Vows, commitments, and modern life: Abandoning lying

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To abandon lying

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Pure Life: Don’t eat at inappropriate times

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

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

The precept here is to not eat at inappropriate times, which is typically understood to mean we do not eat after lunch.  The reason for this precept is not that it is inherently non-virtuous to eat after lunch, rather we do so as purification for all of the negative karma we have accumulated in our past lives related to food.

We all need food in order to survive. But we do not necessarily have to engage in negative actions in order to get our food. However, in our countless previous lives we have engaged in innumerable negative actions in pursuit of food. We see this in particular in the human realm, the animal realm, and the hungry ghost realm. In the human realm, people hunt or fish and kill animals for food.  In Joyful Path, Geshe-la tells the story of the man who was born in a resembling hell that during the day he was eaten by vicious animals, but at night he was visited by beautiful goddesses. This rebirth occured because in his past life he was a butcher, but made a promise to not kill animals at night. As a result, his practice of moral discipline led to him being visited by beautiful goddesses but his killing of animals during the day resulted in his rebirth being viciously attacked by animals. Many people hunt and fish thinking there is nothing wrong with it. But from a karmic perspective killing animals and killing fish is still killing.

We also see tremendous non-virtuous actions in the animal realm related to feeding. It is enough to watch Animal Planet or National Geographic documentaries about the animal realm to see what life is like and how virtually all day every day animals in the wild are either hunting other animals or being hunted.  The hungry ghost realm is worse still. Beings in the hungry ghost realm are almost never able to find food unless it has been specifically dedicated for them by kind practitioners. They engage in virtually every kind of negative action in pursuit of finding something to eat. Even if they acquire their food, the negative karma remains with them. We ourselves have been born countless times in the animal realm and in the hungry ghost realm, and as a result all of the negative karma we accumulated during those rebirths remains on our mind. If we do not purify this negative karma, it will eventually ripen.

When we take the precept to not eat after lunch, it is a practice of purification of our negative karma associated with food. The practice of purification can be understood according to the four opponent powers: the power of regret, the power of reliance, the power of the opponent force, and the power of promise. 

In this context, we aim to make our training in the precept of not eating after lunch a practice of purification. We generate the power of regret by contemplating deeply all of the negative karma we have created in this life and in our countless previous lives related to food. We should consider that we have not yet purified this negative karma and that it remains on our mind. If we do not purify it, we will inevitably suffer the negative consequences. We generate the power of reliance through engaging in the practice of actually taking the precepts. We imagine in the space in front of us is our spiritual guide in the aspect of Buddha Shakyamuni.  Our taking of the precept itself is relying upon the Dharma. If we are taking the precepts with our spiritual friends, us mutually encouraging each other to engage sincerely in our precepts practice is relying upon sangha. We generate the power of the opponent force by keeping our precept throughout the day. Every time the thought or tendency arises in our mind thinking that we should eat something, we can recall all of the negative karma that we have created with respect to food in the past and remind ourselves of are precept to not eat after lunch as purification. This mental action of keeping our precept functions as the direct opponent that we are engaging in out of regret. The power of the promise in this context is not the promise to just simply keep our precept for the day, but rather to refrain from engaging in negative actions associated with food in the future.

It is important to remind ourselves that we are all bound for the lower realms unless we purify. It is not a question of do we fall into the lower realms or not, nor is it like in Christianity where if we are 51% good we supposedly take rebirth in heaven. Rather, from a Buddhist perspective, everyone bound up in samsara will inevitably fall into the lower realms. Indeed, close to 99% of all living beings within samsara are in the lower realms. The lower realms are our actual home, and our present rebirth in the human realm is a very brief and very rare aberration from our normal state.

We also need to honestly acknowledge that up until now we have not taken the practice of purification seriously enough. If we had time bombs strapped to our back and we had no idea when they would go off, we would be extremely motivated to remove the timebombs from our back. Our situation is actually far more dangerous than this. We have countless karmic time bombs which could cause us to take lower rebirth and experience incalculable sufferings, and we have no idea when this karma will ripen or when we all die. It may happen today. We do not know. It is simply too dangerous to remain complacent and allow this negative karma to remain unpurified on our mind. This is the essential meaning of a pure life and the practice of the eight Mahayana precepts. We recognize we have created non virtuous karma by not following these precepts, and our training in them is a practice of purification aimed at solving this problem.

Embracing the Ruins of Our Life

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

Sometimes we find our life in ruins. Everything we have been working for and building has been wiped out or lay in ruins, with little hope of ever going back to how things were. Sometimes, even, we realize how our own past choices and mistakes led to such a state. It is easy at such times to fall into extremes of shame, guilt, hopelessness, and despair.

What to do?

Sometimes learning things the hard way leaves a deeper impression on our mind and so protects us from even worse in the future because we once and for all start avoiding repeating those same mistakes. Each time we confront the consequences of our past choices, we can take it as a reminder of these lessons.

But the key, I think, is to make sure we are 100% avoiding guilt and beating ourselves up about it. That just gets in the way, and in fact is its own form of self-anger, so still a delusion and negative action (self-harm).

We need to accept where we are at, both externally in terms of our situation and internally in terms of the nexus of delusions and negative karma that led us to our present circumstances and that still remain within our mind.

To accept where we are at means to be at peace with it. OK, this is where I find myself. I know how I got here and I am at peace with that too, free from any guilt or discouragement. Now, I rebuild from here. We need to accept the rubble of our past wars before we can start cleaning it up and building something new, something better.

When we confront the reality of our situation, such as ruined relationships, those we love falling into the abyss, financial difficulties, health problems, addictions, anxiety, depression, discouragement, bitterness or despair, we need to learn to accept that too.

These outer and inner circumstances give us an opportunity to let go of our attachments to these things. These attachments have led us to countless problems in the past. Our present circumstances give us the chance to finally let them go. This doesn’t mean we abandon, for example, our efforts to have healthy, meaningful relationships nor does it mean we don’t try improve our financial situation if we can, but it does mean we let go of our attachments thinking these things matter for our happiness. They don’t.

Our happiness depends upon whether our mind is at peace with both our external and our internal circumstance. Going forward, it depends on whether we deepen that peace through lamrim, lojong, and mahamudra. This is our task now, if we choose to accept it as the main purpose of what time we have left.

I, of course, realize as I write this that in truth I’m writing to myself. These are exactly the things I need to realize towards my own situation. As somebody close to me often says, “it is what it is.” OK, no problem, we build something new from here – both externally and internally. We try do so on the foundation of the lessons learned seeing the ruins of our present life and that of those we love. We can’t control whether others learn their lessons, but we can learn the lessons from their life for them with a bodhichitta motivation. We collect these realizations now so we can share it with them in the future when they are ready, or at the very least we set a good example they may or may not appreciate.

So yeah, sometimes it is a total wipeout. Sometimes we lose everything. Sometimes even we realize our own role in the situation we find ourself in. Great. We now learn our lessons, let go of any guilt, and get to work on building something new, both externally and internally. Something better, something healthier, something more stable, something more peaceful. The choice is ours. Our future is too. What our future looks like depends upon what we do now. Accept the ruins, yes; lament them, no.

Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, Dorje Shugden, Heruka, please fill my mind with your blessings to accept the ruins of my life, clean up its mess, learn its lessons, and build something better from here, for my own sake, for the sake of all those I love, and for the sake of all others who might find themselves in similar situations.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Abandoning sexual misconduct.

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To abandon sexual misconduct

For this vow, the object of our sexual misconduct is if we have a vow of celibacy, it is any other person; if we are not celibate and we have a partner, it is anyone other than our partner; if we are not celibate and do not have a partner, it is anyone else’s partner, our own parent, a child, anyone with a vow of celibacy, pregnant women, animals, or anyone who does not consent.  As far as the intention is concerned, we must know that they are an object of sexual misconduct.  We must be determined to commit sexual misconduct.  And we must be motivated by delusion.  Usually it is committed out of desirous attachment.  As far as the preparation is concerned, there are many ways to engage in this action but we already know all those!  This action is complete when sexual bliss is experienced by means of the union of the two sex organs.  This last point on the action being completed sometimes gives rise to the question, “well then is it sexual misconduct if our sex organs do not come into union?”  The answer to this question is very simple:  if you think your partner would object, then it is not OK.  Full stop.

Please note, within Kadampa Buddhism, heterosexuality and homosexuality are treated in exactly the same way, there is no difference.  Please note, it also does not include masturbation (though for ordained people, this does weaken their vows, though it doesn’t break them).  Finally please note, this also doesn’t say it is wrong to engage in sexual activity for reasons other than procreation, it says nothing about anything being wrong with birth control, etc., etc., etc. 

I have posted in the past why people engage in affairs (you can find it by doing a search of the archive).  The short version is we relate to our partner and to sexual activity in the same way we relate to any other object of attachment, like pizza.  The first few pieces are good, but the more we eat the less we enjoy it.  Other foods start to look more appealing, so we switch to eating something else.  This is the completely wrong understanding of sexual actions.  Sexual actions are opportunities to cherish others and give them happiness, not something we consume for ourselves.  We derive our enjoyment from loving others and making them happy.  Sexual activity is an opportunity to draw very close to somebody else and deepen a relationship.  If we don’t get our attitude towards sexual activity correct, then even if it is not sexual misconduct, it is still not necessarily a good thing for us. 

It is not at all uncommon for one partner in a couple to have stronger sexual desire than the other, and this can be a source of frustration and a temptation to go elsewhere.  Aside from the fact that there are other means to relieve oneself, we should view these gaps in sexual desire as emanated by Dorje Shugden to give us an opportunity to bring our sexual attachment under a bit more control.  In this sense, it is a similitude of the ordination vows of celibacy.  We are essentially saying we will be celibate with everybody except our partner.  Bringing our sexual attachment under control is not easy, but it is still necessary.  Buddha said the three biggest chains holding us in samsara are sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll (well, those weren’t his exact words, but the meaning was the same).  If we don’t bring our sexual attachment under control, it will be very difficult to escape from samsara.  From this perspective, the difference between an ordained person and a lay person in a committed relationship is not that different.  We have much we can learn from each other.

If we have strong sexual attachment, we can pursue a multi-prong strategy.  First, we should read Chapter 8 in Meaningful to Behold again and again to help us reduce our exaggerated notions of the attractiveness of another human body.  I love breasts, I will admit it, but if we check they are just bags of fat.  Second, as best we can, we should avoid things that fuel the fire, such as pornography, etc.  But the reality is sexual imagery is omni-present in our society, so there is no avoiding it.  But there is a difference between encountering it as we go about our life and seeking it out compulsively. 

Third, and this is the most important, we need to get to the point where we want to get out of samsara more than we want its pleasures.  We are desire realm beings, which means we have no choice but to pursue our desires.  If in our heart our desire is still dominated by sexual attachment, if we try to force ourselves to avoid making contact, etc., then all we will do is just repress the desires.  They will build up, and eventually we will give in and do something we subsequently regret.  This is not Dharma practice.  Dharma practice is a very active process of picking apart and reducing our desirous attachment primarily by (1) reducing our exaggerated attitudes down to something in line with the underlying reality of what is actually there, and (2) considering the disadvantages of following the delusion.  There are few delusions that create more problems for living beings than sexual attachment.  Just open any newspaper or consider your own life for more than 3 seconds and you will have plenty of material to work with.  At the same time, we need to consider the advantages of not following the delusion.  Every time a delusion arises but we choose to not follow it understanding it to be deceptive, we are engaging in the practice of moral discipline.  Each action of moral discipline creates the cause for a higher rebirth.  So quite literally, if in a given 5-minute period we successfully see through the lies of our sexual attachment and not follow it, say 20 times, then we just created 20 causes for 20 future higher rebirths.  What will bring more happiness, five minutes of some porn video or an entire lifetime in the upper realms?  Are we ready to sacrifice one for the other?  If so, which one will we sacrifice?  If we value the happiness of our future lives as much as we value our present happiness (the definition of a spiritual being) then the choice becomes obvious. 

There is much more that can be said, but I will stop here. 

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of mental stabilization

Kadampa Ryan Tsog Days

In order to remember and mark our tsog days, holy days on the Kadampa calendar, I am sharing my understanding of the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide with tsog.  This is part 39 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of mental stabilization
By abandoning the faults of mental sinking, mental excitement, and mental wandering,
And concentrating in single-pointed absorption
On the state that is the lack of true existence of all phenomena.

Happiness is a state of mind, therefore its cause comes from within the mind. In the preface of virtually every book Geshe-la has written and in the first class of every general program course taught in Dharma centers around the world, we are taught that the cause of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, then we are happy regardless of what is happening externally. And if our mind is unpeaceful, we are unhappy regardless of what is happening externally. This shows that inner peace is the true cause of happiness. What then is the cause of inner peace? Mixing our mind with virtue. The more we mix our mind with virtue, the more our mind becomes peaceful both now, while we are mixing our mind with virtue, and in the future, when the karmic effects of our mental action of mixing our mind with virtue ripen. Concentration is being able to mix our mind with virtue single-pointedly, free from all distractions. The perfection of concentration is concentrating on virtue with the bodhicitta motivation.

There are three main faults to be abandoned when training in concentration: mental excitement, mental sinking, and mental wandering. Our mind naturally goes towards whatever it thinks is a cause of happiness. Because we currently think external objects of attachment are the cause of happiness, our mind naturally moves towards them. When our mind moves towards an object of attachment, this is mental excitement. Mental sinking is when our mind gradually loses clarity and focus of whatever it is we are trying to concentrate on. It becomes dull, heavy, and we can even fall asleep. Mental wandering is when our mind moves to some other object of Dharma that is not our chosen object of meditation. While technically not a delusion, it is a distraction. We overcome mental excitement by considering the relative benefits of thinking about our object of attachment compared with thinking about our object of Dharma, and then choosing to return our mind to the object of Dharma. We overcome mental sinking by uplifting our mind, improving our posture, and restoring our object of meditation by renewing the contemplation. We overcome mental wandering by reminding ourselves that our chosen object of meditation is not what our mind has wandered towards, and that allowing mental wandering can become a bad habit preventing us from ever making progress along the path.

Improving our concentration occurs in stages, called the mental abidings. With the first mental abiding, we are able to meditate on our object single-pointedly for one minute. On the second mental abiding, we are able to concentrate on our object without distraction for five minutes. With the third mental abiding, every time we forget our object of meditation, we are able to regenerate it very quickly, like effortlessly picking up a ball we just dropped. And on the fourth mental abiding we overcome all faults of gross mental sinking and gross mental excitement for our entire meditation session. In other words, we never completely forget our object of meditation, but we may still have subtle faults to our concentration, such as subtle mental sinking and subtle mental excitement. If we attain the fourth mental abiding on an object of meditation, we can then enter into retreat and it is said we can attain tranquil abiding within six months. Tranquil abiding is an extremely powerful mind of concentration that is free from all gross and subtle mental seeking and mental excitement and is able to remain single-pointedly focused on our object of meditation for as long as we wish, indeed for the rest of our life.

The mind of tranquil abiding is equivalent to a first form realm god mind. Just as it is possible to have a human body but have the mind of a hell being, so too it is possible to have a human body but the mind of a god. Even in sutra, tranquil biting is not the pinnacle of our concentration, but rather the first major milestone in improving our concentration. Our mind can move further and further up into the god realms, attaining increasingly profound levels of concentration, up to an including the peak of samsara. A detailed explanation of these different levels of concentration can be found in the book Ocean of Nectar.

According to tantra, the very subtle mind of great bliss is infinitely more powerful than the mind of tranquil abiding. It is also much easier to generate the mind of great bliss than it is to attain tranquil abiding. Geshe-la explains in and Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that if we can attain the fourth mental abiding on the indestructible drop at our heart, our winds will enter, abide, and dissolve into our central channel. We will then perceive the eight dissolutions until eventually we arrive at the very subtle mind of the clear light of bliss. Through further training in the five stages of completion stage of Heruka, we can increase the quality with which we are able to cause our inner winds to enter, abide, and dissolve into our central channel and thereby generate increasingly qualified experiences of the mind of clear light of bliss. The mind of clear light is the most concentrated mind possible. Why is this? The reason is our mind naturally moves towards whatever we consider to be a cause of happiness. But since there is no experience more sublime than great bliss, our mind has no desire whatsoever to go anywhere else because to do so would be to move from the most pleasant state possible to something less pleasant. Thus, our mind settles into the clear light of bliss much like a marble would settle at the bottom of a bowl.

Happy Tara Day: May the Dharma and all good fortune flourish

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

This is the tenth installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.

May I strive in my practice of sacred Dharma and increase my realizations,
May I always accomplish you and behold your sublime face;
And may my understanding of emptiness and the precious bodhichitta
Increase and grow like a waxing moon.

Every once in a while, there are these people who show up to our Dharma centers for whom everything comes easily.  They seem to walk into the door with realizations and Dharma comes to them quite instinctively.  This happens when people have a lot of imprints from Dharma practice in previous lives.  But sometimes, because everything comes so easily, they never learn how to apply effort to their practice and at some point their imprints exhaust themselves.  Once it starts to get more difficult, they sometimes drift away or experience some sort of spiritual crisis.  With effort, eventually all attainments will come.  Without effort, we are just burning up our good karma.  It can also happen where we become complacent with our spiritual progress.  We have enough Dharma wisdom in our mind to be happy in this life, and that is good enough for us.  Of course we would never admit that this is the case, but our actions sometimes speak louder than our words.  To protect ourselves against this, we pray to Tara that we always feel inspired to strive in our practice of Dharma, and that we never become content with our spiritual progress until we have attained the final goal.

May I be born from a sacred and most beautiful lotus
In the excellent, joyful mandala of the Conqueror;
And there may I accomplish the prophecy I receive
Directly from Conqueror Amitabha.

Being born anywhere in samsara, even as a Dharma practitioner, is very dangerous.  There is always the risk that we become sidetracked or distracted by samsara’s pleasures and then waste our precious human life, burning up our virtuous karma, and then we die.  There is also the risk that powerful negativity could ripen, resulting is us engaging in negative actions or experiencing terrible misfortune.  The greatest danger is we die with a negative or deluded mind, and then fall into the lower realms, losing the path for possibly eons.  The only way to protect ourselves from these dangers is to attain rebirth in a pure land.  A Buddha’s pure land is like a Bodhsiattva’s training camp. We are able to receive teachings directly from Buddhas, are protected from strong negativity, and are able to progress along the spiritual path.  If we can remember Tara at the time of our death, she will bless our mind and take us to her pure land.  There, we can continue with our training and our eventual enlightenment is guaranteed.  While technically not free from samsara, from a practical point of view, it will be as if we have escaped from all uncontrolled rebirth.

O Goddess upon whom I have relied in previous lives,
Embodiment of the divine actions of all the Buddhas of the three times,
Bluish-green One with one face and two hands,
O Swift Pacifier, Mother holding an upala, may everything be auspicious.

We all have different biological mothers, but Tara is our common spiritual mother.  She cares for and nurtures our spiritual life in the same way our regular mother cares for our physical life.  But we need to create the causes for Tara to continue to be our spiritual mother in all of our future lives.  Tara will never stop loving us, but from our side we can drift away from her, making it harder for her to care for us.  If, in contrast, we always stay close to her, she will always care for us spiritually in this and all our future lives.  As explained earlier, every action we engage in creates four karmic potentialities:  tendency similar to the cause, effect similar to the cause, environmental effect, and the ripened effect.  The ripened effect is the potential to take a rebirth similar in nature to the action we engage in, for example an action of hot anger creates the cause for rebirth in a hot hell.  Whenever we engage in an action of pure faith and reliance upon Tara, such as engaging in our Tara practice, we create a ripened effect to be reborn with her as our spiritual mother.  If throughout our life, on every Tara day, we make a point to engage in Tara practice, we will create a rich reservoir of virtuous karma to have her continue to be our spiritual mother in all of our future lives.  For myself, in addition to engaging in Tara practice on the 8th of every month, I dedicate every day that Tara always be my spiritual mother.  If she will always be my mother, what will I possibly have to fear?

O Conqueror Mother Tara,
Whatever your body, retinue, life span and Pure Land,
And whatever your supreme and excellent name,
May I and all others attain only these.

Buddhas appear in many different forms, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist.  While I haven’t heard Geshe-la say so, I have heard many people say that Jesus’ mother Mary was also an emanation of Tara.  This does make sense and there is certainly no harm in believing this to be true.  Regardless, Tara’s emanations pervade the whole world and appear in many different forms to help living beings, and especially Kadampa practitioners.  Can we say with any certainty that the very device we are reading this post on is not emanated by Tara?  I would say as soon as we believe something is an emanation of Tara, it becomes that for us.  If we view everything as emanated by Tara, then for us, everything will be.  When we recite this verse, we should pray that we gain the wisdom to view everything as emanated by her for our spiritual training.

Through the force of my making these praises and requests to you,
Please pacify all sickness, poverty, misfortune, fighting and quarrelling,
Throughout all directions where I and others live,
And cause the Dharma and all good fortune to flourish.

Most of our experiences in samsara are difficult.  Occasionally, things go “well,” but most of the time, life is a constant struggle.  Sickness, poverty, misfortune, fighting, and quarreling come like waves of the ocean, one after the other, just in different forms.  It is true that we can learn to surf this suffering, but sometimes it is nice to not have constant problems so we can spend time building something good within our mind.  Just as our ordinary mother would create safe spaces for us to play, so too Tara can create safe spaces for us to develop our mind.  For example, we now have international retreat centers, international and national festivals, Dharma centers, facebook groups, etc.  All of these are spaces carved out of samsara where we can develop ourselves spiritually in relative peace, free from major obstacles or obstructions.  Internally, we may still need to battle our delusions in these spaces, but even that is easier than doing so out in the savage lands of samsara.  Understanding she can help us in this way, we pray that she protect us and our practice so that the Dharma and all good fortune can flourish.

How to Welcome the Worst Case Scenarios

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

Sometimes we worry about worst case scenarios; and sometimes even, the worst case scenario comes to pass. How can we learn to be mentally at peace with this? For me, I think the key to avoiding such worry about the future or despondency when adversity actually strikes is the practice of patient acceptance. This, for me, is the main point of the book How to Solve our Human Problems.

When things go badly in our life, most people will tell us something like, “this too will pass” or try give us some sort of hope that things will externally get better.

This may reassure us some, but such ways of thinking often leave us still worried that things might not improve and we think we can’t be happy if they don’t. Our mind is still attached to things being a certain way externally for us to be happy. But when we have a mind of patient acceptance towards the possibility that things could remain bad (or even get worse), we know how to keep our mind at peace with respect to the possibility that things remain as they are, then we can let go of that worry. In other words, we will know how to be happy if things improve and how to still be happy if they do not.

How can we get ourself to that point? The key for me is realizing how the difficult situation is in fact perfect for my Dharma practice. If I know how to transform the difficult situation (or the possible arising of my worst fears) into the path, then I will begin to understand Shantideva’s perspective that “suffering has many good qualities.” It still sucks from the perspective of my worldly concerns, but it is great with respect to my spiritual aspirations to purify my negative karma, generate authentic renunciation and bodhichitta, and even train in tantric pure view with respect to what would otherwise be considered awful circumstances.

Our training in Lojong – specifically the teachings from Universal Compassion and Eight Steps to Happiness – will give us the tools we need to transform our suffering into rocket fuel for our swiftest possible enlightenment.

To help gain this ability, I think it is foundational to surrender our lives completely to Dorje Shugden’s care. His job is to arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment. At one level, he does this through helping control what karma ripens (and what karma doesn’t) so that whatever happens is what we need next for our spiritual training, but at a more profound level he grants us the wisdom blessings to see and understand how what has happened (or what horrible thing could possibly happen) – no matter how terrible it might be – is in fact perfect for our spiritual development.

But this only works if our aspiration for spiritual development is stronger than our worldly concerns for a pleasant, easy life. If we still want a pleasant, easy life MORE than we want spiritual growth, then we may see how our present difficult circumstances (or even our feared worst case scenario) would be perfect for our spiritual training, but we don’t care! We want life to be good!

To address this problem, we need a deep and consistent practice of Sutra Lamrim. Sutra Lamrim (Joyful Path of Good Fortune, Meditation Handbook, etc.) primarily functions to change our aspirations from worldly ones to spiritual ones – generating greater concern for our own and others well being in our countless future lives than our concern for this life alone.

In short, when we have a deep and stable practice of Lamrim, then our spiritual desires are greater than our worldly ones, so when we receive Dorje Shugden’s wisdom blessings helping us see how our difficult situation – or the worst case scenarios we worry about – are in fact perfect for our spiritual development, we will no longer fear the worst but have the ability to be at peace with the possibility it could happen. We may even perhaps relish the possibility of it happening because we know such challenges will push us to attain enlightenment even more swiftly.

Then, we can be at peace with the possibility things get better and with the possibility that things might stay bad or even get worse.

In other words, we will know and have the ability to be happy all the time, no matter how bad things might get. Exactly what Venerable Geshe-la has promised us.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Abandoning killing and stealing

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

To abandon killing. 

Geshe-la explains the object of killing is any other being from the smallest insect to a Buddha.  As explained above, four factors must be present.  First, for our intention, we must have correct identification of the person we intend to kill.  We also need a determination to kill the person we have correctly identified.  Killing by accident is not a complete action.  Our mind must also be influenced by delusion, specifically anger, attachment, or ignorance.  It is possible to kill out of compassion to save the lives of others, but this requires great wisdom and courage.  Killing out of compassion is not a downfall, since compassion is not a delusion.  The action also requires preparation, namely we prepare the means to engage in the action.  This includes having others do the action for us or engaging in the action as a group.  Finally, it requires the completion – the action must be completed, the person actually is killed.

The reality is we are killing all the time.  Every time we scratch our arm, we are no doubt killing thousands of tiny bacteria or microbes.  Even if we don’t eat meat, we are indirectly killing thousands who died in the rice paddies or to the pesticides sprayed on our food.  Samsara is a slaughterhouse, and everything we do essentially kills.  This doesn’t mean we are doomed and it also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother trying to not kill because it is unavoidable.  What it means is we need to do our best to lead as low impact of a life as we can.  We should work gradually to kill less and less while working within our capacity and the karmic conditions we find ourselves in.

To abandon stealing. 

The object of stealing is anything that someone else regards as their own.  This includes other living beings.  If we take something that no one claims to possess, the action of stealing is not complete.  Like with killing, the intention must include a correct identification of the object of stealing, a determination to steal, and our mind must be influenced by delusion, usually desirous attachment, but sometimes out of hatred of wishing to harm our enemy.  It can also sometimes be out of ignorance thinking their stealing is justified such as not paying taxes or fines, or stealing from our employer is OK.  Stealing also requires preparation.  It may be done secretly or openly, using methods such as bribery, blackmail, or emotional manipulation.  Finally, it must also include completion.  The action is complete when we think to ourself ‘this object is now mine.’

In modern life we have countless opportunities to steal and we often take advantage of most of them.  Common examples include not giving money back when we have been given too much change at the store, accidentally walking out with some good we didn’t purchase and not making an effort to go back and pay for it, stealing work supplies from work for our personal use, stealing our employers time by doing personal things on company time beyond what is conventionally acceptable in your work place (most work environments allow you a limited amount of personal administrative time.  The point is don’t go beyond what is intended by your employer).  Another very common form of stealing is lying on our taxes so that we pay less.  We come up with all sorts of justifications for why this is OK, but it is still stealing.  Stealing can also include saying certain clever things to cause something to come to us when it would otherwise normally go to somebody else.  One of the most common forms of stealing these days is downloading pirated music or videos, or copying and using software we didn’t pay for.  Again, our rationalizations for such behavior know no limits, but it is still stealing.  The test for whether we are stealing or not is very simple:  if we asked the creator of the piece, would they say it’s legitimately ours?  If not, it was stealing.

Stealing is incredibly short-sighted.  Anybody who feels tempted to steal should take a few hours driving through a really poor neighborhood or they should go visit a very poor country or watch a documentary on global poverty.  You can find plenty of material just on YouTube.  When we see these things, we should remind ourselves that this is our future if we steal.  When we steal we create the causes to have nothing in the future.  Giving is the cause of wealth, taking is the cause of poverty.  It is as simple as that.  Why are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so rich?  Because they have the mental habits on their mind to give away everything.  Because they did this in the past, they become incredibly rich in this life.  Because they are again giving away all their wealth, in future lives they will again be incredibly rich.  Just as they are external philanthropists, a Bodhisattva is an inner philanthropist.  We seek vast inner wealth so that we can have even more to give away. 

Happy Protector Day: Helping the Pure Kadam Dharma Flourish

Kadampa Ryan 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden, Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 9 of a 12-part series aimed at helping us remember our Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden and increase our faith in him on these special days.

All my harmful thoughts and actions
That have offended your mind, O Great Protector,
I confess from the depths of my heart.
Please purify them swiftly, and care for me with love, like a mother for her child.

With this verse, we can purify all the negative karma that obstructs our ability to receive the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.  Such negative karma is like interference preventing a reception of our mobile phones or junk clogging up the arteries of a person.  We can generate a regret for whatever we have done in the past which has created negative karma preventing us from receiving the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.  Then we strongly imagine from Dorje Shugden purifying light rays and nectars flow down and touch all the beings inside the protection circle, ourself included, purifying all of the negative karma obstructing us from receiving Dorje Shugden’s care and protection.  We then strongly believe that all of these being are now without obstruction.

I beseech you from the depths of my heart, O Supreme Deity,
Please cause the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa to flourish,
Extend the life and activities of the glorious Gurus,
And increase the study and practice of Dharma within the Dharma communities.

We can understand this as follows:  The key point here is we realize how the Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa is the solution to all the problems of all beings.  The reason why beings suffer is because they too are trapped in a dream-like world of suffering created by their own self-centered minds.  They need to wake up from this dream into the pure world of the Buddhas.  The Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa provides a solution for destroying this self-centered mind, thereby enabling all beings to wake up from their worlds of suffering.  This is the solution to all of their problems.

Please be with me always like the shadow of my body,
And grant me your unwavering care and protection.
Destroy all obstacles and adverse conditions,
Bestow favourable conditions, and fulfil all my wishes.

Here we request Dorje Shugden to accomplish his main function, namely to arrange perfect conditions and to eliminate obstacles to our practice.  There are two types of condition:   When we are confronted with a situation which we think could be better, we request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.  If the external situation changes, then we know the situation was beyond our capacity and we can use that to develop bodhichitta, wishing later to have a capacity that can transform anything and everything.  If the external situation remains the same (or gets worse) then we can know that we need to work on the delusions that this situation generates for us.  We can equally do this with internal conditions.  An important thing worth noting at this point is Dorje Shugden will arrange what is best for our practice, not what is necessarily best for our worldly concerns.  We might even say Mick Jagger is actually part of Dorje Shugden’s mandala when he sung ‘you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.’

Now is the time to show clearly your versatile strength
Through your four actions, which are swift, incisive, and unobstructed,
To fulfil quickly my special heartfelt desires
In accordance with my wishes;

Here we request Dorje Shugden to arrange whatever is best in general, in his own mysterious ways and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function. Ask people their Dorje Shugden stories when you are at festivals, and you will be amazed.  If our motivation is pure, he can arrange anything.

Now is the time to distinguish the truth and falsity of actions and effects;

Here we request him to make clear the relationship between cause and effect for all the beings within the protection circle.  At present, we think negativity is entertainment and exciting and we think virtue is boring.  In reality, negativity creates the cause for enormous suffering and virtue is the cause of all happiness.  Here we request that Dorje Shugden to bestow special wisdom blessings on all beings within the protection circle so they naturally, from their own side, make good choices.

Now is the time to dispel false accusations against the innocent;

Here we request Dorje Shugden to enable all beings within the protection circle to stop making mistaken and false imputations on others, but to correctly impute onto everybody ‘emanation of my spiritual guide’ and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.  At present, we impute onto others ‘object of attachment’ ‘object of aversion’ or ‘irrelevant.’  These are false accusations we impute on others, and we relate to them as if they were really these things from their own side.  This creates all our problems.  The only valid imputation of anybody is ‘emanation of my spiritual guide.’  The ultimate nature of all things is the Dharmakaya, so it is correct to say that everybody is an emanation of my spiritual guide.

Now is the time to protect the pitiful and protectorless;

The reason why people are pitiful and protectorless is because we have been neglecting them.  Their experience is what we have karmically created for them in our empty dream.  So here we request that he provide protection for all the beings we have been neglecting and imagine that a protection circle radiates out accomplishing this function.

Now is the time to protect Dharma practitioners as your children.

It is particularly important to provide care and protection for Dharma practitioners because by helping them directly, indirectly it helps all living beings since they have vowed to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.  It is like opening up a second cash register at the supermarket.  Everybody gets through the line twice as fast.

In short, from now until I attain the essence of enlightenment,
I shall honour you as the embodiment of my Guru, Deity, and Protector.
Therefore please watch over me during the three periods of the day and the night
And never waver in your actions as my Protector.

The biggest fear of a Dharma practitioner is the fear of losing the path.  If we do not lose the path, we have nothing to fear; but if we do lose the path, we have all of samsara to fear.  When we recite this verse, we are creating the causes to be able to meet Dorje Shugden and rely upon him again in all our future lives.  In this way, we maintain the continuum of our practice and go from joy to joy until we attain enlightenment.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Understanding the Pratimoksha vows

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

The Pratimoksha vows are the vows of individual liberation.  Just as the refuge vows primarily function to maintain an uninterrupted continuum of our Buddhist practice between now and our eventual enlightenment, so too training in the Pratimoksha vows primarily functions to maintain an uninterrupted continuum of our intermediate scope practice between now and our eventual enlightenment.  This is important because there are many spiritual paths in the world which will help us attain a better rebirth in samsara, but there are few paths indeed which will help us actually get out of samsara.  In fact, we can say only those paths which teach the Madhyamika Prasangika view of emptiness will actually lead to liberation from samsara as defined by the Buddhist path.  I am not saying attaining a better rebirth within samsara is not good, rather I am saying it is just not good enough. 

What does it mean to escape from samsara?  To answer this question, we need to know what is samsara.  Samsara is uncontrolled rebirth into contaminated aggregates.  Humans suffer from human suffering because they uncontrolledly project their I onto human aggregates of body and mind.  Animals suffer from animal suffering because they uncontrolledly impute their I onto an animal’s body and mind.  The same is true for hungry spirits, hell beings, demi-gods, and gods.  To escape from samsara is to gain control over what we impute our I onto.  When we have such control, instead of uncontrolledly imputing it onto the body and mind of a samsaric being, we controlledly impute it onto the body and mind of a liberated or enlightened being.  When we can do this, we will have become ourselves a liberated or enlightened being.

At a practical level, we can say our samsara is our delusions and our dying body.  Our delusions and our dying body create all sorts of problems for us that we are forced to endure.  If we can learn to break our identification with our delusions and our body, then what happens to them will not be happening to us.

At a more profound level, samsara can best be thought of as us being trapped in an uncontrolled dream.  Right now, our dream is not too bad!  We are human, have all our faculties, sufficient resources, pleasant surroundings, etc.  But this will not last.  We know this because the karma giving rise to such appearances is quickly exhausting itself and we are doing little to nothing to create more karma for similar lives.  Once we have burned up our merit giving rise to this particular pleasant dream, it will revert to something much more awful.  Once that happens, it will be almost impossible to get back to the good dream, like the sea turtle trying to get its head through that golden yoke.  It is said that it is easier to attain enlightenment (wake up from the karmic dream) once we have become human than it is to become human again after we have fallen into a lower state. 

I once had a dream where I was being chased by some monsters.  They trapped me and there was no escape.  But then I realized I was dreaming and I requested blessings to be able to wake up.  I then did, and I escaped the monsters.  There was no escape in the dream, but there was an escape by waking up.  It is exactly the same with samsara.  We can travel anywhere within samsara and we will find no escape.  There is no hiding within samsara from its inevitable sufferings.  The only way to escape them is to wake up.  Waking up is not easy.  It runs counter to almost all the mental habits we have built up since beginningless time.  But if we don’t encounter a path that leads to us waking up, then waking up is actually impossible.  We will remain trapped forever.  So our choice is rather stark:  either we train in our Pratimoksha vows and be guaranteed to eventually awake or we don’t and remain trapped forever.  There is, unfortunately, no middle ground.

This does not mean we need to keep them all perfectly.  Rather, it means we need to never abandon the intention to keep trying to do a little bit better every day.  If we maintain this intention, and carry it with us into our death, we will refind the path again in our next life.  Some people have a mistaken understanding that somehow the Pratimoksha vows are different than the other vows.  We believe that somehow these vows are black and white, on or off, and that we don’t just maintain our intention to do our best.  This may be true for ordained Sangha with regard to certain vows, but even there there are many shades of gray.   But for lay practitioners, we should consider such vows like we do any other.  We do our best to do a little bit better every day.  It is better to keep them imperfectly and be happy about our training than to expect perfection, fall short and then do nothing. 

At a very technical level, the Pratimoksha vows are broken when four factors are present:  The object, the intention, the preparation, and the completion.  A full intention requires three factors to be present:  correct discrimination, determination, and delusion.  To be authentic Pratimoksha vows they must be taken with at least a motivation of renunciation.

If we have not yet received Pratimoksha vows, we should request our local teacher to grant them and to provide a commentary.  In subsequent posts, I will explain each lay Pratimoksha vow in turn.