdom

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life, Cultivating healthy relationships with others

One of the advantages of having many kids is it gives you the opportunity to make every mistake in the book!  Probably one of the biggest mistakes we made in our early days of parenting is we were all compassion, no wisdom.  Compassion without wisdom is well intended, but in the end counter-productive.  If we truly have compassion for our kids and want to protect them from suffering, then our compassion must be informed by the wisdom that understands clearly the only way to truly protect them from suffering is to help them develop within themselves the inner tools necessary to protect themselves.

Compassion is explained as a feeling of we cannot bear to see somebody else suffer.  Fueled by a misunderstanding of what this means, we did everything so that our kid would never cry and never have to experience even the slightest problem.  But in so doing, we robbed her of the opportunity to learn how to manage her own experience and develop her own capacities to deal with life.  It is also crucial that we make the clear distinction between “attachment to our children not suffering” and “compassion.”  Attachment to our children not suffering makes our own happiness dependent upon the happines of our child.  So as they go up and down, so do we!  We need to be a steady pole in their life, not thrown about by the waves of a toddler’s moods.  Compassion is a wish to protect others from suffering for their sake, not our own.

An example of how we had compassion without wisdom is putting her to bed.  Because we didn’t want her to cry, we would rock her and walk around with her until she fell asleep, and then gently put her in bed.  When she would get up in the middle of the night, we would feed her her bottle, rock her some until she fell back asleep, and then put her once again in bed.  In the beginning, it worked like a charm and we congratulated ourselves on what great Dharma parents we were since our kid never cried!  “She must be an emanation of a Buddha”, we would proudly tell ourselves.  But over time, she became more sensitive, we would rock her to sleep, put her in bed, and then she would wake back up again instantly, so we would start over.  Everytime she made even the slightest squeak in the middle of the night, back we would go.  Well pretty soon, we were up all night, and so was she, so we all suffered.  What did we teach her?  That she can’t sleep on her own, she needs us to be able to sleep.

We made this same mistake with virtually every life skill.  Throw your plate on the ground, we pick it up; throw it again, we pick it up again.  What does this teach?  Can’t use a spoon without making a mess, we will do it for you until you can.  But wait, if you never practice yourself, how will you ever learn to do it without making a mess?  Same goes with pouring the milk.  Did you make a mess while playing?  No problem, we will clean up after you so that you can go do the next ‘fun’ thing.  The list goes on and on.  All we wound up teaching her was she was incapable of doing anything, and that she shouldn’t try do anything unless she can do it perfectly – but since you can never do something perfectly without first passing through doing it imperfectly many times, she never learns how to do anything.  It teaches the way to get what you want is to either cry or be demonstratably incompetent.  How does that help?  Again, compassion without wisdom.

We also made this mistake with discipline.  Kids need limits.  Why?  Because life requires so many skills and competincies that they just can’t be expected to make the right decisions.  Limits enable them to have clear zones where they are responsible for making their own decisions and other areas where we make the decisions for them until they are ready.  This enables them to focus their attention on learning the skills of their current level of development.  They also provide stability and predictability in their lives, which gives them the freedom to grow.  Limits help them develop a clear understanding of right and wrong, do’s and don’ts.  These are essential in life.  We often fall into either the extreme of “demanding obedience” or the extreme of “allowing anarchy” with our kids, but the middle way is teaching a “healthy respect for legitimate authority.”  But when we have compassion without wisdom, we think limits are a problem.  Limits make them unhappy because they cry when they don’t get what they want.  Oh dear, perhaps we will permanently emotionally scar her if she isn’t able to do whatever she wants.  Ridiculous!  Compassion without wisdom.

We also made this mistake with dealing with change.  Change is inevitable in life.  We cannot protect our children from it.  Rather, we should give them the skills necessary for embracing and adapting to change.  Transitions to new situations, new schools, new environments, even new countries can be difficult.  But it is working through that difficulty that our children can learn to grow and thrive in any environment.  When we protect our children from change, when we do everything for them, what we are really doing is sending the message to them that we don’t have sufficient confidence in them that they can do it themselves.  No!  We need to believe in them enough  to honestly say, “I know it is hard, but I know you can do it.”

We want to help our kids.  But what it took us forever to realize is we are not helping them by depriving them of the opportunity to learn how to do things for themselves.  Will they resist, will they cry, will they call us mean?  Of course.  But we know better.  If we cannot learn to accept our children crying, we will never a parent for them.  We shouldn’t go to the other extreme with this, such as expecting a newborn baby to feed themselves their own bottle.  But if they are capable of learning how to do things, then we need to slowly and skillfully wean them off of dependence on us and give them opportunities to learn how to do it themselves.

Your turn:  Describe a situation in which you showed compassion but little wisdom.