Happy Je Tsongkhapa Day: I Rejoice in the Great Wave of your Deeds

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days , , , ,

In many ways, October 25th, or Je Tsongkhapa Day, is my favorite day of the Kadampa calendar.  Why?  Because he is the founder of our tradition, our living spiritual guide, and the source of all good.  On Je Tsongkhapa Day, we can remember his great kindness, strive to emulate his example, and ultimately decide to mix our mind inseparably with his.  I pray that all those who read this develop unchanging faith in Guru Tsongkhapa, and in dependence upon this faith, effortlessly follow his joyful path.

Understanding How Holy Days Work

There are certain days of the year which are karmically more powerful than others, and the karmic effect of our actions on these days is multiplied by a factor of ten million!  These are called “ten million multiplying days.”  In practice, what this means is every action we engage in on these special days is karmically equivalent to us engaging in that same action ten million times.  This is true for both our virtuous and non-virtuous actions, so not only is it a particularly incredible opportunity for creating vast merit, but it is also an extremely dangerous time for engaging in negative actions.  There are four of these days every year:  Buddha’s Englightenment Day (April 15), Turning the Wheel of Dharma Day (June 4), Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day (September 22), and Je Tsongkhapa Day (October 25).  Heruka and Vajrayogini Month (January 3-31), NKT Day (1st Saturday of April), and International Temple’s Day (first Saturday of November) are the other major Days that complete the Kadampa calendar. 

A question may arise, why are the karmic effect of our actions greater on certain days than others?  We can think of these days like a spiritual pulsar that at periodic intervals sends out an incredibly powerful burst of spiritual energy, or wind.  On such days, if we lift the sails of our practice, these gushes of spiritual winds push us a great spiritual distance.  Why are these specific days so powerful?  Because in the past on these days particularly spiritually significant events occurred which altered the fundamental trajectory of the karma of the people of this world.  Just as calling out in a valley reverberates back to us, so too these days are like the karmic echoes of those past events.  Another way of understanding this is by considering the different types of ocean tides.  Normally, high and low tide on any given day occurs due to the gravity of the moon pulling water towards it as the earth rotates.  But a “Spring tide” occurs when the earth, moon, and Sun are all in alignment, pulling the water not just towards the moon as normal, but also towards the much more massive sun.  Our holy days are like spiritual Spring tides.

Je Tsongkhapa is the Founder of the New Kadampa Tradition

Buddha Shakyamuni is the founder of Buddhism in this world, and all of the different types of Buddhism (Zen, Theravadin, Kadampa, etc.) are all different presentations of his teachings.  Buddha gave 84,000 different instructions, but different traditions will place different emphasis on different aspects to correspond with the karmic dispositions of those who follow that tradition.  We cannot say one tradition is better than another in some absolute sense, rather we can say, “this tradition is better for me,” and “that tradition is better for her,” etc.  In this way, we can each cherish our own traditions while respecting all others.

Atisha is the founder of the Kadampa tradition.  ‘Kadam’ means a special presentation of Buddha’s 84,000 teachings called the “Lamrim,” which the Buddhist Master Atisha introduced when he went from India to Tibet in 1042 AD.  ‘Pa’ means somebody who puts into practice.  A Kadampa, therefore, means somebody who takes Atisha’s Lamrim as their main practice.  Atisha is primarily known for uniting the vast and profound paths together.  The vast path refers to the accumulation of merit, the principal cause of a Buddha’s body; and the profound path refers to the accumulation of wisdom, the principal cause of a Buddha’s mind.  By practicing the union of the two, our practices of the vast and profound paths reinforce each other and we create the causes to attain a Buddha’s body and mind simultaneously.  His path is generally presented as the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, namely renunciation, bodhichitta, and the correct view of emptiness.  Renunciation is the wish to escape from samsara ourselves, bodhichitta is the wish to become a Buddha to lead others to liberation, and the correct view of emptiness eradicates the root of samsara, self-grasping ignorance.

Je Tsongkhapa (1357 to 1419 AD) is the founder of the New Kadampa Tradition. Just as Atisha presented the union of the vast and profound path, Je Tsongkhapa introduced the union of Sutra and Tantra. Like the old Kadampas, practitioners of the New Kadampa Tradition also take Atisha’s Lamrim as their main practice. The difference is New Kadampas can practice the Lamrim at the gross level (Sutra) and the subtle level (Tantra) as completely non-contradictory. Sutra is how we practice Buddha’s instructions with our gross mind, Tantra is how we do so with our subtle and very subtle minds, but both are methods of practicing Lamrim.

Ultimately, Tantra is much quicker than Sutra because our gross minds arise from our subtle and very subtle mind. If we pull weeds but fail to take out the roots, the weeds will grow back; in the same way, if we pacify our gross minds but fail to purify our subtle minds, the delusions will keep coming back. Tantra is a special spiritual technology for purifying our root mind, or our very subtle mind, of all of our delusions and their karmic imprints, thus eradicating samsara at its root. We purify our very subtle mind by meditating on its emptiness. This one meditation functions to simultaneously uproot all of the contaminated karma we have accumulated since beginningless time. Je Tsongkhapa showed how the paths of Sutra and Tantra are not only completely non-contradictory, but are mutually reinforcing, and by practicing them together in the context of Atisha’s Lamrim, we can quickly attain enlightenment.

The New Kadampa Tradition has five main aspects of the path: renunciation, bodhichitta, the correct view of emptiness, generation stage, and completion stage. These can be understood as there is one action on the path: changing the basis of imputation of our I from our ordinary samsaric body and mind to the completely pure body and mind of a Buddha. There are two reasons why we do it, renunciation (for ourselves) and bodhichitta (for others). And there are two levels at which we do it, the gross body and mind of a Buddha (generation stage) and the subtle body and mind of a Buddha (completion stage). Je Tsonkghapa is the founder of this way of practicing.

Since Je Tsongkhapa, there has been an unbroken lineage of his teachings down to our present-day lineage gurus, including Je Phabongkhapa, Trijang Rinpoche, and our very own Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.  There is no difference in meaning between the Dharma Je Tsongkhapa taught and what we currently practice, the only difference is the cultural presentation, analogies, and languages used to express that meaning.  Everything we practice, directly or indirectly, comes from Je Tsongkhapa.  We are Je Tsongkhapa’s tradition.  The New Kadampa Tradition – International Kadampa Buddhist Union (NKT-IKBU) was founded by Geshe-la to present Je Tsongkhapa’s teachings to the modern world. 

Je Tsongkhapa is our Living Spiritual Guide

One of the hardest parts of the Buddhist path for modern people is relying upon a “guru.”  At first, it all seems very “cult-like.”  I remember telling my first teacher Gen Lekma once, “I’m down with all of the Dharma teachings except this whole reliance upon the spiritual guide thing!”  When I told her this, she was in the middle of swallowing some tea, and she nearly spit it out in a laugh.  After collecting herself, she looked at me and said, “I have found that the things we struggle the most with at first later become the things that have the biggest transformative impact on our mind.”  Truer words have never been spoken. 

To understand why reliance upon the spiritual guide is the root of the path, we have to back up a bit.  Why do we need teachers in general?  Because we are ignorant and don’t know.  Why do we need spiritual teachers?  Because we are ignorant of the spiritual path, not knowing its destinations nor how to follow the path to these destinations.  Why do we need a root guru or root spiritual guide?  Because we need somebody who has completed the path and can guide our mind to the same state.  It takes humility to learn from any teacher, it takes great humility to rely upon a Spiritual Guide. 

Normally, we say Geshe-la is the root guru, or Spiritual Guide, of the NKT.  It is true everything we study and practice comes from him, and he has created for us all of the conditions we now enjoy for our practice, such as temples, centers, teachers, sangha friends, books, sadhanas, and so forth.  But what does he say?  He says don’t look at me, rather look at Je Tsongkhapa at my heart.  We view Geshe-la as an emanation of Je Tsongkhapa, but Je Tsongkhapa is our actual Spiritual Guide.  What does Je Tsongkhapa say?  He says don’t look at me, rather look at Buddha Shakyamuni at my heart.  What does Buddha Shakyamuni say?  Don’t look at me, rather look at Heruka at my heart.  Guru Heruka is our actual spiritual guide.  He appeared as Buddha Shakyamuni to introduce the Dharma to the people of this world.  He later appeared as Je Tsongkhapa, who in turn appeared as Geshe-la.  This is Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka. Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka is, always has been, and always will be the spiritual guide of the Kadampa tradition. From one perspective, it is the same person – the same mental continuum – appearing at different points in time according to the karmic dispositions of the people of this world.

But from another perspective, Je Tsongkhapa is still our Spiritual Guide today. His emanation bodies may change, but the jewel in the lotus remains the same person. When Buddhas attain enlightenment, they become deathless beings. Their emanation bodies may pass away, but they do not, they continue to live. We can continue to develop a living relationship with these holy beings because they are still with us today. He is still here, guiding us, teaching us, blessing us, and so forth. Geshe-la, the Gen-la’s, and all of our other spiritual teachers are essentially spiritual telephones which connect the pure world of Je Tsongkhapa with our present samsaric reality. Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka speaks and works through all of them. When we rely upon our outer spiritual teachers they explain to us how to develop a relationship with our inner spiritual teachers who then take us to enlightenment. The outer teachers and the inner teachers are not separate beings, but different layers of the same being appearing to different levels of purity of mind.

Whenever we engage in any Guru Yoga practice, our main job is to feel we are in the living presence of our spiritual guide – seeing all of the Buddhas as inseparable from our guru and our guru as inseparable from all the Buddhas.  Every practice we engage in is about creating a close karmic relationship with our spiritual guide in his different karmic aspects.  In dependence upon this karmic relationship, we gain greater and greater access to our spiritual guide’s blessings, until eventually, it is almost as if we gain the ability to download their enlightenment into our own mind.  In the end, we mix our mind with our guru’s mind, where we make no distinction between our mind and his enlightened mind.  From one perspective, it is like a mind transplant where his mind becomes ours; from another perspective, it is like removing the obstructions to our own root mind and discovering that our actual mind was his enlightened mind all along. 

Because Je Tsongkhapa is the embodiment of his Dharma, by mixing our mind with his, we mix our mind with his special union of Sutra and Tantra and eventually come to see ourselves as a wave inseparable from the ocean of his omniscient mind.  We view all phenomena as arising from emptiness, all emptinesses as the nature of our mind of great bliss, and the union of our realization of great bliss and emptiness as inseparable from our guru’s Truth Body, or Dharmakaya. 

Je Tsongkhapa is the Source of all Good

This is somewhat harder to understand.  All good things come from good karma.  All good karma comes from virtuous actions.  All virtuous actions arise due to receiving blessings from the holy beings.  Je Tsongkhapa is the synthesis of all the Buddhas, therefore he is the source of all blessings, virtuous actions, good karma, and ultimately good results. 

Sometimes, we like to take credit for our good deeds, therefore we think Je Tsongkhapa is not the source of all good, we are. Or maybe it is a mixed affair, where he helps us with his blessings, but mostly it comes from our own effort. This doubt comes from grasping at a duality between ourselves and our ultimate nature. Our good deeds arise from our good intentions, but where do they arise from? They pour into our mind when we open it up to the sun of our pure potential. Just as the sun pours in whenever the blinds are opened, so too virtuous intentions come into our mind when cracks in the layers of the karmic obstructions on our mind appear. But what is our pure potential? By nature, it is Guru Tsongkhapa. All Buddhas impute their I onto the truth body or Dharmakaya. What is this? It is a mind of great bliss that realizes directly and simultaneously the emptiness of all phenomena. A Buddha’s body and mind are the same entity, the same nature, which means their truth body pervades all phenomena. Because we too are empty, we have a pure potential. This pure potential fully realized is Je Tsongkhapa. Every time we access or ripen this potential, we are releasing some of Je Tsongkhapa into our mind. Thus, he is inseparable from all of our good intentions – he is our good intentions manifesting in our mind.

There are many prayers to Je Tsongkhapa, but the most famous is the Migtsema prayer, which explains that Je Tsongkhapa is the synthesis of Buddha Shakyamuni, Vajradhara, Avaolokitehsvara, Manjushri, and Vajrapaini. There is also the single-pointed request which explains he is the guru, he is the yidam, he is the daka, and the Dharma protector. If all of the goodness in all of the universe were gathered together, it would produce the appearance of Je Tsongkhapa. Put another way, Je Tsongkhapa is a holy being who has managed to successfully impute his I onto the synthesis of all goodness. Thus it is perfectly correct to say he is the source of all good because he is all goodness itself.

But how can we understand he is the source of all good, including that of non-Buddhists?  Everything we perceive is ultimately created by our mind, arising from our mind.  There is no creator other than mind, and there is nothing that exists outside of our mind (if it did, that thing would be inherently existent).  This means that everything is part of our karmic dream. Any good we perceive in the world is a reflection of the goodness in our mind.  We created the karma for that goodness to appear.  We already established that all goodness that arises in our mind comes from Je Tsongkhapa, thus any goodness that arises in our karmic dream also arises from him. 

Remembering Je Tsongkhapa’s Kindness

On Je Tsongkhapa Day, our main practice should be to remember his kindness.  We can do this by contemplating what Geshe-la said about Je Tsongkhapa Day.  I find it particularly helpful to remember his kindness in my own life.  He has given me my spiritual life.  Without my Dharma practice, I don’t know how I would have turned out in the wake of my mother’s suicide on my wedding day or all of the other challenges I have faced in my life.  Je Tsongkhapa’s way of thinking has come to dominate my way of thinking, and I am much happier for it.  It suffices to ask myself what my life would be like if I had never met his Dharma to see the profound impact it has had. 

More importantly, he has provided me with the spiritual tools I need to close the door on ever taking lower rebirth again through purification and refuge practice.  Through his kindness, I have found the door to liberation that will enable me to once and for all cease the samsaric nightmare I have been trapped in since beginningless time.  He has shown me not only that I can attain enlightenment and thereby be in a position to help all those I love who are also drowning in samsara, but he has provided me with incredibly simple step-by-step instructions for how to do it.  In what can only be described as a miracle, I have found qualified tantric teachings of generation and completion stage through which it is possible to attain enlightenment in one life or barring that, at least getting to the pure land where I can complete my spiritual training.  His blessings flow into me day and night, even while I sleep, holding me back from quite literally going insane.  Without him, I would be lost.  With him, I have been found.  By relying upon him, I can fulfill all my own and other’s pure wishes.  He is a true wish-fulfilling jewel who has kept alive the holy Kadam Dharma in this world, and it is my job to do all that I can to internalize it and then pass it on to future generations.

Emulating his Example

If I were trapped on a desert island and only allowed one book, it would be Great Treasury of Merit. Normally we say Joyful Path of Good Fortune is like the hub of the wheel of Dharma, and all of the other books are like spokes of that wheel. But the axis around which Joyful Path turns is Great Treasury of Merit which presents the very synthesis of Je Tsongkhapa’s Dharma by showing how all the essential meanings of his teachings fit together with exactly the right proportionalities of how important each teaching is. In truth, the book is about 70% how to rely upon the Spiritual Guide and 30% everything else, which is exactly correct. The sections on visualizing the spiritual guide explain the meaning of his holy form. Buddhas can manifest their inner realizations as outer forms, and Je Tsongkhapa’s body is quite literally all of his realizations as form. By generating faith in his holy form, we mix our mind with all of his realizations. The sections on prostrations, praises, and making requests explain his many good qualities and special functions in our life. Reading these with faith, one cannot help but be amazed. In truth, I would say the true hub of the wheel of the Kadampa teachings is Oral Instructions of Mahamudra and Mirror of Dharma. In my mind, Mirror of Dharma is the Oral Instructions of Lamrim. Around this is Great Treasury of Merit, round that is Joyful Path, and then emanating like spokes are all the other books. But if I’m only allowed one book, I still pick Great Treasury of Merit.

There are two aspects of his example which appeal to me most.  The first is how he demonstrates the practice of moral discipline and the second is the great wave of his deeds. 

His outer form is of a fully ordained monk, revealing the practices of the vows of individual liberation. His inner form is Buddha Shakyamuni, revealing the moral discipline of a Bodhisattva. And his secret form is Vajradhara or Heruka, demonstrating the moral discipline of a tantric master. At my very first Kadampa festival, when Geshe-la first opened the temple in Manjushri, he gave a three-day teaching on essentially one subject – overcoming distractions. He explained that we have everything we need to attain enlightenment, the only thing that is missing is our practicing these instructions without distraction. The practices of moral discipline are how we overcome our gross distractions by letting go of each object of abandonment. Moral discipline is not wishing to engage in negativity, but holding ourselves back from doing so. Rather, it is realizing we no longer wish to do so, and so we “let go” of wanting the objects of our transgressions. Normally, we think moral discipline is a list of ‘don’ts’ that deprives us of our freedom. We have everything backward. The practice of moral discipline is a profound shift in our mind that is experienced as a “release” into greater and greater levels of inner freedom by leaving behind the chains of samsara.

Every day in our Heart Jewel practice, we rejoice in the great wave of Je Tsongkhapa’s deeds. What exactly is this great wave? We can say it is his special method for eventually liberating all beings. He attained enlightenment. What did he do with his enlightenment? He formed new spiritual guides for carrying forward the tradition. What did those spiritual guides do? Create more spiritual guides still. In this way, his virtuous deeds multiple exponentially until eventually the wave of his kind actions will carry every single living being to the state of full enlightenment. He has set in motion a spiritual self-perpetuating machine whose function is to liberate all beings from all suffering forever. In one short life, he initiated a wave that will never stop until all of his pure wishes are fulfilled.

We have the incredible good fortune to not only receive benefit from him but to become ourselves part of his great wave. He has laid at our feet exactly the same Dharma he taught and realized. By picking up the Dharma he has given us and bringing it into our mind, we too can become a fully qualified spiritual guide able to carry forward this great lineage for the benefit of all those we have a close karmic relationship with. If we do not do this for those we love, who will? It may be aeons before his wave comes around again to these beings, but we can carry them with us right now. Gen Tharchin says the beings who we generate bodhichitta towards as bodhisattvas are among the first we lead to enlightenment when we attain the final goal. Look around at everyone you love, see how they are drowning, and now remember Je Tsongkhapa has given you the means to do something about it by becoming part of his great wave.

Deciding to Mix our Mind with His

In the final analysis, attaining enlightenment is very simple:  all we need to do is mix our mind inseparably with somebody who has already attained enlightenment.  In this way, the duality between their mind and our mind vanishes, and their enlightened mind becomes our mind and our mind becomes their enlightened mind.  Everything else in the Dharma is why we should do this and how to do it.  As practitioners of the New Kadampa Tradition, whose mind do we mix ours with?  Lama Tsongkhapa’s.  It’s as simple as that.

Every object of meditation is an aspect of his mind.  Every instruction we practice comes from his mind. Every realization we gain is an infusion of his mind into our own.  Every practice we do is changing the basis of imputation of our I from our ordinary contaminated body and mind to his completely pure body and mind.  Every deity we rely upon is like a facet on the diamond of his mind.  Every phenomenon we see is a wave on the ocean of his mind.  He is everything.  Our job is so simple:  just mix our mind with his.  Whatever we mix our mind with, we become.  Since he is the synthesis of all the Buddhas, all Dharmas, and all Sanghas, by mixing our mind with his, we too become the source of all good.

The only thing that is missing is deciding to dedicate our lives to this goal.  There are so many things we do in life, but how many of them do us any good?  Only deciding to mix our mind with his will free us.  We can reach the point where our every thought, word, and deed is him working through us.  We need not struggle in our spiritual practice, we merely need to request his blessings.  We need not invent the path, we can simply follow the one he has laid out for us.  We need not ever doubt, we can internally request his wisdom.  There is nothing he cannot provide us, all we need to do is decide to rely upon him.

Today is Je Tsongkhapa Day.  Every decision we make today is karmically equivalent to making that same decision ten million times.  What better way to mark this holy day than making the firm internal decision to dedicate our life to mixing our mind with Lama Tsongkhapa’s, our living Spiritual Guide.  I pray that everyone who reads this transforms their life in this way.

Happy Tsog Day: Remembering our Spiritual Guide’s Profound Qualities

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 18 of a 44-part series.

Requesting by expressing his secret qualities

You are the essence of the ten million circles of mandalas
That arise from the state of the all-knowing exalted wisdom;
Principal Holder of the Vajra, pervasive source of the hundred families,
O Protector of the Primordial Union, to you I make requests.

Our spiritual guide’s secret qualities are him being by nature Vajradhara, the principal deity and spiritual guide of tantric practice. When Buddha Shakyamuni taught sutra, he appeared as Buddha Shakyamuni; but when he taught tantra, he appeared as Buddha Vajradhara. According to Highest Yoga Tantra, we regard all deities as emanations or manifestations of our spiritual guide. Here, it explains there are ten million circles of mandalas and one hundred Buddha families that all arise from and are manifestations of Buddha Vajradhara. In this way, we recognize our spiritual guide as the synthesis of all the Buddhas. But at the same time, we do not make a distinction between an emanation and the Buddha doing the emanating. Just as you cannot separate a wave from its underlying ocean, so too you cannot separate the waves of any of the countless Buddhas from the underlying ocean of Vajradhara.

Sometimes we think Vajradhara was an historical figure that existed in the past. But in truth he still lives and is guiding us today. Buddha Vajradhara emanates Buddha Shakyamuni, who later appeared as Atisha, who later appeared as Je Tsongkhapa, and who is appearing today as our present spiritual guide. These are all the same person continuing to appear at different points in time according to the karmic dispositions of the people of the different worlds they inhabit. Thus, when we think of our spiritual guide, we think of all the Buddhas. And when we think of all the Buddhas, we think of our spiritual guide. While there is no doubt the outer aspect of our present spiritual guide is important in that he serves as a bridge between our “I”mpure world and the pure world of the Buddhas, we should recognize that he is just an appearance inside of our samsaric dream, but in reality, our actual spiritual guide is Vajradhara. Understanding this, we make requests to our living spiritual guide Vajradhara requesting that he continue to emanate the ten million circles of mandalas and the hundred Buddha families for our benefit.

Requesting by expressing his suchness qualities

Pervasive nature of all things stable and moving,
Inseparable from the experience of spontaneous joy without obstructions;
Thoroughly good, from the beginning free from extremes,
O Actual, ultimate bodhichitta, to you I make requests.

The spiritual guide’s suchness qualities are his ultimate nature of bliss and emptiness. Once again, the analogy of waves and oceans is helpful. The definitive spiritual guide is an I imputed upon the bliss and emptiness of all phenomena. This is the ocean. Every phenomena is a wave on this ocean. This bliss and emptiness is the pervasive nature of all phenomena that is both stable, in the sense that it always remains equally empty, and moving in the sense that phenomena are in constant change. The ocean always remains the ocean, but the waves take on different shapes and forms. The experience of spontaneous joy without obstructions experiences the entire universe as our body of great bliss and emptiness rippling as waves according to the currents of karma. This ultimate nature has always been and always will be and it has always been completely pure, hence it is thoroughly good from the beginning free from the two extremes. Here, the two extremes refer to the extreme of inherent existence, thinking that somehow waves can exist separately from their underlying ocean; and the extreme of nothingness, thinking if things do not exist inherently, they do not exist at all.

Here, we direct our request to ultimate bodhichitta recognizing the suchness nature of our spiritual guide is ultimate bodhichitta. According to Sutra, ultimate bodhichitta is the realization of the emptiness of all phenomena motivated by the mind of conventional bodhicitta, or the wish to become a Buddha for the benefit of all. According to tantra, ultimate bodhichitta is the union of great bliss and emptiness. What is the relationship between these two understandings of ultimate bodhicitta? The emptiness according to sutra and the emptiness according to tantra are exactly the same. The difference is in the subject mind that realizes the emptiness of all phenomena. In sutra, we realize it with the mind of bodhichitta; and in tantra, we realize it with the mind of great bliss. Therefore, the proper question is what is the relationship between the mind of bodhicitta and the mind of great bliss? In science, we say there are necessary and sufficient causes. In Dharma, we say there are substantial and circumstantial causes. The substantial cause is the acorn and the circumstantial causes are the sunlight, soil, and water. The effect is an oak tree. The acorn is called the substantial cause because it is the thing that transforms into the next thing in dependence upon the circumstantial causes. In exactly the same way, bodhicitta is the substantial cause of the mind of great bliss. It is impossible to generate the mind of great bliss without first having generated the mind of bodhichitta, just as it is impossible to have an oak tree without an acorn. The practices of generation stage and completion stage of tantra are the circumstantial causes that transform our mind of bodhicitta into the mind of great bliss. The mind has three levels, gross, subtle, and very subtle. Bodhichitta is a gross level mind and great bliss is a very subtle mind. Put another way, great bliss is the very subtle version of bodhicitta, and bodhicitta is the gross version of the mind of great bliss. It is vital that we understand the relationship between these two minds. If we do, we will then understand the union of sutra and tantra. Recalling all this, we make requests to our spiritual guide’s suchness qualities recognizing them as the very subtle version of all the other qualities we have previously requested.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Give to those who seek charity. 

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

When beggars or others in need of our charity approach us, we must try to give them something.  If we refuse for some invalid reason other than miserliness (which is a root downfall) we incur a secondary downfall.

If we live in a city, this is probably something we do all the time.  We see others begging in the streets, we judge them in some way with some ridiculous internal comment like “get a job” (as if it were that easy), we come up with some internal justification about how they are going to just spend it on alcohol or drugs anyways, and besides our giving just encourages them to continue to be lazy, so we don’t give.  Or we say, “the government where I live already provides for them, so I don’t need to do anything extra.  I am a taxpayer, after all.”  Or perhaps we just don’t give them a second thought and keep on going. 

Years ago, when Geshe-la would send Gen-la Losang to India to learn certain things, such as how to build the mandalas we now find in our temples, he would always give Losang change so he could hand it out to the beggars.  We should do the same with our kids.  The worst thing we can teach to our kids is indifference to the suffering of others, and every time we walk by without helping that is exactly what we are teaching. Even if nobody is looking, we should still make an effort to give something to help.  Venerable Tharchin explains that it does not matter how much we give, what matters is how frequently we generate the mind of giving.  If you have only one dollar to give away, it is better to give one penny one hundred times than one dollar once.  If we have no money to give, we can still give people our love and respect.  Imagine how hard it is to live on the streets, imagine how many people walk by considering beggars to be scum.  We can give people a smile, we can give people understanding, we can show them some respect, and we can give them encouragement.  We can also give people our time.  Stop, and ask them to tell you their story.  Listen to it, learn from it, and respect their struggles.  Yes, they will expect some money, but so what – give it to them. 

If we live in a democratic country, we should elect leaders who actually care about the poor and are willing to do something to help them.  Jimmy Carter once said, “if you don’t want your tax dollars helping the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don’t!”  We live in incredibly unequal times. In America, the top 1% owns more than 40% of national wealth, and the bottom 80% owns less than 10%.  Europe and Canada are slightly better, but the rest of the world is more like America.  It is true, going to the extreme of Communism would be a mistake, but surely protecting people from abject poverty is not that.  There are many studies done which show it is actually cheaper on society to give the homeless shelter and help them get on their feet than it is to leave them homeless.  When you add up the costs of policing, crime, mental institutions, prisons, loss of value due to urban blight, etc., it is simply cheaper to do the right thing.  Of course we don’t mix Dharma and politics, but this does not mean we cannot use Dharma values to influence our political actions, such as voting.  There is no contradiction between a Kadampa not mixing Dharma and politics and them nonetheless engaging in political advocacy for causes they believe in.  Democratic citizenship is part of modern society, and if we are to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life we need to learn how to unite the two without mixing the two.  Just avoiding all political action or thought is not the middle way.  If we can vote for those who will help and we fail to do so, then it does not seem a stretch to say we are perhaps committing this downfall.  Perhaps I am wrong, but it is something to think about.

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.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Help when you can and try relieve distress

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Not returning help to those who benefit us. 

If we completely forget the kindness of others and have no intention to repay them, we incur a secondary downfall.

The reality is this:  most of us are so self-absorbed that we don’t even realize all the different ways people provide us benefit, much less think to bother to repay their kindness.  When others are kind to us and we don’t even acknowledge it, they then can come to regret their kindness or at the least be less willing to help again in the future.  This helps neither them nor us.

The first step, therefore, in avoiding this downfall is to take the time to recall others’ kindness.  This is not something we do just once every 21 days when this meditation comes up in our lamrim cycle, but it is something we need to make a constant reflex.  Every time something comes our way, we “see” all the kindness that brought it to us.  If we see others’ kindness, the wish to repay it will naturally arise.

The second step is we need to realize nobody owes us anything.  The reason why we most often take for granted others’ kindness is we “expect” them to give it.  For example, with our parents, because we “expect” them to provide us with certain things, when they do provide us we consider it to be “normal” and so therefore we feel no gratitude.  In fact, we usually have nearly unlimited expectations of what they are supposed to do for us that no matter how much they do, they always fall short in our eyes.  Instead of being grateful for what they do do, we judge them for what they don’t do.  To be blunt, we are nothing but spoiled brats when we do this.  We may feel we are “justified” in having these expectations of them because they are cultural norms, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is nonetheless kind that they abide by them – even if imperfectly.  We have similar attitudes towards our teachers, our friends, our bosses – even others on the road or in the supermarket checkout line.  In all cases, such projected expectations are completely wrong.

Gen-la Losang advises we should “expect nothing from anyone ever.”  If we expect everything and others do something, we are disappointed and frustrated.  If we expect nothing and others do something, we are surprised and delighted, and thus naturally feel grateful.  If we expect nothing from anyone ever, then no matter what people do, it will exceed our expectations, and thus we will naturally feel grateful to them.

But it is not enough to just feel grateful, we need to repay others’ kindness towards us.  We need to look for opportunities to do so, not just passively wait for them to ask us for our help.  When they do ask, we should do so eagerly, not grudgingly.  We are even grateful that they give us a chance to repay their kindness.  I had a friend once who helped me out tremendously.  Many years later, I told this person what a positive effect they had had on my life and a I asked him what I could do to repay his kindness.  His answer was, “do the same for somebody else.  And if they later ask you how they can repay you back, give the same answer.  In this way, the kindness keeps going.”  I find this the most perfect answer.

Not relieving the distress of others. 

If we meet people who are beset with grief and have the opportunity to comfort them and yet do nothing, we incur a secondary downfall.

This downfall is really the mirror image of the earlier downfall about not helping others when we can do so.  Here, we are focused on relieving others of their suffering (acting on our compassion) as opposed to helping them in some way (acting on our love).  Ultimately, these are two sides of the same coin.

But once again, we need to be skillful.  We cannot approach others with our KadampaMan cape on with a “your savoir has arrived” attitude!  The best help is that given anonymously.  When we help others with some expectation for something in return, it destroys the virtue of our help and makes the person not want to accept our help for fear of later being obliged to us in some way.  We should also let go of any individual need for the person to change.  Very often we develop an aversion to deluded people and their actions, and our “helping them” is actually us trying to get them to stop their bothersome behavior.  They of course are not stupid, sense our selfish motivation, and therefore reject our help and advice.  Paradoxically, it is because we want others to change for the better that we have to completely let go of any need for them to do so.  Instead, we should think their deluded attitude serves us just fine because it gives us an opportunity to practice.  If they change, good for them; but from our side, we have no need for them to do so.

Happy Tsog Day: Remembering our Spiritual Guide’s Surpassing Qualities

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 17 of a 44-part series.

Requesting by remembering that he is a supreme Field of Merit

Even just one of your hair pores is praised for us
As a Field of Merit that is superior to all the Conquerors
Of the three times and the ten directions;
O Compassionate Refuge and Protector, to you I make requests.

What is the field of merit? Just as farmers can plant seeds in fields that later produce crops that can nourish our body, spiritual practitioners can plant seeds of virtue in the field of merit which will later ripen in the form of a rich crop of Dharma realizations. We can understand how our spiritual guide is a supreme field of merit by understanding how he is kinder than all the Buddhas as explained above. Here, we emphasize how all three jewels are in fact emanations of our spiritual guide. Every Buddha, bodhisattva, and so forth are all emanated by our spiritual guide. The ultimate nature of our spiritual guide is an I imputed upon the bliss and emptiness of all things. In this way, we can say that everything is an emanation of our spiritual guide. Thus, any virtuous action we perform towards the three jewels or towards all living beings is an offering to our spiritual guide and the planting of seeds in his field of merit. Without this field, we would never be able to have our virtuous seeds ripen in the form of Dharma realizations, just as seeds alone cannot grow without the ground they are planted in. In this sense, our spiritual guide is truly indispensable for our attainment of enlightenment.

Requesting by expressing his outer qualities

From the play of your miracle powers and skilful means
The ornament wheels of your three Sugata bodies
Appear in an ordinary form to guide migrators;
O Compassionate Refuge and Protector, to you I make requests.

We can understand how important the outer aspect of our spiritual guide is by considering what our life would be like if we had never met Geshe Kelsang Gyatso or if he never appeared in this world. If he did not exist in this world, we would not have our Dharma books, our Dharma centers, our Dharma festivals, our global sangha, and so forth. We would have nothing. Because we met the outer form of our spiritual guide, he has introduced us to all sorts of enlightened beings such as Heruka, Vajrayogini, and Dorje Shugden. Through reliance upon these deities, we are quickly making progress towards enlightenment. But none of this would be possible without having encountered the outer form of our spiritual guide. With this verse, we request that our spiritual guide, who we understand to be the living Je Tsongkhapa, continue to appear in this world to guide living beings along the path to enlightenment. Without the outer form of the spiritual guide, there would be no bridge between our world of suffering and the pure worlds of the Buddhas. It would be as if the doorway to the Buddha lands was permanently closed to us.

We might wonder how we should understand this verse now that Venerable Geshe-la has passed. While the cute little Tibetan no longer appears, he continues to exist in this world through his various “emanations,” such as all our resident teachers, centers, and so forth. He promised that he would be with us always. So when we make these prayers, we can understand how he is continuing to appear through the various aspects of the NKT, and pray that the continue to do so.

Typically, at the end of some of our practices or festivals, we recite the Request to the Holy Spiritual Guide, which used to be one of the long-life prayers. After Venerable Geshe-la passed, we started doing this prayer in the place of the long-life prayers, but we should understand it has the same function – namely requesting that the Spiritual Guide’s emanations continue to appear in this world turning the wheel of Dharma in general and the Ganden Oral Lineage in particular. We can understand that the present appearance of our spiritual guide is really an outer emanation of our living spiritual guide Je Tsongkhapa, or more specifically Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, who will always be the principal spiritual guide of the New Kadampa Tradition. In many ways, it is like our “living Jesus,” who is always with us and always our guide. When we make this request, in truth we are requesting Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka to continue to emanate outer spiritual guides in this world. When we make this request, we create the karma to have the spiritual guide appear to us in all our future lives between now and our eventual attainment of enlightenment. Further, by making this request with faith, when we meet our spiritual guide in our future lives, we will continue to have faith in him and be able to pick up where we left off on our spiritual path.

Requesting by expressing his inner qualities

Your aggregates, elements, sources, and limbs
Are by nature the Fathers and Mothers of the five Buddha families,
The Bodhisattvas, and the Wrathful Deities;
O Supreme spiritual guide, the nature of the Three Jewels, to you I make requests.

Samsara is sometimes best understood as being trapped within the cycle of the five contaminated aggregates – contaminated discrimination, contaminated feeling, contaminated compositional factors, contaminated consciousness, and contaminated form. Contaminated discrimination conceptually discriminates objects as inherently good, bad, and neutral. On the basis of these discriminations, we develop contaminated feelings where we experience objects as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. On the basis of these feelings, we then develop contaminated compositional factors, or different delusions and other mental factors related to the objects we are experiencing. These contaminated mental factors in turn lead us to engage in contaminated actions, in other words actions motivated by delusions or deluded minds. These actions subsequently plant contaminated karmic potentialities on our consciousness, which is the aggregate of contaminated consciousness. When this karma ripens, it appears as contaminated forms or contaminated appearances. These appearances appear to be inherently good, bad, or neutral, which our contaminated discrimination then discriminates objects as such, causing the cycle to continue forever.

To escape from samsara then, we need to develop the five omniscient wisdoms – the wisdom of individual discrimination, the wisdom of equality, the wisdom of accomplishing activities, the wisdom of the dharmadhatu, and mirror-like wisdom. The wisdom of individual discrimination discriminates every object individually as a manifestation of indivisible bliss and emptiness. The wisdom of equality then experiences all objects equally as great bliss unfolding in emptiness. The wisdom of accomplishing activities then generates pure minds in relation to every object it experiences, so that every action that subsequently follows is pure. These pure actions in turn, place pure karmic potentialities on our consciousness which is the wisdom of the dharmadhatu. The dharmadhatu is also a completely purified aggregate of consciousness, in other words there are no contaminated karmic potentialities on such a mind. Since there are only pure karmic potentialities on the mind, every karmic seed that ripens does so as pure forms which appear as manifestations of bliss and emptiness. Since all objects appear as manifestations of bliss and emptiness, the wisdom of individual discrimination is able to effortlessly discriminate each object as a manifestation of bliss and emptiness, and so the cycle continues indefinitely.

These five omniscient wisdoms correspond with the five Buddha families. The wisdom of individual discrimination arises in dependence upon reliance on Buddha Amitabha. Put another way Buddha Amitabha appears in the minds of living beings as the wisdom of individual discrimination. In the same way, Ratnasambhava appears as the wisdom of equality, Amoghasiddhi appears as the wisdom of accomplishing activities, Akshobya appears as the wisdom of the dharmadhatu, and Vairochana appears as mirror-like wisdom. By generating faith in and relying upon the five Buddha families, we can develop the five omniscient wisdoms. And then, instead of identifying with the five contaminated aggregates, we identify with the five omniscient wisdoms. Once we have changed the basis of imputation of our “I” from the five contaminated aggregates to the five omniscient wisdoms, we will have attained enlightenment.

In this verse, we recognize that the spiritual guide’s inner qualities are the five Buddha families or the five omniscient wisdoms. By making requests to our spiritual guide recognizing his inner qualities, we create the causes to receive the blessings of the five Buddha families and thereby experience and develop within our own mind the five omniscient wisdoms. In completion stage practice, we likewise rely upon the five Buddha families in the form of a collection of five wisdom drops that are the essence of each of the five Buddha families. When we engage in these completion stage practices, we should recall the meaning of the five Buddha families and the five omniscient wisdoms, strongly believing that by mixing our mind with the collection of five wisdom drops, we are mixing our mind with the wisdom of the five Buddha families.

In this verse we also recognize that our spiritual guide’s inner qualities include all the deities of Guhysamaja’s body mandala. There are three principal Highest Yoga Tantra yidam: Heruka, Yamantaka, and Guhysamaja. When we engage in the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide, we generate ourselves as Heruka, we recognize Lama Tsongkhapa as Yamantaka, and inside his body are the deities of Guhysamaja’s body mandala. In this way, we accomplish all the attainments of all the principal yidams of Highest Yoga Tantra in one single practice.

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.

Vows, commitments, and modern life:  Help others to overcome their bad habits. 

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

If there are people who habitually engage in behavior that directly or indirectly harms themselves or others and we have the opportunity skillfully to help them overcome their habits, we should do so.  If we cannot help them directly we should at least pray for them.  If we do nothing, we incur a downfall.  This differs from the 16th which concerns heavy negative actions.

Most of the time people will respond negatively to us telling them what they shouldn’t be doing, so unless the other person respects us and we think they value our opinion or intervention, it is usually best to not say anything directly.  When we feel we are judged, how do we respond?  We begin all sorts of self-justifications and we try establish why the other person is wrong.  So their “saying something” actually just serves to cause us to grasp even more tightly to our wrong views and to reject the very advice we are receiving.  So we need to be skillful. Nobody has asked us to get on our soap box and tell everybody else why they are wrong.  The Dharma should be used as a mirror for better seeing our own faults, not a magnifying glass for highlighting others’ faults. 

But this does not mean we do nothing.  In addition to praying, Venerable Tharchin says we should “own others’ faults as our own.”  His meaning is whenever we perceive a fault or bad habit in somebody else, we should recall that they are a karmic reflection of our own mind and karma.  We then find within ourself where we have that same fault (or some variant thereof) and then purge it like bad blood.  When we do so, we then show the best possible example of somebody freeing themselves from that person’s particular fault and we ourselves become less faulty.  He went on to say that if we remove the fault from ourself, “almost miraculously” the fault will begin to disappear from the other person.  The reason for this is obvious – they are a reflection of our own mind anyways. 

If the other person does have some respect for us, then it is usually best to just ask questions like, “is that a wise thing to do?”  It is far better for people to reason for themselves why what they are doing is wrong than to be told so.  We should also not say anything in front of other people, because then it introduces all sorts of unnecessary concerns about them losing face, etc.  If they are asking us to go along with their wrong course of action, we can politely refuse without casting any judgment on them doing so.  Often when people realize they are alone in their negativity, they stop.  On rare occasions, we can say something directly, but when we do so we should keep our message aimed at our view without projecting it onto the other person.  Something like, “in my view, that is a bad idea” or “it seems to me you are just harming yourself by continuing to do this.”  This leaves people free to take on board our view or not.  The irony is it is because we want people to change their view that we must give them the choice to not do so.  If we impose our view onto them, we almost invariably invite rebellion.  If we are in a position of authority over somebody, such as being a parent or a boss, then we should not hesitate if it is appropriate for us to remove the possibility of somebody harming themselves with their bad habits.  You don’t leave knives out with little children and you do what you can to create an environment in which they can make correct choices.

If somebody does come to you asking for advice for how to change their bad habit, we should of course help in every way we can.  But we should avoid the mistake of “overdoing it.”  As a general rule of thumb, we should give people slightly less than what they are asking for.  This creates the cause for them to ask for more.  If instead we smother them with all our “help,” they just push us away.  Kadam Lucy gives the example of a mother bird feeding their baby birds.  Give them just enough, but not too much.  In giving advice, it is usually best to just relate personal stories that are somewhat analogous to the person’s situation without you directly applying the conclusion of the story to their situation.  Let them make that final connection and then they will own the conclusion as their own.  Or you can explain “general principles when thinking about questions such as this” and then let them apply those principles in whatever way seems most appropriate to them.  Above all, we should completely let go of any judgment of the other person and any attachment to them taking any particular course of action, especially following our advice.  When we are attached to the other person changing, we are actually creating obstacles to them doing so.  Instead, we need to have no personal need for the person to change in any way.  If we have attachment to them changing, people will know we have an ulterior motive for our advice and they will reject it on those grounds alone – even if it is exactly the advice they need to hear.

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:  Acting to dispel suffering (including through prayer) 

Kadampa Ryan Vows, commitments and daily life

Whenever we see another suffering living being, we should feel compassion and consider how we can help them.  If we are unable to be of any practical assistance, we should at least pray for them.  If we do nothing, we incur a secondary downfall.

We are normally so busy that we don’t even notice other’s problems, much less stop to help.  If there is something we can do to help and we fail to do so without a good reason, we are in effect abandoning others to their suffering.  Would we want to be treated in the same way?  Karmically speaking, every person we see is a future emanation of ourself.  By helping them now, we are karmically helping ourselves in the future when we face a similar problem.  By abandoning others now, we are karmically abandoning ourself in the future.  Who in life are we the most grateful towards?  Surely it is those who were there for us when nobody else was.  Venerable Tharchin explains our ability to help others depends on two things:  first, we have some useful realizations to share; and second, the closeness of our karmic connection with the person.  By being there for others in their hour of greatest need, we build very deep and very pure karmic bonds with them.  We may not be able to give them Dharma now, but if we dedicate appropriately the day will come in this life or a future one, where we will be able to use our close relationship with them to help them along the path.

We may look at our life and say we don’t have many opportunities to really help others.  But Venerable Tharchin explains that our desire to help and the opportunities to do so are mutually dependent.  In other words, it is by maintaining a constant desire to help that we create the karmic causes to have opportunities to do so.  If we do not currently have many opportunities to actually help others, we can generate the constant wish to be of greatest possible service to others.  In dependence upon this wish, our karma will be reorganized and opportunities will begin to appear.  This desire to help also gives us special wisdom eyes to see opportunities where before we saw none. 

Ultimately, though, the best way we can help others is through our prayers.  Many people come into the Kadampa path in rejection of the touchy-feely sides of other religions, especially this whole prayer thing which strikes as superstition.  It says in many sadhanas, “Through the force of my intention, through the force of the blessings of the Tathagatas, and Through the force of the truth of all phenomena, may any suitable purpose that I wish to come about be accomplished without obstruction.”  This verse explains the power of prayer.

“Through the force of my intention” means our intention for praying is a spiritual one.  At a minimum, it means we pray for the sake of the other person, not for selfish reasons.  The highest intention is great compassion and bodhichitta, wishing that the person be free from all suffering.  But that does not mean a lesser spiritual intention is wrong.  If we see somebody who often gets angry, we can remind ourself that they are constantly creating the causes to be reborn in hell.  Wishing to protect them from such a fate we can pray that they learn to control their anger and find their patient acceptance.  “Through the force of the blessings of the Tathagatas” means the way in which our prayers are accomplished is through the power of the blessings of the Buddhas.  From our own side, of course, we have no power to bless other’s minds.  But we are able to pray to the Buddhas to bless others minds for us.  In dependence upon our faith in the Buddha and our karmic relationship with the person we are praying for, the Buddhas can bless their mind.  Even if they themselves have little karma with the Buddhas, our karma can serve as a bridge into their mind.  What is a blessing?  A blessing is the ripening of a karmic seed within the mind of a living being that functions to send that mind in the direction of enlightenment.  The difficult external situation may remain, but the mind of the person experiencing it will move in response towards enlightenment.

“Through the force of the truth of all phenomena” means emptiness.  It is emptiness that makes the power of prayer possible.  Ultimately, it is all dream.  Others do not exist separately from our mind, the Buddhas do not exist separately from our mind and what we pray for does not exist separately from our mind.  All are equally part of the dream.  When we grasp at others as being separate from us, or we grasp at the Buddhas as being separate from us, then it is quite natural to think prayers cannot work and are just superstitious happy thought.  But when we understand the equal emptiness of the other person, the Buddha, the blessings, and our prayer then all is possible.  Nagarjuna said, “for whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.”  In fact, the more we understand emptiness the more we realize prayer is simply the most effective way possible of accomplishing anything – arguably it is the only way possible.  In any case, it is clear that external methods have no power to alter the mind of another, so externally we do what we can to improve the external situation, and internally we pray to help improve the internal situation.

“May any suitable purpose that I wish to come about” means our prayers must be informed by wisdom of what is in fact suitable.  Many people mistakenly pray for specific external outcomes, such as good grades or a better job, and then lose faith when those outcomes do not materialize.  This happens in all religious traditions.  Suitable prayer is prayer conjoined with the humility that we might not know what is in fact best.  Perhaps the external hardship is exactly what the person needs to fundamentally alter the trajectory of their mental continuum.  So we pray, “please arrange whatever is best” and we pray, “please bless their mind so that this experience becomes a cause of their enlightenment.”  Such prayers open up the possibility for the external situation to remain exactly the same.  If it does, then we know it is “for the best” and we can accept it as such.  Our acceptance then helps the other person likewise accept their circumstance.  Acceptance and suffering are opposites – the more we accept, the less we suffer.  We suffer only because we do not accept. 

“Be accomplished without obstruction” is fairly self-explanatory, but has a deep meaning.  Obviously the meaning is that the prayer be fulfilled easily and fully, but the deeper meaning is the only thing that obstructs this from happening are “delusion obstructions” and “karmic obstructions.”  So implicitly, this is praying that the mind of the person be free from all delusions and that any karma that stands in the way of the fulfillment of the prayer be quickly purified.

If we understand the above, we understand how prayer works.  Such understanding gives us great confidence that prayers do work.  The teachings on karma say “if the cause is created, the effect is guaranteed.”  The above explains how to create the proper causes, so if we pray in a qualified way the effects of our prayers are guaranteed.  The only thing we do not know is the timing.  It may be years, or even lifetimes, before the prayer will be answered.  This is not a problem for us because we know for a fact that it is coming and that our prayer will definitely help.  With each additional prayer we add, we build up karmic force for the outcome to happen.