Happy Protector Day: Requesting the accomplishment of our wishes

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

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 10 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.

The reason why we make offerings and requests, which was explained in the previous two posts, is to accumulate a special merit which will ripen in the form of Dorje Shugden being able to respond to our requests.  In the next part of the Sadhana, we actually make specific requests and prayers to Dorje Shugden.  These prayers reveal what Dorje Shugden can accomplish for us through our faithful reliance.

HUM
Whenever your followers with commitments
Request any of the four actions,
Swiftly, incisively, and without delay, you show signs for all to see;
So please accomplish the actions that I now request of you.

The first line indicates how if we choose to keep the heart commitment of Dorje Shugden (which was explained in a previous post) we become uniquely qualified to be able to make requests to Dorje Shugden to accomplish the specific actions we request of him, not just that he arrange things in general.  This is like a special qualification that gives us special power.  By requesting that Dorje Shugden causes the Dharma to flourish, we create the karma for it to flourish within our own mind.  In the context of the sadhana, what we are requesting of him is what follows in the sadhana, but outside of the sadhana, we can request him anything.

The stainless sun of Je Tsongkhapa’s tradition
Shines throughout the sky of samsara and nirvana,
Eliminating the darkness of inferior and wrong paths;
Please cause its light to spread and bring good fortune to all living beings.

Path in a Dharma context refers to believing a thought in our mind.  If we believe our delusions to be true, we are following an inferior path.  If we believe our wisdom to be true, we are following a correct path.

May the glorious Gurus who uphold this tradition
Have indestructible lives, as stable as the supreme victory banner;
May they send down a rain of deeds fulfilling the wishes of disciples,
So that Je Tsongkhapa’s doctrine will flourish.

Through increasing the study, practice, pure discipline, and harmony
Of the communities who uphold the stainless doctrine of Buddha,
And who keep moral discipline with pure minds,
Please cause the Gedän tradition to increase like a waxing moon.

There are two methods for growing a Dharma center, external and internal. The external methods include doing good publicity making the center known, working for the center in the running of the center, improving the facilities, etc.  Internally, a Dharma center is actually the collection of spiritual realizations of its practitioners.  If the practitioners have no realizations, it is a small center, even if it has hundreds or thousands of members and many external temples.  If the practitioners have rich realizations, it is a large center, even if there are only a few practitioners and the external conditions are limited.

Gen Tharchin explains the way to grow a center is for the practitioners of that center to gain authentic spiritual realizations and then form karmic bonds between them.  We are given the problems of the community we serve.  We then use the Dharma to solve these problems.  Then, Dorje Shugden arranges for people who have these problems to come to the center.  He does not do it beforehand because he doesn’t want people to come to a center and not find the answers they are looking for.  So he waits until we gain experience and that we have something useful to share.  In particular, we can gain such realizations if people in Dharma centers study, practice, and maintain pure discipline and harmony. 

Through your actions please fulfil the essential wishes
Of all practitioners who uphold the victory banner
Of practising single-pointedly the stages of the paths of Sutra and Tantra,
The essence of all the teachings they have heard.

Here we make special requests that whenever any practitioner makes requests to Dorje Shugden that he respond.  In this way, we put our karma behind it and we each help one another in our requests.

Beings throughout this great earth are engaged in different actions
Of Dharma, non-Dharma, happiness, suffering, cause and effect;
Through your skilful deeds of preventing and nurturing,
Please lead all beings into the good path to ultimate happiness.

This is an important verse.  Dorje Shugden has the ability to transform any action or any experience into a cause of enlightenment.  For example, if somebody falls ill with cancer, we can request that it become a powerful cause of his enlightenment.  Or if our child starts using drugs, etc., we can request that this become a cause of their enlightenment.  Through this, Dorje Shugden will bless their minds where the condition will function as a cause of enlightenment.  It may not be immediately obvious how, but over the years with our sincere requests, it will definitely happen.  The feeling is that he gradually shepherds all the beings within the protection circle onto and along the path to enlightenment.  It will take time, but through our persistent and faithful requests, eventually everyone without exception will be lead along the path to enlightenment.  Again, note that this doesn’t mean that they are all brought to the Kadampa path, though certainly some will.  We are happy for them to be brought to any authentic path.

In particular, please destroy the obstacles and unfavourable conditions
Of myself and other practitioners.
Increase our lives, our merit, and our resources,
And gather all things animate and inanimate to be freely enjoyed.

Again, we make specific requests for practitioners, understanding their importance.

Please be with me always like the shadow of my body,
And care for me always like a friend,
By accomplishing swiftly whatever I wish for,
And whatever I ask of you.

If you want to receive the protection of Dorje Shugden like a true spiritual friend, the best way to do so is to become a true spiritual friend for others.  This creates the karma necessary for you to receive his protection in this way. The same is true for receiving his protection like a spiritual father.  Become a spiritual father (or mother) for others.  Take responsibility for others in your life, do not just do the minimum.  We should take worldly responsibility and spiritual responsibility for others.  But we need to embrace that responsibility with wisdom. If we do others’ internal or external work for them, we may help them temporarily, but they don’t learn how to do things for themselves. It can be an example of compassion without wisdom. Conventionally, each person is responsible for their own mind, reactions, and feelings. If people blame us for their feelings or say it is our responsibility that they acted the way they do, we should reject that. They are responsible for their own actions. And conventionally, Buddhas can’t bestow enlightenment upon us like giving a present to somebody. If people don’t create the causes for their enlightenment, it will never happen for them. And we can’t create karma for other people, they have to do so for themselves. Ultimately, though, there are no beings with no minds and no karma from their own side. The beings that appear to us are the beings of our karmic dream and they have no independent existence outside of our mind. In that sense, we are responsible for everything and everyone and all their expereinces within our karmic dream. When these two perspectives are seen as non-contradictory, we have a good understanding of the union of the two truths.

Please perform immediately, without delaying for a year, or even for a month,
Appropriate actions to eliminate all obstacles
Caused by misguided beings with harmful minds who try to destroy Je Tsongkhapa’s doctrine,
And especially by those who try to harm practitioners.

It is possible that some people may oppose our practice of Dharma.  Dorje Shugden can dispel all such obstacles through external and internal blessings. He can do this by blessing our mind to see the other person’s ‘interference’ as perfect for our practice.  Then it is no longer an obstacle. He can also do this by blessing the minds of others so that they no longer create obstacles for us.  We do not request this for selfish reasons, rather we do so to protect others from creating the bad karma of interfering with the pure spiritual practice of another.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Assume Responsibility for your Own Experience of Life

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.91) (Other schools) “So what you are saying is that painful feelings do not occur at that time
Because the delicious taste is a cause of their opposite – pleasant feelings.”

Here the other schools are trying to trap the Prasangikas into saying the delicious taste of the cake is a cause of the pleasant feelings, therefore pleasant feelings have external causes.

Whether it is a cause of pleasant or painful feelings depends merely upon conceptual imputation;
Thus, feelings are established as having no inherent existence.

The Prasangikas reply that no, they are not grasping at an external cause of pleasant or unpleasant feelings, they were simply showing that the analogy the other schools were using does not work even for them. Whether any external phenomena is experienced as pleasant or unpleasant depends entirely upon the mind experiencing that object. We see this all the time. One person experiences some food as delicious and someone else experiences that same food as disgusting. Which is it?  It is neither delicious nor disgusting. How it is experienced depends upon the mind experiencing it.

For example, we can consider broccoli.  Before, I did not like it at all because I was making decisions based solely on what is good for my mouth.  But then I started thinking about what is good for my body, and I ate broccoli even though my mouth didn’t like it.  Then over time, due to my change of attention – focusing more on the health benefits and less on the taste, I actually came to like the taste of broccoli.  What has changed?  Not the broccoli, just my mind.  By considering this example, we can change our experience of anything, even at the level of feelings.  We can even come to experience painful feelings as enjoyable. 

The key point is we need to assume personal responsibility for our own experience of things.  Our experiencing something as pleasant or unpleasant has nothing to do with the object and has everything to do with our mind and our view.  We can think about different types of music that some like and some detest.  It is primarily a question of attention.  The world we experience is the world we pay attention to.  We need to choose to pay attention to the good qualities of an object, and by doing so, we can enjoy everything.

We can literally come to experience everything as great bliss.  This is what a Buddha does.  A Buddha pays attention to the ultimate nature of the object, its being the nature of bliss and emptiness, as the dominant characteristic of the object, and as a result, they experience all objects as bliss and emptiness.  We need to stop attributing our experience of an object to the object itself, and realize instead it comes from our mind.  This will solve so many of our problems because then we will just work on changing our mind.  If we change objects, we constantly have to change objects (this is what most people do their whole life – in search of new objects that will do something to them).  If we change our mind, the job is done forever.  It is much more efficient.

(9.92) The antidote that abandons grasping at truly existent feelings
Is meditation on and analysis of lack of true existence.
The superior seeing that arises from analysis of this emptiness, conjoined with tranquil abiding,
Is the food that nourishes the Yogi’s realizations.

Our concern for our own, present feelings distracts us from our spiritual training that brings enjoyment.   We choose to pursue a samsaric pleasure, which will bring us nothing but suffering, and it takes us away from authentic spiritual practice.  Why do we allow ourselves to be distracted?  Why do we allow doubts to arise? I think mainly it is because we’re not enjoying ourselves with our Dharma practice.  We look to other places than our spiritual practice for our enjoyment, don’t we?  We do this because we make a false distinction between our spiritual practice and our enjoyments.  The truth is we can enjoy everything more if we relate to it in a spiritual way.  Then, there is no problem, everything becomes part of our spiritual training.  If we are not enjoying our spiritual practice, we will look to other things for enjoyment.  Since we know everything else is in the end harmful, we should really put effort into learning how to enjoy our spiritual practice.  It is worthwhile to revisit the chapter on effort, recalling that effort in a Dharma context means enjoying our spiritual practice.  If there is no enjoyment in our spiritual practice, there is no effort, and without effort, there will be no spiritual attainments, no matter how long we “practice.”  The easiest way out of this problem is to let go of our concern and attachment to feelings.  If we are no longer driven by feelings, but instead by wisdom, we will breeze through any problem.

It is helpful to recall that the dharmakaya of a Buddha is called the truth body. The clear light emptiness is a body whose nature is bliss and emptiness. When we have a direct realization of emptiness and our mind is absorbed single-pointedly in tranquil abiding on this realization, we are nourishing our truth body. We are bringing it to life and feeding it a steady diet of our attention. If our mind is able to be 100% focused on the union of bliss and emptiness and our mind never leaves this union then we will have attained enlightenment. Unpleasant feelings will never arise again.

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.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: The Emptiness of Eating Cake at our Loved Ones’ Funeral

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.88cd) And if pleasant feelings are truly existent,
Why do delicious tastes not bring joy to one who is grieving?

The Prasangika objection here is easy to understand. When we are in a bad mood or when we are experiencing a good deal of suffering, things that would normally make us happy do not anymore. In fact, when we experience them, we want to push them away and find them to be intrusive. Our mind is simply incapable of appreciating anything good because it is entirely preoccupied with the bad.

(9.89) (Other schools) “Such a person does develop pleasant feelings, but he or she does not experience them
Because they are suppressed by the strength of the painful feelings.”

This objection from the other schools makes sense to us. If we just lost a loved one and we were at the reception after the funeral, we would be very sad. However, if we eat some cake at the reception, there would be part of us that enjoys the cake even though generally speaking we are sad. We might not enjoy it as much as we normally would on our birthday, but there is still a degree of enjoyment in our mind from eating the cake. It has simply been reduced or suppressed due to the strength of the painful feelings we have.

(9.89cd) How can there possibly be a feeling
That is not experienced?

The Prasangika answer here is the other schools are grasping at there being two different minds experiencing two different feelings that somehow cancel each other out in some way. But the reality is at any one time we only have one consciousness which experiences one feeling. The mixed feeling of sadness at the death of our loved one and enjoyment of the cake creates a single combined feeling that we experience. There are not two consciousnesses experiencing two feelings that are neutralizing each other. There is only one consciousness and one feeling of a grieving person eating cake. To say otherwise is to say there is a feeling of greater suffering from the death of the loved one that is not being experienced but nonetheless exists and likewise there is a greater feeling of pleasure from the cake that is not being experienced but nonetheless exists. How can something that is not being experienced be considered a feeling that exists since it is not actually being experienced?

(9.90) (Other schools) “When a strong pleasant feeling occurs, there is still a subtle painful feeling.
The gross feeling of pain is dispelled, and the subtle pain that remains
Becomes the nature of a subtle pleasant feeling.”

Here the other schools are saying that the full experience of sadness at the death of our loved one still exists , with part of it being manifest and part of it being in a subtle form that is suppressed from the pleasure we gain from eating the cake.  Again, this makes sense to us. We are still equally sad about the death of our loved one, and that sadness has not gone away, we just aren’t experiencing it as intensely because of pleasure associated with the cake.

Well then, that subtle feeling is a pleasant feeling, not a painful one!

The Prasangika reply if that is the case, then how can you call the painful part that is not manifest a painful feeling when it is currently being experienced as a pleasant feeling? Even conventionally, to say that the painful feeling takes the form of a pleasant feeling makes no sense because a painful feeling is not a pleasant feeling. What is actually experienced is a reduced painful feeling. The normal painful feeling we would otherwise be experiencing if we did not eat the cake is replaced with a reduced painful feeling of that experienced by a grieving person eating cake. The former feeling no longer exists and only the latter feeling exists. What need is there to say there exists a painful feeling of sadness that is not being experienced, a pleasant feeling of the cake we would be experiencing if we were not grieving that is also not being experienced, and a combined feeling of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Only the latter is actually experienced, therefore only that exists. The other two types of feeling are purely conceptual and never actually experienced by anybody. This shows two things. First, that the feelings change, and therefore do not exist inherently. And second, that the non-experienced feelings do not exist at all.

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.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Letting Go of Painful Feelings

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(9.88ab) If painful feelings are truly existent, they can never be changed,
And it follows that living beings never experience pleasant feelings.

Another aggregate we grasp at strongly, keeping us firmly within our samsara, is the mental factor feeling.   We think it matters how we feel at any time.  We feel it is so important that we feel good and that we do not feel bad.  We grasp at and are very attached to pleasant feelings and we grasp at and are averse to unpleasant feelings.  If we look at how society is organized and people act, it seems this is the most important consideration in our society.  And what is the result?   We are preoccupied then with the favorable and the unfavorable.  We focus all our energy on changing our external conditions so that we have pleasant feelings and we don’t have unpleasant feelings.  Like everyone else, we set our sights on the immediate and not on the future, such as our future lives.  We want one type of feeling and we do not want the other.  This preference is itself keeping us in samsara.  This preference is samsara.

There is enormous freedom to be had from a true equanimity with respect to our feelings – both are equally good, just in different ways.  They are not equally good to our worldly concerns, but they are equally good to our spiritual concerns.  Whether we have equanimity with respect to our feelings or not depends primarily on our concerns.  How do we change our concerns to be spiritual concerns?  Again, the lamrim.  Lamrim is the real panacea that solves all our problems because nothing is a problem for a lamrim mind.  If we learn to enjoy equally all feelings, pleasant or unpleasant, would we suffer anymore?  Would we not be liberated?

We generally determine whether something is a cause of happiness or suffering on the basis of how it makes us feel, but this is completely deceptive.  Drugs feel good, but they bring only suffering.  Working hard at overcoming our delusions does not feel good, but it brings only happiness.  Gen-la Khyenrab said that an ordinary being primarily follows the aggregate of feeling, whereas a spiritual practitioner primarily follows the aggregate of discrimination.  Feelings are not a reliable guide, wisdom is.

Shantideva here explains to us how our feelings are not truly existent.  Because we feel they are.  We feel that no matter how we discriminate things, it will not change how we feel or experience them.  But this is clearly wrong.  For example, if we drank something very sweet, and then later learned that it is poison.  This will radically change our experience of the drink.  We feel like we are ‘in’ pain, when it is more correct to say, ‘there is the appearance of pain in my mind.’  This makes all the difference in terms of whether we experience pain or not.  We need to get a feeling for the emptiness of our feelings, it is the feeling of lightness and freedom, having completely let go.  Like clouds passing through the sky.

We also need to make a distinction between experiencing painful feelings and experiencing suffering.  It is perfectly possible to experience painful feelings, but not suffer from them.  For example, when people lift weights or engage in strenuous exercise, they experience considerable pain, but they are happy to do so because they know they are growing stronger.  As they say, “no pain, no gain.”  The pain we feel of being stuck with a needle is not suffering if we know it is giving us a life-saving vaccine.  Painful feelings plus non-acceptance of the painful feelings equals suffering.  Painful feelings plus a Dharma mind towards the painful feelings equals blessings. 

Sometimes we can become impatient with our suffering if it continues for a long time. We feel as if we have been experiencing painful feelings for so long we simply can’t take it anymore, and so are suffering compounds over time. We then strongly wish that our painful feelings would go away. This suffering comes from a non-acceptance of our painful feelings. Just because we have suffered in the past does not mean we somehow have an exemption to the laws of samsara where all experiences are the nature of suffering. Indeed, we can use the fact that suffering is relentless within samsara to increase our renunciation, or the determination to once and for all escape from samsara.

Temporarily though, if we want our suffering to decrease, we need to accept the painful feelings that we are experiencing. There are all sorts of different methods we can use to do so explained in the lojong teachings. I have a friend who has fibromyalgia. She wrote Geshe-la asking for advice of what to do, and he told her to study and meditate on the chapter on ultimate bodhicitta in Eight Steps to Happiness. The essential point is painful feelings do not exist from their own side. They arise in dependence upon internal causes and conditions, namely grasping at both our body, our self, and the painful feelings. If we can realize that our self, our body, and the painful feelings are all equally empty then the pain quite literally goes away.  The meditation on emptiness is the ultimate pain reliever.  Just as we go looking for our body or our I in an emptiness meditation, so too we can also go looking for the pain we experience in our body. Where exactly is the pain? We can perform the exact same meditation of looking in the parts, in the collection of the parts, or separate from the parts to identify the emptiness of our painful feelings. When we do so, the pain disappears. In the dharmakaya, or truth body of Buddha, there is no pain. The only reason why we experience pain is because we are still grasping at our i’s being one with a samsaric body.

So you understand why painful feelings, if they are truly existent, can never be changed. 

Happy National Coming Out Day: How Emptiness and Karma Can Explain LGBT Experience

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

The great Buddhist master Shantideva said in the 7th century:

(9.87) Therefore, what intelligent person
Would develop attachment for this dream-like form?
And since there is no truly existent body,
Who is truly existent male and who is truly existent female?

Needless to say, Shantideva was ahead of his time. On National Coming Out Day, I wanted to use this verse to provide a Buddhist perspective on LGBT experience.  A heteronormative view grasps at inherently existent males and inherently existent females – where one’s gender identity and one’s biological gender are the same. A heterosexist view grasps at males necessarily being sexually attracted to females, and females being sexually attracted to males. Anything that deviates from this “normal” is held by such views as an aberration. In contrast, how do Buddhists who understand both emptiness and karma explain the wide variety of gender and sexual orientations?  

According to the laws of karma, each time we engage in an action we create four different karmic causes. The ripened effect results in a future rebirth with a bodily basis somewhere within samsara. The tendency similar to the cause is a future tenancy to engage in similar actions, both bodily and mental. The effect similar to the cause results in us experiencing effects that are similar to the causes that we created in the past, for example, if we hit somebody we are likely to get hit back. And the environmental effect is that which surrounds us in our different rebirths.

Somebody who is a cisgender straight male is someone who has the ripened effect to be born male, and the tendencies similar to the cause to be attracted to females. Somebody who is a cisgender straight female is someone who has the ripened effect to be born female, and the tendency similar to the cause to be attracted to males. A gay man is someone who has the ripened effect to be born male and the tendency similar to the cause to be attracted to males. A bisexual person is someone who has the ripened effect to be born either male or female, but the tendencies similar to the cause to be sexually attracted to both males and females. A lesbian is someone who has the ripened effect to be born female and the tendencies similar to their cause to be attracted to females. A transgender female is someone who has the ripened effect of a male body, but the tendencies similar to the cause to think and feel in ways that are conventionally considered female. A transgender male is someone who has the ripened effect of a female body, but the tendencies similar to the cause to think and feel in ways that are conventionally considered male. A trans person can be sexually attracted to either males or females, in dependence upon the tendencies similar to the cause they have of being attracted to different genders. Since there is an infinite variety of karma that beings can create, it follows that there is an infinite variety of combinations in which this karma can ripen.

To simplify matters, we can think of things as existing along three axes. The first is the ripened effect of being born into a body that is biologically male or female. This has a spectrum of things, from those who are biologically extremely masculine males to effeminate males to masculine females to extremely feminine females. The second axis is what tendencies similar to the cause of how one thinks and feels are ripening. This determines how one individually identifies oneself as being male or female, which can be quite distinct from one’s biological basis. Once again, this exists upon a spectrum, from very strong male tendencies to very strong female tendencies. It is worth noting that what is male or female in this context is purely conventionally constructed based upon cultural norms. There are certain things that we identify with being conventionally male and conventionally female, although they are not inherently so. A two-spirit person is someone who has multiple nodes of tendencies similar to the cause of how one thinks and feels, both male and female. The third axis is the tendencies similar to the cause of what we are sexually attracted to, from being strongly attracted to males to being strongly attracted to females. Again this exists upon a spectrum. Someone who is asexual word for example be at zero along this axis.  A person’s gender and sexual identity can fall anywhere within this 3-dimensional space. From the perspective of karma and from the perspective of emptiness there is no basis for saying any one combination of these is better or worse than any other.  They are all simply different karmic possibilities.

How does the environmental effect factor into this? Some people live in very heterosexist societies where any deviation from the heteropatriarchal norm is considered wrong or bad in some way, and the societal structures create penalties for those who deviate from these norms. Other people live in an environment in which there is no judgment or no penalty, and everyone’s individuality is celebrated. How does the effect similar to the cause factor into this?  Some people experience persecution based upon their sexual identity whereas others do not. It is possible for someone to live in a heterosexist society, but themselves not experience any particular discrimination or oppression. Someone else might live in a very open society but nonetheless experience discrimination and oppression. Just as it is possible for someone to be born with any combination of the three axes of gender and sexual identity described above, so too it is possible for someone to be born into a wide variety of combinations of environments that are either oppressive or accepting and to experience either oppression or acceptance. While difficult to visualize, from a karmic perspective, we can imagine a five-dimensional space with five axes, and living beings being born into any number of possibilities.

In this way, we can understand that all of the different experiences and all of the different possibilities that arise with respect to LGBT experience can be understood from the perspective of the karma we have created. From a Buddhist perspective, there is no basis for value judgments about one combination or another. If we contemplate these different karmic effects deeply we can hopefully come to a greater understanding of the wide variety of human proclivities and human experiences as they relate to LGBT experience. The hope as if we understand how karma and emptiness work, we can all relate to each other with greater wisdom and compassion.

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 Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of mental stabilization

Kadampa Ryan Tsog Days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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