On Mixing Dharma and Politics – Not Letting Political Differences Divide the Sangha

February 4, 2025February 5, 2025 Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life buddha, buddhism, meditation, philosophy, spirituality

For a lot of Americans, the political changes happening in the United States right now are deeply troubling. The same is true for a lot of non-Americans who see what is happening. Yet at the same time, there are a lot of other Americans who are pleased with what is happening. The same is also true around the world.

There is also no doubt within the global Kadampa Sangha we have many examples of people who are both pleased and displeased with the changes that are occurring. Yet let’s be honest here, the Kadampa community on the whole does tend to skew left politically, so I would guess there are many more people who are troubled by what is happening and others who are afraid to voice their support for fear of being judged by their spiritual community.

Perhaps because it is part of my job, I have given a lot of thought to the question of the relationship between Dharma and politics. On the one hand, VGL is very clear we should absolutely not have any mixing of Dharma and politics at all. When religion and politics mix, the politics do not become more enlightened, rather the religion becomes more political. The spiritual path is primarily about future lives. The Dharma has a lot of opinions about delusions and karma, it has absolutely no opinions about who’s in power and what direction they are taking a given country or the world. This causes many Dharma practitioners to fall into the extreme of thinking we shouldn’t think or talk about politics at all for fear of mixing the two. There are others who come to this same conclusion because each time politics is mentioned in Dharma circles it usually ignites a firestorm, like stepping on a bee’s hive, creating unnecessary division within the sangha. There are others still who might not share the dominant political views within the Kadampa community and when they express views that are contrary to the dominant view, they get attacked for being a bad Kadampa or something – how can you possibly support what is going on and be a good Kadampa??? Call it Dharma cancel culture if you want. This hurts, so they conclude it is better to just say nothing.

On the other hand, VGL is also very clear that our job is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life. He said he has given us the Kadam Dharma, we know modern life, our job is to unite the two. Politics and what is happening in the political realm is unquestionably part of modern life. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend things like wars, revolutions, or major political developments that are affecting the lives of billions are not happening. This is especially true in democratic countries where power is first and foremost vested in the people. Politics is fundamentally about how power is shared and used. Power is inextricably part of modern life. Protecting others creates the causes for power. We cannot both protect others and not accumulate power. How we use the power we have is fundamentally a political question. Democratic systems are political systems – governing how power is shared and used.

So how can we reconcile all this? I would say by relying upon the wisdom realizing emptiness, remembering without inner peace outer peace is impossible, training in the instruction that everybody is welcome, and doing our part to uphold the internal rules of the NKT.

Each one of us has a different karmic point of view on what is happening in the world. There is no one single correct karmic perspective, there are just countless different ones. As a result of this different karma, we will each diagnose the ills of the world through different lenses. We are quite literally seeing different things, or at least different angles on the same thing depending upon our karmic positionality. Since we each see the world in different ways, it is entirely natural, normal, and not a problem that we will each have different political opinions about things. This creates some space in our mind to accommodate different political views among people who share a common love of the same Dharma.

VGL was very concerned about world peace and we should be too. We have Temples for World Peace, World Peace Cafe’s, and he often taught without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. In Toronto during the Iraq war, he famously said, “love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.” So does this mean all Kadampas must be peaceniks? He also taught it is possible to kill virtuously if it is protecting even more others. Many Kadampas have different opinions about the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere. What is the Kadampa solution to all this? Inner peace. Our job is to internally be at peace with the world and everything that happens in it. Being at peace with everything does not mean being aloof or doing nothing, rather it means we are able to maintain our inner peace with whatever appears. If we are internally at peace with the world, we are already experiencing world peace even if war is raging all around us. How do we become at peace with the world as it is? By removing any and all delusions we have about whatever is appearing. We don’t deny what is appearing in political realms, we just do the inner work to be at peace with whatever is appearing.

VGL also extensively taught about how within the Kadampa community that “everybody is welcome.” Because the world will appear to us in different ways according to our karma, we will quite naturally have different political views and opinions – and we will act on those views and opinions, even if that means some Kadampas find themselves on opposite sides of various political aisles. What matters within the Kadampa community is not what your political views are – the Dharma doesn’t have a single political point of view on any question – rather what matters is are you applying the Dharma to overcome whatever delusions you might be having with respect to what is appearing in the political realm. For some, that will mean supporting whatever is happening, for others that will mean fiercely opposing it with every fibre of their being. And both are perfectly OK as long as each person is countering whatever delusions are ripening within their mind. After the George Floyd murder, many within the Kadampa community (like much of the rest of the world), became very concerned with questions of diversity and inclusivity also within the Kadampa community itself. Some others thought this was mixing Dharma and politics and many divisions within the sangha emerged. My answer to this is “everybody welcome.” That doesn’t just mean everybody is welcome regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth, but also regardless of their political views. If we make it seem like only certain political views are welcome in Kadampa communities and consistent with the Dharma teachings we are, in my view, fundamentally betraying one of VGL’s main legacies of purifying the Dharma of politics. Good Kadampas fight their delusions and yes the delusions in the world, but they can do so from any political point of view they happen to be coming from. As a spiritual community, we MUST create the space for people of any political persuasion to feel entirely welcome. Otherwise, we are not practicing “everybody welcome.” And again, to be honest, this primarily means creating more space for right-leaning views and eliminating any trace of cancel culture within Kadampa communities towards those who might hold different political views.

Finally, within the Kadampa community itself, people will have a wide variety of different opinions about how power is distributed and used within the Kadampa community itself. Some will criticize parts as being too authoritarian, some will criticize other parts as being too rebellious, some will criticize the pricing policies or how the profits are spent, and others will criticize how we take care of our sangha members in retirement. Some will feel threatened when any decision made is questioned, others will feel like they don’t have the space to say anything for fear of being exiled or fired. All of this is entirely natural and not even slightly a problem. VGL has given us the internal rules for navigating all such questions. It is our constitution. VGL has said he wants the International Kadampa Buddhist Union to be entirely democratic. Each one of us will have a different positionality or role within the internal rules, but we all equally take on the internal rules as part of our moral discipline of being a Kadampa. We should each fulfill our role within the internal rules as faithfully as we can, upholding the internal rules above our own individual interests or perspective. There will naturally evolve different schools of thought about how we interpret the internal rules, some strict constructionists, others originalists, others still viewing it as a living document. This is no different than how judges interpret the constitution in different ways. No problem, all that is normal. We each fulfill our role within the internal rules with the least delusions and the most wisdom we can muster. We fulfill our role within the internal rules in a way that is consistent with the Dharma we have been taught. We need to create the space for this tension within the Kadampa community. Democratic systems divide power, with each part checking and balancing all the others. It’s not a problem that different people will have different views about the decisions being made (and how they are being made). This is a feature of the system, not a bug.

Politics is an inevitable part of modern life, even within the Kadampa community. We do not need to fear political differences within the Sangha about what is happening in the world or even what is happening within the Kadampa community. What we need to fear is delusions and contaminated karma, we need to fear ordinary appearances and conceptions. We don’t mix Dharma and politics, but we do engage in our politics in a Dharma way. Because we each will have different delusions with respect to what is appearing, we will naturally support or oppose different things and that is perfectly OK. As long as we are all fighting delusions, we are building inner peace. From this inner peace, outer peace will naturally emerge.

Vows, commitments, and modern life: Don’t disrobe others (even indirectly)

February 1, 2025December 24, 2022 Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Taking away saffron robes.

This can be incurred directly only by those in positions of power in monastic communities. If such a person, with a bad motivation, expels monks or nuns from the monastery by taking back their robes they incur a root downfall, even if those whom they have expelled have broken their ordination vows.

Fortunately, in modern times, instances of this happening are quite rare and extreme. The reality is we don’t need somebody else to expel us, we implode upon ourselves just fine!

In reality, though, there are subtle forms of this that happen in centers all the time. It doesn’t take the form of expelling ordained people or taking away their robes, but it can take more subtle forms of making certain sangha members feel like they are not welcome, or not part of the “in crowd” at the center. If we look at the life of Jesus, we see one constant pattern: whatever situation he was in, he would find the person who was the most excluded and disdained and he would go straight to them and cherish them with particular attention. He wouldn’t hang out with his most loyal and devoted students, but he would actively show the example of active inclusiveness by seeking out the most despised (tax collectors, prostitutes, gentiles, etc.). We should be just like that.

It is very easy and very natural for us to spend most of our time hanging out with the people we like, talking behind the backs of the people we don’t like, and generally ignoring everybody else. But is that consistent with what we are being taught? Is that the best way to use the very limited time we have to be with Sangha? Now of course we shouldn’t go to the other extreme of ambushing en masse every new person who walks through the door or every wall flower who is quietly observing from the corner. We, of course, need to be skillful. But the point is in every moment of every day, whether we are in a center, at work or amongst friends, we should have a special radar on the lookout for anybody who might be feeling excluded, and we should make a special effort to be kind to them and make them feel included. They just want to be happy too.

This vow also advises us to cut others some slack. Dharma is a mirror with which we can identify our own faults not a magnifying glass for judging other people for their faults. If we don’t understand how the Dharma is supposed to be used as a mirror, there is a real danger that the more Dharma we learn the more we become judgmental of others. People often feel guilty about their mistakes and their delusions, and if we judge them for their shortcomings instead of “changing” they will most likely just go away so they don’t have to confront our judgment. This is another subtle form of exclusion.

Another subtle example of transgressing this vow is flirting with the ordained. Because the Dharma is so beautiful, it is very easy for people to develop feelings of love or attraction to our Dharma teachers or ordained sangha friends. This actually happens all the time, even if subtly. We need to remember, just because somebody has become ordained does not mean they do not still get horny or feel tempted when people flirt with them. This weakens and can eventually lead to them breaking their vows. Of course, it is ultimately their responsibility to keep their own vows, but just as we would not offer a former alcoholic a drink, so too we should not tempt (even sub-consciously) somebody who has taken a vow of celibacy.

How to Make Definitive Prayers and Requests to the Buddhas:

February 1, 2025 Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden buddha, buddhism, meditation, philosophy, religion

From one perspective, all Dharmakayas – the truth body of a Buddha, the ultimate, definitive Buddha – are the same nature of the union of bliss and emptiness of all phenomena, like the different spaces within different empty bottles that when broken merge together seemingly indistinguishably. But we would not say there is just one Dharmakaya – that would be grasping at singularity with respect to the Dharmakaya.

Yet, at the same time, we can and do distinguish different Dharmakayas. There is Heruka’s Dharmakaya, Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya, Medicine Buddha’s Dharmakaya, Tara’s Dharmakaya and so forth. But we would not say there are entirely distinct Dharmakayas, as that would be grasping at inherently existent plurality of Dharmakayas.

Now we could say from the perspective of Guru Yoga there is just one Dharnmakaya, the Dharmakaya of our spiritual guide, and all other Buddhas arise from that. But even that is grasping at a singular of our Guru’s Dharmakaya. Our guru is a mere name that emanates all the Buddhas and all the Buddhas come together to form our guru. Both are equally true, just from different perspectives.

We might think, “OK, that’s interesting, but it seems like a philosophical point with no practical value.” Not true.

When we dissolve all things into the Dharmakaya, we should not lose track of whose Dharmakaya we are dissolving things into. Dissolving all phenomena into different Dharmakayas accomplishes different functions. Each Buddha accomplishes a different function in dependence upon the specific bodhichitta they generated as bodhisattvas on the path. For example, Tara promised to help all Kadampas with their Lamrim practice and to provide protection from diseases and so forth, Dorje Shugden promised to help arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment, and so forth.

The essential point of the union of appearance and emptiness according to highest yoga tantra, as I understand it at least, is the subtle conventional truths of objects are ultimate truths that abide inside emptiness. Inside the emptiness of the table is the subtle conventional truth of the table, the mere name table. We do not say emptiness in the abstract, it is always the emptiness of something, in this case the emptiness of the table. Inside the emptiness of the table is still the mere name and function of the table. There has always only been an empty table, yet it still accomplishes the function of a table. The name and function of a table does not cease when we realize its emptiness, but they exist and abide inside its emptiness. It remains a mere lack of inherent existence, but of something that does something.

The same is true of the emptiness, or truth bodies, of the different Buddhas. We can think of it like ice cream. Mint chocolate chip and cookie dough are both equally ice creams, but they definitely have different flavors. In the same way, the Dharmakaya of Heruka, the Dharmkaya of Dorje Shugden, the Dharmkaya of Medicine Buddha, and the Dharmakaya of Tara all all equally Dharmakayas, but they have different names and functions. Emptiness itself may not do anything, but all empty things have specific names and functions.

What is the practical value of this understanding? The main value is it removes completely anything and everything that obstructs the different Buddhas from bestowing their blessings on our mind and accomplishing their functions in our life.

For example, imagine you are experiencing a very difficult situation in life. If you dissolve everything you normally see that is creating such difficulty for you into Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya, we are not just saying none of these appearances exist. Dissolving everything into emptiness is not just a profound way of putting our head in the sand, thinking it will all go away if we don’t look. Dissolving everything into Dorje Shugden’s truth body is a way of offering that which is giving us trouble to Dorje Shugden, requesting him to transform it into a cause of our enlightenment and to perform his function to arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment. After we have dissolved the appearances into his Dharmakaya, when they re-emerge we will see and understand them from Dorje Shugden’s perspective. We will have the wisdom to see how this difficulty is exactly perfect for our swiftest possible enlightenment. Dissolving everything into his Dahrmakaya is a way of purifying the contaminated karma giving rise to the obstacles in the ocean his truth body. So the karma giving rise to those appearances which are indeed obstacles will be purified and even our external situation might change.

We might say how is this any different than just requesting Dorje Shugden to accomplish his function with respect to our difficult situation? It’s not different, it’s just a more powerful and more profound way of making the request. It is more powerful because it is making the request free from any obstructions grasping at inherent existence of ourself, Dorje Shugden, or our difficult situation. No obstructions to our request means more power to receiving his blessings. It is more profound because this is how we make definitive prayers and requests. Dissolving the disturbing appearance into Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya is how we definitively make a prayer and request to him to accomplish his function in our mind and life. Subsequent to our request, all appearances that arise will be experienced directly as the fulfillment of our prayer and request, gradually at first, but then later completely. What was experienced as an “obstacle” will now be experienced as “perfect for our practice.”

The exact same thing is true for the Dharmakayas of all the different Buddhas. Dissolving all phenomena into Heruka’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of compassion and non-dual appearance and emptiness. Dissolving all sick people and sickness into Medicine Buddha’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of healing outer and inner sickness. Dissolving all things into Tara’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of Lamrim, and so forth.

It is not unlike making mandala offerings. When we make a mandala offering, we offer all objects of attachment, aversion, and ignorance to our spiritual guide, freeing our mind from such delusions. Dissolving all phenomena into the Dharmakaya is like making a definitive mandala offering. Dissolving all phenomena into the different Dharmakayas of the different Buddhas is like making definitive mandala offerings requesting the specific blessing and function of each Buddha.

Making our offerings, prayers, and requests in this way takes them to a whole new level, increases their power, and enables us to train in the union of faith and emptiness every moment of every day. Faith and prayer are emptiness in action.

Happy Protector Day: Introduction to series

January 29, 2025December 31, 2024 Kadampa Ryan Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Uncategorized

The 29^th of every month is Protector Day, when we emphasize our reliance upon the Dharma Protector for the New Kadampa Tradition. In order to strengthen our connection with him, increase our faith in him, and learn how to practically rely upon him, on the 29^th of every month, I will explain my understanding of how to rely upon Dorje Shugden, our Dharma protector. All of Dharma essentially has one purpose: to bring the mind under control. Delusions are that which make our mind uncontrolled. For me personally, I overcome about 90% of my delusions “merely by remembering” Dorje Shugden. In this series of posts I will explain how.

Our ability to rely upon Dorje Shugden depends primarily upon one thing: are we a worldly being or a spiritual being. If we are a worldly being, reliance on Dorje Shugden will not work. If we are a spiritual being, reliance on Dorje Shugden will change everything for us – we will never be the same again. All fear, all anxiety, all grasping will vanish. Our mind will become smooth, balanced, flexible and peaceful all of the time.

There is one question we need to ask ourself: what kind of being do I want to be, a worldly being or a spiritual being? A worldly being is somebody who is primarily concerned with securing happiness in this life. Their actions are aimed at securing worldly happiness in this life. A spiritual being is somebody who is primarily concerned with securing happiness of future lives. Their actions are aimed at laying the foundation for happiness in future lives, up to the supreme happiness of full enlightenment.

It is important to understand whether our life is a worldly one or a spiritual one does not depend on what activities or job we do, rather it depends on what mind we do these activities with. Sometimes we think that our families, jobs, vacations and so forth are necessarily ‘worldly’, but this is not the case. They are only worldly if we engage in them with a worldly mind. If we engage in these same activities with a spiritual mind, then they become spiritual activities and part of our spiritual life.

What does it mean to live our life with a spiritual mind? It means what we are looking to get out of a situation is different. For example, I have a close friend who is a very successful businessman. He views everything through the lens of the business opportunity. We went to Magic Mountain together once (Magic Mountain is an amusement park with very big roller coasters, etc.). For my friend, because he looked at things through the glasses of a businessman, what he took home from his trip to Magic Mountain was lessons in business.

For a worldly being, what they are looking to get out of a situation is external happiness in this life. Their actions are aimed at improving their reputation, increasing their resources, receiving praise and experiencing pleasure (and avoiding the opposite of these things). For a spiritual being, what they are looking to get out of a situation is opportunities to train their mind and create good causes. They view situations from the perspective of the opportunity they afford the person to train their mind and create good causes for the future. To be a spiritual being doesn’t mean we do not care about this life, rather it means we also care about future lives. We include future lives in our calculations for how we use today and how we use this life.

Before we can actually become a spiritual being, we have to have at least some belief in future lives. Without such belief, it is difficult to view our life as a preparation for them. So how can we develop some conviction, or at least some virtuous doubt, about the existence of future lives? The definitive reason which establishes everything in the Dharma is emptiness. Emptiness explains that all phenomena, ourselves included, are mere karmic appearance of mind. ‘Mere’ means they are like appearances in a dream, and ‘karmic appearance’ means that these appearances arise from karma. This life and all its appearances are just mere karmic appearances of mind that were triggered by previous minds. The quality of our mind determines the quality of the karma activated. Every karmic seed has a certain duration, and when it exhausts itself the appearance supported by that karma will cease. It is just like during a dream.

The nature of the mind is clarity and cognizing. Clarity means our mind itself is without form, shape, color, etc. If our mind had a color, for example, then everything that appeared to our mind would be that color. It is because it lacks any color that it can perceive or know any color; because it lacks any form, it can know any form and so forth. Cognizing means it has the power to know objects. Lacking form alone is not mind – there are many things that lack form, but do not know. Only something that both lacks form and knows is a mind. Our mind is like a formless field of knowing. It is like a giant container in which new karmic appearances are projected. Think back to two hours ago. What is appearing to our mind now is completely different. What used to appear no longer appears at all, yet our mind itself remains clarity and cognizing. In the same way, when the appearances of this life and this body cease, our mind itself will remain clarity and cognizing, it will just know new appearances.

If none of these ideas work for us, then it is useful to consider even if we are not sure, it is nonetheless better to live our life as if there are future lives. Why? If there are future lives, but we assume there are not, then we won’t be prepared for them when they come and our future will be uncertain. It is like somebody denying that there is a tomorrow. If there are not future lives, but we assume there are, then we will at least be able to have the happiest possible life during this life because a spiritual outlook on life is simply a happier way to relate to the world. Why is this so?

Why is it a good idea to adopt a spiritual way of life? Doing so can make every moment of our life deeply meaningful. Our lives are as meaningful as the goals towards which we work. If our goal is to lead each and every living being to the complete freedom of full enlightenment, then since this is the most meaningful goal, our life in pursuit of this goal will be felt to be full of great meaning. We can find a true happiness from a different source – the cultivation of pure minds.

External happiness, if we check, is really just a temporary reduction of our discomfort. Even if it does provide us with temporary moments of happiness, we have no control over it and so our happiness is uncertain. We feel we cannot be happy without our external objects. In Buddhism, we have identified a different source of happiness – a peaceful mind. If our mind is peaceful, we are happy, regardless of what our external circumstances are. The cause of a peaceful mind is to mix our mind with virtue, such as love, compassion, etc. When we engage in the actions of mixing our mind with virtue, we plant the karmic seeds on our mind which will ripen in the form of the experience of inner peace. Understanding this, we have an infinite source of happiness just waiting to be tapped. When our mind is at peace, we can then enjoy all external things, not just the ones we like.

We are all going to die, and the only things we can take with us are the causes we have created for ourself. Everything else we have we need to leave behind. The only riches we can take with us into our future lives are the karmic causes we have created for ourself. When we think about this carefully, we realize that only they matter. The rest of this life is not guaranteed to happen, but our future lives are, and they are very long. Now is the time to assemble provisions for our future lives. We do not know when we are going to die.

Vows, commitments, and modern life: Don’t Abandon Dharma.

January 26, 2025December 24, 2022 Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Abandoning Dharma.

We incur this downfall if we criticize any of Buddha’s teachings, declaring that they are not Buddhadharma and therefore should not be practiced. We do not incur this downfall if we set aside some instructions for the time being because we do not see their relevance to our lives or they seem too difficult for our current level. Buddha gave over 84,000 instructions and Geshe-la has written many many commentaries to Buddha’s teachings. So clearly we work gradually with the instructions, incorporating and synthesizing their meaning in our lives over time until eventually we feel as if we practice – directly or indirectly – every single instruction every single day. But it can decades before we feel this to be the case.

We also are not abandoning the Dharma if we used to go to every festival and to every teaching, but for whatever reason we no longer do so. Karma changes and so it is normal that our ability to attend certain events will also evolve and change over time. But we do incur this downfall if we come to some definite conclusions, “Buddha was definitely wrong about this.”

Gen-la Losang said it does not matter how many people come to our centers, it only matters how many go away with a happy mind. He said those who go away with a happy mind are actually more important than those who stay at the center for years for the simple reason that there are more of them! If people go away having appreciated some point and it makes some positive impression on their mind, even if they never come back, a very powerful karmic seed will have been placed on their mind which can be activated in future lives in the form of them coming to the center and staying (even if only for a little longer than last time). This is one of the reasons why the International Temples Project is such genius. Busloads full of school children and tourists come visit the temples all the time, see the Buddhas and leave thinking, “hey, those Buddhists are kinda cool.” Who is to say that the people who stay in this life were not the tourists of a previous life?

The reality is there are many many people who come to our centers, attend classes for a shorter or longer amount of time, but then they move on. It is very easy for the people who remain at the center or for the people who run the center to become attached to people coming to the center and then to be unhappy when people leave. There have been many examples of people in centers making those who think about leaving feel guilty like they are abandoning the Dharma, they are breaking their vajra commitments, etc., etc., etc. Of course the over-enthusiastic administrator or practitioner thinks they are helping the other person by saying such things, but in reality they are sabotaging that person’s spiritual future and causing the tradition to develop a reputation of being like a cult.

The Dharma is like a diamond, like the sun, and like a medicinal tree. Any amount is good. Just because more is better doesn’t mean having only some is bad. If we resort to spiritual manipulations to keep people coming to our center, it may work in the short run but the person will eventually come to resent coming. This resentment will build in their mind and their view of the center and the tradition will sour. Their mind will grow increasingly negative until eventually they leave altogether. But instead of leaving with a happy mind towards the teachings and the center, they will leave with a bitter taste in their mouth, or worse. Let’s be honest with ourselves, there are more than a few stories of where things like this have happened in the past. If we can’t acknowledge our mistakes, we are certainly doomed to repeat them. The good news is I have been with the tradition for several decades now, and I can say without a doubt that every year we get a little bit better about not making a total mess of things! J Most of these old ways are a thing of the past, but residuals do remain. Of course we can’t control what other people and other centers do, but we do have a certain say over what we do and what our own local center does.

If we are an administrator of a local center, I think we need to be very careful when people approach us with problems they might be having with the center. There has been so much external venom thrown our way, that it is very easy to allow our own sensitivities about some internal unhealed wounds to cause us to overreact, become defensive and act unskillfully when people do approach us. It is very easy for major conflicts and power struggles to start and it can quickly poison the environment of a center with a cost to all. It is perfectly possible that the person approaches us in an unskillful way, getting upset and angry and accusatory, but if we are a leader in a local center then presumably we have more experience with the Dharma and it seems to me it is incumbent upon us to respond in a constructive manner that doesn’t make the situation worse. If we welcome their criticism and have an open, honest and sincere conversation with them where we admit our mistakes and clarify any misunderstandings without defensiveness, then our living embodiment of putting the teachings into practice will dispel far better than any words we might say any misconceptions the other person might be harboring. We should say thank you, we apologize, and we should we show a willingness to learn.

Even if in the end the other person leaves over the issue, at least they will go away thinking we handled the situation with integrity and forthrightness. They may disagree, but they will be less likely to reject us, and therefore they will harbor no ill will or cling tightly to what could be wrong views.

Happy Heruka Day: Enjoying An Ocean of Bliss and Emptiness

January 25, 2025December 31, 2024 Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

Today is Heruka Day, which takes place during Heruka and Vajrayogini month (otherwise known as January), and is a special day when his blessings are particularly powerful. Most of all, on this day we can recall his kindness and make an effort to bring him to life in our world.

Who is Heruka?

Heruka is the manifestation of the compassion of all the Buddhas. Out of his Truth Body, he emanates himself as a complete path from the deepest hell to the highest enlightenment. He is Keajra Pure Land, which is not some distant place but rather a different way of looking at our world. He emanates in this world as Spiritual Guides who in turn introduce us to Keajra Pure Land. We then begin to connect with it, and as we do, we are guided progressively to purer and purer states of mind. Geshe-la once said the mind of Lamrim is Akanishta Pure Land – a revealing way of phrasing things, a mind as a place. Heruka is the principal deity of Akanishta Pure Land. Our Spiritual Guides first guide us into Lamrim (Akanishta), then conventional Keajra Pure Land through generation stage, then definitive Keajra Pure Land through completion stage. Finally, we attain union with definitive Heruka, the omniscient mind of great bliss realizing directly and simultaneously the emptiness of all things. Heruka is not just this final state, he is the entire path to it. He is the compassion of all the Buddhas manifesting as the quick path to enlightenment.

My favorite description of Heruka is Chakrasambara. As Geshe-la explains in Essence of Vajrayana:

“Another term for Heruka is ‘Chakrasambara.’ ‘Chakra’ means ‘wheel,’ and in this context refers to the ‘wheel’ of all phenomena. ‘Sambara’ means the supreme bliss, which is called ‘spontaneous great bliss.’ Together ‘Chakra’ and ‘sambara’ reveal that by practicing Heruka Tantra we gain a profound realization that experiences all phenomena as one nature with our mind of great bliss. This realization directly removes subtle dualistic appearances from our mind, and due to this we quickly become definitive Heruka.”

This realization is called “meaning clear light,” and Geshe-la explains in Guide to Dakini Land that if we gain this realization, we can attain enlightenment within six months. This does not mean we can attain enlightenment in six months from the time we start practicing Heruka. It will take a long time to gain the realization of meaning clear light, but once we do, we can attain enlightenment in six months. Practicing Heruka is the quickest method for attaining the realization of meaning clear light. At a minimum, through our sincere practice of Heruka in this life, if we can die with a mind of compassion and faith in Heruka, it is definite we can be reborn in his pure land. From there, we will be able to quickly attain meaning clear light and then enlightenment. This is our incredible good fortune.

Recalling the Kindness of Heruka

The very heart of the sadhana Offering to the Spiritual Guide is the Single-Pointed Request, which can be understood as a prayer to Heruka as Keajra Pure Land.

You are the Guru, you are the Yidam, you are the Daka and Dharma Protector;

From now until I attain enlightenment I shall seek no refuge other than you.

In this life, in the bardo, and until the end of my lives, please hold me with the hook of your compassion,

Liberate me from the fears of samsara and peace, bestow all the attainments, be my constant companion, and protect me from all obstacles.

The first line reveals the vastness of Heruka. Heruka is by nature our Guru and our Guru is Heruka. All Tantric practices are fundamentally trainings in guru yoga – a special way of viewing the deity and the guru as inseparably one. Saying Heruka is our Guru and our Guru is Heruka evokes different meanings, and both are true simultaneously. Heruka is also our Yidam or our personal deity. He is the Buddha we seek to become and our ultimate role model. Christians ask, “what would Jesus do,” we ask, “what would Heruka do,” and we seek to do that. Heruka is also the Daka, which here refers to the Heroes and Heroines of his body mandala. These deities are his retinue, but also his spiritual limbs. Heruka is also the Dharma Protector. He manifests Dorje Shugden as the Protector of the Guru’s words. Conventionally, Heruka appears as the totality of his Pure Land, from the HUM at his heart to the principal deity (Yidam); to the body mandala deities (Daka); to his celestial mansion, Mount Meru, and the continents (his gross body); to the charnel grounds (his perception of samsara); to Dorje Shugden’s protection circle surrounding it all transforming whatever appears into a perfect condition for the enlightenment of all beings within Heruka’s pure land.

The second line explains how we rely upon Heruka. It begins with an understanding of both why we go for refuge to him and for how long our commitment to doing so is – namely to attain enlightenment and until we do. Geshe-la explains Heruka’s power is only unleashed within us in dependence upon our motivation of Bodhichitta, the wish to become a Buddha for the benefit of all.

The third line makes our reliance upon Heruka pure. In Joyful Path, Geshe-la explains what makes our spiritual practice pure instead of worldly is whether we are engaging in it for the sake of all of our future lives or the sake of this life. We rely upon Heruka in this life, in the bardo, and in all of our future lives. What do we request of him? That he always hold us with the hook of his compassion. The ocean of samsara is vast and it is easy to get lost at sea and drown, but out of his compassion for us, he throws us a hook we can grab onto. If we never let go, he will pull us to safety. What is this hook and how does it appear in our life? It primarily appears as our Spiritual Guide, but it also manifests as the Daka and the Dharma Protector.

The fourth line reveals Heruka’s main function; or put another way, the principal benefits of relying upon him. His aspect of the Guru functions to liberate us from the fears of samsara and peace. Peace here refers to the solitary peace of individual liberation, which is nice for us but useless for others. We pray to never get trapped in solitary peace but instead strive to become a Buddha who works until the end of time to free others from their suffering. His aspect of the Yidam functions to bestow all the attainments. Bestow is a beautiful word as it implies the giving of something precious. In truth, we attain enlightenment by the Buddhas bestowing the realizations of their mind upon ours, like a gift. Of course, we must do certain things from our side to open up our mind to receive these precious gifts, but by nature, our future realizations of the stages of the path are actually by nature aspects of our Yidam’s mind. His aspect of Daka functions to be our constant companion. In other words, the deities of the body mandala – Heruka’s retinue – are his companions who not only bless our own channels, drops, and winds, but similarly bless all living beings as they fulfill Heruka’s wishes in this world. His aspect of Dharma Protector functions to protect ourselves and all the beings inside Heruka’s mandala from all obstacles to our spiritual practice. Nothing is an obstacle from its own side. Things only become obstacles when we relate to them in a deluded way. Dorje Shugden is first and foremost a wisdom Buddha, meaning he grants us the wisdom to be able to see how whatever arises is perfect for our spiritual training. Since his protection circle envelopes all of Keajra, from the Charnel Grounds to the HUM at Heruka’s heart, he is likewise bestowing similar wisdom blessings on the minds of all living beings. This is why for Heruka samsara appears as the Charnel Grounds. In the Charnel Grounds, even though conventionally horrific things appear, they are all understood and seen as powerful Dharma teachings propelling us towards enlightenment. When we have this wisdom, when others come to us with their difficulties, we fail to even see a problem, we see only spiritual opportunity. We then share our perspective with others, empowering them to transform their life into a joyful path of good fortune.

For myself, I recite the Single-Pointed request with these recognitions day and night as I go about my day. It is my daily mantra, and with every recitation, it draws me closer to Heruka. In my meditation itself, I try to gain experience for what it feels like to be Heruka in Keajra.

Bringing Heruka to Life in our World

We can sometimes feel like Heruka is not in this world and our attainment of union with him is very far off. Both of these perceptions are completely wrong. Heruka is the ultimate nature of everything in this world and attaining union with him is simply one recognition away. How can we bridge the gap between these two very different views? Through the practice of the Eight Lines of Praise of the Father. This is a special method for activating Heruka’s function in this world through us. On the basis of this feeling we simply recognize ourselves as Heruka. Through continual training in this practice, the gap between our normal perception and our enlightened perception collapses until eventually, we experience ourselves directly as Heruka in this world performing his enlightened deeds for the benefit of all. As Geshe-la says in Essence of Vajrayana, “By sincerely reciting these praises we swiftly purify our ordinary appearances and reach Heruka’s Pure Land.”

The Eight Lines of Praise are almost like words of a magical spell, which function to invoke or activate the different functions of Heruka we are praising.

OM I Prostrate to the Blessed One, Lord of the Heroes HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we request Heruka’s body to become active in this world. His body is the form aspect of Keajra Pure Land. In Keajra, every form that appears is understood as a powerful Dharma teaching by all those who behold it. Heruka manifests as whatever living beings need to be led to enlightenment. While Keajra Pure Land is shaped like a mountain, it’s spiritual gradient is more like a funnel. No matter where you drop something in a funnel, it is eventually guided down into the center of the funnel. In the same way, no matter where you find yourself in Keajra Pure Land – from the Charnel Grounds to the principal deity’s body – you are inexorably drawn towards the indestructible wind inside Heruka’s heart chakra. By activating Heruka’s form body in our world, we are “inviting all beings to be our guests” in our Pure Land where we engage in the pleasing supreme practices of enlightenment. We then strongly believe that whatever forms appear to the minds of any living being, they are by nature emanations of Heruka’s form body, revealing the truth of Dharma and guiding all beings towards his heart.

In particular, when we recite this line, we can imagine that our body is Heruka’s majestic body. Our eyes may continue to perceive the body that we normally see, but our mind’s eyes of faith see ourselves as Heruka. In Essence of Vajrayana, it explains the symbolism of Heruka’s body. The short version is it reveals all of the essential stages of the path to enlightenment. Buddhas can manifest their inner realizations as forms. The main point is we should disregard, even forget, our body that we normally see and believe that through our recitation of this line of the prayer we perceive our body to be Heruka’s body.

OM To you with a brilliance equal to the fire of the great aeon HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we invoke/activate Heruka’s speech. In Keajra, every sound is arising from Heruka’s enlightened speech and it functions to reveal the truth of Dharma. When we recite this, we imagine that every sound, even the rustling of leaves in the wind, is actually vajra songs teaching Dharma. His speech burns away the ordinary conceptions and ignorance of living beings like a great wisdom fire that radiates out and burns away all delusions. In particular, we should imagine that from this point forward all of our own speech is actually Heruka’s speech being spoken through us. Instead of saying whatever comes to our mind, we get out of the way and let him speak through us. If we are practicing this at the level of completion stage, we can recall that the nature of sound is wind, and so all sounds are actually the whistling of Heruka’s pure winds blowing through the world.

OM To you with an inexhaustible topknot HUM HUM PHAT

With this line we imagine we invoke/activate Heruka’s mind in our world, symbolized by his topknot. There are two aspects of his mind in particular worth noting. First, his mind sees all past, present, and future phenomena directly and simultaneously. He sees everything that has been, everything that is, and everything that will be as one inseparable ocean. This wisdom knowing the three times is extremely effective for being able to help people because we can see the karmic why they are currently facing the situations they are facing and all of the different possible futures they will experience depending upon how they respond to their present circumstance. Heruka sees everything as currents and continuums, like spiritual winds blowing through time, not static pictures that seem arbitrary and bewildering. Second, his mind has the power to bestow the realizations of Chakrasambara on others, in other words, his mind functions to gather and dissolve all phenomena into the ocean of bliss and emptiness. When impure winds cease to flow, the waves of appearance subside, and the ocean of our mind settles into a blissful clarity. Heruka’s mind naturally draws all phenomena back into this original source of all purity. When we recite this line, we feel as if these two powers of his mind are now active. We start to see the three times as Heruka does and we feel all phenomena settling down into the ocean of our mind of clear light emptiness.

OM To you with a fearsome face and bared fangs HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we imagine we gain Heruka’s great wisdom knowing clearly and unmistakenly what are the objects to be abandoned and what are the objects to be attained, not only for ourselves, but for all living beings. Not being clear about this is our fundamental problem and the source of all of our suffering. In Modern Buddhism, Geshe-la makes a clear distinction between our outer problem and our inner problem. If our car breaks down, normally we think, “I have a problem.” No, our car has a problem. Our problem is our inner problem of relating to this appearance in a deluded way. We need a mechanic to fix our car, and we need to change our mind to solve our inner problem. Fixing our outer problem will not solve our inner problem. If we continue to have our inner problem, we will just project it onto some other external circumstance and think now that needs to be fixed too. Worldly beings are convinced their problem is what is happening externally, and they expend all of their energy trying to solve all of their outer problems, but no matter how many times they do, they continue to have the same sorts of problems just with different faces or different sets of external appearance. The reason for this is they have not solved their inner problem. Heruka’s great wisdom enables us to see clearly that our own and others’ actual problem lies within. Once we are clear that our problem is our inner problem, then his great wisdom helps us see clearly our delusions as mistaken minds. It is one thing to identify that we have delusions, but if we do not see why they are wrong or deceptive, we will continue to follow them believing them to be true. His great wisdom also helps us easily know what is the correct way of looking at things that leaves our mind peaceful and calm. We not only know the wisdom way of thinking, we actually think that way – or at least believe it to be correct, even if the winds of our mind are blowing in opposite directions.

When we recite this line, we have this wisdom not only for ourselves but also for others. When others talk to us, we see clearly the difference between their outer and their inner problem, and with respect to their inner problem, we know and can explain in a way they can understand the objects to be abandoned and the objects to be attained. Traveling outer paths is accomplished through taking steps, inner paths are traveled through knowing what thoughts to believe. The great wisdom of knowing the objects to be abandoned and the objects to be attained is like always knowing which paths to travel so that we never get lost. It is like an inner GPS that is always set for the City of Enlightenment, and no matter where we find ourselves, we always know how to get to where we want to go.

OM To you whose thousand arms blaze with light HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line we imagine we invoke/activate countless emanations of Heruka who spontaneously burst forth from his heart of compassion to benefit living beings through acts of loving-kindness. This line refers to how Heruka is the compassion of all the Buddhas, he is the highest yoga tantra version of thousand-arm Avalokiteshvara. Some people wonder how Buddhas gain the ability to send out emanations. The answer is their compassion wishing to protect all living beings from all suffering is so great, emanations naturally burst out of their hearts. Because they realize emptiness of all phenomena, their compassion is like blowing air into the soap of their realization of emptiness producing countless bubbles of emanations. Normally, when people come to us for help, we think, “I can’t help all of these people,” and we wish some of them would go away and stop putting so many demands on us. But a bodhisattva thinks, “I would want to help all of these beings, but right now, unfortunately, I can’t. That’s why I need to become a Buddha because then I will be able to be with each and every living being every day.” We imagine that through reciting this line, we gain this ability to send out countless emanations and to be like thousand-arm Avalokiteshvara, able to help living beings in countless ways.

OM To you who hold an axe, an uplifted noose, a spear, and a khatanga HUM HUM PHAT

With this line, we imagine we gain Heruka’s ability to engage in wrathful actions, and we invoke his wrathful actions pervade the entire universe. What are wrathful actions? They are the ability to use force out of compassion. They are of two types: outer and inner. Outer wrathful actions are when somebody is hurting themselves or others and we can stop them through using whatever power we have (physical, our position, our speech, etc.). We do this not out of anger, but to protect the person they are harming and to protect the person committing the harm from accumulating negative karma. Our wish is not to harm the other person, but to protect them. Sometimes outer wrathful actions take the form of telling people the hard truths of their situation, such as they are acting like a jerk or the only reason why they are suffering is that they are jealous or attached to companionship, or whatever. Whether our outer wrathful actions are effective depends upon whether our mind is truly free from anger and whether the other person has enough faith in us to take well what we are saying. If either of these two conditions is not met, our wrathful actions will just be anger or they will just be self-defeating. Inner wrathful actions are the ability to be utterly ruthless with our delusions, but kind to ourselves. We can only successfully engage in them if we have truly differentiated between ourselves and our delusions and we have realized that renunciation is true self-love or self-compassion. It is loving or having compassion for our true selves, our pure potential. Inner wrathful actions of a Buddha are powerful blessings that help people see clearly the error of their ways, sometimes at an epic scale, but without inducing guilt causing the person to beat themselves up. When we recite this line, we imagine we gain the ability to engage in such wrathful actions and we imagine we invoke Heruka to engage in such wrathful actions through the appearances of this world.

OM To you who wear a tiger-skin garment HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to Heruka’s ability to pacify anger and conflict. There is no evil greater than anger. Almost all of the harm in this world is caused by anger. Hell realms are the nature of anger, and those who remain consumed by anger in life wind up taking rebirth in hell after death because that is the nature of their mind. Anger prevents us from accepting samsara as it is, making us wish it was different. It leads to frustrations, great and small, leaving us always internally uncomfortable, agitated, and unhappy. Guilt is anger directed at ourself and is a major obstacle to our ability to view Dharma as refuge instead of a mirror we perceive to be judging us for all of our failures and shortcomings. Conflict in the world ranges from large-scale wars to spats between siblings, but it leaves a wake of pain wherever it goes. In Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe-la says the mind of cherishing others is like a magic crystal that has the power to heal whole communities. In Toronto, he said, “love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.” Heruka’s compassion is his magic crystal and his love is his nuclear bomb that ends all conflict. We imagine by reciting this line, we activate this power and it functions to pacify all anger, all guilt, and all conflict, not only in our own lives but in the whole world. We feel as if his love radiates out, pulsing peace into the world. In Transform Your Life Geshe-la says, “without inner peace, outer peace is impossible.” We imagine through Heruka’s blessings, we bestow inner peace on all living beings, resulting in universal peace for all.

OM I bow to you whose smoke-coloured body dispels obstructions HUM HUM PHAT

In Essence of Vajrayana, Geshe-la explains:

“In the Condensed Root Tantra it is said that just by seeing a sincere Heruka practitioner we purify our negativities and attain liberation; just by hearing or being touched by such a practitioner we receive blessings and are cured of sickness; and just by being in the presence of such a practitioner our unhappiness, mental disturbances, delusions and other obstacles are dispelled. Why is this? It is because the actual Deities of Heruka abide within the body of the practitioner and therefore seeing the practitioner is not so different from seeing Heruka himself.”

When we recite this line of the Praise we recall this special quality of Heruka which makes merely being in their presence a cause of liberation for others. There are two types of obstructions – the obstructions to liberation, or our delusions; and the obstructions to omniscience, or the karmic imprints of our past delusions. Merely being in Heruka’s presence dispels both of these, just as being exposed to the sun will melt ice cream. When we recite this line with faith, we imagine that our Heruka body attains these qualities and when others are merely in our presence, it functions as a cause of their enlightenment – even if we are doing nothing other than watching football together. We further imagine that Heruka’s body pervades all phenomena, and while our ordinary eyes may perceive the things we normally see, our wisdom eyes see Keajra Pure Land, which is nothing other than Heruka’s pure form body. By being in this world, the two obstructions of all living beings are dispelled away, all ordinary appearances and conceptions dissolve, and all beings awaken into a world of pure wonder.

Through continuously engaging in the Eight Lines of Praise, we will gradually purify our mind and samsara will gather and absorb into the clear light, like clouds into a clear blue sky. We will feel Heruka as Keajra Pure Land become increasingly manifest and we will realize it is not far away, but actually the true nature of all things. Having activated these eight abilities of Heruka and feeling them work through us, we will have no difficulty generating a qualified divine pride thinking we are Heruka. As our experience with these verses deepens, the duality between ourselves and our Yidam will dissolve away until we experience union with this marvelous being. In this way, we will fulfill all of our own and others’ pure wishes.

Heruka day is a particularly auspicious day when Heruka’s blessings are especially powerful. The karma we create familiarizing ourselves with Heruka in our life and drawing closer to him on this day will pay dividends for aeons to come. If we have not yet memorized the Eight Lines of Praise, today is a perfect day to do so. Once we have learned it, we can then practice it day and night and swiftly move out of samsara and into Keajra Pure Land!

Happy Heruka Day: Enjoying An Ocean of Bliss and Emptiness

January 25, 2025 Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 7. Kadampa meaning of special days buddhism, meditation, philosophy, religion, spirituality

Who is Heruka?

My favorite description of Heruka is Chakrasambara. As Geshe-la explains in Essence of Vajrayana:

Recalling the Kindness of Heruka

The very heart of the sadhana Offering to the Spiritual Guide is the Single-Pointed Request, which can be understood as a prayer to Heruka as Keajra Pure Land.

You are the Guru, you are the Yidam, you are the Daka and Dharma Protector;
From now until I attain enlightenment I shall seek no refuge other than you.
In this life, in the bardo, and until the end of my lives, please hold me with the hook of your compassion,
Liberate me from the fears of samsara and peace, bestow all the attainments, be my constant companion, and protect me from all obstacles.

The third line makes our reliance upon Heruka pure. In Joyful Path, Geshe-la explains what makes our spiritual practice pure instead of worldly is whether we are engaging in it for the sake of all of our future lives or the sake of this life. We rely upon Heruka in this life, in the bardo, and in all of our future lives. What do we request of him? That he always hold us with the hook of his compassion. The ocean of samsara is vast and it is easy to get lost at sea and drown; but out of his compassion for us, he throws us a hook we can grab onto. If we never let go, he will pull us to safety. What is this hook and how does it appear in our life? It primarily appears as our Spiritual Guide, but it also manifests as the Daka and the Dharma Protector.

The fourth line reveals Heruka’s main function; or put another way, the principal benefits of relying upon him. His aspect of the Guru functions to liberate us from the fears of samsara and peace. Peace here refers to the solitary peace of individual liberation, which is nice for us but useless for others. We pray to never get trapped in solitary peace but instead strive to probe deeper into the clear light to become a Buddha who perceives directly the union of appearance and emptiness motivated by an unstoppable compassion that works until the end of time to free others from their suffering. His aspect of the Yidam functions to bestow all the attainments. Bestow is a beautiful word as it implies the giving of something precious. In truth, we attain enlightenment by the Buddhas bestowing the realizations of their mind upon ours, like a gift. Of course, we must do certain things from our side to open up our mind to receive these precious gifts, but by nature, our future realizations of the stages of the path are actually by nature aspects of our Yidam’s mind. His aspect of Daka functions to be our constant companion. In other words, the deities of the body mandala – Heruka’s retinue – are our companions who not only bless our own channels, drops, and winds, but similarly bless all living beings as they fulfill Heruka’s wishes in this world. His aspect of Dharma Protector functions to protect ourselves and all the beings inside Heruka’s mandala from all obstacles to our spiritual practice. Nothing is an obstacle from its own side. Things only become obstacles when we relate to them in a deluded way. Dorje Shugden is first and foremost a wisdom Buddha, meaning he grants us the wisdom to be able to see how whatever arises is perfect for our spiritual training. Since his protection circle envelopes all of Keajra, from the Charnel Grounds to the HUM at Heruka’s heart, he is likewise bestowing similar wisdom blessings on the minds of all living beings. This is why for Heruka samsara appears as the Charnel Grounds. In the Charnel Grounds, even though conventionally horrific things appear, they are all understood and seen as powerful Dharma teachings propelling us towards enlightenment. When we have this wisdom, when others come to us with their difficulties, we fail to even see a problem, we see only spiritual opportunity and powerful teachings. We then share our perspective with others, empowering them to transform their life into a joyful path of good fortune.

For myself, I try to recite the Single-Pointed request with these recognitions day and night as I go about my day. It is my daily mantra, and with every recitation, it draws me closer to Heruka. For me, the single-pointed request has the same meaning as OM GURU SUMATI BUDDHA HERUKA SARWA SIDDHI HUM and vice versa. In my meditation itself, I try to gain experience for what it feels like to be Heruka in Keajra.

Bringing Heruka to Life in our World

We can sometimes feel like Heruka is not in this world and our attainment of union with him is very far off. Both of these perceptions are completely wrong. Heruka is the ultimate nature of everything in this world and attaining union with him is simply one recognition away. How can we bridge the gap between these two very different views? Through the practice of the Eight Lines of Praise of the Father. This is a special method for activating Heruka’s function in this world through us. On the basis of this feeling of accomplishing his function in this world, we simply recognize ourselves as Heruka. Through continual training in this practice, the gap between our normal perception and our enlightened perception collapses until eventually, we experience ourselves directly as Heruka in this world performing his enlightened deeds for the benefit of all. As Geshe-la says in Essence of Vajrayana, “By sincerely reciting these praises we swiftly purify our ordinary appearances and reach Heruka’s Pure Land.”

The Eight Lines of Praise are almost like words of a magical spell, which function to invoke or activate the different functions of Heruka we are praising.

OM I Prostrate to the Blessed One, Lord of the Heroes HUM HUM PHAT

In particular, when we recite this line, we can imagine that our body is Heruka’s majestic body. Our eyes may continue to perceive the body that we normally see, but our mind’s eyes of faith see ourselves as Heruka. In Essence of Vajrayana, it explains the symbolism of Heruka’s body. The short version is it reveals all of the essential stages of the path to enlightenment. Buddhas can manifest their inner realizations as forms. The main point is we should disregard, even forget, our body that we normally see and believe that through our recitation of this line of the prayer we perceive our body to be Heruka’s body.

OM To you with a brilliance equal to the fire of the great aeon HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line, we invoke/activate Heruka’s speech. In Keajra, every sound is arising from Heruka’s enlightened speech and they function to reveal the truth of Dharma. When we recite this, we imagine that every sound, even the rustling of leaves in the wind, is actually vajra songs teaching Dharma. His speech burns away the ordinary conceptions and ignorance of living beings like a great wisdom fire that radiates out and burns away all delusions. In particular, we should imagine that from this point forward all of our own speech is actually Heruka’s speech being spoken through us. Instead of saying whatever comes to our mind, we get out of the way and let him speak through us. If we are practicing this at the level of completion stage, we can recall that the nature of sound is wind, and so all sounds are actually the whistling of Heruka’s pure winds blowing through the world.

OM To you with an inexhaustible topknot HUM HUM PHAT

With this line we imagine we invoke/activate Heruka’s mind in our world, symbolized by his topknot. There are two aspects of his mind in particular worth noting. First, his mind sees all past, present, and future phenomena directly and simultaneously. He sees everything that has been, everything that is, and everything that will be as one inseparable ocean inside emptiness. This wisdom knowing the three times is extremely effective for being able to help people because we can see the karmic reasons why they are currently facing the situations they are facing and all of the different possible futures they will experience depending upon how they respond to their present circumstance. Heruka sees everything as currents and continuums, like spiritual winds blowing through time, not static pictures that seem arbitrary and bewildering. Second, his mind has the power to bestow the realizations of Chakrasambara on others, in other words, his mind functions to gather and dissolve all phenomena into the ocean of bliss and emptiness. When impure winds cease to flow, the waves of ordinary appearance subside, and the ocean of our mind settles into a blissful clarity. Heruka’s mind naturally draws all phenomena back into this original source of all purity. When we recite this line, we feel as if these two powers of his mind are now active. We start to see the three times as Heruka does and we feel all phenomena settling down into the ocean of our mind of clear light emptiness of all phenomena.

OM To you with a fearsome face and bared fangs HUM HUM PHAT

In Modern Buddhism, Geshe-la makes a clear distinction between our outer problem and our inner problem. If our car breaks down, normally we think, “I have a problem.” No, our car has a problem. Our problem is our inner problem of relating to this appearance in a deluded way. We need a mechanic to fix our car, and we need to change our mind to solve our inner problem. Fixing our outer problem will not solve our inner problem. If we continue to have our inner problem, we will just project it onto some other external circumstance and think now that needs to be fixed too before we can be happy. Worldly beings are convinced their problem is what is happening externally, and they expend all of their energy trying to solve all of their outer problems, but no matter how many times they do, they continue to have the same sorts of problems just with different faces or different sets of external appearance. The reason for this is they have not solved their inner problem. Heruka’s great wisdom enables us to see clearly that our own and others’ actual problem lies within. Once we are clear that our problem is our inner problem, then his great wisdom helps us see clearly our delusions as mistaken minds. It is one thing to identify that we have delusions, but if we do not see why they are wrong or deceptive, we will continue to follow them believing them to be true. His great wisdom also helps us easily know what is the correct way of looking at things that leaves our mind peaceful and calm. We not only know the wisdom way of thinking, we actually think that way – or at least believe it to be correct, even if the winds of our mind are blowing in opposite directions.

OM To you whose thousand arms blaze with light HUM HUM PHAT

When we recite this line we imagine we invoke/activate countless emanations of Heruka who spontaneously burst forth from his heart of compassion to benefit living beings through acts of loving-kindness. This line refers to how Heruka is the compassion of all the Buddhas, he is the highest yoga tantra version of thousand-arm Avalokiteshvara. Some people wonder how Buddhas gain the ability to send out emanations. The answer is their compassion wishing to protect all living beings from all suffering is so great, emanations naturally burst out of their hearts in all directions, just like Avalokiteshvara spontaneously burst forth a thousand arms to help living beings with. Because they realize emptiness of all phenomena, their compassion is like blowing air into the soap of their realization of emptiness producing countless bubbles of emanations. Normally, when people come to us for help, we think, “I can’t help all of these people,” and we wish some of them would go away and stop putting so many demands on us. But a bodhisattva thinks, “I would want to help all of these beings, but right now, unfortunately, I can’t. That’s why I need to become a Buddha because then I will be able to be with each and every living being every day.” We imagine that through reciting this line, we gain this ability to send out countless emanations and to be like thousand-arm Avalokiteshvara, able to help living beings in countless ways.

OM To you who hold an axe, an uplifted noose, a spear, and a khatanga HUM HUM PHAT

With this line, we imagine we gain Heruka’s ability to engage in wrathful actions, and we invoke his wrathful actions to pervade the entire universe. What are wrathful actions? They are the ability to use force out of compassion. They are of two types: outer and inner. Outer wrathful actions are when somebody is hurting themselves or others and we can stop them through using whatever power we have (physical, our position, our speech, etc.). We do this not out of anger, but to protect the person they are harming and to protect the person committing the harm from accumulating negative karma. Our wish is not to harm the other person, but to protect them. Sometimes outer wrathful actions take the form of telling people the hard truths of their situation, such as they are acting like a jerk or the only reason why they are suffering is that they are jealous or attached to companionship, or whatever. Whether our outer wrathful actions are effective depends upon whether our mind is truly free from anger and whether the other person has enough faith in us to take well what we are saying. If either of these two conditions is not met, our wrathful actions will just be anger or they will just be self-defeating. Inner wrathful actions are the ability to be utterly ruthless with our delusions, but kind to ourselves. We can only successfully engage in them if we have truly differentiated between ourselves and our delusions and we have realized that renunciation is true self-love or self-compassion. It is loving or having compassion for our true selves, our pure potential. Inner wrathful actions of a Buddha are powerful blessings that help people see clearly the error of their ways, sometimes at an epic scale, but without inducing guilt causing the person to beat themselves up. When we recite this line, we imagine we gain the ability to engage in such wrathful actions and we imagine we invoke Heruka to engage in such wrathful actions through the appearances of this world.

OM To you who wear a tiger-skin garment HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to Heruka’s ability to pacify anger and conflict. There is no evil greater than anger. Almost all of the harm in this world is caused by anger. Hell realms are the nature of anger, and those who remain consumed by anger in life wind up taking rebirth in hell after death because that is the nature of their mind. Anger prevents us from accepting samsara as it is, making us wish it was different. It leads to frustrations, great and small, leaving us always internally uncomfortable, agitated, and unhappy – sometimes enraged like a wild fire. Guilt is anger directed at ourself and is a major obstacle to our ability to view Dharma as refuge instead of a mirror we perceive to be judging us for all of our failures and shortcomings. Conflict in the world ranges from large-scale wars to spats between siblings, but it leaves a wake of pain wherever it goes. In Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe-la says the mind of cherishing others is like a magic crystal that has the power to heal whole communities. In Toronto, he said, “love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.” Heruka’s compassion is his magic crystal and his love is his nuclear bomb that ends all conflict. We imagine by reciting this line, we activate this power and it functions to pacify all anger, all guilt, and all conflict, not only in our own lives but in the whole world. We feel as if his love radiates out, pulsing peace into the world. In Transform Your Life Geshe-la says, “without inner peace, outer peace is impossible.” We imagine through Heruka’s blessings, we bestow inner peace on all living beings, resulting in universal peace for all. When our mind is at peace with all in the world, we are already experiencing ourselves world peace.

OM I bow to you whose smoke-coloured body dispels obstructions HUM HUM PHAT

In Essence of Vajrayana, Geshe-la explains:

When we recite this line of the Praise we recall this special quality of Heruka that makes merely being in the presence of a pure Heruka practitioner a cause of liberation for others. There are two types of obstructions – the obstructions to liberation, or our delusions; and the obstructions to omniscience, or the karmic imprints of our past delusions. Merely being in Heruka’s presence dispels both of these, just as being exposed to the sun will melt ice cream. When we recite this line with faith, we imagine that our Heruka body attains these qualities and when others are merely in our presence, it functions as a cause of their enlightenment – even if we are doing nothing other than watching football together. We further imagine that Heruka’s body pervades all phenomena; and while our ordinary eyes may perceive the things we normally see, our wisdom eyes see Keajra Pure Land, which is nothing other than Heruka’s pure form body. By being Heruka in this world, the two obstructions of all living beings are dispelled away, all ordinary appearances and conceptions dissolve, and all beings awaken into a world of pure wonder.

Vows, commitments, and modern life: Don’t abandon the Mahayana or steal from the three jewels

January 18, 2025December 24, 2022 Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Abandoning the Mahayana.

This downfall is incurred if we reject any Mahayana scripture claiming that it is not Buddha’s teachings. It also occurs if we propagate views that contradict the Dharma and encourage others to practice such false teachings.

For most of us, it is highly unlikely that we would reject some Mahayana scripture claiming that it is not Buddha’s teachings. We have been explained the lineage of the teachings, and either we believe it or we think it is some elaborate lie Geshe-la has concocted. To my knowledge, despite all the criticism that has been lodged against the NKT over the years, nobody has ever disputed the lineage of the teachings.

But we are far more susceptible to the other means of breaking this vow, namely propagating false views and encouraging others to practice them. Every time I hit submit on this blog, I run the risk of doing this! Every time a teacher teaches, they run the risk of doing this. Every time any one of us speaks about the Dharma, we run the risk of doing this. Understanding this, some people fall into the extreme of thinking the only safe thing to do is to repeat exactly what Geshe-la said, and they get very nervous anytime somebody says something that they can’t directly trace back to some direct quote by Geshe-la. This is an extreme because we are encouraged to contemplate and meditate on the Dharma, not just parrot it. We need to transform what we read and listen to into our own understanding and personal experience. If Geshe-la didn’t want us to express the Dharma in our own words, then why would he have us discuss the Dharma in our centers or why would he train people to be teachers instead of just make available on the internet his books and teachings?

If we understand being a Dharma parrot is an extreme, how do we protect ourselves then against falling into the other extreme of inventing our own lineage? I think the answer is implicit in the way this vow is worded “…not contradict…” I once had a lengthy conversation with a few other teachers about this question in between sessions at an ITTP one year. What I am about to say should in no way be considered any sort of official answer to this question, but it is an accurate representation of our best faith answer to the question. We said when we have some understanding of the Dharma that we haven’t read anywhere in Geshe-la’s books, and we are not sure whether our new understanding is correct or not, we can perform the following tests:

Does this new understanding contradict in any way any known instructions?
Does this new understanding naturally and logically follow from contemplating the interactions and implications of all known instructions?
Have we made over a sufficiently long period of time a request to Dorje Shugden, our Dharma Protector, “If this new understanding is not correct, please sabotage it thoroughly within my mind”?
Does this new understanding take us “up the mountain” (as opposed to being a correct, but ultimately distracting side path)?
Does this new understanding survive spiritual debate with Sangha friends we respect?

If any new understanding can survive these five tests, then we can have a pretty high degree of confidence that it is at least not wrong for taking the next step. Geshe-la explained the meaning of the oral instructions are revealed primarily through blessings. He encourages us to “make our own commentary.” We contemplate the teachings, receive blessings, and come to some “understanding” of the meaning. We then work with those meanings, refining them over time, receiving more blessings, contemplating more deeply, and gradually refine our commentary until it is exactly perfect. This is our understanding of the meaning. We actually never stop this process until we are a Buddha, and even then, we may adapt our commentary to the changing karmic dispositions of how people process received information. If we do, however, share our new understandings with others we should make explicitly clear that what we are saying is our own personal understanding after having contemplated the Dharma and made clear that others should not consider what we think to be definitive in any way. They should investigate matter for themselves. Of course it would grow tiresome to say this in front of every sentence, so it is really more an issue of our “style” in how we present things. If we pretend we are some great scholar or yogi and make definitive proclamations about the “truth”, then we are in grave danger of making a right-darned fool of ourselves! But if instead, we say things like “it seems to me,” and “from my perspective,” or “I don’t know if this is right, but…” etc., then there is little danger of people misunderstanding.

A final way, of course, we can abandon the Mahayana is to stop practicing or to put some sort of explicit limitation on who we will generate love, compassion and bodhichitta for. This doesn’t mean we are breaking the vow if we have not yet generated a qualified universal compassion, but it does mean we break the vow if we say “I will attain enlightenment for all beings except this person.”

Stealing property from the Three Jewels.

We incur this downfall if we steal anything that has been offered to the Three Jewels. Besides the obvious meaning of embezzling funds or actually stealing something from a Dharma center or some practitioner, this vow has many more subtle implications.

While it is true that all Dharma centers say, “nobody will be refused for an inability to pay,” if we do make a commitment to pay a certain amount and then fail to follow up on that commitment, it is stealing. The administrative directors of all centers will say the same thing, “do what you can afford, and don’t worry.” All we need to do is discuss our situation with them and reach an agreement about what we can commit to, even if it is only $1 or nothing, but we will help clean up afterwards, something. But if we fail to do this and sneak in hoping we can get away with not paying, and then afterwards think we got lucky that nobody stopped us, then this too is stealing. If we copy correspondence recordings we don’t have a right to and didn’t pay for, this too can be stealing. If we use any property (physical or intellectual) of the three jewels without asking their permission and if we could reasonably suspect that they wouldn’t want us to do so, then this too is stealing. If we are in doubt about this and are not willing to ask if it is OK for us to use their property because we are afraid they might give us an answer we don’t want to hear, then this too is a form of stealing.

Stealing from the three jewels is really a foolish thing to do. Since the three jewels use everything they have for the sake of all living beings in all their lives, stealing from them is karmically equivalent to stealing from all living beings in the worst possible way, namely stealing, even if only on the margin, their access to the Dharma.

A Pure Life: Motivation for Series

January 15, 2025December 31, 2024 Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part one of a 12-part series on how to skillfully train in the Eight Mahayana Precepts. The 15^th of every month is Precepts Day, when Kadampa practitioners around the world typically take and observe the Precepts.

Normally we think of our vows and commitments as an afterthought at best or as chains at worst. We have all taken our vows many times when we receive empowerments or when we engage in our daily practice, but most of us still have not started to take our practice of them seriously. We often swing from either the extreme of not even giving our vows a second thought to the extreme of beating ourselves up with them out of guilt for all the different ways we fall short. We swing from the extreme of over-interpreting the words “do your best” to mean “don’t even bother trying” to the extreme of thinking in absolutist terms about what they mean and imply. We quite often view them as rules or restrictions imposed from the outside, or we view them as constraints on our having any fun in life. To us, vows and commitments seem to restrict our freedom, but perhaps we accept we have to take them because we want to go to a given empowerment. Perhaps for our first few empowerments, we take them seriously; but later perhaps we scarcely give it a second thought that we are retaking them or that it means something. But the reality is, perhaps most of the time we rarely think about them and we make almost no effort whatsoever to train in them.

This series of posts will attempt to reverse our attitude towards our vows and commitments, in particular with respect to the Eight Mahayana Precepts. Instead of viewing them as restrictions on our freedom and fun, we can come to view them as an internal GPS guiding our way to the blissful city of enlightenment where the party never stops. If we wanted to go to a particular city, we program our GPS, hit go, and start driving. We happily follow the directions without feeling like we are being deprived of all the wonders on the side streets we could be exploring. When we miss a turn, we usually say a curse word, but then the GPS plans a new route, and we happily continue on our way. When we arrive at our destination, we think to ourselves, “this thing is great. How did I ever get around without one?”

It is exactly the same with our vows. We want to go to the city of enlightenment (our good motivation), the Eight Mahayana Precepts are like the directions the GPS gives us along the way to keep us on our chosen route, and if we follow them happily but persistently, they will definitely deliver us to our final destination. If we get lost or take a wrong turn, we don’t need to worry, because the GPS gives us new directions which we then follow. No matter how lost we become, no matter how many wrong turns we make, we always know if we just keep following the directions it gives us, we will eventually get there. It may take longer than what was originally planned (wrong turns), or there may be unexpected traffic (negative karma we need to purify), but if we just keep at it, we will get there.

I know some people think their GPS gets upset at them when they make wrong turns. But this is just our own anger at ourselves projecting our frustration onto the GPS voice. But nowadays, we can program our GPS with all sorts of different voices to choose one more pleasant. I actually know somebody whose GPS has the option of choosing the voice of a Porn Star (turn right, baby…)! In the same way, we need to make an effort of giving the Eight Mahayana Precepts “the right voice” within our mind. When we remember them or but up against them, we need to have them speak to us with the loving, understanding voice of our Spiritual Guide. We need to hear him chuckle and say, “don’t worry, be happy, just try.” The chuckle is important. The sign that we have proper renunciation is we are able to have a good laugh at ourselves and our delusions. It is OK and it is normal that we make a hash out of it. When we make mistakes, we learn from them and move on. We think beating ourselves up with guilt motivates us to do better, but it does not. Guilt is anger directed against ourselves. It destroys all joy in our training, and when we lose the joy, we lose our effort (effort is taking delight in engaging in our practices). Without effort, we have nothing. We might do our practice every day for aeons, but if we do not enjoy ourselves while trying, we actually have no effort and will therefore experience no results. If we want, we can give the Eight Mahayana Precepts the seductive voice of Vajrayogini calling us to join her at her place!

Our conception of freedom is completely wrong. Freedom is the ability to choose. But being a slave to every whim of our delusions is not freedom, it is bondage of an eternal order. True freedom is the ability to choose to pursue what we know is actually good for us. The Eight Mahayana Precepts run in exactly opposite of the direction our delusions want to go. Since we are still fooled by the lies of our delusions, we think if we follow them they will lead us to happiness. The reality is all delusions share the same final destination – the deepest hell. They all eventually lead us to the same place, but they trick us by painting an image of an illusory paradise just over the horizon. Duped again and again, we run towards suffering and away from true freedom.

There are three main reasons why we should train in the moral discipline of the Eight Mahayana Precepts. First, doing so creates the karmic causes to maintain the continuum of our Dharma practice without interruption between now and our eventual enlightenment. Second, doing so strengthens the power of our mindfulness and alertness, which are the two most important muscles for strong concentration. And third, moral discipline is the substantial cause of higher rebirth. We seek the highest rebirth of all – enlightenment – but getting there is often like climbing many, many flights of stairs. But it is a joyful climb, because the higher we go the more blissful we feel. And it is certainly better than the alternative of falling down the stairs…

In this series of posts, I will first explain a skillful attitude to adopt towards our training in the Mahayana Precepts, then explain how we do so with a bodhichitta motivation, then I will provide a brief commentary for how to actually take our precepts on Precepts Day, and finally, I will provide some practice suggestions for how to practice to each of the Eight Precepts. I will post these on the 15^th of every month as a way of marking Precepts Day and a reminder/encouragement for people to take this practice to heart. My hope by explaining all of this I might improve my own understanding and practice of the Precepts and then enjoy all the spiritual fruit that flows from this. If others are also able to benefit from these explanations, then it is all the better.

Vows, commitments, and modern life: Accept others’ apologies.

January 11, 2025December 24, 2022 Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Not accepting others’ apologies.

This vow means if someone who has harmed us later apologizes and we refuse to accept their apology, preferring to harbor a grudge, we incur a root downfall. Accepting other’s apologies is a fundamental component of defusing anger in this world. Anger is our greatest enemy. It destroys everything that is good, and it has the power to seize our heart and never let go. We have so little time in this world with a precious human life that we can’t waste even a moment of it harboring anger. When other’s apologize and we fail to accept their apology, then the heart of the other person hardens and their anger returns. If we accept their apology and then offer our own, it enables them to let go of their anger. This is an act of supreme compassion, and one that both Jesus and Ghandi praised highly.

Sometimes people will apologize to us without using words. It can sometimes just be glancing at us in a certain way or sending a smiley face through the internet.

One common mistake a lot of people make is they judge other people’s apologies as inadequate, and so therefore don’t accept them. We ask questions like, “you say you are sorry, but what exactly are you sorry for?” And if the other person doesn’t give the answer we seek, we then don’t accept their apology. Many times people will say, “I’m sorry” with an angry tone, and they are not really sorry about what they did, they just wish there wasn’t this problem with you and they want it to go away. We often fail to reject such apologies out of hand. But once again, if we don’t accept even this most meager of apologies, the other person will quickly revert back into their anger. If, instead, we accept such apologies and once again offer our own, then it gives the situation an opportunity to defuse itself.

We might object, “but the other person isn’t really sorry, so if we accept their hollow apology it lets them off the hook and they never then generate real regret for their past deeds.” Here we need to be skillful. First, it is not up to us to play God and try manipulate the other person into thinking certain things. All we can really do is look at our own mind in the mirror or Dharma and try to overcome our own delusions. It is not up to us to withhold the virtue of not accepting somebody’s apology because we think they were not sincere enough. Second, if we do accept their apology, then it helps disarm the tension and it opens up the space for them to look deeper within their own behavior. Third, often times it is precisely because their apology was hollow that our sincerely accepting it as genuine will have such a big effect because the difference between where their mind is at and where our mind is at is so great.

If we truly think it is counter-productive to them to accept their apology the way it was given, then at a minimum we can acknowledge that the other person regrets the fact that you are fighting about whatever the issue is. You can say something along the lines of, “I am sorry that we are fighting,” or “I am sorry for my contribution to this being a fight.” It can happen that the other person is completely wrong on the substance of the issue, but that should not distract us from our own role in transforming the disagreement into a fight.

Just as it is important to accept people’s apologies, it is also important to know how to accept others’ apologies. Generally speaking, when we accept somebody else’s apology we should make sure three things are present: (1) we express thanks to the other person for having the maturity to apologize, (2) we make some expression of regret for our own mistakes in the situation, especially those things that we think trouble the other person the most, and (3) we offer a shared laugh with the other person about how absurd we sometimes get. All three of these are very important. When we express appreciation for the effort the other person has made by apologizing, we reinforce that tendency and so make it more likely that the dynamic can continue in a positive direction. When we admit and apologize for our own mistakes it enables the other person to let go of their anger towards us for what we have done wrong. This is really important because most people are not perfect, so when they make the effort to apologize they expect us to do the same. Perhaps they shouldn’t have such expectations, but it is quite a normal expectation to have. When we fail to also apologize, then their anger can quickly return and they wind up walking back the apology they just made. Having a shared laugh with the other person is in many ways the most important step because it eliminates any last residuals of resentment and it creates the space for things to get back on good footing.

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Vows, commitments, and modern life: Don’t abandon the Mahayana or steal from the three jewels

A Pure Life: Motivation for Series

Vows, commitments, and modern life: Accept others’ apologies.

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