We generally fall into one of two extremes when it comes to our practice of moral discipline – either we become neurotic expecting ourselves to already be perfect or we become defeatest saying since I can’t do moral discipline perfectly I won’t really try do any at all.  Both extremes come from the same mistake – expecting an imperfect being, ourselves, to somehow be able to already be perfect.  Letting go of this mistake, namely accepting that we cannot (yet) be perfect with our moral discipline enables us to find the middle way and actually maximize the level of our moral discipline.

First, the extreme of being neurotic about our moral discipline.  There are many practitioners who understand clearly the dangers of negative actions, they have studied all of their vows and commitments and they sincerely want to be a moral being.  They then take every vow under the sun (and there are many!) and through brute force try impose such perfect behavior upon themselves.  But the problem is this:  we are not yet perfect nor even remotely capable of being so.  When we try impose this upon ourselves, all we wind up doing is repressing a whole host of delusions.  These delusions get pushed deeper into our mind where they fester and grow like a cancer until eventually they build up to uncontrollable levels and the blow in some dramatic way.  While we are repressing in this way, we use guilt to motivate ourselves to “be moral”, beating ourselves up over our slighest transgressions thinking if only we beat ourselves up enough and inflict enough self-punishment we will beat ourselves into line.  But this approach never works.  Effort, according to the Dharma, is taking delight in virtue – basically, it means we enjoy becoming a better person.  Guilt and beating ourselves up robs us of all joy, and so therefore actually robs us of all effort.  Without true effort, even if we are “trying really hard” we are not really practicing and therefore not really advancing along the path.  Even if in the short-run it seems like we are making rapid transformations of ourselves, in reality we are just sacrificing our future on the path on the short-term altar of living up to our own unrealistic expectations of our current practice.  Many, many practitioners fall into this extreme and they often wind up abandoning the path altogether.

The other extreme is a defeatism which says, “I know I am not perfect, far from it, and I couldn’t be if I even tried, so I won’t even bother trying at all.”  We hear Venerable Geshe-la’s advcie to work gradually with our vows, and we take that as permission to do nothing with our vows.  We take vows many many times, but we never actually take the practice of them seriously.  We may even teach about karma and moral discipline many many times, but we never really start the hard work of identifying our faults and applying joyful effort to overcome them.  We can start to conceive of vows and commitments as impossible hurdles far beyond our capacity, like trying to get to the second floor without any stairs, and we wind up contenting ourselves with our current level of goodness.  When we fall into this extreme, our forward progress on the path stagnates.  Eventually, seeing so little progress, we lose interest in the path, gradually start moving on to something else and then we enter into a subtle, but nonetheless vicious cycle, where the less we put into our path the less we get out of it and on that basis we put even less into the path.  This gradual death of our spiritual life can occur quickly and suddenly or very slowly over many years, but either way it kills our spiritual life until we have nothing.

Of course the goal is to be 100% perfect 100% of the time.  Paradoxically, the way we get there is by accepting (meaning being at peace with) the fact that it is impossible for us to be perfect right now so we shouldn’t even try.  We might be able to be 100% perfect with just a couple of vows, but the time and effort that would take would mean we do nothing with all the others.  I used to tutor math, and I think it provides a good example.  When we are in first grade, learning how to add, it is very hard and we are lucky to get say 80% on our tests.  But by the time we reached sixth grade, we would have no difficulty getting 100% on first grade math tests 100% of the time.  But once again, we find it very hard to get say 80% on our sixth grade math tests.  By the time we reach high school graduation, we can easily get 100% on sixth grade math tests 100% of the time, but find our current grade level once again hard.  This is totally normal and is exactly how we should approach our vows and general practice of moral discipline.

We should understand what grade we are at with our practice, be at peace with being 80% good enough at our current grade, but never be content with remaining on the same grade forever.  By letting go of the unrealistic expectation of being already perfect we can leave the neurosis and defeatism behind. 

Practically speaking, how can we do this?  We should take the time to make a list of those things we do which we know are not moral – starting with the gross levels of transgression and gradually working to the more subtle levels.  It might be a long list, but that is OK.  We can then rank order them from easiest to hardest to overcome.  We know our grade level by diving our list into what is comfortable/easy to overcome, possible with effort and really hard.  We then set the minimum standard of avoiding 80% of the possible with efforts 80% of the time.  This gives us some wiggle room to sometimes sneak a chocolate or accidentally tell a few minor white lies (or maybe even some small gray ones), but our overall moral ledger remains a good B- (80% on the American school scale).  There might be some times where we have an A when it comes to one area of our moral discipline, but a C- on other areas, and then the next week it might shift the otherway around, but as long as our overall Grade Point Average is a at least 80% we should be happy.  By training in this way, we will get better and better at the easy stuff until eventually we can do it 100% of the time without any effort at all, and the moderate to harder stuff we will do less and less.  We start to graduate to higher grades.  Then we periodically make our list, reassess our current grade level and once again set our minimum standard of 80% at our new level. 

In sum, paradoxically by accepting that we are not yet perfect and giving ourselves a little wiggle room to only have to be 80% good we actually wind up practicing moral discipline far more than if we expect ourselves to be 100% good (which either leads to neurosis or defeatism).

I have had several experiences over the last few days which have taught me a few lessons in effective leadership.  This matters for Kadampas because we are training to be the spiritual guides, which above all, are leaders of living beings.

1. If you have discretion, use it graciously.  There are some things for which we have no discretion, there are rules, we cannot change them, the institution which makes them is deemed legitimate, there we have no choice.  But there are other areas where we do have discretion in how we apply the rules.  In these areas, our default should always be to use our discretion graciously, in the way that benefits others most.  We should not be one of those who have their 3 square meters of sovereignity over the world, and we abuse everyone who comes within it just because we can.
2. Don’t sacrifice what is right on the altar of outer peace.  Some leaders are in fact “conflict avoiders” whose real objective is to avoid outer conflict with everyone.  Such “leadership” is spineless and very often results in sub-optimal outcomes for others just because the leader is averse to conflict.  Sometimes conflict is necessary.  Yes, it is sometimes uncomfortable, but when appropriate we should gladly accept that discomfort as the price of doing what is right for others.
3. Don’t “kiss up and kick down”, rather, if you have to, “kick up, and kiss down.”  There are so many “leaders” who kiss up to their superiors, but then with those they supervise, they are abusive, controlling and dysfunctional.  The superior often doesn’t know that the person is doing this, but rather thinks the employee is a model one.  The subordinates know the person who is kissing up and kicking down has the favor of the big boss so they fear challenging their immediate supervisor.  A good boss will be one who shelters his employees from the wrong decisions made by the big boss and will push back in order to protect those those that they supervise. 

Your turn:  what are some basic lessons of effective leadership your life experience has taught you?

(I wrote this in February 2011 after I just completed my orientation training)

I complete today my initial training.  The following are some of the key insights I have gained during the training.

1. Good interpersonal skills trump everything.  If you don’t have them, then nothing else you do will matter.  People will not want to work with you.   Everything we do and seek to accomplish in life depends upon being able to work well with others.  In modern terms:  “don’t be a douche.”
2. Seek out and rely upon mentors.  You need to find the people whose point of view you respect and turn to them for advice.  Don’t ask them in some cheesy way to be your mentor, rather cultivate this type of relationship with them by going to them out of respect with genuine questions and rely upon them sincerely.  It should not be artificial and contrived.  Don’t make it contrived networking and politiking.  People naturally want to help others and to share their wisdom, so take advantage of this to learn and to grow.  Ultimately, everyone has something to share and to teach you.  When people see that you are earnest, that you respect them and that you rely upon their counsel, they will naturally come to respect you.  Express appropriate gratitude and appreciation for what others have done to help your way.
3. Give back (or pay forward).  Do for others what others have done for you (and what you would want others to do for you).  The essence of bodhichitta is the pursuit of wisdom, skills and knowledge so that you can then share that wisdom, skill and knowledge with others.  So rely upon mentors to seek such wisdom then make a point to help others when they need it.  Giving back is also sometimes known as ‘paying forward’, the idea being you build up relationship capital with others for the future.  This is much like karma, where you create good causes for yourself for the future.  The key is to do this with a selfless motivation.  I want relationship capital so that I can then help even more people in the future.  This should not be done from the perspective of selfish intent.  Though, it is better to help others with selfish intent than it is to not help them at all.
4. Focus on doing a really good job in everything you do.  Take the time to do things right, to do it right the first time and to do it on-time.  As Grandma says, “a job worth doing is a job worth doing right.”  Ultimately, if we just focus on doing a good job (and we are easy and pleasant to work with) then everything else will take care of itself with time.
5. In the State Department, the currency we trade in is called “corridor reputation”.  Corridor reputation essentially comes down to the question of “would I want to work with this person again in the future.”  A good corridor reputation has five components:  (1) you do your job very well, (2) you are easy and pleasant to work with, (3) you are willing to go above and beyond what is required of you, (4) you have a clear and easy to understand “brand” that people can know you by in terms of what you are an expert in or capable of doing, (5) you are part of a respected network of people and you yourself have a network of people that you can marshal (which itself is built from your mentoring and helping of others).
6. Never create more work for others, especially your boss.  Your boss wants you to lighten their load, not add to it.  Don’t just come with problems, come with solutions that you yourself take personal responsibility for implementing.  Mark told the story of what a boss wants is to be able to kick up their feet on their desk reading the New York Times and being able to just say ‘proceed’ when you come to them with a solution to some problem.
7. Always give to others more than you take from them.  Sometimes, especially in the beginning, we have to ask favors of others.  But we should seek to repay them more than they gave to us.  We should always do at least two favors for others for every one we ask of them, that way we always have a positive balance with everyone.
8. Don’t be a whiner, don’t be demanding and don’t be a prima dona.  One person created the impression that if she did not get what she wanted to go to London that she would quit.  This makes people not like you and not want to give you what you want just to teach you that you need to become a team player and be willing to not get your way.  In contrast, Brian stepped up with a good attitude about going to Juarez.  What a difference.  She is always whispering in corners with highly placed people, but she comes across as somebody sneaky trying to impress others.  It is good that she has the courage to approach and make herself known to those in power, but her general approach makes you want to clip her wings and opposed to offer her a helping hand.
9. Roland is a natural leader, is socially very skilled, he commands respect through his competence and confidence and his can-do spirit and attitude.  He is somebody who has good common sense and practical ability.  Simone, Tim and Roland are all examples of people who are resourceful and can practically figure things out that they have not done before.  They are good with their hands and in operating efficiently and effectively in the physical plane.  This is something I need to work on.
10. Bahram comes across as very smart, very competent, very charismatic yet no ego.  He doesn’t say much, but what when he does, it is always relevant and value-added.  These are all skills to emulate.
11. Don’t let your enthusiasm get ahead of your wisdom.  It is good to be eager but if you overdo things and make mistakes then people want to slow you down and they can’t trust you to not make a fool of yourself.  So it is better to do less and do it very well and then gradually build up your capacity.  In this sense, I asked too many questions and took up too much space.  It made people want to not call on me when I had a question.  I made this same mistake at my first ITTP.  I talked too much.  It is better to be more reserved and limit your interventions.
12. I need to develop an ambidexturious personality.  They are really big on the Myers Briggs personality test.  I have a INTJ (introvert, intuitive, thinking, judgement).  This was explained as my personality preference (like my preference to use my right hand to write).  There is nothing wrong with this, but it is important for me to also become equally comfortable with the opposite of this.  There are strengths and advantages to all of the different traits, and I need to become proficient in all of them.
13. I need to apply effort to develop the skills, abilities and habits of highly effective people.  It is more important to develop these skills and habits than it is to have substantive knowledge.  When you have these skills, you can do anything by just adding a little substantive knowledge (which you can learn).  But if you lack these skills, you will not be able to do anything even if you have the best substantive knowledge.  In this light, I should start reading a lot of those business books about habits of highly effective people, good managers, etc.
14. We should always work principally on overcoming our weaknesses.  We should identify them, then apply effort to overcome them.  It is useful to try understand how others perceive you.  Not because you are attached to what they think but because this is a good way of identifying our faults that we need to work on overcoming.  I think I come across as a bit socially ackward and not somebody who people want to hang out with.  I am not sure why.
15. It is good to be humble, but it is extreme to be falsely self-depricating.  On many occasions, I would exaggerate my lack of knowledge, incompetence, weaknesses, etc.  I don’t need to do this.  I certaintly shouldn’t be pretentious, but I also don’t need to be falsely self-depricating or to talk excessively about my faults and weaknesses.  The middle way is to be aware of your faults, but to sincerely apply effort in overcoming them by learning from and relying upon others.

Your turn:  What spiritual lessons did you learn at work today?

The difference between an ordinary life and a spiritual life is really quite simple.  We can begin by asking ourselves:  When confronted with difficulty, what do I try change?  Our normal, ordinary reaction is to mistakenly believe that our problem is our external environment, thinking “I am unhappy because my external situation is like this…”  Since we think the problem is in our external situation, we naturally dedicate all of our effort to changing our external situation.  But even if we change our external situation, if we do not also change our mind what we will find is our mind will simply re-project the same problem onto our new external situation.  The faces and context may be different, but the fundamental problem will be the same.  No matter where we go, no matter how we change our external environment, we bring our mind with us.  Since our mind is the creator of our problems, this means we will also bring our problems with us.

To transform our life into a spiritual life we simply need to change our diagnosis of the problem.  The problem is not my external situation, the problem is exclusively how my mind is relating to that external situation.  While I am not prone to quoting Shakespeare, Hamlet said “things are neither good nor bad, but thinking makes them so.”  From its own side, our external situation is neutral (really, it is nothing, but go with me here…).  Even scientists agree that it is just a bunch of floating electrons, protons and neutrons.  It is what we think about the environment that makes it good or bad.  If we have a problem with how the atomic particles (or more accurately karmic appearances) are organized, where does the problem come from?  It comes from our mind.  Our own mind is the creator of all of our own problems.  All of our problems are self-inflicted.

But this is actually a very liberating thought.  If my mind creates all of my own problems, then it means if I change my mind I can eliminate all of my ‘problems.’  So how can we change our mind?  Instead of asking ourself how we need to change our external environment, we should ask ourselves “How can I use this situation to change myself (to become a better person)?”  We all know we need to become more generous, more helpful towards others, more virtuous, more patient, etc.  Each situation we confront is an opportunity to do exactly that.  The practical essence of the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is to use every situation as an opportunity to become a better person.

If we can do so, of course, we should also seek to fix our external environment and to solve our external problems.  But in all difficult situations we find ourselves in, we can always find the right path by simply reminding ourselves to “change yourself, not your environment.”

Your turn:  What externally are you trying to change now?  How can you change yourself instead to solve your “inner problem?”

There are several different types of power:  Example power, expert power, positional power, reward power and coercive power.  It is important to understand the relationships between these different types of power and how to misuse power.

1. Example power is others wishing to emulate you, to identify with you, to wish to associate with you.  This is the highest form of power demonstrated by the Buddhas and Spiritual Guides.  It is essentially the power of your example and the extent to which it inspires others to emulate it or to associate with it.  This is also sometimes known as ‘referrent power.’
2. Expert power is you possesses some special knowledge or experience which is useful to yourself or others for solving your own or their problems.  In particular, genuine spiritual realizations are the highest form of this special knowledge or experience because it helps people solve their actual inner problems and it helps and protects living beings in this and all of our future lives.  Ultimately, it is only our realizations which have any value to ourself or others, and all of the other forms of power exist solely to serve help share and disseminate your realizations.
3. Positional power is the power afforded to you by your position in conventional interaction.  For example a teacher has a specific position, and with that position comes different levels of conventional deference and respect.
4. Reward power is the power to reward others in some way for having done the right thing.  This is very easy to abuse if you offer rewards only to the extent to which others fulfill your selfish wishes.  But it can be used virtuously if for example you are dealig with somebody who has a pure motivation and you are in a position to put them in a position of higher responsibility, then if they do the right thing in terms of serving and helping others, then you reward them with a higher position.  Likewise, sometimes praising, even publicly, the virtues and qualities of others can help inspire them to be even more virtuous and to develop their qualities further.  The fundamental point is what behavior are you rewarding – behavior that has as its objective serving and helping others or behavior that has as its objective serving or helping your own selfish wishes (or worse, behavior that harms others).
5. Coercive power is the flip side of the coin of reward power.  It is the ability to punish othrs in some way for having done the wrong thing or from having failed to do the right thing.  Like with reward power, the fundamental issue is what behavior are you punishing.  If you are punishing incorrect behavior (specifically behavior that is selfish or harmful to others) then it can be done virtuously.  Wrathful actions are, in essence, the virtuous use of coercive power.

Some thoughts on the skilfull exercise of power:

1. First, if your motivation for using power is selfish, then any use of power will generate resentment by others, which, in the long-run, will function to generate resistance to your power ultimately leading to its decline.  And, more importantly, you will generate negative karma creating the causes for others to abuse their power towards you.  Any use of power for the sake of helping others, in contrast, is a virtuous use of power and will generate respect and apreciation from others, which, in the long run, will function to increase your power as people come to respect you and want to put you in positions of higher and higher authority (they naturally want to do this because they know you are going to use your power virtuously.  When you use it non-virtuously, they strive to take you down, and eventually they will succeed.
2. Second, your use of cooercive power should never exceed your expert power.  The rationale for this is simple:  if you are wrong, and you use cooercive power to accomplish your wrong objectives, then people will lose respect in you and generate resentment towards your exercise of power.  This will function to decrease your example power as people will not want to be like you or to associate with you.  In contrast, if you use your coercive power and in the end you are right, then others will come to respect you that you have the strength and backbone to fight for what is right.  Ultimately, children, for example, want to be shown right from wrong, they want to have limits imposed upon them when those limits are understood and known to be just and correct limits.  They may protest your use of the cooercive power, but deep inside them they know you are right and they respect you for your taking a principled stand and being willing and able to fight for it.  Our ability to do this depends upon not having any attachment or aversion for the things the other person can take away from us or inflict upon us.  If we have no attachment or aversion, but instead can transform everything anybody throws at us, then others will have no power whatsoever over us.  We give people power over us by being attached or averse to what they can give or take away.
3. Your positional power depends entirely upon its perceived legitimacy.  First, others will only put you in positions of power if you have demonstrated a sufficient level of example and expert power.  Sometimes people will put you in a position of power because they hope that with that power you will advance their own selfish, negative agenda.  Do not acquire power in this way because then you are using your power for negative purposes and in such a case it would be better to be powerless.   The one exception to this rule would be if by acquiring the power you will then be in a position to dispose of the person whose agenda is selfish and negative.   Once you in a position of power, its strength will depend upon its perceived legitimacy.  If your purpose is virtuous and for the sake of others, then others will assent to your power, in fact they will seek to reinforce it.  If your purpose is seen to be negative or selfish, then others will not assent to your positional power and they will seek to undermine it (and inevitably they will succeed).  Often what happens is when people are being brought down, they will then resort to the negative use of coercive power in an effort to hang on to power, but inevitably this will only accelerate their eventual decline from power.  The legitimacy of your positional power is also a function of your example and expert power.  If people wish to emulate you or associate with you and if people see you as an expert in the domain which you have positional power over, then people will naturally assent to and even reinforce your position.  People must also trust you.  They will trust you in dependence upon you always telling the truth (lying creates the cause for people to never believe you) and in dependence upon your intentions and purposes being virtuous.
4. Your pursuit of power should always be kept hidden.  Others naturally resent and fear the ambitious.  If they perceive you as being prematurely ambitious (meaning you seek higher power before you have proven yourself worthy of that power), then they will seek to knock you down and to block your rise.  Ultimately, power is either earned or bestowed.  You earn power through increasing your example and expert power.  It is bestowed upon you by others through your demonstrated example and expert power and your virtuous use of the reward and coercive power that you already possess.  Thus, the best strategy for acquiring power is great compassion and bodhichitta.  You use whatever power you have for the sake of helping others (virtuous use of reward and coercive power) and you increase your qualities and qualifications so as to be able to better help others (virtuous pursuit of increased example and expert power).  If your focus is on creating the causes of increased power then it will naturally be earned and bestowed upon you without you having to explicitly pursue it.  In this way, you can continuously grow in power without being perceived as ambitious.  In reality, within you, you are virtuously ambitious.  You wish to become Heruka, a Chakravatin King.  You wish to become a Spiritual Guide for all beings.  You wish to free all beings from all suffering.  These are incredibly ambitious goals.  But externally, you show none of this since in the end that proves counter-productive.

Heruka is a Chakravatin King, the highest and most powerful position in all of reality.  Learning the virtuous dimensions of power is part of my bodhisattva training, striving to become a virtuous Chakravatin King.  In business it is about how much money you have; within government the bottom line is how much power you have.  Power has enormous potential to corrupt (power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely…).  Therefore, it is very important to be mindful of the legitmate exercise of power and how it is acquired.  Power need not be shunned if your intentions are virtuous, you use that power for the benefit of others and you are able to protect yourself against its corrupting influence.  Indeed power can be sought after if you know you will use it for good.

Your turn:  Describe a situation in which you have used whatever power you have for virtuous purposes.