Easter for a Kadampa – Becoming the Way:

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days, My Kadampa understanding of the Bible

For Christians, Easter is about Jesus conquering death himself and becoming the way out for all of his followers. Buddha had his Bodhi Tree. Jesus had his cross and resurrection. As Kadampa Highest Yoga Tantra practitioners, we have the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra.

Jesus had his stations of the cross. For Kadampas, there are multiple stations en our route to the clear light. We need to center ourselves peacefully in each, gradually building this way out within our mind – both for ourself and for others.

The first would be refuge in the three jewels. Then, moving inward, would be the charnel grounds. Then, inside Keajra’s protection circle. Then, inside the celestial mansion and mandala as our gross deity body. Then, inside the principal father and mother of the body mandala. Then, inside the crystal palace of our indestructible drop. Then, inside the indestructible wind and mind in the aspect of the nada.

Then, progressively through the appearances of the eight dissolutions; and finally through the Black Gate (of near attainment) into the infinite blissful expanse of the clear light emptiness.

Once inside the clear light, through mahamudra meditations on the emptiness of our very subtle mind, we then need to gradually purify it of our seeds of delusions (karmic tendencies, delusion obstructions) and finally the imprints from all our past deluded actions (obstructions to omniscience).

Once we attain the five omniscient wisdoms, we spontaneously appear in whatever forms are appropriate to lead all beings along the same path we just traveled. In this way, we conquer uncontrolled death and ourselves become the main gateway for those seeking liberation and enlightenment.

Happy Easter!

Tantric Fractals – Living Life at Different Levels of Purity:

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra

Gen Rabten once said our Tantric training is like fractals. Fractals are patterns that repeat themselves at different levels. Fundamentally, Tantric practice is about learning to meditate on Lamrim at increasingly subtle levels of mind. The fractal pattern is always Lamrim, but it appears in different ways at increasingly subtle levels of mind.

Our starting point is the world of our grossest levels of mind, the world we normally see or perceive. Here, we train in Lamrim of our daily life, go to Dharma centers, attend teachings, etc.

The next level is the world of our guru yoga practice, from going for refuge up to dissolving the guru into our heart. Here we are no longer in the world we normally see, but not yet in the pure land. I like to think this takes place in the charnel grounds, which is like a way station en route for Keajra.

The next level is gross generation stage. According to New Essence of Vajrayana, we can view this as our gross deity body is the celestial mansion, Mount Meru, the four continents and elements, and so forth.

The next level is the body mandala. This is like a half-way point between gross generation stage and completion stage. Our completely purified channels and drops appear as the deities of the body mandala.

The next level is the mantras. The mantras are by nature our completely purified inner winds. Since all minds are mounted on inner winds, we can almost say the flow of mantras is like the body mandala meditation of our body mandala meditations. In other words, just as the body mandala is our channels and drops appearing as their completely purified nature in the aspect of the deities of the body mandala, the deities of the body mandala appear in their completely purified nature in the aspect of the mantras.

The next level is the seed letter of the guru deity at our heart, the principal object of our completion stage meditation. This is the completely purified nature of the mantras and thus everything that came before them. It is by nature our very subtle wind and mind, our continuously residing wind and mind.

The next level is inside that we find the clear light Dharmakaya of our Mahamudra meditations. Just as all rivers empty into the ocean, all Dharma minds empty into the ocean of the Dharmakaya.

Inside that we find the union of appearance and emptiness, or full enlightenment.

The more time we spend at each of these levels, the more they start to feel like actual places – actual lands or worlds within our mind – each inside the other like Kadampa Russian dolls with increasing levels of subtlety and purity. In the beginning, we spend most of our mental time at the grossest levels, but with training we move more and more into the subtler and subtler levels of mind.

I think we can say when we reach the world of gross generation stage we have attained outer Keajra. Keajra itself has many layers up to the inner pure land of the Dharmakaya and finally definitive Keajra or the mind of full enlightenment.

When I do my three year retreat, I plan on spending a certain number of months in each of these worlds. The first six months will be mostly in the gross deity body. The next six months will be mostly in the body mandala. The next six months will be mostly in the mantras. The next six months will be at the level of seed letter. The next six months after that will be at the level of the Dharmakaya of Vajrayana Mahamudra, and the next six months after that will emphasize the union of appearance and emptiness. All throughout, I will try to integrate the full Lamrim into each world, so while what appears will be the different appearances of that world, what is understood is the full Kadam Lamrim.

In this way, we can gain lived experience in these different worlds, at these increasingly subtle levels of purity. In effect, we are forging our path within our mind from the world we normally see to the enligthened worlds, with all the stops in between. By training in this way, when we die, the path is made and we follow it to the pure land and beyond. It may take several lifetimes of doing this, but eventually we will have built the entire path within our mind.

Heruka Tantra is sometimes called “the main gateway for those seeking liberation.” I think quite literally Guru Heruka is not just the final result, but the entire path from where we start to the final destination. When we train in this way, we not only build our own pathway to enlightenment, we create an infrastructure that other beings can likewise travel on to the same destination. If we check, this is what Venerable Geshe-la has done for us, now we can do it for others.

How wonderful!

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Emptiness of Time

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

The Samkhyas say that effects are the nature of their causes, but that both are still somehow inherently existent. We saw this with the example of the acorn and the Oak tree.  Now Shantideva refutes this possibility.

(9.135) Although you do not want to assert that a manifest phenomenon that did not previously exist is produced anew,
In reality this is what you are saying.
If the effect exists as the same nature as its cause,
Then eating food is the same as eating the excrement it produces!

(9.136) So instead of spending your money on clothes of woven cotton,
You might as well purchase cotton seeds to wear!

If the cause still exists at the time of the effect then we would have to say that the causes and their effects are in fact one in the same thing, at which point food is excrement. For something to come into existence, the effect, the cause needs to cease completely. Cause and effect necessarily implies a relationship in time, where cause proceeds effect. How can something be a cause of something if the effect already exists? That would imply that the cause is not necessary and the effect already exists and therefore there is no difference between cause and effect. They are one in the same thing. If the effect already exists at the time of the cause, then what need is there for the cause itself? And can we say one thing caused another if that other thing already exists at the time of the cause?

The acorn ceases entirely at the time of the Oak tree. If we look at the Oak tree, we cannot find the acorn that gave rise to it anywhere.

(Samkhya) “Worldly people do not see the effect at the time of the cause because of their confusion.”

The Samkhyas here are saying that worldly people only see the present and not the inevitable effect in the future and so therefore do not realize that the effect and the cause are both existing at the same time.  Again, this seems quite a reasonable view.

Well, what about your teacher, Kapila? He must know because you say he is omniscient;

(9.137) And since you teach his view to worldly people,
Why can they not see the effect at the time of the cause?
(Samkhya) “Because worldly people do not see things with valid cognizers.”
Then the manifest phenomena that they see clearly must also not be true!

The essential point here is the Samkhyas assert that normally living beings are seeing things correctly. The definition of truly existent is things exist in the way that they appear. Things appear to exist from their own side, independent of our mind, on the side of the object. The Samkhyas agree with this and say things do indeed exist in this way. They are seeing things truly. But here, Shantideva points out a contradiction. If living beings have valid cognizers about how things exist, then how can you say worldly beings do not see things with valid cognizers when it comes to cause and effect? Either they are seeing things correctly or they are not. If their view is mistaken, which the Prasangikas say it is, then things are not truly existent. If their view is correct, which the Samkhyas say it is, then they should be able to see effects existing at the time of the cause (if such a thing existed).

This discussion reveals the emptiness of time, which is explain in more detail in Ocean of Nectar. But for here, there are three main reflections that flow from these teachings that establish the emptiness of time.

First, time is established as conventionally existent through the relationship between cause and effect – cause comes before effect, and effect comes after cause. So a relationship in time is established as dependently existent.

Second, the Samkhyas are close when they say that the effect exists at the same time as the cause, but not quite correct. In the present moment, when the cause exists, the inevitable effect exists as a future thing. It does not exist at the same time as the cause, but the “future of the thing” exists at the time of its cause. In other words, the oak tree exists as a future effect in the present moment. When we think about our future, we are doing so in the present moment. The future we imagine is an object of the present that exists at the same time as the present, but its mode of existence is as a “future thing.” The future itself does not exist in the present moment, but the “future effect” exists as an imagined idea in the present. Likewise, our past exists in the present moment as a “past event.” Even though the past itself has completely ceased, in the present moment we have a memory of our past. The memory of our past exists in the present moment. So we can’t say that the past exists in the present, but we can say that the memory of our past exists in the present moment, and other than this memory, there is no past at all remaining. There is no past out there still existing, it has ceased completely, but within the present moment the “past of a thing” exists. So in the present moment we have three things – “the thing,” “the past of a thing,” and “the future of a thing.” We do not, however, have the past, present, and future all existing at the same time as the Samkhyas are asserting.

Third, when we examine the nature of both memories and future imaginings, they are quite clearly both mere mental projections of mind. Besides these mental projections, there is no past and no future at all – there is only the present moment. So we can see clearly how both past and future are mere projections of mind. Since the present moment doesn’t abide even for an instant, there is no inherently existent present either. The present moment is like the aggregate of the same unfolding process of transformation, seen as cessation from one angle and production from another angle, but in fact it is the same thing – just looked at from two different angles. So within the “present” we have the “past of things,” the “future of things,” “cessation,” and “production.”

Further, both our memories and our future imaginings are not fixed, but can be reimagined. For example, all of us have experience of having had some trauma in the past but when we look back on it now, we see it as the best thing that ever happened to us. I had a boss once who went blind when he was in grad school. He told me, “I thank God every day for having made me blind, because without that, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.” He went on to say, “and since we know this is possible, the secret to life is to live our life from this perspective, knowing we will look back on our present troubles and say it was exactly what we needed to become the person we have become, so why not view it that way now?” Such wisdom! Similarly, when we think about the future, we can imagine and reimagine our future in countless different ways. Indeed, this is the essence of the entire Tantric path. Our spiritual guide has presented us with a vision of who we will become – a Heruka or Vajrayogini. We never even knew such a thing existed, much less imagined it as our future. But now we can, and indeed he invites us to bring that future result into the present. Which we can do because time is empty, the future is empty, the present is empty.

Understanding the emptiness of time, which flows from this seemingly esoteric debate with the Samkhyas about effects existing at the time of their cause, is one of the most liberating emptinesses to realize. As Nagarjuna said, “when emptiness is possible, everything is possible.”

Happy Protector Day: Viewing Our life as a Training Ground

Kadampa Ryan Protector Days, Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 3 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.

We are continuing with our discussion of how to rely upon Dorje Shugden during the meditation break.  In the last post we discussed how we can take personal responsibility for removing the faults we perceive in others.  In this post we will discuss how to view our life as a training ground for becoming the Buddha we need to become.

How can we understand this?  Dorje Shugden knows who we have karma with to be their Spiritual Guide.  We each have the karma to be the spiritual guide of certain beings.  Dorje Shugden knows this and he knows what karma we have with them.  If we ask him to do so, Dorje Shugden can manage our karma in such a way that he forges us into the Buddha we need to become.  Primarily Dorje Shugden provides us with favorable conditions and arranges everything to be perfect for our practice. 

But he is so powerful, he is also able to ‘use’ our negative karma and ‘transform’ it into the spiritual path.  We can adopt the wisdom view that he “gives” us now the problems that our future students will have so that we can learn how to use the Dharma to overcome these problems.  We have the negative karma on our mind to experience anything and everything.  Dorje Shugden is able to manage the flow of the ripening of our negative karma so that the negative karma which does ripen is that of our future students and it ripens in a context where we will be able to transform it into the path.

What are the benefits of relying upon Dorje Shugden in this way?  It will create indestructible karmic links between ourselves and our future students that will ripen in the form of us being their spiritual guide in the future.  We will gain the realizations we need to be able to help the beings with whom we have the closest spiritual karmic connections.  It will enable us to find great meaning in all of our inevitable difficulties in life.  Life will still be difficult, but these difficulties will be part of a larger project to forge us into the Buddha we need to become. 

Practically speaking, how do we view our life in this way?  The key lies in viewing everyone as an emanation of Dorje Shugden for our practice.  The view we adopt of others determines the qualities we draw out.  This is so because view itself is a creative action, it is not a passive observation.  We do not view others in a particular way because they ‘are’ that way (they are not any way), rather we view others in a particular way because it is most beneficial to them for us to do so.

The view we adopt is to view others as emanations of the Spiritual Guide.  We can maintain pure view of others.  We consider them to be Buddhas appearing in the aspect of ordinary beings so we can act normally with them.  By acting normally with them, we gain the realizations we need to attain enlightenment.  We can maintain pure view of their actions by considering all of their actions to be the supremely skillful actions of a Buddha.  For example, if they make some big mistake, we can view it as they make mistakes to teach us things.  If we assent to the appearance of others as being ordinary, engaging in ordinary actions, we will simply plant the karma which will give rise to the appearance of ordinary beings engaging in ordinary actions.   In this way, we re-imprison others into contaminated aggregates engaging in non-Dharma actions and us into a world of ordinary appearances.

If instead we imagine that others are by nature emanations of Dorje Shugden engaging in supremely skillful actions to lead us to our swiftest possible enlightenment we plant karma which will give rise to the appearance of others as emanations engaging in the actions of a Buddha.  In this way, we free others from contaminated aggregates and we create the causes for them to engage in the actions necessary to lead themselves to enlightenment. 

But how do we do this, especially when we see others acting in deluded and unskillful ways.  There are two key questions we can ask ourselves to be able to maintain this view:  First, what do their actions teach me?  Second, what do their actions give me in terms of an opportunity to practice?  Our answers to these questions point us to the wisdom that is able to receive perfectly reliable Dharma instructions and opportunities to practice from whatever others do. 

We can even do this same practice with our own body and mind.  If we assent to ourselves as being an ordinary being engaging in ordinary actions, it will creates the karma for the recreation of that appearance.  But if we view our ordinary body and mind as emanated for us to practice overcoming in order to forge us into the Buddha we need to become, it will plant the karma for that appearance to arise in the future.  For example, if we get sick, it is for us to practice with.  If we have a delusion, it is for giving us an opportunity to practice the opponents, and so forth.

This view is extremely beneficial for both ourselves and for others.  We are able to transform whatever happens to us into the path to enlightenment and we are able to receive the blessings of the spiritual guide through everyone.  It also karmically reconstructs others and ourselves into pure being.  By imagining that they are Buddhas engaging in a Buddha’s actions, it karmically reconstructs them so that they will later actually engage in enlightened actions and become a Buddha. 

In sum, the practice of Dorje Shugden can be reduced down into four simple ideas:

  1. Renew our spiritual motivation, that what matters to us is creating good causes for spiritual progress.
  2. Request with infinite faith that whatever happens to us (or others) is perfect for our swiftest possible enlightenment.
  3. Accept with infinite faith whatever subsequently arises as the perfect conditions we requested.
  4. In those perfect conditions, practice to the best of our ability.  To practice means to try to send our mind in the direction of enlightenment by striving to abandon our delusions and by cultivating virtuous minds.  It does not matter whether we succeed in actually doing so, what matters is that we try.  If we try, we create good causes which will ripen in the future in our ability to do it. 

We can use our reliance on Dorje Shugden to overcome all our delusions.  This practice was explained to me by the great Gen Togden many years ago.  He said we can overcome our anger through relying on Dorje Shugden by considering that anger wishes things to be other than they are.  When we rely on Dorje Shugden, we know they are perfect, so there is no basis for wishing they are otherwise, thus there is no basis for anger.  He also said we can overcome our attachment through relying on Dorje Shugden.  We think we need something for our happiness, but we do not know.  So we make requests to Dorje Shugden that if this is what is best, then please arrange it; if not, then we request him to please sabotage it.  Finally, he explained we can overcome our ignorance through relying on Dorje Shugden.  Dorje Shugden is a wisdom Buddha, so we can request him to bestow his blessings so we will always know what to do in all situations.

Happy Tsog Day: How to Practice the Song of the Spring Queen (part 3)

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 26 of a 44-part series.

HUM All you Tathagatas,
Heroes, Yoginis,
Dakas, and Dakinis,
To all you I make this request:
Like a lotus born from the centre of a swamp,
This method, though born from attachment, is unstained by the faults of attachment.
O Supreme Dakini, through the bliss of your lotus,
Please quickly bring liberation from the bonds of samsara.
AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO
May the assembly of stainless Dakinis
Look with loving affection and accomplish all deeds.

The fifth and sixth lines of this verse emphasize that the spontaneous great joy we generated with the previous verse is by nature completely free from any grasping or attachment. Sexual bliss is very pleasant, but is characterized by a strong grasping at the experience. If we check our mind when we are experiencing sexual bliss it is not a peaceful mind. The great bliss of completion stage is by nature inner peace. Enlightenment is sometimes called the supreme inner peace of enlightenment. Great bliss is an inner peace that is so peaceful it is blissful. It is completely relaxed and spacious without the slightest trace of tension or grasping. It feels as if our mind has settled into a complete stillness and has no need or desire whatsoever to arise from that stillness because any movement would be away from the most pleasant experience possible to something less pleasant. This is why the mind of great bliss is the supreme mind of concentration that far surpasses tranquil abiding. There is no better mind for concentrating on virtue.

In all our tantric practices of transforming pleasant circumstances into the path the procedure is the same. We can take eating ice cream as an example. When we eat ice cream, we generate a pleasant experience on our tongue. Normally we then grasp at the ice cream as an external cause of our pleasant experience and generate attachment for ice cream as a result. But if we were to transform the pleasant experience of eating ice cream into the path using tantric methods, we would then mentally imagine we dissolve both the ice cream and our tongue into their ultimate nature emptiness while retaining the pleasant experience we are enjoying. When we are able to retain the pleasant experience without the appearance of the external object that we mistakenly thought was giving rise to the pleasant experience, we are able to meditate on the union of the pleasant experience and emptiness. Instead of giving rise to attachment, we realize we can generate pleasant experiences from within our mind and hold them regardless of what external objects we are exposed to. In exactly the same way, we can transform any pleasant experience, including the pleasant experiences of sexual activities.

When we recite this verse, we can mentally imagine that we dissolve our self, Vajraygoini, and the entire pure land generated around us into the clear light emptiness while retaining the spontaneous great joy we experienced and generated through the previous verse. This is exactly the same as we would do if we were transforming eating ice cream using tantric methods. This meditation on the experience of spontaneous great joy mixed inseparably with emptiness, like water mixed with water, functions to purify all the contaminated karma on our mind. As explained before, there are two types of obstruction to our enlightenment: delusion obstructions and obstructions to omniscience. Delusion obstructions are the tendencies similar to the cause to generate delusions from our past delusions. Obstructions to omniscience are the effects similar to the cause, environmental effects, and ripened effects of our past deluded actions. Once we have freed our mind from all the delusion obstructions, we attain liberation. This comes first. We then continue to meditate on the union of bliss and emptiness and gradually purify all the obstructions to omniscience. When that happens, we attain full enlightenment. In this verse, we imagine that in dependence upon our experience of the union of spontaneous great joy and emptiness we completely purify all our delusion obstructions and therefore attain liberation. The lotus referred to in the eighth line is once again Vajrayogini’s bhaga.

When we recite the ninth line, we do not directly visualize ourselves engaging in union with Vajrayogini as we have done in the previous verses, rather everything has been dissolved into clear light emptiness. In Understanding the Mind, Geshe-la explains there are two types of object, manifest and hidden. Manifest objects are objects that appear directly to our sense consciousnesses or to our mental consciousness. Hidden objects are objects that do not appear directly but can nonetheless be established through inferential valid cognizers. With this verse, when we recite the ninth line, we imagine that we are focusing on the emptiness of engaging in union with Vajrayogini. It does not appear directly to our mind, but we nonetheless experience its effect of spontaneous great joy. The experience of spontaneous great joy is the valid reason supporting the inferential cognizer establishing that we are engaging in union with Vajrayogini. In this way, we can understand that the meditation on the union of clear light bliss and emptiness is in fact the definitive version of engaging in union with a wisdom mudra. Normally when we talk about Buddhas we say there is the interpretative Buddha and the definitive Buddha. Interpretive Heruka, for example, is the blue deity with four faces and twelve arms. Definitive Heruka is the union of bliss and emptiness. In exactly the same way, interpretive reliance upon a wisdom mudra is everything we have been describing up to this verse, and definitive reliance upon a wisdom mudra is described in this verse.

HUM All you Tathagatas,
Heroes, Yoginis,
Dakas, and Dakinis,
To all you I make this request:
Just as the essence of honey in the honey source
Is drunk by swarms of bees from all directions,
So through your broad lotus with six characteristics
Please bring satisfaction with the taste of great bliss.
AH LA LA, LA LA HO, AH I AH, AH RA LI HO
May the assembly of stainless Dakinis
Look with loving affection and accomplish all deeds.

With this last verse, we continue to meditate on the union of spontaneous great joy and emptiness as in the previous verse. But here, we purify completely all our obstructions to omniscience. And thereby attain full enlightenment. When we attain enlightenment, we are able to perceive appearance directly as a manifestation of bliss and emptiness. Prior to enlightenment, we can meditate on a direct realization of bliss and emptiness, but when appearances once again appear to our mind, they appear to exist from their own side. When we attain enlightenment, this duality falls away and objects appear to us directly to be manifestations of their underlying bliss and emptiness. One way of thinking about it is we penetrate so deeply into emptiness that we find appearance. This is similar to the meditation on the clarity of mind. Clarity is so clear it can know any form. In the same way, the emptiness we perceive is so empty it can appear as any form. When we recite this verse, we strongly believe that we purify completely all our obstructions to omniscience and, as a result, the mandala of our self-generation as Heruka and Vajrayogini begins to appear directly to our mind as a manifestation of the bliss and emptiness we have been bathing in. We attain the resultant union of appearance and emptiness. We strongly believe that we have attained full enlightenment in dependence upon relying on the wisdom mudra Vajrayogini through the practice of Song of the Spring Queen, and we generate a feeling of profound joy experiencing the entire mandala as our body of great bliss and emptiness.

The fifth through the eighth line of this verse describe the practice of relying upon a wisdom mudra from the perspective of someone who has already attained the union of Heruka or full enlightenment. At present, when we engage in self-generation practice, we first generate the basis of imputation of our self as Heruka in Keajra in union with Vajrayogini. We then imagine that we identify with this Heruka and Vajrayogini as if it was ourselves. Wherever we imagine a Buddha, a Buddha appears. And certainly Heruka and Vajrayogini always abide in their pure land. Now try imagine how our engaging in self-generation practice is experienced from the perspective of Heruka and Vajrayogini in Keajra. From their perspective, it is as if countless tantric practitioners are like a swarm of bees who come and partake of the honey source that is their union of Heruka and Vajrayogini. They allow all living beings to enter into them and they share their great bliss with all of them. Here, when we recite this last verse, we imagine that we are Heruka and Vajrayogini in Keajra and that we invite all living beings to enter into us, like a swarm of bees, to enjoy the honey of great bliss that we are offering to them. In other words, we imagine we are experiencing things exactly as Heruka and Vajrayogini do. This way of practicing is incredibly profound and creates countless causes for us to be able to one day become a Heruka able to do this for others. It also creates the karma for us to more easily engage in the practices described by Song of the Spring Queen ourselves in the future. It is almost impossible to imagine how amazing all this is. We are so fortunate!

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Emptiness of the Tao

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Now Shantideva refutes the aspect of the general principle that it is permanent. Many of our modern day general principles also include grasping at a belief that this the general principle is permanent.   

The Samkhyas specifically say that the general principle is comprised of indifference, pleasure, and pain. We experience things in these three ways as a result of how the general principle interacts with us. Ultimately, the Samkhyas would say that the indifference, pleasure, and pain that we feel is of one nature with the general principle itself. This is quite similar to Taoist views.

(9.131) In fact, feelings such as pleasure arise from things such as wearing clothing;
And when these causes are lacking, their effects – pleasure and so forth – do not occur.
If the general principle were permanent, its nature of pleasure, for example, would also be permanent;
But this has never been seen by a valid cognizer.

(9.132ab) If pleasure were permanent, it would always be manifest;
So why is it not experienced when pain is manifest?

Permanent in a Buddhist context means not changing. If something changes or is subject to change, then it is impermanent. This is distinct from eternal. Something can be continuously changing yet exist forever, for example the ocean or our mental continuum. Neither are permanent, but both are eternal, or at least last for a long time Despite undergoing continuous change.

The Samkhyas assert that the general principle is permanent, but that its nature is indifference, pleasure, and pain. Obviously, we experience in our daily life different degrees of pleasure and pain and so forth. So how do the Samkhyas simultaneously assert that the general principle is permanent, yet acknowledge that we feel different degrees of intensity of pleasure and pain? The Prasangikas would say if the general principle were permanent, then we would experience unchanging pleasure or unchanging pain. For example, where does the pleasure go when we are experiencing pain?

(Samkhya) “At those times, the gross feeling of pleasure becomes subtle.”

The samk’s answer is that pleasure in pain are always manifest, adjust to different degrees. When we are experiencing pain, our pleasure becomes subtle whereas the pain is more intense. We looked at this when we talked about the example of eating cake at our loved ones funeral.

How can something that is permanent change from gross to subtle?

(9.133) Something that abandons a gross state and becomes subtle
Is at one time gross and at another time subtle, and therefore impermanent.
In the same way, you should assert
That all functioning things are impermanent.

(9.134) If gross pleasure is not different from pleasure itself,
Then clearly pleasure, and therefore the general principle, are impermanent.
You assert that a manifest phenomenon does not exist at the time of its cause
And thus that a product does not exist at the time of its cause.

The Prasangikas agree that the intensity of our experiences of pleasure and pain can change, but if that is the case, then they are impermanent not permanent. Therefore, the example given by the Samkhyas demonstrates exactly why it is impossible for the general principle to be permanent. All functioning things are impermanent.

Accepting We Live in Degenerate Times

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden

From a spiritual perspective, we as modern day Kadampas live in increasing times. That means spiritually things are getting better and better. But the world we live in is one of degenerating times, meaning things will continue to get worse and worse and will likely continue to do so until Maitreya comes. This is a difficult nut for people to swallow.

We tend to think it is good to be “optimistic” and believe that things will get better, but this is a trap for two reasons. First, it grasps onto things getting better externally as a necessary precondition for our happiness. This too shall pass. Brighter days lie ahead. Tomorrow will be better. OK, if that is the case, then I can accept my present circumstances. But what happens if tomorrow isn’t better? What do we do if each day things get worse externally? If we are always basing our happiness on things getting better externally, we remain attached.

Attachment is an object to be abandoned, even attachment to the hope of things getting better. Perhaps the last few hundred years have been increasing times, but now we are in degenerate times. Tomorrow will be worse than today and this will continue to be the case for likely a very long time. If we don’t shed this attachment to things getting better externally, we will suffer more and more from it, life will beat us down further and further, we will grow more and more depressed. This path leads to suicidal hopelessness.

The second reason why this is a trap is it is a form of self-torture. When we tell ourselves things are going to get better externally and they don’t, then we get crushed, our hopes drained, and our life becomes one of constant disappointment. Where does the disappointment come from? It comes from our unrealistic expectations about the external world. The truth is actually staring us right in the face. We are all doomed – we will all get sick, get old (if we are lucky), and die. And this process is going to repeat itself again and again. Life in samsara is one of perpetual, self-replicating doom. It is not going to get better, indeed it is on track to get much, much worse. We are enjoying but a brief relatively pleasant furlough in the human world.

These are hard truths to accept. Shattering, actually. But that doesn’t make them any less true. Until we come to grips with them, we remain on samsaric paths. Accepting them is when the path to liberation begins. This isn’t fire and brimstone manipulation. Buddha is very clear – we are in degenerate times. We better get used to it. Letting go of hope that this world will get better and that our external situation will get better is the starting point of the path to liberation. You should know sufferings.

So how can we happily accept these hard truths? How can accepting these truths not crush us and trigger a mental breakdown? How can we hear these things and not become suicidally hopeless?

First, we need to internalize these truths gradually. Start with the small stuff. Gain some experience of transforming slight adversities into the path of spiritual growth. When we can do that, we get a taste that it is possible. If we can do it with the small stuff, we gain the confidence and capacity to do it with slightly bigger stuff, and so on until eventually we can do it with any adversity. Venerable Geshe-la explains in How to Solve our Human Problems that there is no adversity so great that it cannot be transformed into the path. Indeed, with experience, the more things go badly externally the more we are propelled along the spiritual path internally. Instead of being beaten down by samsara, we become ejected by it – literally expelled out of it.

Second, we do not abandon hope, we simply change both its object and its expected timeline. Yes, we need to give up hope completely in samsara. It will never get better, it is irreparably broken. Doing more samsara will never create less samsara. Doubling down on samsaric methods will just double our suffering in it. But that doesn’t mean we are hopeless. Quite the opposite, we have a pure potential that can never be harmed by samsara no matter how awful it gets. We can reliably place our hope in our pure potential. We can reliably place our faith in the Dharma we have been taught as the method for ripening this potential. From the mud emerges the beautiful lotus. But we need to be realistic about how long this is going to take. It could take aeons. But that’s OK because we know with a pure potential and perfectly reliable methods the final outcome is assured. This is the mind of definite emergence and it is a joyful mind that knows we are bound for freedom and the only thing that can stop us is giving up trying. If we never give up, not only are we assured of getting out, we will eventually be able to lead everyone else to freedom. We can and will empty samsara. Buddha is also very clear about this. And it may happen much quicker than that – we have, after all, found the Ganden Oral Lineage through which it is possible to attain enlightenment in one short life. Maybe we won’t make it in this life, but if we give it our all, we will be able to pick up where we left off in our last life and it won’t be long before we find ourselves scaling Mount Meru in Keajra and eventually centering ourselves within the HUM at Guru Heruka’s heart inside his celestial mansion.

Third, we should remember that our samsaric world we normally see does not actually exist – at all. It is just a deluded hallucination. We are trippin’, as they say. It’s a bad trip, but it is not real. It is a bad dream, but it is not real. No matter what happens in the dream, it can never hurt us unless we believe it is real. We need to get to the point with our samsara that it becomes like a movie that is so bad, so absurd, it is funny. Samsara makes me laugh. The sky is never harmed, no matter how violent the storm raging in it. Be the sky. When we connect with the emptiness of an appearance, we purify the karma giving rise to it and it gradually subsides back into emptiness. By realizing the emptiness of our mind itself, we can cause all appearances to our mind to likewise subside into emptiness. We quite literally end the dream in such a way that it never arises again. You should attain cessations.

Fourth, we should trust in Dorje Shugden. One of my former students was a guy named Taro. Some of you may know him. He suffered terribly from psychotic minds, even towards the three jewels, and lived for close to a decade in a psychiatric hospital. His body may have been in the human realm, but his mind was often in hell. But he had vajra-like faith in Dorje Shugden. After he heard Gen Tharchin teach that we design our own enlightenment based upon the specific bodhichitta we generate, Taro said he wished to become a Buddha for extremely degenerate times – when everyone has a mind like he had now. His faith in Dorje Shugden enabled him to look at his torturous mind and view it as giving him the opportunity to gain the realizations he needed to fulfill his specific bodhichitta wish. He also once told me, “stop telling your spiritual guide how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your spiritual guide is.” His bodhichitta later evolved into wishing to become part of Dorje Shugden’s mandala. He has since passed away, but I have no doubt he is now part of Dorje Shugden’s vast assembled retinue. Perhaps he always was, actually. He bought for the center in Geneva a temple-sized Dorje Shugden statue. It’s bigger than our Buddha Shayamuni statue was! It was (and is) glorious, as was he. Indeed, it is wrong for me to say he was one of my students. He was rather one of my teachers – really, he was a teacher of us all. When they write the biographies of the early modern Kadampas, he will be listed as one of our modern Kadampa Mahasiddhas. Of this I have no doubt. If faith in Dorje Shugden can transform Taro’s tormented mind into a cause of enlightenment, then it can easily do so for the rest of us.

As a practical matter, accepting that samsara is hopeless and our lives within it are doomed does not mean we don’t still try make things better where possible. We still need to live our modern lives exactly as normal – working, exercising, taking care of our families, saving for retirement, caring for the sick, contributing to society, etc. If we can make our lives better, there is no fault in doing so. We just don’t place our hope in these things and we accept it when our life falls apart – as it will, many times.

And the ultimate irony is it is by accepting that we live in degenerate times, that samsara is irreparably broken, and indeed that we (or at least who we currently think we are) are doomed that we can actually be happy not just in our future lives, but in this life. It’s simple expectations management. If we expect (and accept) that things will go badly, then when it does we are not surprised or disappointed. But if it winds up going better than the worst we expected, we are pleasantly surprised. Either way, we keep our inner peace. By placing our hope in our pure potential and expanding our timeline, we get the same benefits of a hopeful mind but in something that actually will come to fruition. Samsara is doomed, but we are not. It’s good that samsara is doomed because then we can let go of chasing its rainbows and false promises. We stop wasting our time on what has no hope of working and we joyfully plunge into the divine pool of the clear light. We develop not only the joyful mind of definite emergence, we know that – in the end – we will guide all those that we love who currently suffer so to permanent freedom from all suffering. And nothing can stop us as long as we never give up trying. The final outcome is assured. So then, like Taro, we can happily accept our present adversity as forging us into the Buddha we need to become. We can then, as Gen Tharchin explained, take our place in Geshe-la’s holy mandala.

As times become ever more impure,
Your power and blessings ever increase,
And you care for us quickly, as swift as thought;
O Chakrasambara Father and Mother, to you I prostrate.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Emptiness of Karma

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.128cd) Similarly, the individual qualities cannot exist
Because you say that each of them is a composite of the three qualities.

What is referred to here is the Samkhyas say each of the three qualities of lightness, activity, and darkness are comprised of different proportions of each of these three qualities. If that is the case, then each quality does not exist individually since it is always a composite of all three. There is no point at which we can have a completely pure non-composite example of the qualities. This is their view, and Shantideva is simply pointing out the contradiction.

But we can apply the same reasoning to any sort of general principle that some philosophical school might describe. Any general principle explained would have some combination of characteristics that are in relationship with each other. If these characteristics exist inherently, then they exist independently of the other characteristics, at which point how could they ever enter into a relationship with the other characteristics? If they do not exist independently of each other, then we cannot speak of inherently existent individual characteristics of the general principle.

Prasangikas have no problem with a general principle of how the world functions. The Prasangika’s only objection is to the general principle existing inherently, in other words independent of the mind. Reality unfolds according to the laws of karma. Karma is, if you will, the general principle of Buddhists. But they do not grasp at the laws of karma as existing independently or inherently as immutable laws of nature somehow separate from our own mind.

This example shows clearly that we need to be careful when we read the refutations of the different schools do not imply a total rejection of what they have to say, but only a rejection of a certain aspect of what they say. For example, Chittamatrins say that all things are the nature of mind, and Prasangikas simply disagree that the nature of mind is inherently existent. We keep the nature of mind part but show that the mind itself is the nature of emptiness. In the same way, we do not refute the existence of a general principle, in this case karma, we simply refute an inherently existent general principle , which would be impossible.

(9.129) If the three qualities do not exist, the general principle does not exist,
In which case it is impossible to establish its manifestations such as visual forms and sounds.
And it is simply impossible for mindless things, such as clothing,
To have the same nature as feelings, such as happiness.

Shantideva’s point here is quite simple. If something does not exist, then it cannot produce anything. Since the Samkhyas say all phenomena arise from the general principle, if the general principle or its characteristics do not exist, then it cannot produce anything. It becomes another example of production from no cause, which was refuted above.

(9.130) (Other schools) “All things truly exist in the nature of their causes.”

Here other schools are saying that affects are the nature of their causes. For example the Oak tree is the nature of the acorn from which it arose.

But we have already thoroughly refuted the possibility of truly existent things.
According to you, clothing and the like arise from the general principle, which is a balanced state of pleasure and so forth;
But this cannot be the case, because we have refuted the existence of such a general principle.

The Prasangikas call this the substantial cause, but they disagree that the cause continues to exist once the effect has arisen. The acorn ceases to exist after it has transformed into the Oak tree.  The Prasangikas do not disagree there is a relationship between causes and effects, nor do they disagree that phenomena arise from causes. What they are refuting is the possibility of a truly existent general principle.

A Pure Life: Putting the “Mahayana” in Precepts Days

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is part three 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.

This practice is called training in the eight mahayana precepts. The eight precepts themselves are specific moral disciplines that we train in. What makes them mahayana precepts is we train in this moral discipline with a bodhicitta motivation. Any virtuous activity can become a bodhisattva’s perfection by engaging in that virtue with a bodhichitta motivation.

What is bodhichitta? Bodhichitta is a mind that spontaneously wishes to attain enlightenment for the sake of protecting all living beings from their suffering. It observes that all living beings are suffering, drowning in the ocean of samsara, and wishes to do something to help them. But it recognizes that at present we currently lack the ability to help living beings. We ourselves remain trapped within samsara, controlled by our delusions, and limited in our capacity to do much good to help people over a sustained period of time. We also frequently have no idea how to actually help people, and all we can do is perhaps offer them a shoulder that they could cry on. Observing this, we conclude it is not enough to simply wish others did not suffer, but we must ourselves do something to free them from their suffering.

If a mother saw her child drowning in a river, she would not merely wish the child not drown but would actively dive in to try save her. But the problem is at present we do not know how to swim. So even though we would want to help others, we lack the ability to actually do so. We then ask ourselves, who does have the ability to help all living beings and lead them out of the ocean of samsara onto the island of enlightenment? Only a Buddha does. A Buddha possesses the omniscient wisdom that always knows how to help others and is able to continue to help others life after life without interruption unimpeded by their own death or the death of those they are trying to help. A Buddha is also able to emanate countless forms for each and every living being trapped within samsara. They are not limited by simply one body and one voice, but can emanate as many forms as living beings need to always be there with them 24/7 life after life. Buddhas also possessed the skillful means necessary to guide complicated samsaric beings how to enter, progress along, and eventually complete the path. Let us face it, most people reject the advice that they receive even if it’s exactly what they need to hear. Having skillful means knowing how to encourage people to engage in spiritual practices makes the bodhisattva’s task possible.

Understanding that only a Buddha has the ability to actually fulfill the compassionate wish to protect others from their suffering, we then make the firm determination that we ourselves must become a Buddha in order to help all other living beings. The primary wish of bodhichitta is the wish to help others, and the wish to attain enlightenment is the secondary wish we need to do in order to fulfill our primary wish. Geshe-la gives the analogy of wanting a cup of tea. If we generate the intention that we would like to have a cup of tea, we naturally get a cup, a tea bag, and hot water. This happens almost automatically and is a natural consequence of our primary wish to have a cup of tea. In the same way, when we wish to protect all living beings from their suffering, we then naturally get the body, speech, and mind of a Buddha that enable us to fulfill our primary wish. This happens almost automatically and without our having to give it much thought, we are simply driven by the desire to protect others and we naturally do what is necessary in order to fulfill that wish.

Each of the eight precepts by itself is a practice of moral discipline. What makes it a mahayana practice of moral discipline is we engage in them with a bodhicitta motivation. When we explore each of the eight precepts themselves, I will attempt to explain how our observing that precept specifically helps us gain the ability to protect others from their suffering. But generally speaking, how does our practice of moral discipline help us attain enlightenment? 

To attain enlightenment, we need to purify our very subtle mind of the two obstructions. The two obstructions are the delusion obstructions and the obstructions to omniscience. Delusion obstructions are simply the delusions of our mind, and the obstructions to omniscience are the imprints of our past delusions and past deluded actions. Once we have purified our very subtle mind of the two obstructions, we will naturally attain enlightenment. In other words, enlightenment is essentially already within us, we simply need to uncover it.

How do we purify our mind of the two obstructions? We do so by meditating on the emptiness of our very subtle mind where all of our delusions and their imprints are stored. When we directly realize the emptiness of our very subtle mind, it functions to uproot directly and simultaneously all of the contaminated karma we have accumulated since beginningless time.

How do we then gain a direct realization of emptiness? That depends upon our ability to concentrate our mind. In the Sutra teachings on tranquil abiding, we learn how to concentrate our gross mind. And in the tantric teachings regarding controlling our inner winds, we learn how to concentrate our very subtle mind. It is impossible to concentrate with our very subtle mind if we are incapable of concentrating with our gross mind.

Concentration is primarily a training in overcoming distractions. Distractions cause our mind to move away from our chosen object of meditation towards something else. If we do not mix our mind with the Dharma, it will have no power to transform our mind. Distractions are the thief that robs us of our spiritual life.  Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that distractions are of three types: mental excitement, mental wandering, and mental sinking. Mental excitement is when our mind moves to an object of attachment. Mental wandering is when our mind moves to another object of Dharma other than our chosen object of meditation. Mental sinking is when we lose the clarity or grip of our mind on our chosen object, but our mind has not necessarily gone to something else. In the beginning, our primary obstacle is mental excitement.

Why does our mind go to objects of attachment instead of our object of meditation? The reason why is our mind is naturally more interested in objects of attachment because we still believe them to be causes of our happiness and we have not yet realized that our objects of meditation are causes of happiness, rather we find them to be quite distant or perhaps even boring. Our mind will naturally go to wherever it feels it will be happiest. Why does our mind believe objects of attachment are causes of happiness? Simply habit. The habit of believing the lies of our attachment that external objects are indeed causes of our happiness. We are so accustomed to these lies that we do not even call them into question. If we are to overcome our mental excitement, we must stop being fooled by our attachment.

A good example is spam. We have all received the emails from the Nigerian Prince who promises to transfer us a bunch of money for safekeeping if only we give him our bank account numbers. When we first receive this email, we wonder maybe it is true, and we are tempted to send our bank information. But when we know clearly that this is a scam and a lie, we are no longer fooled and do not feel tempted to send our information. In fact, simply receiving such an email reminds us of the need to be careful to not be fooled by the many scams that exist out there. We may not be able to prevent such spam from arriving in our inbox, but we can cut the power or the danger of such messages by seeing them as the lies that they are. In the same way, our minds of attachment are like spam. They promise us all sorts of happiness if only we follow their advice. When we first encounter such lies, we are tempted and often do follow their advice. When we fail to find the happiness that they promised, our attachment then lies to us again and says we did not experience it because we did not do it well enough. So once again we believe the lie and follow it. We start to do this again and again, until eventually we have no choice and we follow such lies blindly believing them to be the truth.

But with Dharma wisdom, we can recognize attachment for the lie that it is. It is the spam of our mind. When the thoughts of attachment arise in her mind, we then see them for the lies that they are. The more they come, the more we strengthen our determination to not be fooled. Like with our spam, we might not be able to prevent such thoughts from arriving in our mind, but with wisdom we can cut the power of such thoughts over us in terms of controlling our behavior.

How do we game such wisdom and such power? Through training in moral discipline. The practice of moral discipline is quite simply seeing the dangers of engaging in negative behavior and then making the determination to not do so. It is a wisdom that is no longer fooled by the lies of our attachments. It sees through these lies and recognizes them as deceptive, trying to trick us into engaging in negative behavior thinking it will bring us happiness when in fact it only brings us more suffering.

So how then do we train in moral discipline? When the temptation to break our moral discipline arises in our mind, we remind ourselves of the wisdom that caused us to take the vow or precept in the first place. We recall how the minds of attachment encouraging us to break our moral discipline are in fact deceptive, promising us happiness but simply guaranteeing more suffering. The practice of moral discipline is not an exercise in willpower. If in our heart we still want to engage in the negativity, we may for a short period of time be able to refrain, but all we will actually be doing is repressing our attachment wanting to do the opposite until eventually our attachment grows in strength and it overwhelms our willpower.

Rather, moral discipline is the practice of changing our desires. By contemplating again and again how are delusions are deceptive and how our wisdom and virtues are non-deceptive, we gradually change our desires to no longer want to chase the objects of our attachment and be fooled by their lies, and rather we want to train in the opposite virtues which we know are reliable methods for bringing us the happiness that we seek.  It is easy to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts, but the actual training is keeping them in the face of our deluded temptations to break them.

When the temptations arise in our mind, we then recall the disadvantages of breaking our moral discipline, the deceptiveness of the attachments lying to us, and the benefits of observing our moral discipline and following pure conduct. Through engaging in these contemplations again and again and again, we gradually change our desires. We no longer want to follow attachments, we instead want to follow our wisdom and virtues. By gaining experience with these contemplations and in keeping our vows, we gradually build up tendencies similar to the cause within our mind that are familiar with this way of thinking. Then, when we are in meditation itself and objects of distraction, or objects of mental excitement, arise in our mind, we are not tempted to go follow them but rather we see them as deceptive. We are then able to more easily renew our determination to not follow our distractions and instead to keep our mind focused on our object of meditation.

It is for this reason that Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that the practice of moral discipline overcomes gross distractions and the practice of concentration overcomes our subtle distractions. We first need to overcome our gross distractions through the training in moral discipline and then we can overcome our subtle distractions through our training and concentration. By training in concentration, we can gradually gain control over our gross mind, which then creates the space for us to gradually gain control over our subtle mind through the trainings of learning to control our inner winds. Once we can control our inner winds, we will eventually be able to make manifest our very subtle mind of clear light. Once this mind is manifest, we can then engage in the meditation on the emptiness of our very subtle mind and purify our mind of the two obstructions and thereby attain enlightenment.

In this way, we can see the very clear connection between our training in the practice of the Eight Mahayana Precepts and our eventual attainment of enlightenment. When we see this connection, we can easily generate the bodhicitta motivation to take the Mahayana precepts. In this way, our practice of the eight precepts becomes training in the eight Mahayana precepts.

Why This is the Joyful Path

Kadampa Ryan Uncategorized

Every adversity both teaches us some truth of Dharma and gives us some opportunity to train our mind. In this way, our suffering becomes a cause of our enlightenment.

What we lack is (1) a stronger wish to attain enlightenment than to enjoy a pleasant life, and (2) the wisdom necessary to know how the adversity we are facing is exactly perfect for our spiritual training.

If we wish to enjoy samsara more than to accomplish spiritual goals, knowing how to transform our suffering into the path won’t work to help us maintain a peaceful mind in the face of life’s difficulties. We will think, “oh, that’s nice, but I don’t care. I just want my suffering to stop and the external thing is the cause of my suffering or cause of my happiness.” But when we want to accomplish spiritual goals more, it all works. We become willing to accept difficulties – meaning we can keep our inner peace in the face of them – because we know they are moving us closer to our much more important spiritual goals. Fundamentally, we understand that whether we are happy or not depends upon our mind, so the only way to be happy is to change our mind – our external situation is almost irrelevant.

Dorje Shugden can help with both of these things we lack. For the first, he is the protector of the Kadam Dharma or Kadam Lamrim. The actual Dharma only exists within our mind. He protects the flourishing of the Dharma within our mind. The quintessential butter that comes from churning the milk of Dharma is bodhichitta, the wish to attain enlightenment. Just as all rivers eventually flow into the ocean, all Dharmas flow into the mind of bodhichitta. The Lamrim principally functions to change what we want from worldly happiness to spiritual goals, up to the wish to attain enlightenment.

For the second, Dorje Shugden is a wisdom Buddha, an emanation of Manjushri. His blessings are particularly powerful to help us understand how what we are facing in life is perfect for our next step in our spiritual journey. All we need is faith in him and a pure spiritual motivation. We then make requests that he arrange what is best and that he bless our mind to see how what is happening is best for us. When we receive these blessings, we then see and know. This enables us to accept our situation and get to work on transforming our adversity into the path.

Just as Dorje Shugden can do all this for us, he can also do all this for those we love. It may not be as quick or as obvious how this is happening, but since he, those we love, and ourself are all empty, it is definite it is happening. We gradually karmically reconstruct our empty world.

Because the methods we have are perfectly reliable, all we need is the perseverance necessary to never give up and both we and all those we love will get there in the end. This is why it is the Joyful Path. We know the final outcome is assured.