Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: The keys to the universe

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(8.129) All the happiness there is in this world
Arises from wishing others to be happy,
And all the suffering there is in this world
Arises from wishing ourself to be happy.

If this is only one verse from this chapter worth memorizing, it is this one.  Venerable Tharchin said this verse is the key to the universe and the fulfillment of our every wish.  We are simply confused about what is the cause of happiness.  In fact, we have it exactly backwards.  We can’t just choose to cherish others, we have to have reasons for doing so.  This verse provides all the reasons we need.  When we find ourselves in difficult situations, we can recite this verse like a mantra.  It will be like an inner spiritual guide that always reveals to us the correct path out of whatever difficult circumstance we find ourselves in. 

There are two main levels we can understand this:  At the conventional level, we can understand that through cherishing ourself we engage in negative actions and our mind is not peaceful, so it is the cause of all our unhappiness, and the same for positive actions arising from cherishing others.  But at a an ultimate level, literally all suffering in the whole world comes from our cherishing ourself, because the self-centered mind projects a world of suffering.  And literally all happiness in the whole world comes from our cherishing of others, because it will project a world of happiness.

Geshe-la explains in Eight Steps to Happiness that attaining enlightenment is really very simple, we need only change the object of our cherishing from self to others, then everything else will flow naturally from this.  This verse provides the core reason why we make this change.  Again, we should memorize it and repeat it like a mantra as we go about our day, especially in difficult circumstances.

(8.130) But what need is there to speak at length?
The childish work only for themselves,
Whereas the Buddhas work only for others –
Just look at the difference between them!

We know this, at least intellectually and actually from experience to some extent, we know the truth of these words.  In dependence upon our understanding and experience of this, we need to show an example to others that our happiness comes from working for others.  This is one of the most important examples we need to show as Kadampas.  It is important that we are to be seen to be happy working for others.  There are many, many people in this world now already showing this example.  Now is the time for Kadampa Buddhists to show this example out in the world.  Our tradition has broken out of the monasteries and the mountain caves, and it now lives in our homes, our places of work, and in the towns and nations we live in.

Kadampa practitioners must be seen in the world, taking responsibility in the world. Working hard in this world.  Seeking little gain for themselves other than a happy mind. We are taking responsibility, working hard, and seeking little gain other than a happy mind.  Because we seek no gain, because we are not concerned for our own happiness, we don’t experience problems like everybody else, and we’re able to maintain a peaceful happy mind, unlike anybody else.  As Kadampas, I think two of the most important examples that we must set are, (1) having no external enemies, and (2) seeking and finding happiness from a different source.  In this context, that means seeking happiness from the virtue of cherishing others and working for their happiness. That is the source of our happiness.

This next verse is great:

(8.131) If we do not exchange our happiness
For the suffering of others,
We shall not attain the state of a Buddha
And even in samsara there will be no happiness.

Imagine if we put on our publicity:  learn how to exchange your happiness for others’ suffering.  Nobody would come.  Self-cherishing would not normally think that was a good deal, would it?  Your suffering, for my happiness.  Generally, we think as long as we are happy, then it doesn’t matter if others in the world are suffering.  We think as long as we are happy, it doesn’t matter if other people in the world are suffering. If we continue to think like this, we will never be truly happy.  When we exchange self with others, we think, as long as other people are happy, it does not matter if I suffer.  If we think like this, we will eventually experience true happiness, the happiness of a Buddha.  Somehow we have to reach the stage where we feel that it is better that I suffer rather than others suffer. It is better. It is better that I suffer rather than others. It is better that others are happy rather than myself being happy. It is better.  This is a big mind.  Mothers have it for their children.  Bodhisattvas have it for everybody.

And we have to take this attitude right now into our work as bodhisattvas in this world.   We have opportunities to practice this day after day after day.  For example, if I can relieve the suffering of just one person, even if I have to undergo some hardship myself, then I will do so because it is better that they are happy.  Even if I have to undergo some hardship myself, if I can relieve the suffering of another or others, so be it. If I can make even one person happy, then even if I have to forsake my own happiness, so be it.  If we are enjoying ourself and somebody comes to ask us to help them in some way, are we bothered by this or delighted with the opportunity?  Our response depends on who we are cherishing.  We encounter this situation again and again and again. How many times have we had to make that choice?  Hundreds … is it me or them? And have we always made the right choice?

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of patience

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 37 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of patience
So that even if every single being in the three realms,
Out of anger were to abuse me, criticize me, threaten me, or even take my life,
Undisturbed, I would repay their harm by helping them.

Geshe-la explains in How to Solve our Human Problems, “Patience is a mind that is able to accept, fully and happily, whatever occurs. It is much more than just gritting our teeth and putting up with things. Being patient means to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are. It is always possible to be patient; there is no situation so bad that it cannot be accepted patiently, with an open, accommodating and peaceful heart.” This definition is worth memorizing. The perfection of patience is engaging in the practice of patience with a bodhichitta motivation.

There is no virtue greater than patience and there is no evil greater than anger. Thus, if we were to take only one thing as our main practice, it should be abandoning anger and practicing patience. Because we live in degenerate times, the causes of suffering and adversity are growing. As a result, our opportunities to practice patience are increasing as well. Patience is the cause of great beauty. We may wonder why we want beauty? Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that beauty creates the causes for others to be pleasantly disposed towards us, to naturally generate faith in us, and to wish to be around us. All these help us to become a more qualified spiritual guide capable of leading many living beings along the path. Patience is also one of the most profound causes of inner peace. If we are able to accept whatever happens, then our mind remains peaceful all the time. A peaceful mind is a happy mind.

Anger is like a communicable disease that remains in this world and spreads like wildfire. When one person gets angry, they hurt others, those people in turn get angry, they then hurt others and so forth. Further, when we express anger and frustration, such as on social media, we are likewise inciting others to also get angry and generate such negative minds. Some families have deep currents of anger. There may be for example one extremely angry person in a family who then infects everyone else in the family with anger, and that becomes the only way they know how to deal with problems that arise in life. It could take many decades of difficult inner work to undo the destructive effects of growing up in an angry home. But if we apply effort to eliminate anger, we can put an end to the lineage of anger in our family. And create a new lineage of patience within our family that continues for generation after generation.

Our ability to accept difficult circumstances depends primarily upon our ability to transform them into the path to enlightenment. If we know how to transform adverse circumstances into the path, then when they arise, they will not be a problem for us, rather they will be an opportunity. This only works, however, if our primary motivation is to make progress along the spiritual path. If our worldly desire to never encounter adversity is stronger than our spiritual desire to make progress along the path, even if we know how to transform adverse conditions into the path, it will not matter and things will still be a problem for us. But if our motivation is primarily spiritual, and we possess experience on how to transform adverse conditions into the path, then nothing will be a problem for us and there will be no basis for anger.

For me, I resolve about 90 to 95% of my otherwise anger-provoking problems through my reliance upon Dorje Shugden. With a motivation to make progress along the path, I request Dorje Shugden with faith to arrange the perfect conditions for my swiftest possible enlightenment. I then am able to accept whatever subsequently arises as the perfect conditions he has arranged for me. This faith will open my mind to receive his blessings to be able to understand how and why whatever has happened is perfect for my spiritual training. I will know what I need to do and be motivated to do it. In this way, nothing is a problem for me, and there is no basis for generating anger.

Happy Tara Day: May there be the auspiciousness of her presence

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

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

Offering the mandala

When we make a mandala offering, we imagine the entire universe is transformed into a pure land.  The highest offering we can make is one of our practice. For me, a mandala offering is a promise that we will work for as long as it takes before we actually transform the world we normally see into the pure land we are offering.  We will not stop until all living beings have been delivered to the pure land.  Geshe-la explains in many places that mandala offerings are one of the best methods for attaining rebirth in a pure land.  If we are offering to deliver all living beings to a pure land, we create countless karmic potentialities to attain a pure land ourselves.  Just as Tara was born from the tears of the protector of the three worlds, and arose to tell Avalokitshvara to not worry, she would help him; in the same way, when we make a mandala offering, we are telling Tara to not worry, we will help her.  We share the same wish to lead all beings to the pure land, and we promise to work towards that aim.

Requesting fulfilment of wishes

O Venerable, Blessed, Compassionate Mother,
May I and all countless living beings
Quickly purify the two obstructions, complete the two collections,
And attain the state of complete Buddhahood.

All living beings have Buddha nature.  This means that if we purify our Buddha nature of everything that is not enlightened, our natural Buddhahood will emerge.  In some respects, we don’t need to construct our Buddhahood, we just need to uncover it.  Our very subtle mind, once completely purified, transforms into the enlightened mind of a Buddha.  There are two obstructions on our very subtle mind – our delusions and their imprints.  Every action creates four karmic potentialities:  a tendency similar to the cause, an effect similar to the cause, a ripened effect, and an environmental effect.  The first is a tendency to generate delusions again – basically our bad mental habits to respond in deluded ways.  These are our delusion obstructions.  The other three are the imprints of our past delusions, also known as obstructions to omniscience.  They are so called because they ripen in the form of ordinary appearances – things appearing to exist from their own side.  Another way to think about this is there are two types of karma: contaminated and non-contaminated karma.  Contaminated karma is of two types:  negative and positive.  Negative karma ripens in lower rebirth and positive karma ripens as upper rebirth in samsara.  Non-contaminated karma, or pure karma, ripens as a pure rebirth outside of samsara.  To close the door on lower rebirth, we need to purify all of our negative karma.  To close the door on our personal rebirth in samsara, we need to purify all of our negative karma and all of our delusion obstructions.  To attain full enlightenment, we need to purify all of our contaminated karma.  Tara can accelerate the rate at which we do all of this. 

The two collections refer to the collection of merit and the collection of wisdom.  The collection of merit arises primarily from our practices of the vast path (all of the Lamrim meditations up to bodhichitta), and the collection of wisdom arises primarily from our practices of the profound path (specifically the meditation on emptiness).  According to highest yoga tantra, the collection of merit also includes generating the very subtle mind of great bliss that we use to meditate on emptiness.  Once we have completed the collection of merit, we attain a Buddha’s form body. Once we have completed the collection of wisdom, we attain a Buddhas mind, or truth body. The union of these two is full enlightenment. Since Tara is the Buddha of Lamrim, she can help us complete both collections. Understanding this, when we recite this verse, we generate a strong wish to rely upon Tara understanding she can help us from where we are now all the way to full enlightenment.

Throughout all our lives before we reach Buddhahood,
May we attain the supreme happiness of humans and gods;
And so that we may accomplish the omniscient mind,
Please quickly pacify and eliminate all interferences,

It is said that it is easier to attain enlightenment once born human than it is to attain a human rebirth if we have been reborn in the lower realms. There is no guarantee we will attain enlightenment in this lifetime. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that we do not fall into the lower realms. If we do, there is a danger we may not re-find the spiritual path for countless eons. All of the beings who we would have otherwise been able to help if we had attained enlightenment earlier will have to continue to suffer for all that time. Not to mention the fact that we ourselves will have to experience all of the sufferings of the lower realms. Sometimes we think generating fear of lower rebirth is a meditation for beginners. We want to engage in higher meditations, and indulge ourselves in the fantasy that we are somehow exempt from lower rebirth. Geshe-la explains in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra that the main reason why we have not yet generated qualified refuge is because we lack fear of lower rebirth.  If we do not have even qualified refuge, it goes without saying we have no chance of gaining higher realizations. Geshe-la further explains we should be as terrified of lower rebirth as we would be if we were trapped in a circle of fire. Understanding this, we should generate a very strong fear of lower rebirth and then, with faith in Tara’s ability to protect us from lower rebirth, we request her protection. In dependence upon this, if at the time of our death we remember Taro, she will bless our mind and we will avoid lower rebirth, and remain in the human and god realms until we reach Buddhahood.

Evil spirits, hindrances, epidemics and sickness,
As well as the various causes of untimely death,
Bad dreams, ill omens, the eight fears
And all other forms of danger.

Samsara is a dangerous place.  In the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Geshe-la says Samsara is like a vast ocean of suffering and at any point we can be eaten by the sea monsters of the Lord of Death.  We never know what sea monster may arise and pull us down into the deep ocean of suffering.  Even if we avoid death for awhile, we are nonetheless buffeted by the violent waves of suffering.  There is no safety anywhere in samsara.  Nobody saw the Coronavirus coming, but in a very short period of time, it changed everything.  It is just a question of time before we wind up with some incurable sickness.  Tara can protect us from all of these dangers.  How?  First, by generating faith in her, we open our mind to receiving her blessings which prevent the negative karma already on our mind from ripening.  Second, she can help us purify our negative karma directly, much in the same way Vajrasattva can.  And third, if adversity does strike (which is inevitable), she will bless us with the wisdom to know how to transform it into causes of our enlightenment. 

May all mundane and supramundane collections
Of good fortune, happiness, goodness and excellence increase,
And may every beneficial purpose without exception
Be effortlessly and spontaneously accomplished.

Supramundane collection, I believe, refers to spiritual collections as opposed to worldly ones.  Normally we differentiate between worldly vs. spiritual, the former referring to things of this life and the latter referring to our future lives.  For example, if we engage in our spiritual practice for the sake of this life, it is said to be worldly; but if we are training for the sake of our future lives, it is said to be spiritual.  In other contexts, supramundane refers to virtues attained by superior beings – those who have attained a direct realization of emptiness.  Regardless, this verse clearly calls for all good things to increase.  When we rely upon Tara, for us, it will be an increasing time when spiritual development comes easily, even if for the world it remains a degenerate time, when bad things come effortlessly.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: If I enjoy this, what shall I have to give to others?

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

(8.125) “If I give this to others, what shall I have to enjoy?”
Such self-cherishing is the mind of a hungry spirit.
“If I enjoy this, what shall I have to give to others?”
Such cherishing of others is the mind of the enlightened ones.

We can feel the difference between these two attitudes.  These states of mind feel so different. It is not difficult for us to appreciate that one is the mind of a hungry spirit and one is the mind of the enlightened ones.  We can also understand mind here as a path. We often refer to minds as paths.  When put this way, it is easy to understand the first mind is really a path to becoming a hungry spirit, whereas the other really is a pathway to enlightenment.

We all have some merit.  In truth, compared to the vast majority of living beings, we have a ton of merit.  The question is what do we do with it:  enjoy it for ourselves or give it to others?  Money, time, power, reputation, position, etc., we all have these things to certain extents.  Certainly we have more than we actually need to sustain our human life.  So what do we give to others? How much do we give to others? How much do we keep for ourselves? Are we to enjoy anything that we have?

Again, Venerable Tharchin said we should mentally give everything away right now.  We may retain possession of some things, but only as a guardian or custodian of what belongs to others until we do eventually transfer possession as well.  But ownership, completely give it all away right now.  Everything we have belongs to all living beings, and we use it for their benefit.  If we impute “mine” on anything, we burn up our merit; but if we impute these things belong to “others,” then we accumulate merit.  We can see from this a very close connection between the practice of exchanging self with others – viewing all living beings as “self” – and the practice of giving.  We give everything to our new “self,” nothing belongs to “others” (our old self).  So powerful, so simple.

Venerable Geshe-la said we shouldn’t just enjoy the Dharma. We have Dharma teachings, Dharma books, perhaps we have the Dharma in our heart, but we shouldn’t just enjoy it for ourselves.  We should gain Dharma to share with others.  The more we give the Dharma, the more we have, which we can then in turn give some more in a virtuous cycle. 

(8.126) If we harm others for the sake of our own happiness,
We shall suffer the torments of the lower realms;
But if we are harmed for the sake of others’ happiness,
We shall experience the happiness of higher rebirth.

(8.127) If we hold ourself in high esteem, we shall be reborn in the lower realms
And later, as a human, experience low status and a foolish mind;
But if we transfer this esteem to others, we shall be reborn in fortunate realms,
Command respect, and enjoy good company and pleasant surroundings.

(8.128) If we use others for our own selfish means,
We shall experience servitude ourself;
But if we use ourself for the sake of others,
We shall enjoy high status and pleasing forms.

For me, these verses describe how a Kadampa should view their professional careers.  Basically the entire modern economy does the exact opposite of this, and we contribute in our own way.  But we don’t have to.  We can do as Shantideva explains.  Indeed, I would argue that if we do, we will have a much more successful career.  There might be some short-term gains we don’t enjoy by adopting such a selfless attitude, but in the long-run I would say we will do better by working in this way.  And even if we don’t, there is no doubt we will have a “successful enough” career.  Training in this way will enable us to make our career part of our Kadampa way of life.

If we possess basic Buddhist intention, that is a concern for future and not just for the present, then we will naturally refrain from selfish actions, will we not? We will naturally be more careful and more caring of others.  If we are concerned only for the present rather than for the future, it will seem to us like we will lose out, we will always be losing out if we consider only others’ welfare.  That is what it will feel like if we’re concerned only for the present – we will think we will lose out if we are considering only others’ welfare in this way.  But in truth, we will both gain.  The other person gains now, and we gain by creating good causes for the future.  We also gain now because we are happy because our mind is peaceful and virtuous.

We always have choice, but self-cherishing will not let us make the right one, will it?  We always have choice, but it seems self-cherishing will do everything it can to prevent us from making the right choice.  To self-cherishing it does not seem right – it seems unnatural, crazy even – to use ourself for the sake of others.   Self-cherishing will not even let us look to the future.  Why not?  Self-cherishing is not only just concerned with ourselves (a self that isn’t even us to begin with), it is only concerned with ourselves right now.  It is such a narrow mind.  Self-cherishing is cherishing the I that is appearing at the moment, it wants to make this present I happy.   To the self-cherishing mind, the future self is ‘other.’

Happy Protector Day: Fulfilling our Heart Commitment to Dorje Shugden

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

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 8 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.

Commitment, fulfilling, reliance, and appropriate substances,
Outer, inner, secret, attractive, and cleansing offerings, filling the whole of space,
I offer these to the entire assembly;
May I fulfil the heart commitment and restore my broken commitments.

This refers to an offering of our practice of the Heart Commitment of Dorje Shugden.  What does this mean?  It means to not be sectarian with our spiritual practice.  If we are sectarian in our practice, it will bring the Dharma into disrepute and it will create many problems for people being able to practice the path that leads to enlightenment, so it is very important for us to not be sectarian.  Gross sectarianism is when one tradition claims to have a monopoly on the truth and all the other traditions are wrong.  Many wars and much suffering have taken place due to this.  Subtle sectarianism is when we mix and match different traditions together.  Here, instead of saying one tradition is better than another in a general sense (as in gross sectarianism) we are saying that individual instructions from one instruction are better than individual instructions from another. 

To avoid sectarianism, Geshe-la encourages us to ‘following one tradition purely without mixing, while respecting all other paths as valid for others.’  Buddhas emanate many Buddhist and non-Buddhist paths depending on the karmic disposition of beings.  Different people will respond to different instructions, and so we are happy for anybody to follow any authentic spiritual path. 

This can be understood with an analogy of being trapped in a burning room.  If we were trapped in a giant burning room and there were many doors out, what would we do?  We would find the door closest to us and head straight out.  We would not start towards one door, then change to another, then change to another still because that keeps us trapped in a room.  We would not head towards the average of two doors because that would bang us straight into a wall.  We also would not judge other doors as being wrong for somebody else who is standing right next to it, instead we would encourage them to go out the door closest to them.  In the same way, if we are all trapped in the giant burning room of samsara and there are many different spiritual doors out, what do we do?  We find the one that is karmically closest to us and we head straight out.  We do not follow one path, then another, then another because then we complete none of them and remain in samsara.  We do not mix together two different traditions because this amalgam of our own creation does not lead to an actual door out.  We do not tell people who are closest to the door of another spiritual tradition, such as a Christian, that they should abandon their Christian path and follow our Kadampa path, instead we encourage them to go out through the emergency exit closest to them.  If somebody criticizes our practices and says that their practices are superior, we should not become defensive.  We can just say, ‘I am happy for you that you feel you have superior practices.  I hope you enjoy them.’ We then continue to do what seems best for us.  This avoids all problems.

So what is the Kadampa door?  It can be summarized in one sentence:  “relying upon guru, yidam and protector, I practice the path of Lamrim, lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra.”  If we are doing this, if we have chosen this as our path and we are following it purely without mixing while respecting all other paths as valid for others, then we are keeping our heart commitment to Dorje Shugden.  Taking such a commitment is our personal choice.  Nobody can force this on us, we do so voluntarily.   This is not a commitment of the empowerment, it has to be something from our own side we decide to do.

One of the core principles of the NKT is while respecting all other traditions, to follow one tradition purely without mixing.  This is an extremely vast subject.  Venerable Geshe-la (VGL) explains in Ocean of Nectar that we need to be careful when introducing the subject of emptiness to those who are not ready because doing so can lead to great confusion.  I would say even more so, we need to be careful when introducting the subject of following one tradition purely without mixing, as this is a special spiritual instruction that can easily give rise to much confusion and doubt, including thinking that such an approach is closed-minded, anti-intellectual and sectarian.  The attached document attempts to explain the rationale behind this instruction so that people can be happy with putting it into practice. 

To provide you with a snapshot, the attached document is organized as follows:

  1. References within VGL’s teachings on this advice
    1. On following one tradition purely without mixing
    2. On sectarianism
  1. The mind with which we examine this question
  2. How to understand this instruction
  3. Rationale for the spiritual advice to follow one tradition purely without mixing
    1. Considering valid reasons
    2. Contemplating useful analogies
  4. Refutation of objections to not mixing
a.      Objection 1.  We can gain a better understanding of a subject when explored from multiple perspectives
b.     Objection 2:  We can gain a higher and deeper understanding of universal truth through synthesizing multiple systems of thought.
c.      Objection 3 :  All religions say the same thing, just with different metaphors and means.  So what is the problem with me studying and reading other traditions.  Does that not also take me in the direction of enlightenment ?
d.     Objection 4:  OK, I agree we should not mix traditions.  I am 100% committed to VGL, I know what we are all about and I don’t want to mix.  So what is the problem with me reading other sources ?
e.      Objection 5:  But I do not have freedom because I cannot be an NKT teacher or officer of an NKT center if I still want to go to other things.  So I am not free to choose.
f.      Objection 6:  But it can be argued that just because one is in a relationship with somebody else does not mean that they cease to be friends with other people and other women.  In the same way, it is not mixing or violating my commitment to my spiritual path by reading other books, etc., as long as I am clear as to who is my Spiritual Guide.
g.     Objection 7: But we are Buddhist, so everything depends upon the mind.  Reading other sources is not from its own side mixing, it depends upon the mind with which we do it. 
h.     Objection 8:  Come on !  Certainly you are exaggerating to say it is a fault to even read or be exposed to teachings from other traditions.  Don’t be so paranoid !
i.       Objection 9:  It still seems very closed-minded to be so categorical in shunning anything that is non-NKT.
j.       Objection 10:  OK, even if I agree with all of the above, certainly it is more skilful to say nothing, since people will misunderstand and leave the Dharma as a result of this misunderstanding.
k.     Objection 11:  OK, I agree, something needs to be said.  But why do you have to do it in such a foreceful way. 
l.       Objection 12:  OK, point taken.  But what makes an action skilful is whether the action does not undermine the faith of the other person when you engage in it.
m.   Objection 13:  OK, fine !  Just tell me what I can and cannot do.
n.     Objection 14:  If that is the case, then why do different teachers have different policies and standards on this one ?
o.     Objection 15:  But how does your standard compare to that of the NKT as a whole ?  Are you more strict ?
p.     Objection 16:  Wait a minute !  I can understand why there would be an issue with Tibetan Buddhism in general, but certainly it is not a problem with Mt. Pellerin.  After all, their teacher was also a student of Trijang Rinpoche, he is friends with VGL, and they are Dorje Shugden practitioners.  Are they not basically a Tibetan version of us, and we are a Western version of them ?  So their teachings can help improve our understanding of VGL’s teachings.  We are all talking about the same thing, so there is no mixing going on.  So it should be OK.  It seems we should at least make an exception with them.
q.     Question 17:  OK, I understand all of this and it makes sense.  How practically then are we to implement all of this at the center given the sensitivities involved ?

In the next post, I will continue to explain verse by verse my understanding of the meaning of the Dorje Shugden part of the sadhana.

Happy Tsog Day: How to practise the perfection of moral discipline

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 36 of a 44-part series.

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of moral discipline
By not transgressing even at the cost of my life
The discipline of the Pratimoksha, Bodhisattva, and Secret Mantra vows,
And by gathering virtuous Dharmas, and accomplishing the welfare of sentient beings.

Moral discipline is the primary cause of higher rebirth. The perfection of moral discipline is engaging in moral discipline with a bodhichitta motivation. Every time we engage in an action of moral discipline motivated by a spiritual determination, we create the cause for some form of higher rebirth. If we do so with an initial scope motivation, we create the cause to be reborn in the upper realms. If we do so with the motivation of renunciation, we create the cause to attain liberation from samsara. If we do so with a bodhicitta motivation, we create the cause to attain full enlightenment.

There are many different types of moral discipline. The one we practice most frequently and find the most difficult is the moral discipline of restraint. For the most part, the habits of our mind tend to move in a negative direction. When we observe this, we can consider the karmic implications of acting upon our negative tendencies. Realizing that we do not want to go down that road, we make the decision to not listen to and not follow our negative tendency. And instead, we choose to listen to and follow our Dharma wisdom encouraging us to go in the other direction.

It is very important that we make a distinction between the practice of the moral discipline of restraint and repression. Because we are desire realm beings, we have no choice but to do whatever it is that we desire. Repression is when we want to engage in the negativity, but then think we shouldn’t and therefore we use “will power” to stop ourselves. This can work for a little bit, but our desire remains to engage in the negativity, and eventually this desire will grow and grow until eventually we give in. The practice of the moral discipline of restraint, in contrast, actively dismantles our negative desires by recognizing that in fact we do not want to go down that road and we do not want to follow the bad advice our negative tendencies are giving us because we understand the karmic consequences of doing so. We consider the karmic benefits of practicing moral discipline, and therefore want to do that instead. In short, we change our desires. When we do this, we are not repressing, but we are in fact practicing the moral discipline of restraint.

Sometimes people feel very guilty when they observe how often their mind looks to move in a negative direction, for example wishing to steal, wishing to lie, wishing to harm, and so forth. They can then develop guilt and self-hatred and become very discouraged thinking that they are accumulating all sorts of negative karma and they cannot stop themselves. This is wrong. Just as we need an annoying person to practice patience and we need those in need to practice giving, so too we need negative tendencies in order to practice the moral discipline of restraint. The fact that a negative tendency arises is not the creation of new negative karma, rather it is the exhausting of existing negative tendencies similar to the cause that remain on our mind. It only becomes a new action of negativity if we assent to the validity of the negative tendency and choose to follow it. If instead, at that time, we dismantle our negative desires, cultivate virtuous desires, and then act upon those, we are practicing the moral discipline of restraint. If over the course of an hour we have one hundred negative tendencies wishing to engage in some compulsive negative behavior, but each time we managed to dismantle that desire and choose to not follow it, we just created the causes for attaining one hundred precious human lives. Far from creating a host of negative karma, we just won the spiritual lottery.

The most important moral discipline we have is maintaining our vows and commitments. Breaking our vows causes us to lose the spiritual path. Maintaining our vows creates the causes to remain on and re-find the spiritual path in all our future lives. The reason why we need to take vows is because the tendencies of our mind move in the wrong direction. If we could maintain all our vows perfectly, we would not need them. It is because the natural tendencies of our mind are to move in opposite directions that we are given the vows to provide us with an opportunity to redirect the trajectory of our mental continuum. Keeping our refuge vows creates the causes for us to re-find the Buddhist path in all our future lives without interruption until we attain enlightenment. Keeping our pratimoksha vows creates the causes for us to find a path to liberation in all our future lives without interruption. Maintaining our bodhisattva vows creates the cause to re-find the Mahayana path, and maintaining our tantric vows creates the cause to re-find the Vajrayana quick path to enlightenment. If we are able to maintain the continuum of our Dharma practice between now and our eventual enlightenment, then our eventual enlightenment is guaranteed, and we will not suffer too much along the way. Thus, simply making the decision to apply efforts to maintain our vows and commitments is the same as essentially guaranteeing our enlightenment. Seen in this way, we can understand there is nothing more important in our life than our vows and commitments.

Sometimes people relate to their vows as a restriction of their freedom. They want to do things, but all their vows and commitments prevent them from doing so. This way of thinking is exactly backwards. The truth is as long as our mind is under the influence of delusions, we know no freedom. We are forced to do whatever it is our delusions require of us. The only way to truly become free is not to indulge in whatever our delusions want, but rather to overcome all our delusions. A mind that is free from all delusions is truly free – in fact, it is liberated.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Taking the leap to exchange self with others

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

There is no doubt to move across into others’ world requires a great deal of courage, trust in this Dharma jewel, and a clear understanding of the disadvantages of self-cherishing and the advantages of cherishing others.  From the perspective of our self-cherishing mind, we are having to make a lot of compromises, we are having to make a lot of sacrifices, and those are the last things that self-cherishing wants to make. It hates making any compromises, hates making any sacrifices, doesn’t it?  We feel like we are losing out. We have this strong feeling that we are losing out. Others gain, we lose. According to self-cherishing, that is how it feels, doesn’t it?  Others gain, we lose.  If we are going to overcome this hesitation, we must remind ourselves again and again and again of the faults of self-cherishing and the benefits of cherishing others.  Geshe-la explains this in essentially every book.  We must learn to trust in particular more and more the mind that cherishes others.

Shantideva is here to help us do precisely that.

(8.121) Because we have attachment for our body,
Even a small object of fear frightens us greatly;
So who would not revile as an enemy
Cherishing this body, which is the source of that fear?

It is not the body itself that gives rise to fear, it is the cherishing of our body, the attachment to our body that actually gives rise to fear.   If we did not cherish our body, if we had no attachment to our body, what would we be afraid of?  How much of our self-cherishing arises from grasping at, being attached to, and cherishing this body? How much? 

Shantideva goes on to say:

(8.122) Out of our wish to find remedies
For the body’s hunger, thirst, and sickness,
We kill birds, fish, and other animals
And even resort to attacking people!

(8.123) Sometimes for money or other possessions
We might even kill our father or mother,
Or steal the property of a spiritual community,
And as a consequence burn in the fires of hell.

(8.124) Who with wisdom would cherish oneself
Or grasp at this body?
We should view the self-cherishing mind as a foe
And despise it accordingly.

In verse 115 Shantideva says, “Through the force of familiarity, I generate a mind / That grasps at I with respect to this non-self-existent body.” Let go of it. Just let go. We need to let go of grasping at this body and being so attached to it.  It is not our natural basis of imputation.  We believe it is, instinctively, inherently. “It’s my basis of imputation.” We perceive our body and we think I, we grasp at I, and believe there’s nothing wrong with that. We believe there is nothing wrong with that, yet when we perceive another’s body, and think I something definitely seems wrong with that.  Why?  Look what happens when we cling to our own body and cherish it.  We develop such strong, strong self-cherishing in dependence upon it.  

But when we understand that everything is a projection of our own mind, it is correct, even natural, to impute ‘I’ where we currently impute other, and ‘other’ where we currently impute self.  Everybody looks at themselves and thinks “I,” and everybody looks at us and thinks “other.”  We alone look at everyone and think “others” and look at the self we normally see and think “I.”  Clearly, from a conventional point of view, we are completely mad to think in this way.  Nobody else does!

Stopping cherishing our body will serve to stop, or at least reduce, our self-cherishing.  If we try to stop cherishing our body, will we naturally stop or at least reduce our self-cherishing.  What happens when we cherish our body, we protect our body, we are so concerned for it?  All the other delusions naturally arise.  We must stop.  Stopping cherishing our body is a way of stopping us cherishing ourselves.  Stopping cherishing our body is also a method for reducing our self-grasping too because we normally think we are our body.  If we are trying to stop cherishing this body, aren’t we letting go of part of our samsara? Our body is part of our samsara, is it not?  We try to lose familiarity with our body as our basis. Through this practice of exchanging self with others, we try to lose familiarity with our body as the basis for our I. 

A Pure Life: Abandoning Lying

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

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

Of all the precepts, I think we transgress this one most frequently.  Most of us lie all of the time, directly or indirectly, in big and in subtle ways.  A very fun way of seeing this is to rent the movie Liar Liar with Jim Carey.  In the movie, I cannot remember why, but he has to always tell the exact truth.  This helps show us the many different ways we lie throughout our day because we see how we would likely lie in those situations.  In a similar way, it is a very useful exercise to at least once a month take an entire day to focus on just this one aspect of our practice of moral discipline.  Make a concerted effort to pay attention that you never mislead people, even slightly, and like Jim Carey you have to always tell the truth no matter what the consequences.

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

I think it is also useful to make a distinction between lying and speaking non-truths.  The difference usually turns around whether there is delusion present in our mind or not.  Not telling your kids what you got them for Christmas, or even telling them something that is not true, is not lying.  Failing to mention that you are going to the Dharma center or to a festival to your relative who thinks you have joined some cult and you know saying something would just upset them is not lying, it is being skillful.  Ultimately, there is no objective truth, so the question arises what then is a valid basis for establishing the truth.  Geshe-la, Venerable Tharchin, and Gen-la Losang all say (in one manner or another) that “what is true or not true is not the point, what matters is what is most beneficial to believe.”  For example, we might say strongly believing we are the deity or that we have taken on all of the suffering or living beings or that we have purified all of our negative karma are lies because they are not true.  This is not the point.  The point is what is most beneficial to believe.  Believing these correct imaginations is how we complete the mental action of generation stage, purification practice, or training in taking and giving.  Venerable Tharchin explains that from a Dharma point of view, what establishes what is true is “what is most beneficial to believe.”  So if it is beneficial to believe something, it is truth.  It may not be objectively true, but it is a belief that moves in the direction of ultimate truth.  In other words, believing any idea that takes us in the direction of ultimate truth can be established as “truth,” and so saying or thinking it is not lying.  Helping others believe these things is not lying, it is wise compassion. 

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

It is helpful to consider the example of Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, no one can deny that Donald Trump was a serial liar. Virtually everything he said was a lie in one form or another. All of his lies were ultimately motivated by what best served his interests. Many people shared his interests, and therefore excused his lying as what was necessary to accomplish their desired policy goals. But many people wound up believing his lies. Because of the nature of his position, his lies would reach virtually everyone on earth. It is said that the karmic effect of our actions is multiplied by the number of living beings affected by them. He essentially lied to 7 billion people many times every day. Certainly all of these people did not believe all of his lies, but millions did. They would then repeat these lies as if they were truth and on and on the deceptions would spread causing people to lose touch with conventional reality.

What are the karmic effects of such behavior? First, it is clear that he will virtually never hear the truth again for a very, very long time in his future lives. Because he has deceived so many people, he will himself be deceived that many times in return. Insanity is losing touch with conventional reality. He will no doubt spend countless eons in a state of complete insanity. All the insanity he created in society he will experience in return. Second, he will continue to have the tendencies on his mind to lie again and again in the future causing such suffering to continue. And his lies had real effects on the lives of others. Those adverse effects will be the environmental conditions of his future lives. Further, every negative action also comes with a ripened effect of some form of rebirth in the lower realms. Animals exist in a state of great confusion, so it stands to reason that the ripened effect of lying is most frequently rebirth as an animal. I know a lot of people have profound hatred for Donald Trump for all of the harm they perceive him to have caused in the world. But it is perfectly possible to acknowledge such harm but to nonetheless feel great compassion for him when we consider all of the suffering that will come as a result of his actions. Was any of it worth it? The price he will pay will be terrible. He is a worthy object of compassion and so too are all of those who he has deceived and those who have perpetuated his lies.

Nowadays, many people have been sucked into the vortex of conspiracy theories which weave all sorts of elaborate stories trying to make sense of the unknown. What is always shocking to me is how the people who believe in conspiracy theories actually think they’re the ones who are being open minded and it is everybody else who has been deceived by these elaborate lies elites have told them. And when you challenge them on their views, they simply grasp even more tightly onto them. It is almost impossible for someone subsumed by such misinformation to escape. Why do some people fall prey to such misinformation and others see it so clearly as nonsense? Karma. The karmic effect of having successfully deceived others. Because they successfully deceived others in the past, they are now easily deceived in the present. Many of the conspiracy theories people believe in are often harmless, but some of them are not. Some of them have real-world effects that function to cost lives or destroy cherished democratic institutions.

I have been surprised actually at the number of Kadampa practitioners who have been sucked into such ways of thinking. Perhaps even they misinterpret the teachings on emptiness to think there is no conventional truth these are just different ways of looking at the same observable data. Emptiness does not deny conventional truth. There are things that are conventionally true and conventionally false, even though both are ultimately empty. We can consider the difference between unicorns and horses. A unicorn is something that can be believed in but is conventionally nonexistent. A horse is also something that can be believed in but is a conventionally existent. Both unicorns and horses are equally empty. In the same way, believing lies is like believing in unicorns. It is believing in a conventionally false or nonexistent thing.

So how then should other Kadampas respond when they speak with a Kadampa who has been sucked into misinformation? I don’t pretend to have a good answer, but I do have some experience in dealing with this. First, it is almost always counterproductive to call them out on their wrong views because this just causes them to grasp even more tightly onto them.

The definition of delusion is a mind projects something false and exaggerated that we believe to be true. This is a pretty good definition of somebody who believes in misinformation and conspiracy theories.  To know how to deal with this, I think we should try divide their wrong views into two categories: those that are harmful and those that are harmless. For those that are harmless, it is probably better to just say nothing and leave them with it. For those that are harmful, it seems we have an obligation to help them return to conventional reality in the same way we would somebody believing any other delusion. For the harmful wrong views, I believe the best method is to ask questions that forced them to grapple with the contradictions of their wrong views. Kadampas our Prasangikas. A Prasangika is called a consequentialist. It is a form of reasoning where are the Prasangikas point out the absurd consequences of the wrong views held by others, but then they leave others to come to their own conclusions based upon contemplating these consequences. It is an extremely skillful way of dismantling wrong views without directly challenging them in a way that is going to provoke people grasping even more tightly onto their views.

Sometimes this form of questioning will work and sometimes it will not. If it does not, then unless the view is particularly harmful, it really doesn’t matter what they believe or how they perceive the world to exist and function. What matters from a Dharma perspective is that they generate virtuous minds with respect to how the world appears to them. So if the world appears to them in a false way, but they respond to that false perspective of the world in a virtuous way, then it’s OK and not that bad. They will be creating virtuous karma and engaging in virtuous actions despite the fact that their perception of the world is itself distorted. When we think about it, it is not that different than ourselves since we to grasp on to all sorts of distortions created by our delusions and other mistaken appearances and conceptions.

But from a personal point of view, we should use our observation of how others have been sucked into lies to reinforce our determination to purify all of our negative karma associated with having live in the past and to make the firm decision that we will abandon lying.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Assuming sole responsibility for everything

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

We are responsible for freeing all others from suffering.  Because they are part of our world.  We are entirely responsible for freeing all suffering living beings, all living beings from their suffering. Suffering living beings are part of our world, our samsaric world.  I think we can say it is our sole responsibility, there is great meaning to this superior intention we are to develop. “I myself, I myself will liberate all living beings from their suffering. I myself. My sole responsibility.”  And so it is for everyone else.  It is their sole responsibility too.  That seems like a contradiction, but only because we think in absolute terms, not relative terms.  As it is for us, so it is for everybody else, too.  It is only by freeing themselves from self-centeredness that their personal or subjective world of suffering can come to an end.  

There is no other way.  It is only by freeing themselves from their own self-centeredness that they can bring their own personal subjective world of suffering to an end.  It is only by developing compassion themselves that they will create an enlightened world, a pure world, for themselves and others. An enlightened world in which there is no suffering.  They create that world for themselves too — a world in which there is no suffering. Such a world is created through the force of their compassion.  Otherwise, otherwise they will continue to perceive and experience only suffering. In an impure world of their own making. 

A samsaric world, a world of suffering, is built on self-cherishing. An enlightened world, a world of happiness, is built on compassion.  We create an enlightened world for ourselves and others through removing our self-centeredness, through exchanging self with others, developing compassion, conjoining that compassion with wisdom, creating an enlightened world through compassion.  In this way, our world becomes an enlightened world. We free others from their suffering.  And so it is for everyone else, too. They too have to remove their self-centeredness, exchange self with others, develop compassion, conjoin that compassion with wisdom, and create an enlightened world for themselves and others.   The compassion that we need to develop then is a compassion wishing to bring others’ samsara to an end.  We aim for a compassion wishing to lead others out of their samsaric world, out of their world of suffering.  We want to lead them out of their self-centered world.  We try to develop compassion wishing to lead others out of their self-centered world because that world is a world of suffering, and for as long as they remain in it, they will continue to perceive and experience suffering.  They will perceive not just themselves suffering, but others’ suffering too. For as long as we remain in our samsaric world we will continue to perceive other suffering living beings.

To lead others out of their samsaric world, we need to destroy the ignorance of self-grasping, the ignorance of self-cherishing in their mind.  This is exactly what our own spiritual guide is doing with us — destroying our self-grasping ignorance, destroying our self-cherishing ignorance.  We wish out of compassion to destroy their ignorance of self-grasping and self-cherishing, because is it a cause, this ignorance is the cause of their samsara and all its sufferings.  To gain the power to be able to destroy their ignorance, we determine we must remove all traces of ignorance from our own mind.  How?  By meditating on emptiness with the most compassionate mind of all — Bodhichitta arisen from exchanging self with others. It begins with our training in exchanging self with others.

To gain experience of exchanging self with others, we must meditate. Every day we must meditate on exchanging self with others.  We can do this by first exchanging self with others, then engaging in whatever is our daily practice, recognizing ourselves as all living beings engaging in the practice.  We can also mentally feel we are on retreat all the time with the special view we talked about in early posts.  Geshe-la has explained many times that we must be meditating throughout our daily activities.  What does it mean to meditate?  It means to mix our mind with virtue, to familiarize our mind with virtue.  There is no daily activity we engage in that we cannot simultaneously be meditating – or mixing our mind with virtue.  Since attaining enlightenment really just comes down to changing the object of our cherishing from self to others, with the rest coming naturally, it is very important that we meditate on exchanging self with others, especially when we are with others so that we can deepen our experience of this practice.   Of course we need some time to sit down on our meditation cushion, of course sometimes we need to do retreat, but considering how many hours there are in a day, we will make much more progress if we make this our daily practice during the meditation break.  No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, whenever you see others, think – “me.”  It is not difficult, just train in imputing ‘self’ on others and ‘others’ on self.  Just keep doing this and acting in whatever way seems natural as a result.  If we do this consistently, we will gain a deep daily experience of what this means.  Enlightenment will come naturally.

But there is no doubt if we are meditating on exchanging self with others during our daily activities, then eventually there will arise in our mind a powerful Bodhichitta strongly wishing to be whatever other people need us to be.  When we have this mind of exchanging self with others, we strongly wish to be there for others. To be there for all others, at all times. That’s Bodhichitta.  A Buddha is someone who is able to be with all living beings every day.  We can only become a Buddha if we want to become one.  Exchanging self with others is how we build that wish within our mind.  We understand that Buddha emanates, manifests whatever is needed by sentient beings.  Buddha is with all sentient beings all the time. All living beings, all the time.  This practice of exchanging self with others gives rise to a very, very powerful Bodhichitta.  We do not need to sit down to be focusing upon others.  We do not need to sit down to love someone dearly.  We do not need to sit down to do that, do we?  Of course, we also need to sit down and meditate, do retreat and so forth, but it is in our daily life that we will gain the most experience.  That’s obvious, our daily life is much longer than our time on the meditation cushion.

Happy Tsog Day: How to Give Everything to Others

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 35 of a 44-part series.

Blessing the offerings to the spirits

At this point we can send out the left-over substances to the spirits.

HUM Impure mistaken appearances are purified in emptiness,
AH Great nectar accomplished from exalted wisdom,
OM It becomes a vast ocean of desired enjoyment.
OM AH HUM  (3x)

Next in the sadhana comes the practice of the perfection of giving. To emphasize the practice of giving, we offer the tsog offering to all the spirits. Who are the spirits? For the most part, we can say that they are the spirits of the hungry ghost realm. Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path of Good Fortune that the only food hungry spirits are able to find is that which is dedicated to them by Dharma practitioners. Besides this, they are unable to find any food or drink. This is why it is customary for Dharma practitioners to leave one bite of food remaining on their plate at the end of every meal that they then mentally offer to all the spirits. When we do the dishes after a meal, there is often a good deal of wasted food. It is a good idea to have a special garbage can where we put all our uneaten food. We can then offer all this food to the hungry spirits. If we live in the city, we can sometimes recycle this extra food by placing it in special bins. If such bins do not exist, we can still mentally dedicate the food, and then put it in the regular trash. If we live in the countryside or in the suburbs, we can create a compost heap where we put all our unused food. This compost heap can become our offering to the hungry spirits and later become excellent fertilizer for our yard. Even when we put it down as fertilizer, we can imagine that we are creating a rich ecosystem for all the insects who live in our yard. In addition to offering food to the spirits, it is also important to offer food to the poor or the homeless. Every person we encounter is a karmic mirror of a future life we are likely to have. By giving food to these people now, we create the causes for others to give food to us when we are in similar need.

But before we can offer the tsog offering to the spirits, we first need to re-bless the offerings. A long time has passed since we blessed the offerings earlier, and we may have forgotten their purity. For this reason, we re-bless the offerings.

Actual offering to the spirits

HO This ocean of remaining tsog offering of uncontaminated nectar,
Blessed by concentration, mantra, and mudra,
I offer to please the assembly of oath-bound guardians.
OM AH HUM
Delighted by enjoying these magnificent objects of desire,
EH MA HO
Please perform perfect actions to help practitioners.

We offer the tsog offering to the spirits in exactly the same way as we do all the other beings in the field of merit. We imagine that countless offering goddesses emanate from our heart, scoop up the offering, bring it to the spirits who then partake of the offering through straws of vajra light. We then imagine that they are fully nourished and experience great bliss. We then request them to help practitioners. By befriending the spirits in this way, they can become powerful allies for us in our spiritual path. They can help us arrange conditions for our practice and dispel obstacles from obstructive spirits.

In the practices of Dorje Shugden, we imagine that he enlists the help of all the spirits into countless armies of Dharma protectors who work to protect living beings and their spiritual practice. This is one of the kindest things we can do, because by virtue of “giving them a job” as Dharma protectors, they will come under the care and protection of all the Buddhas as well as create the karma for themselves to be able to find the Dharma in the future.

Send out the offering to the spirits.

HO
O Guests of the remainder together with your retinues
Please enjoy this ocean of remaining tsog offering.
May those who spread the precious doctrine,
The holders of the doctrine, their benefactors, and others,
And especially I and other practitioners
Have good health, long life, power,
Glory, fame, fortune,
And extensive enjoyments.
Please grant me the attainments
Of pacifying, increasing, controlling, and wrathful actions.
You who are bound by oaths please protect me
And help me to accomplish all the attainments.
Eradicate all untimely death, sicknesses,
Harm from spirits, and hindrances.
Eliminate bad dreams,
Ill omens, and bad actions.
May there be happiness in the world, may the years be good,
May crops increase, and may the Dharma flourish.
May all goodness and happiness come about,
And may all wishes be accomplished.

By the force of this bountiful giving,
May I become a Buddha for the sake of migrators
And through my generosity may I liberate
All those not liberated by previous Buddhas.

These verses describe the different ways in which we request the spirits to help create favorable conditions for our own and others’ Dharma practice and for the fulfillment of all their wishes. It is very difficult for beings in the lower realms to engage in virtuous actions. Animals occasionally do when they care for their young. Beings in the hell realms almost never engage in any virtuous actions. Hungry spirits for the most part also engage only in negativity because they are constantly so deprived of resources. We can understand this by looking at areas of extreme poverty in the world today. They are often ghettoized into small areas, left with virtually no resources, and naturally a war of all against all begins to take place. But through pure dedications and prayers by Dharma practitioners, we cannot only give spirits food and nourishment, we can also provide them with opportunities to create virtue for themselves by enlisting them to become Dharma protectors in the ways described above.

How to practise the perfection of giving

I seek your blessings to complete the perfection of giving
Through the instructions on improving the mind of giving without attachment,
And Thus, to transform my body, my enjoyments, and my virtues amassed throughout the three times
Into whatever each sentient being desires.

Giving is the cause of receiving. The perfection of giving is giving with the bodhicitta motivation. There are four types of giving: giving material things, giving love, giving fearlessness, and giving Dharma. We give material things when we provide others with what they need. We give love primarily through giving our time and helping other people feel like they matter to us and we are willing to work for their well-being. We help others feel good about themselves. We give fearlessness by helping others overcome their fear or protecting them from dangers. The ultimate way to give fearlessness is to help others realize no matter what happens they can transform it into the path, and so therefore there is nothing to fear from anything. And we give Dharma anytime we give others good advice. It does not have to take the form of Dharma teachings, it can even just simply be showing a good example. Dharma advice is different than ordinary advice. Ordinary advice explains to people what they should do to change their external circumstance. Dharma advice explains to people how they can change their mind with regards to whatever is happening. It takes as is starting point that our problem is our mind; and this is distinct from our outer problem, which is whatever is happening in the world.

Venerable Tharchin explains one of the best ways of practicing giving is to abandon completely the conceptual thought “mine.” If we do not impute mine on anything and instead consider everything as belonging to others, then we are able to give away absolutely everything. When we think mine with respect to some object, we burn up our merit of having the thing. If we impute “others’” and mentally give it away to them, then we accumulate merit by having those things. A doubt may arise if we give away everything how will we take care of ourselves? The answer is we can practice the giving of keeping. Sometimes the best way to give to others is to keep something in our protection or custody until we are able to give it to others or they are ready to receive it. For example, we can view our home as something we are temporarily maintaining so that we are able to give it away to others later. Even if we later sell our home, we can do so with the intention of giving the money away, using it for the benefit of others, or maintaining our precious human life so we can attain enlightenment for others. We can keep our body so that we can offer it in service to others. We can gain Dharma wisdom with the intention of giving it away to others. Even when we attain an enlightened body, we do not have to think it is ours but rather something we are using to be able to benefit others. In banking, there is something called having a fiduciary responsibility. While they are managing others money, they are supposed to do so for the benefit and for their sake of their clients. In exactly the same way, we can view ourselves as having a fiduciary responsibility to all living beings and manage everything we own for their sake.