Happy Tara Day: Getting to know our spiritual mother

Kadampa Ryan How to Rely Upon Tara, Tara Days

The eighth of every month is Tara Day.  Geshe-la once said during a commentary to Tara practice that, “we should make our own commentary” based on our experience.  As my offering to her and to help celebrate her day and to deepen my own relationship with her, over the next twelve months, I will provide my own understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.  Nothing I say should be taken as definitive in any way, I am simply sharing my personal experience of this practice.  I hope others might also share their own experience and understandings of the practice in the comments.  Then, we can all learn from each other.

In the introduction to the Sadhana, Geshe-la says:

Tara is a female Buddha, a manifestation of the ultimate wisdom of all the Buddhas. Each of the Twenty-one Taras is a manifestation of the principal Tara, Green Tara. Tara is also known as the ‘Mother of the Conquerors’.

The ultimate wisdom of all the Buddhas is the wisdom directly realizing the emptiness of all phenomena.  Sometimes we think of emptiness as a state that somehow exists on it’s own – everything is empty – but in reality, it does not exist without a mind realizing it.  Emptiness is also dependent upon the mind realizing it, and so is also empty.  Tara is a being who has imputed her “I” onto the ultimate wisdom of all the Buddhas – she is this ultimate wisdom.  She appears in the aspect of the twenty-one Taras, just like a single diamond can have twenty-one facets to it.  All other Buddhas arise from her ultimate wisdom, just as waves arise from an ocean.  In this sense, she is the Mother of all the Buddhas – they literally emerge from her, she gives birth to them all.

Tara is our common mother, our Holy Mother. When we are young we turn to our worldly mother for help. She protects us from immediate dangers, provides us with all our temporal needs, and guides and encourages us in our learning and personal development. In the same way, during our spiritual growth we need to turn to our Holy Mother, Tara, for refuge. She protects us from all internal and external dangers, she provides us with all the necessary conditions for our spiritual training, and she guides us and inspires us with her blessings as we progress along the spiritual path.

Our spiritual life can begin at any point in our life, sometimes when we are young or sometimes when we are older; but in either case, Tara is our spiritual mother.  She cares for us in the earliest stages of our spiritual life, nurturing it to make sure we eventually ripen into an independent, functioning spiritual adult able to sustain our practice on our own for the rest of our life.  This is why it is especially important for new practitioners to take Tara practice as their main deity practice.  Establishing an early relationship with Tara will ensure that we ripen onto the math in a mature and stable way.  All we need to do is put our faith in her and request that she nurture our spiritual life into spiritual adulthood.

In some New Age circles, they talk about us choosing our parents in this life.  Generally speaking, according to the Kadampa teachings at least, we are trapped in samsara, which means we necessarily take uncontrolled rebirth.  We did not “choose” our parents, we we karmically thrown into rebirth as their child.  It is true that we may have generated attachment for our mother as she was engaging in intercourse with our father, but that is quite different from “choosing” our mother.  Despite this, through reliance upon Tara in this life, we can choose to have her as our spiritual mother in all of our future lives.  The paths of future lives are very uncertain and samsara’s distractions and deceptions are endless, but our spiritual mother can care for us and guide us to the spiritual path, help us enter it, and then once again ripen us into spiritual adulthood.  People buy insurance policies all the time to protect themselves against eventualities.  Reliance upon Tara is like a spiritual insurance policy for making sure we once again find and enter the path in all of our future lives until we attain enlightenment.  Every day, I pray, “May Guru Tara be my eternal mother in all my future lives.” 

Tara’ means ‘Rescuer’. She is so called because she rescues us from the eight outer fears (the fears of lions, elephants, fire, snakes, thieves, water, bondage and evil spirits), and from the eight inner fears (the fears of pride, ignorance, anger, jealousy, wrong views, attachment, miserliness and deluded doubts). Temporarily Tara saves us from the dangers of rebirth in the three lower realms, and ultimately she saves us from the dangers of samsara and solitary peace.

There is a close relationship between the eight outer fears and the eight inner fears – indeed, the eight inner fears create the eight outer fears.  The eight outer fears are not just literal lions, elephants, snakes, and so forth.  Rather, these animals are symbolic of types of outer circumstances which give rise to fear.  Through relying upon Tara, we pacify the eight inner fears, and as a result we no longer fear the eight outer fears.

For example, pride is a mind that thinks we are better than we actually are, or that takes some characteristic we have about ourselves and generates a feeling of superiority over others due to this trait.  Lion-like outer fears are situations that call our exalted view of ourselves into question.  We fear others criticizing us or discovering that we are a fraud.  We try exert our domination or superiority over others and feel threatened by those who challenge our authority or position.  All of the outer things we fear as threats to our status, reputation, or position are fearful to us only because we have the inner fear of pride.

Ignorance has two types, conventional ignorance of not knowing what to do and ultimate ignorance of not knowing how things truly exist.  People’s lives are plagued by the elephant of insecurity and uncertainty.  We don’t know what the day will bring, and we have no idea what karma will ripen.  To try control against these fears, we try gain control and reduce uncertainty, and we fear anything that could increase our insecurity or uncertainty.  All of our outer fears associated with insecurity and uncertainty come from the inner fear of conventional ignorance.  If we knew clearly what objects are to be abandoned and what objects are to be attained, we would not fear an uncertain world because we would always know what to do and how to respond.  We would have confidence in the laws of karma that if we responded wisely to whatever arises, our karmic circumstance would definitely get better, so we would fear nothing.  Further, ultimately, the only reason why we fear anything is because we still grasp at things existing from their own side, independently of our mind as causes of our happiness or suffering.  But if we understood that everything depends upon how we look at it and everything can be transformed into a cause of our enlightenment, we would quite literally have nothing to fear at all.  Thus, eliminating the inner fear of ignorance removes all of our outer fears.

All of the other outer fears are likewise born from the inner fears of anger, jealousy, wrong views, attachment, miserliness, and deluded doubts.  We can think about all of the things that give rise to our anger, jealousy, wrong views, attachment, miserliness, and deluded doubts.  Normally we view these things as our “problems” because they give rise to feelings in our mind.  But if we eliminated these delusions from our mind, then we would no longer have outer fears.

If we rely upon Mother Tara sincerely and with strong faith, she will protect us from all obstacles and fulfil all our wishes. Since she is a wisdom Buddha, and since she is a manifestation of the completely purified wind element, Tara is able to help us very quickly. If we recite the twenty-one verses of praise, we shall receive inconceivable benefits. These praises are very powerful because they are Sutra, the actual words of Buddha. It is good to recite them as often as we can.

The power of any Buddha to help us depends almost entirely upon the strength of our faith.  Faith is like electricity for our spiritual life.  The entire modern world would come to a screeching halt without electricity, in the same way our spiritual life is inert without the electricity of faith.  Faith can also be likened to our sails, and the Buddhas blessings to winds filling our sails.  If our sails are raised and aligned with the pure winds of the Buddhas, we will be blown swiftly towards enlightenment.  Tara is the completely purified wind element, which means the winds of her blessings are particularly powerful and swift.  Through generating faith in her, we will enjoy all of the benefits and protections explained in the sadhana.  Through faith in her, we will come to feel her presence in our life and enjoy her protection, which will increase our faith further in her in a self-fulfilling cycle of enlightenment.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Making our Dharma Study Qualified

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Bodhisattva downfall:  Making no effort to study Dharma. 

If, without a good reason, we make no effort to listen to Dharma teachings or read Dharma books, we incur a secondary downfall.

Venerable Tharchin explains that if we take full advantage of the spiritual opportunities we have been given it creates the causes for us to have even better opportunities in the future.  But if we waste the opportunities we have, we burn up the karma which created them and will find it increasingly difficult to find such opportunities again in the future.  When we understand we have stumbled upon the one door through which we can escape from suffering forever we will realize there is nothing more important we can do with our life or our time than train our mind in the Dharma.  This is doubly so when we realize we can die at any point in time and lose this opportunity forever. 

But at the same time, again, we need to approach our practice with a balanced attitude. It is better to do a little every day for the rest of our life than a ton of spiritual activity for a short period of time and then nothing after that.  We are running a spiritual marathon and we need to pace ourselves for the long haul.  We should not project onto ourself an arbitrary standard that 24/7 we need to directly be doing Dharma, and if we are not we are somehow committing some downfall.  Instead, we should practice comfortably and skillfully, improving a little bit each day, each month, each year.  Slowly but surely, drop by drop, the bucket of our enlightenment will be filled.

Bodhisattva downfall:  Preferring to rely on books rather than on our Spiritual Guide. 

If we neglect the practice of sincere reliance on our Spiritual Guide and prefer to acquire our understanding from books we incur a secondary downfall.

There are many people, especially in the West, who really struggle with the idea of reliance upon a “guru.”  The very sound of it just sounds cult like, and alarm bells go off every time we hear people speaking in this way.  It may be that we usually only talk with other Dharma practitioners who speak in a similar way, and so we inadvertently sound like we have joined some crazed cult when we speak with others and talk about our “guru.”

Geshe-la says externally we should treat our Spiritual Guides “exactly as normal.”  Outwardly, there should be no visible indications of us treating our teachers, including our root guru, differently than we would any other respected person in this world.  Geshe-la explains in Great Treasury of Merit that the Spiritual Guide’s true miracle powers are his ability to outwardly appear completely as normal, even though internally they have perfected every good quality.  At a Summer Festival once he explained that it is by relating to our spiritual teachers exactly as normal that we gain the realizations we are supposed to get.  If we act all weird with our teachers, we do not gain the needed realizations, others think we are crazy and so we bring the Dharma into disrepute, we set ourselves up for a fall when our teacher appears to make mistakes, and we are actually putting our teachers into a real personal bind.  In the early days of the tradition, everyone spoke of their teachers as if they were Buddhas without fault.  This then lead to the teaches pretending to be better than they are thinking it was helpful to the student’s faith.  The teachers would then repress their delusions, develop all sorts of strange forms of pride and then either implode from repression or explode by doing something stupid thinking it was divine to do so.  This is why Gen-la Khyenrab is such a good example.  There is not an ounce of pretention in him and he constantly encourages us to keep it real.  Such behavior is perfect.

New Years for a Kadampa

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

New Year’s Day is of course preceded by New Year’s Eve.  The evening before is usually when friends get together to celebrate the coming of the new year.  Sometimes Kadampas become a social cynic, looking down on parties like this, finding them meaningless and inherently samsaric.  They mistakenly think it is somehow a fault to enjoy life and enjoy cultural traditions.  This is wrong.

If we are invited to a New Year’s party, we should go without thinking it is inherently meaningless.  Geshe-la wants us to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.  New Year’s Eve parties are part of modern life, so our job is to bring the Dharma into them.  Venerable Tharchin said that our ability to help others depends upon two things:  the depth of our Dharma realizations and the strength of our karmic connections with living beings.  Doing things with friends as friends helps build those karmic bonds.  Even if we are unable to discuss any Dharma, at the very least, we can view such evenings as the time to cultivate our close karmic bonds with people.  Later, in dependence upon these bonds, we will be able to help them.

One question that often comes up at most New Year’s Eve parties is what to do about the fact that most everyone else is drinking or consuming other intoxicants.  Most of us have Pratimoksha vows, so this can create a problem or some awkward moments for ourself or for the person who is throwing the party.  Best, of course, is if you have an open and accepting relationship with your friends where you can say, “you can do whatever you want, but I am not going to.”  It’s important that we don’t adopt a judgmental attitude towards others who might drink, etc.  We each make our own choices and it is not up to us to judge anyone else.  We might even make ourselves the annual “designated driver.”  Somebody has to be, so it might as well be the Buddhist!

If we are at a party where we can’t be open about being a Buddhist, which can happen depending upon our karmic circumstance, what I usually do is drink orange juice or coke for most of the night, but then at midnight when they pass around the glasses of Champagne I just take one, and without a fuss when it comes time, I just put it to my lips like I am drinking but I am not actually doing so.  If we don’t make an issue out of it, nobody will notice.  Why is this important?  Because when we say we don’t drink, they will ask why.  Then we say because we are a Buddhist.  Implicitly, others can take our answer to mean we are saying we think it is immoral to drink, so others might feel judged. When they do, they then reject Buddhism, and create the karma of doing so. We may feel “right,” but we have in fact harmed those around us. What is the most moral thing to do depends largely upon our circumstance. It goes without saying that others are far more likely to feel judged by us if in fact we are judging everyone around us! We all need to get off our high horse and just love others with an accepting attitude.

Fortunately, most Kadampa centers now host a New Year’s Eve party.  This is ideal.  If our center doesn’t, then ask to host one yourself at the center.  This gives our Sangha friends an alternative to the usual New Year’s parties.  We can get together at the center, have a meal together, do a puja together and just hang out together as friends.  We are people too, not just Dharma practitioners, so it is important to be “exactly as normal.”  If our New Year’s party is a lot of fun, then people will want to come again and again; and perhaps even invite their friends along.  It is not uncommon to do either a Tara practice or an Amitayus practice.   Sometimes centers organize a retreat weekend course over New Year’s weekend.  For several years in Geneva, we would do Tara practice in six sessions at the house of a Sangha member.  The point is, try make it time together with your Sangha family.  Christmas is often with our regular family, New Year’s can be with our spiritual family.

But it is equally worth pointing out there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending a quiet evening at home alone, or with a few friends or members of your family. Just because everybody else is making a big deal out of it and going to parties doesn’t mean we should feel any pressure to do the same. I personally have never enjoyed them party scene, even when others are not getting drunk, etc. I much prefer a quiet evening or a solitary retreat. There is nothing wrong with this, and if that is how we prefer to bring in the New Year, we should do so without guilt or hesitation.

What I used to do (and really should start doing again), is around New Years I would take the time to go through all the 250+ vows and commitments of Kadampa Buddhism and reflect upon how I was doing.  I would try look back on the past year and identify the different ways I broke each vow, and I would try make plans for doing better next year.  If you are really enthusiastic about this, you can make a chart in Excel where you rank on a scale of 1 to 10 how well you did on each vow, and then keep track of this over the years.  Geshe-la advises that we work gradually with our vows over a long period of time, slowly improving the quality with which we keep them.  Keeping track with a self-graded score is a very effective way of doing this.  New Years is a perfect time for reflecting on this.

Ultimately, New Year’s Day itself is no different than any other.  It is very easy to see how its meaning is merely imputed by mind.  But that doesn’t mean it is not meaningful, ultimately everything is imputed by mind.  The good thing about New Year’s Day is everyone agrees it marks the possibility for a new beginning.  It is customary for people to make New Year’s Resolutions, things they plan on doing differently in the coming year.  Unfortunately, it is also quite common for people’s New Year’s Resolutions to not last very long.

But at Kadampas, we can be different.  The teachings on impermanence remind us that “nothing remains for even a moment” and that the entire world is completely recreated anew every moment.  New Year’s Day is a good day for recalling impermanence.  Everything that happened in the previous year, we can just let it go and realize we are moving into a new year and a new beginning.  We should make our New Year’s resolutions spiritual ones.  It is best, though, to make small changes that you make a real effort to keep than large ones that you know won’t last long.  Pick one or two things you are going to do differently this year.  Make it concrete and make sure it is doable.  A former student of mine would pick one thing that she said she was going to make her priority for the coming year, and then throughout the year she would focus on that practice. I think this is perfect. Another Sangha friend of mine would every year ask for special advice about what they should work on in the coming year. This is also perfect.

When you make a determination, make sure you know why you are doing it and the wisdom reasons in favor of the change are solid in your mind.  On that basis, you will be able to keep them.  Making promises that you later break creates terrible karma for ourselves which makes it harder and harder to make promises in the future. We create the habit of never following through, and that makes the practice of moral discipline harder and harder.

Just because we are a Kadampa does not mean we can’t have fun like everyone else on New Year’s Eve.  It is an opportunity to build close karmic bonds with others, especially our spiritual family.  We can reflect upon our behavior over the previous year and make determinations about how we will do better in the year to come.

I pray that all of your pure wishes in the coming year be fulfilled, and that all of the suffering you experience become a powerful cause of your enlightenment.  I pray that all beings may find a qualified spiritual path and thereby find meaning in their life.  I also pray that nobody die tonight from drunk driving, but everyone makes it home safe.  Since that is unlikely to come true, I pray that Avalokiteshvara swiftly take all those who die to the pure land where they may enjoy everlasting joy.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Stop Criticizing Other Religions!!!

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Bodhisattva downfall:  Criticizing other Mahayana traditions. 

If some of the different traditions of the Mahayana appear to be contrary to our own tradition we should not discriminate against them or criticism them without a good reason.  If we do so with a deluded motivation we incur a secondary downfall.

Generally speaking, we leave people to make their own spiritual choices.  It is not our place to judge the spiritual path of others, just as we do not wish others to judge us.  Just because another path is not what is best for us does not mean it is not best for those who follow that path.  So there is no contradiction in saying the other path is not for us, but still respect that it is the right path for somebody else.  If we all respect each other, then there are no problems.

Many people criticize Kadampas because generally speaking the “follow one tradition purely without mixing.”  Because we do not mix Kadampa teachings with non-Kadampa teachings, those who do such mixing can feel that we are being sectarian for not doing so.  The fact that we don’t do so can be taken by some as a judgment by us about other’s spiritual choices.  It is also not uncommon for Kadampas to unskillfully criticize others who do mix, thinking that people who do so are somehow inferior practitioners or doing something wrong.

The reality is this:  most people will mix.  We ourselves can decide against doing so for the reasons given, but we should never judge those who do differently than we do.  We should not feel like we need to embark upon a personal crusade to stop people from mixing.  If they ask us why we don’t do so, we can explain our reasons, but we should make it very clear that it is our own personal decision to not do so and in no way are we saying others should do as we do.  It is up to each person to decide how to approach their spiritual life.  It is true that not mixing is not being sectarian, but if we judge others who do mix then we are being sectarian and incurring this downfall of criticizing other Mahayana traditions.  We are also providing those critical of Kadampas with fodder for their wrong views about us.  It is because there are so many misunderstandings about our way of practice that we need to be unambiguous in our respect for those who practice differently than we do.  This especially includes people who come to our local centers and who participate in the on-line discussion forums. 

One area where we are justified in making a distinction when it comes to not mixing is in the selection of the teachers of Kadampa centers.  It is entirely reasonable to say that those who teach in Kadampa centers should themselves be Kadampas.  If there is only Kadampa coming into a practitioners mind, there will only be Kadampa coming out in their teachings.  If there is a mix of things going in, there will be a mix of things coming out in their teachings.  Since our centers are Kadampa centers, it is entirely reasonable that the teachings given are Kadampa teachings.  But besides this one exception, we leave people be.

Bodhisattva downfall:  Praising ourself and scorning others. 

This is similar to the first root downfall except that here we are motivated by slight pride but have no intention to deceive others.

This downfall was already explained in detail in the context of the root downfall.  The reality is this:  everytime we say anything even slightly negative or judgmental about somebody else, we are implicitly saying we are somehow better.  If we check carefully and honestly, we will see that virtually everything we say is directly or indirectly saying we are somehow better than others who make the mistakes we cite.  This is why as a general rule it is best to adopt a very simple policy of never saying anything bad about anyone ever.  No exceptions.  A corollary of this is to never say anything good about ourselves ever.  No exceptions.  If we follow these two basic rules, there is little risk of us committing this downfall.

Happy Protector Day: May the Doctrine of Losang Dragpa Flourish Forevermore

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

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is the last part 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 most effective way of increasing the power of our reliance is to engage in sincere dedication prayers.  When we dedicate the merit we have accumulated it is like putting our spiritual savings in the bank where they can never be destroyed and they can earn spiritual interest.  Each sadhana has a different dedication prayer which summarizes the main function of the spiritual practice.  In the case or Dorje Shugden, the dedication prayers are as follows:

By this virtue may I quickly
Attain the enlightened state of the Guru,
And then lead every living being
Without exception to that ground.

This is the first effect of this practice.  This is the explicit strategy of Je Tsongkhapa’s tradition for emptying samsara.  Je Tsongkhapa is a spiritual guide who trains others to also become spiritual guides.  These new spiritual guides then train others still and so on.  In this way, generation after generation, the beneficial effects of Je Tsongkhapa’s deeds continue forever.  This is the “great wave of Je Tsongkhapa’s deeds.” 

The person who got me into spirituality was a close friend in college.  He opened the door for me and encouraged me to step through.  After several years of practicing, I thought back to the fact that without the kindness and encouragement of this one friend I would not have a spiritual life at all.  When I later saw him, I asked him, “how can I pay you back?”  His answer was a very powerful teaching:  he said, “do the same for others.  And when others ask you how they can pay you back, give them the same answer.  In this way, the kindness keeps going forever.”  Venerable Tharchin says that the highest spiritual goal to aspire to is to take our place in the lineage.  At some point, we will be the lineage guru whose responsibility it is to carry forward the lineage.  We must prepare ourselves for that responsibility in much the same way people prepare themselves for big missions or assignments.

Through my virtues from practising with pure motivation,
May all living beings throughout all their lives
Never be parted from peaceful and wrathful Manjushri,
But always come under their care.

This is the second effect of this practice.  If beings are never separated from peaceful and wrathful Manjushri, in other words Je Tsongkhapa and Dorje Shugden, then their enlightenment is just a question of time.

The following two verses, known as the Prayers for the Virtuous Traditon, were actually written by a previous incarnation of Dorje Shugden, and we recite them after every practice. 

So that the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa,
The King of the Dharma, may flourish,
May all obstacles be pacified
And may all favourable conditions abound.

This should be fairly self-explanatory by now.  It is the essential meaning of the entire Dorje Shugden part.

Through the two collections of myself and others
Gathered throughout the three times,
May the doctrine of Conqueror Losang Dragpa
Flourish for evermore.

The two collections are the collections of merit and wisdom, and the three times are the past, present and future.  In other words, we mentally invest all of the merit every accumulated into the flourishing of Je Tsongkhapa’s Dharma (Losang Dragpa is another name for Je Tsongkhapa). 

To summarize, the practice of Dorje Shugden can be reduced to the following:

  1. We renew our motivation as a spiritual being – we realize that the only thing that matters is the causes we create because they are the only things we can take with us.
  2. We request with infinite faith that Dorje Shugden provide us with perfect conditions for our swiftest possible enlightenment.
  3. We then accept with infinite faith that whatever subsequently arises is the perfect conditions for our practice that we requested.
  4. We then practice in these conditions to the best of our ability.  It doesn’t matter what appears, what matters is how we respond.  So we try to respond well.

If we do these four things, I guarrantee that we will be gradually lead to enlightenment.  It will just be a question of time.

There is much much more to say about the practice of Heart Jewel, but I wanted to keep things simple.  I strongly encourage everyone to read again and again the book Heart Jewel, which Geshe-la has said is his most important book.  We should also take advantage of the opportunity to speak with some senior practitioners about how to establish a daily practice and we should request teachings and empowerments on this practice from our local teacher.

I dedicate any merit I accumulated from doing this series of posts so that every living being joyfully establishes a daily practice of Dorje Shugden.  I pray that everything that happens to every living being is perfect for their swiftest possible enlightenment.  I request the wisdom to be able to understand how whatever happens to anybody is perfect for their enlightenment and I request that all of the conditions be arranged for me to share this perspective with others in a way that they can accept it.  In this way, we can all happily accept everything that happens in our life and swiftly make progress to enlightenment.  OM VAJRA WIKI WITRANA SOHA!

Christmas for a Kadampa

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

For those of us who live in the West, or come from Western families, Christmas is often considered the most important holiday of the year.  Ostensibly, Christmas is about the birth of Christ, and for some it is.  For most, however, it is about exchanging gifts, spending time with family and watching football.  Or it’s just about out of control consumerism, depending on your view.  Kadampas can sometimes feel a bit confused during Christmas time.  It used to be our favorite holiday as kids, but now we are Buddhists, so how are we supposed to relate to it?

It’s true, Christmas time has degenerated into a frenzy of buying things we don’t need.  It is easy to criticize Christmas on such grounds.  Of course, as Kadampas, we can be aware of this and realize its meaninglessness.  We can correctly identify the attachment and realize it’s wrong.  But certainly being a Kadampa means more than being a cynic and a scrooge.  Instead, we should rejoice in all the acts of giving.  Giving is a virtue, even if what people are giving is not very meaningful.  There is more giving that occurs in the Christmas season than any other time of the year.  Yes, the motivations for giving might be mixed with worldly concerns, but we can still rejoice in the giving part.  Rejoice in all of it, don’t be a cynic.

Likewise, I think we should celebrate with all our heart the birth of Christ into this world.  Why not?  Our heart commitment is to follow one tradition purely while appreciating and respecting all other traditions.  Instead of getting on our arrogant high horse mocking those who believe in an inherently existent God, why don’t we celebrate the birth of arguably the greatest practitioner of taking and giving to have ever walked the face of the earth?  The entire basis of Christianity is Christ took on all of the sins of all living beings, and by generating faith in him, believing he did so to save us, we open our mind to receive his special blessings which function to take our sins upon him.  He is, in this respect, quite similar to a Buddha of purification.  By generating faith in him, his followers can purify all of their negative karma.

Further, he is a doorway to heaven (his pure land).  If his followers remember him with faith at the time of their death, they will receive his powerful blessings and be transported to the pure land.  In this sense, he is very similar to Avalokiteshvara.  Christ taught extensively on being humble, working for the sake of the poor, and reaching out to those in the greatest of need.  Think of all the people he has inspired with his example.  Sure, there are some people who distort his teachings for political purposes, but that doesn’t make his original intent and meaning wrong.  In many ways, one can say he gave tantric teachings on maintaining pure view, and bringing the Kingdom of Heaven into this world.  Who can read the Sermon on the Mount and not be moved?  Who can read the prayers of his later followers, such as Saint Francis of Assisi, and not be inspired?  Think of Pope Francis.  You don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate his positive effect on this world and the church.  All of these things we can rejoice in and be inspired by.  A Bodhisattva seeks to practice all virtue, and there is much in Jesus’ example worth emulating.  Trying to be more “Christ-like” in our behavior is not mixing.  If we can see somebody in our daily lives engaging in virtue and be inspired to be more like them, then why can we not also do so for one of the greatest Saints in the history of the world?  Rejoicing in and copying virtue is an essential component of the Kadampa path.

Geshe-la has said on many occasions that Buddhas appear in this world in Buddhist and non-Buddhist form.  Is it that hard to imagine that Christ too was a Buddha who appeared in a particular form in a particular place in human history for the sake of billions?  Surely all the holy beings get along just fine with one another, since they are ultimately of one nature.  It is only humans who create divisions and problems.  Geshe-la said we do believe in “God,” it is just different people have a different understanding of what that means.  Christians have their understanding, we have ours, but we can all respect and appreciate one another.

Besides celebrating Christ, Christmas is an excellent time for ourself to practice virtue.  Not just giving, but also patience with our loved ones, cherishing others, training in love and so forth.  It is not always easy to spend time with our families.  The members of our family have their fair share of delusions, and it is easy to develop judgmental attitudes towards them for it.  It is not uncommon for some of the worst family fights to happen during the holiday season.  Christmas time gives us an opportunity to counter all of these delusions and bad attitudes, and learn to accept and love everyone just as they are.

When I was a boy, Christmas was both my favorite time of year and my worst time of year.  My favorite time of year because I loved the lights, the songs and of course the presents.  It was the worst time of the year because my mother had an unrealistic expectation that just because it was Christmas, everything was supposed to work out perfectly and nothing was supposed to go wrong.  This created tremendous pressure on everyone in the house, and when the slightest thing would go wrong, she would become very upset and ruin the day for everyone.  This is not uncommon at all.  People’s expectations shoot through the roof during the Christmas season, and especially on Christmas day.  These higher expectations then cause us to be more judgmental, to more easily feel slighted, and to be quicker to anger.  We can view this time as an excellent opportunity to understand the nature of samsara is for things to go wrong, and the best answer to that fact is patient acceptance and a good laugh.

As I have grown older, Christmas has given rise to new delusions for me to overcome.  When I was little, I used to get lots of presents.  Now, I get a tie.  Not the same, and it always leaves me feeling a bit let down.  I give presents to everyone, yet nobody seems to give me any.  As a parent, I cannot help but have hopes and expectations that my kids will like their presents, but then when they don’t I realize my attachment to gratitude and recognition.  During Christmas, even though I am supposed to be giving, I find myself worrying about money and feeling miserly.  I find myself quick to judge my in-laws or other members of my family if they don’t act in the way I want them to.  Since I live abroad, far away from any family, I start to feel jealous of the pictures I see on Facebook of my other family members all together and seeming to have a good time while we are alone and forgotten on the other side of the planet.  When kids open presents, they are often like rabid dogs, going from one thing to the next without appreciating anything and I can’t help but feel I have failed as a parent.  Trying to get good pictures is always a nightmare, and getting the kids to express gratitude to the aunts and grandmas is always a struggle.  The more time we spend with our family, the more we become frustrated with them and secretly we can’t wait until school starts again and we can go back to work.  None of these are uncommon reactions, and these sorts of situations give rise to a pantheon of delusions.  But all of them give us a chance to practice training our mind and cultivating new, more virtuous, habits of mind.

Christmas is also a time in which we can reach out to those who are alone.  Suicide and depression rates are the highest during the holiday season.  People see everyone else happy, but they find themselves alone and unloved.  Why can we not invite these people to our home and let them know we care?  Make them feel part of our family.  There are also plenty of opportunities to volunteer to help out the poor and the needy, such as giving our time at or clothes to homeless shelters.  People in hospitals, especially the old and dying, suffer from great loneliness and sadness during the Christmas season.  We can go spend time with them, hear their stories, and give them our love.

Culturally, many of us are Christian.  People in the West, by and large, live in a Christian culture.  Geshe-la has gone to great lengths to present the Dharma in such a way that we do not have to abandon our culture to understand the Dharma.  Externally, culturally, we can remain Christian; while internally, spiritually we are 100% Kadampa.  There is no contradiction between these two.  On the whole, Christmas time gives us ample opportunities to create virtue, rejoice in goodness and battle our delusions.  For a Kadampa, this is perfect.

Happy Tsog Day: Dedication for Series

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 the last part of a 44-part series.

Gathering and dissolving the Field of Merit

Due to my making requests in this way, O Supreme spiritual guide,
With delight, please come to my crown to bestow your blessings;
And once again firmly place your radiant feet
On the anthers of the lotus at my heart.

At this point we can train in the practice of Vajrayana Mahamudra, the actual completion stage meditation, according to the commentary.

As explained above, the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide is a preliminary practice for our training in Vajrayana Mahamudra. We engage in Mahamudra practice at this point in the sadhana, after we have dissolved our spiritual guide into our heart, and we imagine that our mind mixes inseparably with his mind. There are two main reasons why we always dissolve the Guru into our heart before we engage in whatever is our main practice. The first is by mixing our mind with his, we can receive his powerful blessings to help us engage in our actual practice. We do not know how to find our objects of meditation, but he does. By mixing our mind with his, we can request that he bless our mind and gradually guide us to our final and correct meditation objects. The second reason is more profound. The spiritual guide’s mind is fundamentally not separate from our own mind. The two are equally empty. This means it is possible for us to change the basis of imputation of our “I” from an ordinary mind without these realizations to our spiritual guide’s mind that possesses all these realizations. This is very similar to generation stage practice. We quite literally identify with our spiritual guide’s mind knowing that it already possesses all the stages of the path to enlightenment. By doing this, the duality between our spiritual guide’s mind and our own completely dissolves until eventually we are directly imputing our “I” onto all his realizations. Once we have completed this transfer of basis of imputation of our “I” to his enlightened mind, we ourselves attain enlightenment.

There are many different methods for engaging in Vajrayana Mahamudra practice. In general, we can say there are two lineages differentiated by which doorway we penetrate the central channel. According to the tradition of Naropa, we penetrate our central channel at the level of our naval; and according to the Ganden Oral Lineage, we penetrate our central channel at the level of our heart. The first method is explained in detail in the book Clear Light of Bliss; the latter method is explained in detail in Tantric Grounds and Paths and in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra. The five stages of completion stage according to Heruka practice possess seven main meditations – the first two stages each have two parts. Thus, it is possible to engage in the entire cycle the five stages of completion stage according to Heruka practice every week, doing one meditation per day in a cycle much in the same way as we do our Lamrim meditations on a 21-day cycle. Once we have gained some familiarity with doing these meditations once a day, we can then do them on a seven-week cycle, and then on a seven-month cycle. In this way we gradually deepen our experience of each stage of our completion stage practice. Practicing in this way enables each meditation to reinforce all the others.

Eventually, we should pray to be able to engage in a three-year retreat on Vajrayana Mahamudra according to the Ganden Oral Lineage. Is my deepest wish that myself and everyone who has read this commentary is able to do so.

Dedication

I dedicate all the pure white virtues I have gathered here
So that I may accomplish all the prayers
Made by the Sugatas and Bodhisattvas of the three times,
And maintain the holy Dharma of scripture and insight.

Through the force of this, throughout all my lives,
May I never be separated from the four wheels of the Supreme Vehicle
And Thus, may I complete the paths of renunciation,
Bodhichitta, correct view, and the two tantric stages.

Auspicious prayers

Through the force of all the pure white virtue in samsara and nirvana,
Henceforth may there be a celestial treasury of temporary and ultimate goodness and joy,
Free from all stains of inauspiciousness;
And Thus, may there be the auspiciousness of enjoying magnificent delight.

May the Dharma Centres of all-knowing Losang Dragpa
Be filled with hosts of Sangha and Yogis
Striving to practise single-pointedly the three pure trainings;
And Thus, may there be the auspiciousness of Buddha’s doctrine remaining for a very long time.

Abiding in the blessings of Losang Dragpa,
Who from the time of his youth made requests to the supreme Guru-Deity,
May we effortlessly accomplish the welfare of others;
And Thus, may there be the auspiciousness of Losang Dorjechang.

May desired endowments increase like a summer lake,
May we find uninterrupted birth with freedom in stainless families,
May we pass each day and night with Losang’s holy Dharma;
And Thus, may there be the auspiciousness of enjoying magnificent delight.

From now until I and others attain enlightenment,
Through the virtues we have already created and will create,
May there be the auspiciousness of the Venerable Guru’s holy form
Remaining like an immutable vajra in this world.

I dedicate all the merit that I have accumulated through writing this series of blog posts so that all Kadampas become motivated to engage in the tsog offering every 10th day for the rest of their life. Through doing so, I pray that they create the causes to guarantee to take rebirth in the pure land where they can complete their spiritual training. May all those who need this commentary find it. May I never forget but always put into practice the instructions that I have received from my spiritual guide. May we meet him again it again in all our future lives without interruption between now and our eventual enlightenment, and when we meet him, may we continue to have deep faith, a pure heart, and a strong wish to put his instructions into practice.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Don’t Be Distracted by Worldly Subjects

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Bodhisattva downfall:  Studying non-Dharma subjects without a good reason. 

If we study non-Dharma subjects without the motivation to increase our capacity to help other beings we incur a secondary downfall.

In the early days of the tradition, there was a current of thought that pursuing our traditional schooling or jobs was somehow a mistake or waste of time.  Jobs, families and worldly knowledge were viewed as obstacles to our spiritual training, and those who pursued such things were viewed as somehow not being dedicated practitioners.  Such wrong views lead to a great deal of inner turmoil and tension for practitioners as they struggled between these two apparent needs.  About the time that Geshe-la first published Transform your Life he addressed this point.  He said, “up until now we as a tradition have fallen a bit into the extreme of Dharma.  That has been OK because of the unique times we are in, but now is the time to seek the middle way between Dharma and modern life.”  At first, people misunderstood this to mean we need to do 50% dharma life, 50% modern life.  But this wasn’t Geshe-la’s meaning at all.  Rather, the middle way between the two is we view the Kadam Dharma as the means by which we live our modern life and we view our modern life as the context of our practice of the Kadam Dharma.  In this way, there is no contradiction whatsoever between 100% living a Dharma life and 100% living a modern life.  The two are one in the same. 

In recent years, since the publication of Modern Buddhism Geshe-la has become even more clear saying that the main purpose of the tradition right now is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and Modern Life.  This is the meaning of “Modern Buddhism.”  It is by NOT abandoning our modern lives, but instead navigating through them with the Kadam Dharma, that we will gain the realizations the people of this world need.  Ultimately, all situations are equally empty, thus all situations are equally perfect for our spiritual training.  While there are still those who grasp at “normal life” as somehow being an obstacle to Kadampa practice, their doing so doesn’t make such a view true.  In fact, such a view is an aspect of an ignorance that grasps at the Dharma somehow not being practicable in the context of certain karmic appearances.  Such a view is completely wrong.  This does not mean people should no longer get ordained, move into centers, etc.  Each person must follow the karmic path that works best for them individually.  What it does mean is there is no hierarchy of spiritual lives where one is better than another in some universal sense.  All life contexts have equal potential to be quick paths to enlightenment or a completely wasted opportunity. 

So there is no contradiction between people pursuing their normal studies, engaging in lifelong learning and career professionalization, and their bodhichitta goals.  Indeed, we actively seek to maximize our potential in this world because doing so will push us to the limits of our capacity.  Dorje Shugden will arrange things so that the challenges we face along the way are the ones we need to overcome.  Our purpose in studying non-Dharma things is to pursue the opportunities available to us knowing that it is by operating within the context of those opportunities that we will gain the realizations we need to gain.  Besides, all things reveal the truth of the Dharma.  When we approach our study of any subject as an opportunity to see how the truth of Dharma is revealed through that subject, then there is no danger of us committing this downfall.

What we don’t do, though, is view our non-Dharma studies as ends in themselves.  They are rather means to our Dharma ends.  Our final purpose is always to improve ourself to better serve others.  Learning non-Dharma wisdom helps us move in that direction.

Bodhisattva downfall:  Becoming engrossed in non-Dharma subjects for their own sake. 

If we study non-Dharma subjects simply for pleasure (losing our original good intention) we incur a secondary downfall.

This downfall should be pretty self-explanatory if we understood the previous downfall.  But we need to be careful to not go to extremes here.  It is unrealistic to assume we will maintain a perfect spiritual motivation for every non-Dharma thing we do.  We of course try to transform everything we do, but if we fall short of this we should not feel like we are doing something wrong.  Just because we can do better doesn’t mean what we are doing is wrong.  There is good and even better.  We simply do our best and maintain a balanced and comfortable approach to our practice.  There is a danger that we push too hard and adopt an unsustainable approach to our practice.  This never lasts and creates lots of problems.  We strive to be a slow, but steadily flowing river.

At the least, we can say that our engaging in non-Dharma activities, such as watching a favorite TV show, is a form of rest that enables us to come back to our practice refreshed.  Avoid extremes.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Getting our Relationship Right with the Hinayana

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Preparation 1:  Overcoming the bodhisattva downfalls associated with the perfection of wisdom.

As with the other chapters, I will first explain the different bodhisattva downfalls with respect to the perfection of wisdom.  Moral discipline is the foundation of all spiritual attainments, and this is especially true for emptiness. 

Bodhisattva downfall:  Abandoning the Hinayana. 

If we regard the holy Dharma of the Hinayana as contradictory to the Mahayana and believe that it must be abandoned we incur a secondary downfall.

This downfall can take many forms.  First, it can take the form of a simple misunderstanding thinking that a Mahayanist abandons the path to liberation in pursuit of the path to enlightenment.  Very often you will hear people new to the Mahayana path mistakenly say that a Bodhisattva forsakes their own liberation and stays in samsara forever until everyone else has been freed.  While no doubt a sublimely compassionate way of thinking, ultimately this is wrong.  We can only save people if we ourselves are on secure grounds.  Likewise, in pursuit of enlightenment, we cannot help but attain liberation along the way.  So such a wish is actually impossible.

Second, we can mistakenly think abandoning our own self-cherishing means abandoning trying to free ourselves.  It can seem selfish to put great effort into our own freedom, so thinking it is selfish we don’t try do so and instead we try to serve only others.  It is true we are to serve only others, but it is because we wish to help others in the greatest possible way that we single pointedly strive to improve our own qualities, skills and abilities to forge ourselves into the most helpful instrument possible.  It is by having improved ourselves that we are freed to help even more.  It is by gaining wisdom and experience ourself that we have something useful to share with others.  It is by having worked through our own delusions that we can skilfully guide others to do the same.  A Bodhisattva seeks every good quality without shame or even the slightest trace of guilt because they know their sole purpose in doing so is to be of greater service to others.

Third, this downfall can take the form of a pride in thinking the Mahayana practitioner is somehow superior to the Hinayana practitioner.  Does a roof think it can stand alone without its walls supporting it?  Can a mountain tower above without the earth underneath it? 

Finally, this downfall can arise from an ignorance grasping at a limited and ultimately mistaken understanding of who we are.  Our ignorance thinks we are this one small being we call ourself, when in reality we are all things.  With the veil of self-grasping ignorance is lifted, the duality between self and others falls away.  All others are parts of ourself.  Our self is the collection of all others.  When we see this, the difference between renunciation and great compassion simply falls away.  Not just in the traditional sense of the mind of renunciation being part of the mind of compassion but more broadly in that the wish to free “ourself” is the same as the wish to free “all beings” because we see the two to be one and the same.

Bodhisattva downfall:  Studying the Hinayana to the detriment of our Mahayana practice. 

If instead of studying the Mahayana we put great effort into studying the Hinayana with the result that our Mahayana practice is weakened we incur a secondary downfall.

While it is true that the Hinayana is the foundation of the Mahayana, this does not mean we stop there.  When travelling a great distance, we know we will pass many places along the way to our final destination.  We do not stay to linger or remain content with what we have already accomplished, rather we push ever onward in our spiritual journey.  We view each stage of the path as a means to a greater end, a stepping stone towards a higher goal.  Just as it is possible to study Mahayana tenets with a Hinayana motivation, so too we can train in the great scope meditations with a Hinayana motivation.  This, too, would be another example of incurring this downfall. 

In some traditions it is taught that we train in one stage of the path at a time, mastering it fully before moving on to the next stage.  While this is no doubt the appropriate way to practice for people of other traditions, within the Kadampa path we train in all five of the principal causes of enlightenment simultaneously.  These five causes are renunciation, bodhichitta, the correct view of emptiness, generation stage and completion stage of Highest Yoga Tantra.  Why do we do this?  There are two main reasons.  First, each stage of the path is intimately interconnected with all of the others.  When we practice them together in the context of a systematic lamrim practice, each direct meditation on any one stage of the path indirectly reinforces all of the others, thus making the attainment of each easier.  Second, by training in all of them simultaneously we will experience their final result simultaneously.  Technically, this is not exactly true in that our experience of the higher stages can never outstrip our experience of the lower stages, but when the results come they will come in rapid succession.  We experience this quite often in our practice, where when we have a sudden breakthrough on one meditation it quickly carries forward into all of our others. 

The key test for this downfall is whether our practice of the lower stages is coming “at the detriment of” the higher trainings.  For example, some people become quite attached to their lamrim trainings and fearful of their Tantric practices, and as a result they never start their higher trainings.  In reality, Tantra is simply a more advanced and rapid way of training in the lamrim.  It is because we wish to deepen our lamrim practice that we take up the Vajrayana path.

A Pure Life: Abandoning Meaningless Activities

Kadampa Ryan Precept Days

This is the last part 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 actual precept here is to abandon wearing ornaments, perfume, etc, and singing and dancing and so forth. Like with the precept about not eating after lunch, the purpose of this practice is not to say wearing ornaments, perfume and so forth are inherently negative, rather it is an opportunity for us to recall all of the negative karma we have accumulated with respect to pursuit of these things and to view our training in the precept as a practice of purification for that negative karma.  More broadly, this precept is advising us to abandon all meaningless activities.

What sort of negative karma have we created with respect to wearing ornaments? This refers more broadly to the negative karma we have created in the pursuit of wealth. Attachment to wealth and resources is one of the eight worldly concerns. Beings in samsara create all sorts of negative karma in pursuit of wealth. For example, the vast majority of wars are directly or indirectly related to the pursuit of resources. In business, people lie and cheat all the time in an effort to get more wealth from others. Criminals lie and steal trying to get wealth. Wealthy people who are jealous of other wealthy people engage in all sorts of divisive and hurtful speech towards those they are jealous of.  The demigod realm and the hungry ghost realm are both pervaded by negative actions engaged in in pursuit of wealth.  We ourselves have created all of this negative karma and it still remains on our mind unpurified.

We have also engaged in all sorts of negative actions with respect to wearing perfume.  This can be interpreted more broadly as negative actions we have engaged in with respect to pursuit of our sexual attachment. People wear perfume to make themselves more attractive to others, which is quite frequently motivated by an underlying sexual attachment. Sexual attachment is one of the primary causes of negative actions. Once again, people lie, cheat, steal, say hurtful things, or divisive things, they covet other people’s partners, etc, etc, etc. Look at how many spiritual or political leaders have lost everything due to some sort of sex scandal. We see similar behavior in the animal realm and the demigod realms. Once again, all of this negative karma remains on our mind because we have not purified it.

Singing and dancing in this context refers more broadly to engaging in meaningless activities. This is not to say that singing and dancing per se are meaningless or negative activities.  An activity becomes meaningless if we engage in it with a meaningless mind. If we engage in singing and dancing with a virtuous motivation, then such actions are virtuous; but if we engage in them out of attachment, then such actions and activities are meaningless. What is wrong with engaging in meaningless activities? Fundamentally, doing so creates the habits of failing to seize and appreciate our precious human life. It is like idle chatter amongst the 10 non virtuous actions. Idle chatter is not a terribly non virtuous action, but if engage in it repeatedly, it can become a habit and then we wind up wasting our precious human life. We would all find it to be an incredible waste to use $100 bills to build a bonfire. Using the moments of our precious human life in a meaningless way is even more wasteful, and for this reason, it is non-virtuous.

When we take the precepts, we are in essence making the promise to abandon all negative actions associated with the pursuit of wealth, sexual attachment, or meaningless activities. When the temptation arises in our mind to do these things, we can recall all of the negative karma we have created with respect to these activities, and use our training in the precept as our opponent forced to purify this negative karma. We then promise to no longer engage in such activities in the future. In this way, we can purify the negative karma we have created with respect to these activities.

In short, the training in the eight Mahayana precepts is not simply a promise to refrain from engaging in these eight specific sorts of activities, but rather it is a more general promise to refrain from any form of negative action. By learning how to spend an entire day without engaging in any negative actions, we can counter the deluded tendencies on our mind that want to engage in negative karma and thereby weaken them so they have less hold over us in the future. We likewise create tendencies similar to the cause of believing in the wisdom of living a pure life. This karma will gradually build up momentum within our mind until eventually we refrain from non-virtuous actions and engage in virtuous actions not simply one day of the month, but every day of the month, every month of the year, every year of our life.

To avoid lower rebirth, we must purify all the negative karma that remains on our mind and engage only in virtuous actions in the future. If we do this, it is karmically guaranteed we will avoid a lower rebirth. This is important not simply because lower rebirth is so horrific, but rather we do not want to take the risk of losing the continuum of our spiritual practice.  If we fall into the lower realms, it will be almost impossible for us to engage in the spiritual path and we can quickly become lost for countless eons. But if we can maintain the continuum of our precious human life, in life after life, there is great hope that we will soon escape from samsara. Our training in the eight Mahayana precepts, therefore, as an indispensable friend ensuring that we remain on an uninterrupted path out of samsara.

I dedicate all of the merit that I have accumulated by writing this series of posts so that all living beings may become determined to purify all of their negative karma and engage only in virtuous actions. May they realize that non-virtue is the cause of suffering and virtue is the cause of happiness, and therefore realize if they wish to be happy they must embark upon a pure life.