Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: If you’re not enjoying yourself, you have no effort

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

The success of our spiritual training depends upon effort. Effort is not, as we will see, just engaging in the training itself but the enjoyment of it, delighting in it, even.  If we are delighting in it then we will maintain an enthusiasm for it, and we will always look forward then to opportunities to train in formal and informal ways.  We will come to enjoy formal training, such as studying, meditating, teaching, doing puja, and so forth. We look forward to such opportunities.  But we will also appreciate too any opportunities that arise during our daily activities to train. For example, we can appreciate the opportunity to train in being of service to others, showing a good example to others, and so forth. In general, our main job is to bring lamrim into our daily life. With effort, we’ll happily take every opportunity to do so.

We know too well that when we go to practice – whether it is our daily meditations, attending classes or pujas, going to festivals, or even just looking at our daily life through a lens of Dharma – we sometimes meet with resistance in our mind.  Sometimes we have obstacles and sometimes we just don’t want to do Dharma things.  Over these next verses, we will be looking at the obstacle of laziness that prevents us from joyfully putting effort into our training.  

The old Kadampas used to say that our main job is to help others as much as possible and harm our delusions as much as possible.  Shantideva’s Guide is our primary manual for how to do so.  He is ruthless with our delusions.  If we are not careful to differentiate between ourselves and our delusions, we can feel like Shantideva is attacking us or judging us.  In reality, he is trying to free us from the tyranny of our delusions.  In the last chapter, he trashed our anger.  In this chapter, he eviscerates our laziness.  Just wait until Chapter 8, when he takes on our attachment – especially our sexual attachment!  It is important that it feels like our delusions are being bashed, not us.   It is hard to feel joy in our practice if it is an exercise in self-flagellation.  Over the next several posts we will discuss this obstacle of laziness that we have in our mind that is opposing our efforts. And we will as well discuss the four powers that we can use to strengthen and increase our effort.

(7.1) With the practice of patience I should train in effort
Because the fruit of enlightenment depends upon it.
Just as a candle flame cannot move without wind,
So the collections of wisdom and merit cannot grow without effort.

It is important to further explore the link between patience and effort.  Patience gives us freedom to enjoy ourselves.  We will see through our practice of patience that we can enjoy ourselves even whilst in samsara. How does patience then give us such freedom?  At present there is an imbalance in our mind. Mainly our attachment on one hand, and aversion, anger, hatred on the other. A severe imbalance. We know the stronger the one, the stronger the other.  If we weaken our aversion, anger, hatred, and so forth, through the practice of patient acceptance, it will weaken our self-cherishing and self-grasping.   Without a doubt, this will make our mind a lot more peaceful.  And the more peaceful we are feeling, the more we are able to enjoy what we are doing.  In this way, patient acceptance gives us freedom to enjoy.

When things are difficult for us, we generally cannot enjoy ourselves.  All day long, we face one difficult situation after another.   We must be careful because we can be pushing things away all day long. From when the alarm goes off in the morning until we go to bed at night, we are pushing away things that we don’t like.  This prevents our enjoyment.  We end our day feeling that we haven’t enjoyed ourselves throughout the whole of that day. We feel difficulties come along and they end our enjoyment. They bring our enjoyment to an end. There are difficulties. Why?

We can ask ourselves now. Why is our enjoyment either prevented or stopped?  It is because we are not accepting difficulties with a patient mind.  What is definite is without acceptance, there can be no enjoyment. Without such acceptance, how can there be any enjoyment? It is only when we accept, when we have a patient acceptance that we can then enjoy or continue to enjoy.

With acceptance we can enjoy whatever happens or comes our way.  Normally if we are enjoying ourselves doing what we wish and somebody comes to us with a problem or with something for us to do, we think, “oh no.”  There is a mind of rejection.  Now, if we were to welcome the person with a problem, without any resistance, then we can maintain the peaceful, happy mind that we had whilst we were enjoying ourself. Now we can enjoy being with and helping others.  That is patience.  What we need to understand is patience gives us the freedom to enjoy ourselves, whatever we may be doing.

We reject things because we don’t know how to use them to accomplish our goals.  We easily accept things that we do know how to use to accomplish our goals.  Because our goals are presently largely worldly, there are some things we can use and some things we need to push away.  If our goals our primarily spiritual, where we genuinely want to train our mind to become a Buddha, then we can use everything.  Because we can use everything, we can accept everything with a peaceful mind.  Because we can accept everything with a peaceful mind, we can enjoy everything, all day long, without break. 

Happy Protector Day: Preliminary practice of the Guru Yoga of Je Tsongkhapa

Kadampa Ryan Protector Days

The 29th of every month is Protector Day.  This is part 4 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.

Within the Kadampa tradition we are advised to practice the sadhana Heart Jewel as our daily practice as explained in the book by the same title.  If we are a Tantric practitioner, we engage in the Tantric version of this practice known as Hundreds of Deities of the Joyful Land According to Highest Yoga Tantra as explained in the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra.   In either case, the sadhana begins with the Guru Yoga of Je Tsongkhapa.  I will explain things from the perspective of Heart Jewel since it is a common practice. 

In general, the practice of Heart Jewel is the method for practicing the entire path to enlightenment.  There are three main parts – affectionately called a ‘Heart Jewel Sandwich.’  The first part is the Je Tsongkhapa part – the function of this part of the practice is to be able to draw closer to Je Tsongkhapa, the founder and source of the Dharma of the New Kadampa Tradition.  Through reling upon him, we receive his external and internal guidance to be able to realize his Dharma of Lamrim, Lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra.  The second part is our Meditation on Lamrim, Lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra.  We do this in the middle of the practice.  And the final part is the Dorje Shugden part – this creates the causes to be able to receive Dorje Shugden’s care and protection for being able to gain the realization of Lamrim, Lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra.  This series of posts is primarily about how to rely upon Dorje Shugden, but I will nonetheless give a brief explanation of how to engage in the first two parts of the Heart Jewel sandwich. 

To actually engage in the Je Tsongkhapa part, we do as follows.  First, we generate the mind of refuge and bodhichitta – here we establish our motivation for engaging in the practice:  “With the wish to become a Buddha so I can help all the beings around me attain the same state, I will now engage sincerely in the practice of Heart Jewel, trying to generate the minds indicated by the words.”  Then, we engage in the prayer of the seven limbs and the mandala.  This accomplishes two main functions:  First, we accumulate merit – merit is positive spiritual energy.  It is like gasoline in our spiritual car.  Second, we purify negativities – negative karma prevents us from engaging in spiritual practices and is the substantial cause of all our suffering.  It is like lots of traffic and debris on the roads.  On this basis, we then recite the Migtsema prayer and prayer of the stages of the path.  These two enable us to receive the blessings of all the Buddhas through our living spiritual guide Je Tsongkhapa.  Blessings are like spark plugs which ignite the gas of our merit to push us along the road to enlightenment.  The migtsema prayer draws us closer to Je Tsongkhapa and enables us to receive the blessings of the wisdom, compassion and spiritual power of all the Buddhas.  The prayer of the stages of the path is a special prayer for requesting the realizations of the Lamrim.

At this point in the sadhana we typically engage in meditation on Lamrim.  Usually people use the book the New Meditation Handbook and cycle through the 21 Lamrim meditations explained there, one each day.  Alternatively, we can practice the 15-day cycle explained in Mirror of Dharma.  Instead of engaging in a daily Lamrim meditation, it is also possible for us to recite with deep faith one of the longer prayers of the stages of the path.  There are three main Lamrim prayers – the short prayer as explained in Heart Jewel, the middling prayer as explained in Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, or the extensive prayer as explained in Great Treasury of Merit.  When we recite the Lamrim prayers as our main Lamrim practice, we should do so slowly and from memory, trying to sincerely generate in our heart and without distraction the Lamrim minds indicated by the words.  For more information, we can also attend classes on the Lamrim at our local Dharma centers, including Foundation Program on the book Joyful Path of Good Fortune, which is our principal Lamrim text.  After our meditation, we recite the dedication prayer from the Je Tsongkhapa part of Heart Jewel.

For more detailed information, we can read in the book Heart Jewel which provides an extensive commentary.  Geshe-la has said that this is his most important book, yet sadly it is often overlooked.  It is available for sale at www.tharpa.com. 

We should also take advantage of the opportunity to attend courses on Heart Jewel at our local Kadampa center, and we should make many requests that our local teacher grant the empowerments of Je Tsongkhapa and Dorje Shugden.  What is an empowerment?  An empowerment in general is method for establishing a very close connection with a particular enlightened being.  The closer our karma with a given enlightened being, the more ‘bandwidth’ they have for being able to help us.  It is a bit like making a connection with a very special friend.  When we meet somebody very powerful and we have a close connection with them, we can more easily call upon them and ask them for help.

An empowerment is like receiving a personal deity within our mental continuum.  We can all appreciate the qualities of the different Buddhas, and think how wonderful it would be to know them and be able to call upon them.  But how much more wonderful would it be to have a personal emanation of a Buddha who is available for us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  During the empowerment, we receive our own personal emanation of Dorje Shugden into our mental continuum.  We will be able to develop a personal relationship with this Dorje Shugden and he will care for us.  Geshe-la once told a very senior teacher about the Dorje Shugden empowerment, “people need this empowerment, they need this protection.”

Happy Tsog Day: Prostrating to the Spiritual Guide’s Form Bodies

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 6 of a 44-part series.

Prostrating to the Spiritual Guide as the Enjoyment Body

Spiritual guide with a jewel-like form,
Who out of compassion bestow in an instant
Even the supreme state of the three bodies, the sphere of great bliss,
O Vajra Holder I prostrate at your lotus feet.

Prostration is wishing faith in action. There are three types of faith: believing faith, admiring faith, and wishing faith. Believing faith believes the good qualities of holy objects and arises in dependence upon contemplation of valid reasons or personal experience. It differs from blind faith in that it has valid reasons supporting the correct beliefs. Admiring faith generates a sense of wonder and amazement at the good qualities we believe in. Wishing faith wishes to acquire those good qualities ourselves. We cannot develop wishing faith without admiring faith, and we cannot develop admiring faith without believing faith. In dependence upon wishing faith, we develop an aspiration, and this in turn moves us to action towards the accomplishment of our aspiration. When we prostrate towards the holy beings, we have two key recognitions in mind. First is wishing faith, as just described. Second is humility, understanding we currently lack the good qualities we are prostrating towards. We humbly wish to gain the good qualities we are prostrating towards.

The act of prostration itself is karmically very similar to rejoicing. Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path that when we rejoice in somebody’s good qualities or actions, it creates the causes for us to obtain those same good qualities. The effect similar to the cause of prostrating is to gain the good qualities we are prostrating towards. The tendency similar to the cause is to always have faith in that which we are prostrating towards. The environmental effect is to always have the holy object we are prostrating towards continue to appear in all our future lives. The ripened effect is to be reborn ourself as a holy being possessing the good qualities we are prostrating towards.

We can prostrate with our body, speech, and/or mind. In the context of Offering to the Spiritual Guide, we prostrate with our body by placing our palms together at our heart as we recite these verses of the sadhana. We prostrate with our speech by chanting the verses of the sadhana, either verbally or internally. We prostrate mentally by generating the mind of prostration described above.

It is important to note that all these verses are prostrations to our spiritual guide. Normally we grasp at Buddhas as somehow being separate from our spiritual guide, like they are different beings. According to the Lamrim teachings, the sign we have gained the realization of reliance upon the spiritual guide is when we think of Buddha, we think it is our spiritual guide; and when we think of our spiritual guide, we think Buddha. Viewing deities, such as Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang, as an emanation of our spiritual guide is called “Guru yoga.” Guru yoga is the actual quick path to enlightenment. There are two reasons for this. First, of all the Buddhas, the one we are karmically closest to is our spiritual guide. This makes their blessings in our mind more powerful than blessings from a Buddha who is karmically more distant. Second, our spiritual guide is like a portal to all the Buddhas. When we make a prostration to our spiritual guide, it is as if we are making a prostration to all the Buddhas, when we request blessings from our spiritual guide, it is as if we are requesting blessings from all the Buddhas. In this way, our spiritual guide acts as a merit multiplier, making any action towards our spiritual guide karmically equivalent to engaging in the same action countless times – one towards each of the countless Buddhas.

This explanation on what is prostration and how to prostrate is equally applicable to all the prostration verses that follow. In them, we prostrate to the principal good qualities of our spiritual guide and thus, create the karmic causes to become just like him.

In this verse, we prostrate to the spiritual guide as the Enjoyment Body. The Enjoyment Body is generally understood as the Buddha’s actual vajra body. This is because its nature is our very subtle indestructible wind that remains with us in life after life. It is principally our Enjoyment Body that sends out Emanation Bodies which in turn pervade the whole world. The Enjoyment Body is the source of these emanations. The first line reveals how our spiritual guide’s Enjoyment Body is like a diamond that has many facets. Each facet is like a different Emanation Body (Heruka, Tara, Dorje Shugden, etc.), but they are all by nature the diamond of our spiritual guide. The second line indicates how the Enjoyment Body sends out emanations. When the sun of a Buddha’s compassion meets the rain of our faithful mind, a rainbow-like Emanation Body spontaneously appears “in an instant.” The third line explains how a Buddha’s three bodies (Emanation Body, Enjoyment Body, and Truth Body) are all by nature great bliss of our indestructible wind. In this light, we can understand that a Buddha’s body is bliss. The last line refers to him as the Vajra Holder. Vajra refers to great bliss, so this line indicates he is never separate from great bliss. Recognizing all this with wishing faith, we prostrate.

Prostrating to the spiritual guide as the Emanation Body

Exalted wisdom of all the infinite Conquerors
Out of supremely skilful means appearing to suit disciples,
Now assuming the form of a saffron-robed monk,
O Holy Refuge and Protector I prostrate at your lotus feet.

Here, we are prostrating to our spiritual guide’s principal Emanation Body. In truth, a Buddha’s emanations pervade the whole world, and we can correctly say there is not a single thing that is not an emanation of a Buddha. But Buddhas typically also have a principal Emanation Body with a distinct visual form – in this case, our spiritual guide. The first line reveals that the omniscient wisdom of all the Buddhas takes the form of our spiritual guide’s Emanation Body. What appears is a monk, but by nature we recognize this form as a manifestation of the exalted wisdom of all the Buddhas. The second line explains the uncommon characteristic of our spiritual guide’s Emanation Body – namely, it can appear directly to us. Other Emanation Bodies, such as Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, and so forth, are still too pure for us to be able to perceive them with our ordinary samsaric eyes. But our spiritual guide is able to appear directly to us in a form we can see, hear, and so forth. Geshe-la explains in Great Treasury of Merit that despite the spiritual guide being the synthesis of all the Buddhas, he is nonetheless able to appear directly to our ordinary mind – this is his greatest miracle power.

The third line explains the form our spiritual guide takes, namely that of an ordained person. We may think this is a contradiction because elsewhere Geshe-la explains that our spiritual guide can be lay or ordained. There are several different types of ordination – pratimoksha, bodhisattva, and tantric. The essential meaning of the pratimoksha ordination is the vow to not harm living beings, the essential meaning of the bodhisattva ordination is to put others first, and the essential meaning of the tantric ordination is to maintain pure view. A lay spiritual guide can equally keep all these vows, and ultimately the bodhisattva and tantric vows subsume the pratimoksha vows. Regardless, in the context of this sadhana, we are viewing our spiritual guide as Je Tsongkhapa in recognition of him as founder of the New Kadampa Tradition. The last line reminds us of the function of our spiritual guide, namely to serve as both our refuge and protector. We recognize we have a deluded mind, and we turn to him for assistance and protection.

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Without patience, there is no effort

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Uncategorized

Before we dive in to the actual verses on the perfection of effort, I want to first say a few words about the relationship between the perfection of patience and the perfection of effort.  All of the six perfections mutually reinforce one another – strengthening our experience and realization of one makes all of the others easier.  Likewise, we can say that the earlier perfections are the foundation for the later perfections, for example giving is the foundation of moral discipline because giving counters our attachment, the principle cause of our non-virtue.  In the same way, patience is the foundation of effort. 

How can we understand this?  Patience is a mind that is able to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises, including adverse conditions or unpleasant feelings.  It can do this because it knows how to transform whatever arises – the good, the bad, and the ugly – into spiritual fuel.  Effort is taking delight in engaging in virtue.  It does not mean working hard, gritting our teeth and grinding on, it means genuinely enjoying ourselves as we travel the spiritual path.  The Kadampa path is called the “Joyful” path, and the joyful here comes from our joyful effort.  We cannot “enjoy” things we are pushing away with aversion, we are pushing them away precisely because we don’t enjoy them.  Since we encounter unpleasant things all of the time, if we are encountering them with an unhappy mind, we necessarily do not have joyful effort, even if it seems we are “practicing” Dharma in response to what is arising.  So at least half of our time is not “joyful.” 

But as we saw in our discussion of the last chapter, we need the mind of patience acceptance to also spiritually transform so-called pleasant experiences, such as wealth, happiness, praise, and a good reputation.  Normally, our attachment hijacks these experiences and transforms them into “enjoying samsara” not “enjoying our spiritual practice.”  There are many people who think the mind of renunciation is a tight, unhappy mind that deprives itself of joy.  After all, aren’t we renouncing samsara’s pleasures?  Without the mind of patient acceptance, we do not know how to wholeheartedly welcome pleasant conditions with a spiritual mind.  We just welcome them with our ordinary mind of attachment.  Further, when good things happen, we normally show no interest in spiritual practice.  We are happy to enjoy our pleasant life, and only feel the need to practice when samsara shows its ugly head.  

But effort is not just joyful, it is also energy that powers our practice forward – in other words, it is fuel.  The wisdom of the perfection of patience knows how to transform everything into spiritual fuel, and this fuel in turn powers our practice forward with effort.  We need to differentiate effort in our Dharma practice into two types:  impure and pure.  Impure effort is effort we put into our Dharma practice for the sake of this life and pure effort is for the sake of our own or other’s future lives.  Pure effort and spiritual effort are synonymous, because they concern things beyond this life.  Pure effort itself has three levels – effort aimed at escaping lower rebirth, effort aimed at escaping samsara, and effort aimed at becoming a Buddha to liberate all beings from samsara. 

All three of these types of pure effort depend upon patience.  Many people deny the existence of lower realms and many people live in denial about all of the unpurified negative karma that remains on our mind.  To patiently accept also means to mentally be at peace with the truth of Dharma.  When we don’t know how to process facts such as lower rebirth, we tend to push such teachings away.  But we need to embrace the horror of what they imply before we will feel a burning energy to do something about it.  Likewise, patience is the foundation of renunciation.  As long as we push away samara’s sufferings and chase after its pleasures, our real motivation is to find a comfortable place within samsara, not escape it.  The wisdom of patient acceptance accepts the truth of samsaric existence and it is able to transform all of its experiences into spiritual fuel propelling our practice.  Others still become very attached to those they love not suffering, and when they go down, we go down with them.  We alternate between the extremes of indifference to others suffering or being crushed and discouraged by it.  Just as we need to accept the truth of our own suffering before we will generate renunciation, so too we need to accept the truth of others’ suffering before we will be compelled to seek to become a Buddha to do something about it. 

For all of these reasons, we can see clearly without patience, then, we have no effort.   

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Abandoning meaningless activities

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

We continue with an explanation of the bodhisattva downfalls related to the perfection of effort. 

Indulging in senseless conversation out of attachment

Here the main point is the following:  Do you seek your enjoyment in the meaningless activities of samsara or do you seek your enjoyment in creating good spiritual causes?  Senseless conversation is just an example.  Our training in effort is learning how to derive all of our enjoyment from creating good causes and not from samsaric effects. 

One of the most common expressions in the Dharma is “meaningful” and “meaningless.” We use this in all sorts of contexts, from activities to our whole life.  In the beginning, when we hear these terms, because we are still grasping at external activities as being inherently “meaningful” or “meaningless” we can quickly feel judged by the Dharma that it is calling our life and our activities meaningless.  Because we have very little experience of transforming daily appearance into the path, when we grasp at inherently existent meaningful or meaningless activities, we can fall into despair thinking “to practice Dharma” means going to all the teachings and festivals, getting ordained, moving into the center, working for the center, etc., and everything else is somehow “meaningless.”  Since most teachers and center administrators are people who have done exactly that, their own language choices can unwittingly reinforce this view, creating all sorts of anxiety for people in the center.  They start to think, “my wife, my job, my kids, these are all ‘obstacles’ to me practicing Dharma…”  Ridiculous!  But quite a common view. 

What makes an activity meaningless is our intention, not the activity itself.  Any ordinary activity can be in reality a pure spiritual practice, and any spiritual practice can be a mundane activity depending on our motivation.  The test is:  what do you consider to be your job – rearranging the furniture on the Titanic of Samsara or training your mind (overcoming your delusions and cultivating virtues)? 

To help us generate the wish to overcome our laziness, we can consider that since all things are empty, in fact we are the creator of this world of suffering, so if we do not exert effort, we leave the beings in this world of suffering to suffer and drown.  Since this world is our creation, if we don’t fix it, it will never be fixed.  A powerful request we can make to Dorje Shugden would be, “Please don’t let me not attain enlightenment in this life time.”  If we can make this request with sincerity and faith, it is certain we are keeping our bodhisattva vow here.

This has to come from within, not imposed from the outside.  Our vows and commitments are not things imposed on us from the outside, and we are not externally accountable to anybody if we break our vows.  They are internal promises we make to ourself because we see the value of such behavior and the faults of opposite behavior.  We make the promises in front of the Buddhas (or preceptors) to show to ourselves the sincerity of our commitment and to have them bear witness, much in the same way we get married in front of others who rejoice in our commitments.  We need to ask ourselves:  “what am I doing with my life?” “Why am I doing this?”  We need to realize ourselves how we are completely wasting our precious human life.  Then, from our own side, we will make the most of it.  If it comes from the outside, we just become defensive and engage in self-justification for our meaningless activities and develop resentment because we feel judged.

We should not motivate ourselves by guilt or others by shaming them – this is a type of laziness.  Motivating ourselves by guilt or others by shaming them does not give rise to effort because there is no joy – we or they are engaging in virtue to avoid feeling bad, which is a worldly concern.  I originally started in Dharma centers in the United States, but then later went to France, and finally Switzerland.  It is interesting to see how different cultures react to vows, commitments, and center responsibilities.  In the U.S., if you made vows, commitments, FP commitments, center responsibilities, etc., obligatory, you would have a riot on your hands, and everybody would reject them just because they were made obligatory.  In instead, you left people free to make their own choices and gave people the opportunity to assume responsibility if they competed in an election for it, then everyone naturally stepped up.  France was the exact opposite.  If something was not obligatory, the conclusion was “it doesn’t matter” and could be ignored completely.  If you held an election for center officers, nobody would run and everybody would try to avoid having to assume the responsibility, so a more heavy hand was necessary to get people to do anything.  Not because they were any more lazy, it was just different cultural contexts.  Switzerland was about halfway in between these two.  You couldn’t make anything obligatory for fear of rebellion, but you did need to provide a good deal of structure and clear expectations (without emotional penalty).  That seemed like a good balance, frankly.  The point is, every culture is different and will relate to these things in different ways.  What matters for us as practitioners, though, is regardless of what culture we are in we view our vows, commitments, and responsibilities as personally adopted based upon our own wisdom. 

Happy Buddha’s Enlightenment Day: We can do it too

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

Happy Buddha’s Enlightenment Day everyone!  April 15th of every year we celebrate and remember Buddha’s enlightenment.  It is one of the most special days on the Kadampa calendar and provides us an excellent opportunity to deepen our understanding of what enlightenment is, recall Buddha’s kindness in attaining it, and make a clear determination to attain enlightenment ourselves.

Understanding How Holy Days Work

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

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

What is Enlightenment?

Fundamentally, the entire Buddhist path is about attaining enlightenment.  This is a word that is used in many different contexts, even in modern society, but sometimes we lack a clear understanding of what exactly it means.  Geshe-la provides several different definitions or explanations to help us understand.

According to Sutra, Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path, “any being who has become completely free from the two obstructions, which are the roots of all faults, has attained enlightenment.”  The two obstructions are the delusion obstructions and the obstructions to omniscience.  Delusion obstructions are the presence of delusions in our mind.  The root delusion is self-grasping ignorance, which thinks we are the body and mind that we normally see.  From this comes self-cherishing, which thinks this self is supremely important and is willing to neglect or sacrifice others for its sake.  From these two, which are sometimes referred to collectively as our self-centered mind, come attachment and aversion.  Attachment mistakenly thinks some external objects are a cause of our happiness and aversion thinks other external objects are a cause of our suffering.  These four delusions together are the root of all of our other delusions, such as anger, pride, jealousy, deluded doubt, and so forth.  The obstructions to omniscience are the karmic imprints from our previous delusions and their corresponding actions.  Every time we engage in an action, it creates karma that gets planted on our very subtle mind.  Actions motivated by delusion create contaminated karma – karma that ripens in the form of samsaric experience.  These contaminated karmic imprints on our very subtle mind prevent the omniscient mind of a Buddha from arising.  When we remove the two obstructions from our mind, our pure potential, or Buddha nature, becomes completely unobstructed and we become a Buddha.  From this perspective, we are all Buddhas in waiting, we merely need to remove all that obstructs such a state from arising.  When we permanently overcome our delusion obstructions, we attain liberation; and when we permanently overcome our obstructions to omniscience, we attain full enlightenment.

According to Tantra, a Buddha is someone who has completely overcome ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions.  Ordinary appearances are all of the things we normally see – our bodies, minds, enjoyments, others, worlds, etc.  These are the samsaric appearances that arise from our past contaminated actions.  Samsara is nothing more than a contaminated karmic dream.  When we purify our ordinary appearances so that they never arise again, samsara simply ceases to appear.  It dis-appears because, in fact, it never was.  Ordinary conceptions occur when we grasp at ordinary appearances as being true.  All ordinary appearances appear to exist from their own side, as being completely real and existing independently of our mind.  Things exist “out there” waiting to be experienced or observed, and it appears to us as if our mind has absolutely nothing to do with bringing these objects into existence.  Ordinary conceptions think things actually exist in the way that they appear – they really do exist out there, independently of our mind.  When we overcome our ordinary conceptions, we attain liberation; and when we overcome our ordinary appearances, we attain full enlightenment.  For somebody who has overcome their ordinary conceptions but not yet overcome their ordinary appearances, things will still appear to their mind in the way that they normally do, but the very appearance of these things will remind the person that such inherently existent things do not exist at all.  For example, if we look at a picture of the New York City skyline before 9/11, the very appearance of the World Trade Center will remind us that it no longer exists.

In the Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, Geshe-la provides a functional definition of enlightenment when he says, “Enlightenment is the inner light of wisdom that is permanently free from all mistaken appearance, and whose function is to bestow mental peace upon each and every living being every day.”  This definition not only explains what enlightenment is but also provides us with the definitive reason why we should attain it.  Since Mahamudra is a Tantric instruction, it too says enlightenment is permanent freedom from all mistaken appearance.  But this definition also describes what unique abilities we gain when we attain enlightenment, namely the ability to use our blessings to bestow mental peace upon each and every living being every day.  Happiness is a state of mind, therefore its cause must come from within the mind.  We can observe from our own experience that when our mind is peaceful, we are happy even if our external circumstance is terrible; whereas if our mind is not peaceful, we are unhappy even if our external circumstance is terrific.  Therefore, inner peace is the cause of happiness.  Buddhas are sometimes referred to as “inner beings,” or beings who live within the mind.  As inner beings, they have the power to directly touch the minds of other living beings (since despite all appearances our minds are not actually separate from each other) in such a way that their minds become more peaceful.  And they are able to do this directly to each and every living being every day forever.  Just as the sun shines equally upon all things, Buddha’s blessings shine forth into the minds of all living beings directly and simultaneously.  We attain enlightenment to gain that ability.

Buddha is So Kind Because He Teaches the Truth of Suffering

One of the hardest things for people to come to accept is that happiness cannot be found in samsara.  We are convinced that it can be, and we resist thinking that it can’t be.  There are two main causes of this resistance.  First, our attachment has been duping us since time without beginning that external objects are a cause of our happiness.  There are all sorts of pleasant things like a beautiful sunset, a delicious pizza, or great sex.  We have seen countless TV shows or movies, and almost without exception, they all have happy endings; so we think samsara must be the same.  When we hear that samsara is the nature of suffering and happiness and freedom are impossible to find in it, we think, “that’s just not true.”  The second reason we resist this is it seems to be an incredibly depressing thought.  It seems so pessimistic and negative to always talk about suffering and how terrible everything is – how about a little optimism here so we can retain some hope?  Things may be bad, but better to not think about it too much, otherwise, we will become overwhelmed by sadness and despair. 

When people first hear the teachings on suffering they think, “how can this possibly be a ‘Joyful Path,’ and how can thinking about so much suffering ever lead to happiness?”  We might think Buddhists are all “Debby Downers,” and Buddha’s teachings are actually preventing us from enjoying even the very modest happiness we are able to find in life by pointing out how such pleasures are not real happiness.  So we are left with nothing.  Buddha does not seem kind, he seems like the ultimate ‘buzz kill.’ 

How can we happily understand the teachings on the truth of suffering?  First, we have to be clear on their meaning.  Buddha is not saying there is no happiness, he is simply pointing out that we can’t find it in external things.  Ultimately, happiness comes from within the mind, namely through inner peace.  He further explains what destroys inner peace (delusions and negativity) and what causes inner peace (wisdom and virtue).  So he does not deprive us of happiness, he simply points out what works and what doesn’t – very useful knowledge!  Second, these teachings save us from wasting our time looking for happiness where we will never find it.  If we lost our keys, we might spend hours and hours looking all over our house to find them.  But if our daughter sent us a text message saying she accidentally walked off with them, we would not waste our time looking for them because we would know she has them.  We have been looking for the keys of happiness in samsara since beginningless time – searching, searching, but never finding.  Buddha comes along and tells us, “you’ll never find them in samsara, but you can find them by getting them from me,” we are incredibly relieved.  Third, he is not saying we can’t enjoy the sunset, pizza, or sex, he is saying from their own side they have no power to bring us happiness, but if we relate to them in a pure way, we can come to enjoy a far greater pleasure than we ever could have through ordinary means alone. 

But for me, his greatest kindness is he has provided us with a permanent solution to aging, sickness, death, and uncontrolled rebirth.  In the life story of Buddha Shakyamuni, Prince Siddhartha is given everything he could possibly want – riches, enjoyments, loving parents, a beautiful family, and adoration from all of his subjects.  Yet he realized that none of these things can provide him (or any of us) from the seemingly inescapable sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death.  Seeking a solution, he wanted to leave the palace and go attain enlightenment.  His father tried to stop him, and the Prince said, “if you can provide me with a solution to these problems, I will remain in the palace,” but his father had to admit, he could not.  The Prince then said he would leave the palace and return with a solution so that he could help his parents, his subjects, and indeed all living beings with a permanent method to escape such sufferings forever.  He then began his spiritual journey, and eventually attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.  He conquered the cycle of death itself.  Instead of being reborn in samsara, he discovered methods to permanently wake up from it into the pure lands of the Buddhas.  The practices we have today are those that he taught, and if we sincerely put them into practice, we too can attain the same state.

Deciding to Become a Buddha Ourselves

Compassion is said to be the mother of all Buddhas since all enlightened beings are born from it.  Buddha attained enlightenment out of compassion for us – he wanted to help us also permanently escape the sufferings of samsara, the two obstructions, and ordinary appearances and conceptions.  Without his compassion for us, he would not have been able to purify his own mind to attain enlightenment and he never would have begun turning the Wheel of Dharma for us. 

But our ability to attain enlightenment depends upon ourselves generating compassion for others, just as Buddha did.  How do we generate compassion?  We first generate love for others, then we consider how they suffer.  It is said if we do this, compassion will naturally arise, but this is not entirely correct.  If we lack faith in a solution, then when we consider the suffering of those we love we will become overwhelmed with grief and sadness.  But if we realize there is a solution, then when we consider the suffering of those we love we will find their suffering difficult to bear because we will realize none of it need be.  They could be completely free. 

To transform this powerful mind of compassion into the personal determination to attain enlightenment ourselves, we need to add three things.  First, a feeling of personal responsibility for leading others to everlasting freedom ourselves.  We generate this mind by thinking, “if I don’t do it, who will?”  We might think, “well, Buddha will.”  But Buddha attained enlightenment so that we could do the same so that we could help these people who are karmically close to us. 

Second, we need to add confidence that we ourselves can attain enlightenment just like Buddha did.  Sometimes we think attaining enlightenment is just too difficult and we are too incapable to ever even contemplate beginning such an undertaking.  But as explained above, we all have a Buddha nature, we simply need to remove the two obstructions or ordinary appearances and conceptions from our mind, and our enlightened state will naturally be unveiled.  We each have enlightenment within us, we just need to remove all that obstructs it.  Further, we all have experience of being able to remove our faults somewhat and replace them with similitudes of inner qualities.  If we can do this a little bit, there is no reason why we cannot do so completely.  The methods we have are the exact same ones Buddha taught and have been practiced by millions of practitioners since.  Geshe-la calls them “scientific methods,” meaning everybody who investigates for themselves by sincerely putting the instructions into practice will likewise enjoy the exact same results – he guarantees it!  There is nothing we can’t do without persistent effort.  Our delusions are just bad habits of mind, but with effort, we can change our habits and thereby change our karma. 

Finally, we need to add an understanding of the special abilities of a Buddha to help others so that we see our becoming one is the only way we can rescue all living beings from their suffering.  Buddhas are fearless in helping others.  We tend to hold ourselves back for fear of what others might think or lack of confidence in our abilities, but Buddhas have overcome all delusions and all fear.  He fearlessly teaches the truth of suffering and worries not what others might think.  Buddha is also a deathless being.  In our present state, we can at best help a limited number of people in this one life, but a Buddha has transcended death, and so is able to continue to help living beings in life after life, gradually guiding each and every one of them to the enlightened state.  Buddha possesses omniscient wisdom.  We are quite ignorant and often have no idea how to help others.  We don’t understand karma, delusions, nor the causes of happiness or suffering.  But Buddhas see all three times directly and simultaneously, so they know exactly why people are experiencing the suffering they are and they know exactly what others need to do to make their way to the city of enlightenment.  Buddhas also have perfected their skillful means of helping others.  It is not enough to simply know everything if we are not able to actually skillfully help people come to realize the same things.  Buddhas know how to present the Dharma to others in a way that they can easily understand and practically put into practice, thus opening the door to liberation for them.  They know how to gradually guide people to enter, progress along, and ultimately complete the path to enlightenment.  If we become a Buddha ourselves, we too will develop the fearlessness, deathlessness, omniscient wisdom, and skillful means necessary to gradually lead everyone we love to the same state. 

When we combine our compassion which cannot bear the suffering of others with a feeling of personal responsibility, the confidence we can do it, and a firm understanding of the many qualities of a Buddha, we will naturally develop a strong determination to attain enlightenment ourselves for their sake.  This mind is called “bodhichitta,” or the mind of enlightenment.  It is the most virtuous mind a living being can generate.  In Joyful Path, Geshe-la says:

“Bodhichitta is the best method for bestowing happiness, the best method for eliminating suffering, and the best method for dispelling confusion. There is no virtue equal to it, no better friend, no greater merit. Bodhichitta is the very essence of all eighty-four thousand instructions of Buddha. In Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says: It is the quintessential butter that arises when the milk of Dharma is churned. Just as by stirring milk, butter emerges as its essence, so by stirring the entire collection of Buddha’s scriptures, bodhichitta emerges as its essence. For aeons Buddhas have been investigating what is the most beneficial thing for us. They have seen that it is bodhichitta because bodhichitta brings every living being to the supreme bliss of full enlightenment.”

Today is Buddha’s Enlightenment Day, which means if we strongly develop this supreme mind of Bodhichitta today – making the firm decision to work for as long as it takes to attain enlightenment ourselves – it will be the same as doing so ten million times.  Such a pure mind has the potential to permanently redirect the trajectory of our mental continuum and powerfully propel us towards the City of Enlightenment.  From there, we will be able to help everyone attain permanent freedom from all of their suffering for all of their lives.  What could be more meaningful than this?

Modern Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: Practicing the Bodhisattva Vows of Effort

Kadampa Ryan 2. Modern Bodhisattva's Way of Life

We now turn to Chapter 7 of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, the Perfection of Effort.  To introduce the chapter, I will first provide some commentary on each of the bodhisattva vows associated with effort.  There are three downfalls in particular:  Gathering a circle of followers out of desire for profit and respect, not trying to overcome laziness, and indulging in senseless conversation out of attachment.  These will each now be discussed in turn.

Gathering a circle of followers our of desire for profit and respect

The main idea of this downfall is the following:  Do you pursue your relationships with others on the basis of what you can get from them or on the basis of what you can give to them?  Are you a consumer of others or are you a benefactor of others?  This vow basically says you should not seek friends and relationships for selfish reasons.  This advice is not just for Dharma teachers, but for all of us, including our on-line selves with our Twitter “followers” and Facebook “friends.”  We need to ask ourself the question:  ‘why do I want a relationship with this person?  What is my motivation?’  Is my goal something they can bring to me or something I can bring to them.  A selfish relationship is when you are trying to get something from others – them liking you, giving your something, somehow being a cause of your happiness, etc.

Sometimes we are very clever and kiss other people’s butts and we are all nice to them because we want something from them.  Other people see this – they always do, even if sub-consciously.  As a result, they do not trust us and we cannot help them.  It creates the tendency for us to do the same in the future, so we will more likely abuse our power and never be able to help others.  It is not sincere or honest, and if they believe us the effect is in the future for us to be duped by somebody who is trying to manipulate us.

The correct frame of mind is to view all people as our future disciples who it our responsibility to lead to enlightenment.  This is the organizing principal of all our relationships – I need to lead this person to enlightenment.  A useful recognition in this regard, when you see other people you should think, “I am responsible for this person.”  Any other principle creates the causes for when you meet these people again in the future you will have an ordinary, meaningless relationship with them instead of a spiritual one where you can help them.

Not trying to overcome laziness

The main point here is the following:  Do you organize your life around your practice or do you organize your practice around your life?  We need to make effort to overcome the reasons why we don’t do this.  Another easy way to make the distinction – We train in learning to enjoy doing what is good for us and to become dis-interested in doing what is bad for us.  This is an incredibly vast practice.

From my experience, it seems our practice goes through two phases.  In the beginning, or phase 1, we are generally a crisis Dharma practitioner.  Our  principal motivation for practicing Dharma tends to be using it to resolve whatever crisis we are facing at the moment, whether it be with our family, at work, with our health, or in the world.  There is nothing wrong with using the Dharma to be able to emotionally survive the trials and tribulations of this life.  In fact, we should do so, understanding how Dharma enables us to be happy regardless of our external circumstance.  The realizations we gain as a crisis Dharma practitioner can be useful in overcoming all sorts of delusions, not only for this life, but for our countless future lives.  Phase 2 occurs when, in dependence upon our sincere practice in Phase 1, we don’t really have many problems in this life that we can’t handle with the Dharma wisdom we already have.  The danger here is we settle into a low-level equilibrium with our practice – happy enough to have a happy life, but not suffering enough that we don’t start preparing for our future lives.  In short, we become complacent with our spiritual progress.  This is good, but not good enough.  At such times, we need to renew our meditations on death, lower rebirth, renunciation, and great compassion to find reasons to practice that transcend this life.  We need to keep going until we have secured controlled rebirth and enlightenment.  It is primarily in Phase 2 where we work on our laziness of attachment. The question is whether our practice is reactive to problems or it is proactive in our attempt to attain enlightenment.  It is not enough to just not do bad, we need to actively construct something good.  We need to identify each of the different types of laziness within our mind, and make effort to overcome it.  As we work our way through Chapter 7, we will go over the different types of laziness, but for now the point is you need to decide to actively overcome the laziness in your mind.

It is important to note that Phase 1 and Phase 2 are not discreet in time, like passing from one year to the next, but it can shift multiple times in any given day.  The cycle is usually we get confronted with some difficulty, delusions arise, we see the value of practicing, we practice, our delusions subside somewhat, we feel better, we then lose interest in practicing when things are good; and then we wait until something bad happens and we start the whole cycle over again.  Likewise, this dynamic plays out over many years where in the beginning we are very motivated to practice, we solve the majority of our daily problems and gain the ability to do so with regularity, and we then just content ourselves with using the Dharma for a happy life. 

Happy Tsog Day: Visualizing the Field of Merit

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 5 of a 44-part series.

Within the vast space of indivisible bliss and emptiness, amidst billowing clouds of Samantabhadra’s offerings, fully adorned with leaves, flowers, and fruits, is a wishfulfilling tree that grants whatever is wished for. At its crest, on a lion throne ablaze with jewels, on a lotus, moon, and sun seat, sits my root Guru who is kind in three ways, the very essence of all the Buddhas. He is in the aspect of a fully-ordained monk, with one face, two hands, and a radiant smile. His right hand is in the mudra of expounding Dharma, and his left hand, in the mudra of meditative equipoise, holds a bowl filled with nectar. He wears three robes of resplendent saffron, and his head is graced with a golden Pandit is hat. At his heart are Buddha Shakyamuni and Vajradhara, who has a blue-coloured body, one face, and two hands. Holding vajra and bell, he embraces Yingchugma and delights in the play of spontaneous bliss and emptiness. He is adorned with many different types of jewelled ornament and wears garments of heavenly silk. Endowed with the major signs and minor indications, and ablaze with a thousand rays of light, my Guru sits in the centre of an aura of five-coloured rainbows. Sitting in the vajra posture, his completely pure aggregates are the five Sugatas, his four elements are the four Mothers, and his sources, veins, and joints are in reality Bodhisattvas. His pores are the twenty-one thousand Foe Destroyers, and his limbs are the wrathful Deities. His light rays are directional guardians such as givers of harm and smell-eaters, and beneath his throne are the worldly beings. Surrounding him in sequence is a vast assembly of lineage Gurus, Yidams, hosts of mandala Deities, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Heroes, Dakinis, and Dharma Protectors. Their three doors are marked by the three vajras. Hooking light rays radiate from the letter HUM and invite the wisdom beings from their natural abodes to remain inseparable.

Buddhas can manifest their inner realizations as outer forms. Each aspect of the visualization of any deity in any sadhana reflects this. Our job when we perform visualizations of Buddhas is to recall the spiritual symbolism of each aspect of the visualization and recognize the visual form as the deity’s realizations in the aspect of form. In Great Treasury of Merit, we can read about the symbolism of each aspect of this visualization. Our training is to generate a mind of faith as we visualize the deity, recognizing each aspect as their realizations.

The most important part of any visualization of a Buddha is to strongly believe we are in the living presence of the deity. If we think the Buddhas are not in front of us, and this is “just our imagination,” our visualizations will lack power to move our mind. We will feel like we are pretending, and that it is just us in our meditation room. But if we strongly believe we are in the presence of the enlightened beings, our mind will naturally be blessed. If we saw a picture of a famous person, we might think about how great the person is, but we would be truly excited to meet them in person. In truth, both the picture and the person in the flesh are both just mere karmic appearances to mind, but we would experience the two very differently. In exactly the same way, if we think it is just a picture in our mind, we might not generate much feeling, but if we felt we are in the living presence of the deity, our mind will be powerfully moved.

How can we generate conviction that we are in the living presence of the deity? Venerable Tharchin explains wherever you imagine a Buddha, a Buddha goes; and wherever a Buddha goes, they perform their function, which is to bestow blessings. Geshe-la explains why this is so. For us, our body and mind are different natures; but for a Buddha, their body and mind are the same nature, like gold and the coin it is in the shape of. Since a Buddha’s mind pervades all phenomena, it is correct to say Buddhas are likewise everywhere. There is nowhere that is not an emanation of a Buddha – they are inside everything. When we imagine a Buddha with faith, we open the aperture of our mind enabling these Buddhas which are everywhere to directly enter into our mind, just like opening the blinds allows the sunlight to enter our room. Thus, when we visualize the deities in the space in front of us, we can develop conviction we are in their presence. We should maintain this awareness throughout the rest of the sadhana and feel like we are making offerings, praises, and requests to them and that they receive our offerings and hear our prayers. It should feel like a personal daily meeting with our Guru – what a great way to start the day!

With this visualization, we imagine we are in the living presence of Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang. Lama means we see the deity as our spiritual guide in the aspect of the deity, making the practice of Offering to the Spiritual Guide a Guru yoga practice. Losang means the outer aspect of our spiritual guide is Losang Dragpa, or Je Tsongkhapa. Je Tsongkhapa is the founder of the New Kadampa Tradition and everything we practice is his instructions. By developing a close connection with Je Tsongkhapa, we draw closer to him, enabling us to receive his blessings to realize his teachings. We should strongly believe that Lama Tsongkhapa is our living spiritual guide – the same being who taught in the 14th century and who now appears as our present spiritual guide. Tubwang refers to our spiritual guide’s inner aspect of Buddha Shakyamuni. At Je Tsongkhapa’s heart is Buddha Shakyamuni, indicating that Buddha Shakyamuni and Je Tsongkhapa are also the same being, appearing at different times and different aspects. This also symbolizes how Je Tsongkhapa’s teachings are just a special presentation of Buddha’s 84,000 teachings. The lineage of every instruction can be traced back to Buddha Shakyamuni. Dorjechang means Buddha Vajradhara, who appears at the heart of Buddha Shakyamuni. When Buddha gave tantric teachings, he appeared as Buddha Vajradhara, who is our definitive tantric spiritual guide. Visualizing him at the heart of Buddha Shakyamuni indicates that Buddha Vajradhara, Buddha Shakyamuni, Je Tsongkhapa, and our present spiritual guide are all the same being, the same mental continuum, just appearing at different times according to the dispositions of different disciples. Sometimes we think that Je Tsongkhapa, Buddha Shakyamuni, and Buddha Vajradhara somehow no longer exist after they died, but this visualization helps us realize that they still live. They attained enlightenment to become an immortal being and our eternal spiritual guide. We are not staring into the past; we are interacting with a deathless holy being.

Geshe-la also explains in Great Treasury of Merit that there are three principal deities of Highest Yoga Tantra – Yamantaka, Guhyasamaja, and Heruka, symbolizing respectively the spiritual power, wisdom, and compassion of all the Buddhas according to Highest Yoga Tantra. Lama Tsongkhapa’s outer aspect is one with Yamantaka, his inner aspect is the body mandala of Guhyasamaja symbolized by the five Sugatas, four mothers, bodhisattvas, and wrathful deities. And we ourself are self-generated as Heruka. In this way, with one single concentration of ourself generated as Heruka visualizing Lama Losang Tubwang Dorjechang we are mixing our mind with the essential realizations of spiritual power, wisdom, and compassion of all the Buddhas.

Inviting the wisdom beings

You who are the source of all happiness and goodness,
The root and lineage Gurus of the three times, the Yidams, and Three Precious Jewels,
Together with the assembly of Heroes, Dakinis, Dharmapalas, and Protectors,
Out of your great compassion please come to this place and remain firm.

Even though phenomena are by nature completely free from coming and going,
You appear in accordance with the dispositions of various disciples
And perform enlightened deeds out of wisdom and compassion;
O Holy Refuge and Protector, please come to this place together with your retinue.

OM GURU BUDDHA BODHISATTÖ DHARMAPALA SAPARIWARA EH HAYE HI: DZA HUM BAM HO

The wisdom beings become inseparable from the commitment beings.

With the first verse, we recall that we are in the living presence of the deities as explained above. The second verse helps us recall their emptiness. Our “I”gnorance of self-grasping makes us think that we and the Buddhas are somehow separate from each other, like there is this giant chasm that separates them from us. When we recall the emptiness of ourself and the deities, this chasm is bridged and we feel as if not only we are in the presence of the holy beings, but the duality between ourselves and them has faded away. It feels like we are one wave, they are another wave, but we are all equally part of the same ocean, inseparable from one another. Their enlightened state is an aspect of our own mind.

With the third and fourth verses, we dissolve the wisdom beings into the commitment beings. The commitment beings are so-called because we have a commitment to visualize them, and the wisdom beings are the actual Buddhas who enter into our visualization. By dissolving the wisdom beings into the commitment beings, we imagine our visualization becomes inseparably one with the actual deities and we strengthen our conviction that we are in the living presence of the holy beings all while recalling that they are inseparable from our mind.

Happy Tara Day: How to ignite Tara’s fierce and raging fire in our life

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days, How to Rely Upon Tara

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

Praising Tara by her destroying opponents

Homage to you who by saying TRÄ and PHAT
Completely destroy the obstructions of enemies.
You suppress with your right leg drawn in and your left extended,
And blaze with a fierce and raging fire.

I think there are two ways we can understand this.  First, her wisdom blessings act like a fierce and raging fire that radiate out in all directions like a protection circle, dispelling all obstructions of enemies, keeping them at bay.  Second, because she is a Buddha she has universal compassion even for those who would oppose the Dharma.  To destroy the obstructions of enemies means she has the power to destroy the delusion obstructions and the obstructions to omniscience of her would-be enemies.  Geshe-la once famously said in Toronto that “Love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.”  In the same way, Tara completely destroys opponents by destroying the obstructions to enlightenment on their minds.  This shows her skill in loving living beings while directing wrathful energy against their delusions.

Praising Tara by her purifying demons and the two obstructions

Homage to TURE, extremely fearsome one,
Who completely destroy the chief of demons.
With the wrathful expression on your lotus face
You vanquish all foes without exception.

Where do demons come from?  They are mere karmic appearances to mind, ripening from our negative karma.  The way to actually destroy all demons is to purify the negative karma that sees or appears anybody as a demon.  Nobody is a demon from their own side, they only become such when we view them with a deluded, contaminated mind.  This is how she purifies all demons.  It also says she vanquishes all foes without exception.  In Buddhism, there are no outer enemies, only inner enemies.  To vanquish all foes without exception, therefore, refers to her ability to vanquish the inner enemies of the two obstructions – delusions and their imprints.

Praising Tara by the objects she holds in her right and left hands

Homage to you whose fingers perfectly adorn your heart
With the mudra symbolizing the Three Precious Jewels.
Adorned with a wheel of all directions
Whose radiant light outshines all.

Buddhas hold different implements in their hands to symbolize their inner qualities and abilities.  Her hand in the mudra symbolizing the Three Precious Jewels indicates that she is the synthesis of all three jewels, and that she also performs the function of all three jewels.  She blesses our mind like a Buddha, she teaches and protects the Kadam Dharma, and she helps us like loving Sangha.  I’m assuming the wheel here refers to the Wheel of Dharma which outshines all because it enables us to escape from samsara.

Praising Tara by her crown ornament and the sound of her laughter

Homage to you whose very joyful and shining crown ornament
Radiates a garland of light;
Who, with your mirthful laughter of TUTTARE,
Subdue the demons and worldly gods.

Here, we can imagine that infinite light rays radiate out from Tara’s crown ornament, bestowing blessings and peace on all living beings.  We can then rejoice in her enlightened actions, wishing to gain the ability to do the same ourselves.  Mirthful laughter means a merry or amused laugh.  We should never underestimate the power of laughter.  More often than not, we take everything too seriously.  This makes us tight and our grasping stronger.  But when we can laugh at the absurdity of samsara, then it takes the sting out of it.  Samsara makes me laugh!  In particular, it is important to be able to laugh at ourselves and our delusions.  This is one of the most powerful ways of cutting the power of our delusions over us because we are able to view them from a distance and laugh at how ridiculous they are.  Being able to laugh at others in a way that also enables them to stop taking themselves or their samsara too seriously is a whole other level of skill at mirthful laughter.  Normally, people can take it wrong that we are laughing at them or their plight, and they can become quickly offended.  But Tara has the ability to use skillful mirthful laughter to even subdue demons and worldly gods, disarming their ill intent or pretension. 

Praising Tara by her accomplishing divine actions through the ten directional guardians

Homage to you who are able to summon
All the directional guardians and their retinues.
Frowning and shaking, with the letter HUM,
You rescue all from their misfortune.

In the Tsog offerings, we invite the directional guardians, evil spirits, zombies, givers of harm, smell-eaters and other such beings from the charnel grounds, offer them Torma and Tsog offerings, bless their mind, and effectively “enlist them” to help Dharma practitioners and flourish the Dharma instead of oppose them.  From a deeper point of view, we imagine that all of these beings are actually emanations of the principal deity sent into the realms of samsara to help the beings in every terrifying corner of the six realms.  From the letter HUM at the heart of the principal deity, light rays radiate out and invite these beings to come before the deity to then work on the deity’s behalf.  When we recite this verse, we can imagine Tara does the same, inviting all such beings from the charnel grounds who come before her, and then commit to working on her behalf to rescue all beings from their misfortune.  In this way, she also rescues these beings themselves from their misfortune by inspiring them to engage in virtuous actions of protecting practitioners.

Praising Tara by her crown ornament

Homage to you with a crescent moon adorning your crown,
And all your ornaments shining brightly;
With Amitabha in your top-knot
Eternally radiating light.

Here we can imagine different details of Tara’s form, recognizing them all as manifestations of her inner realizations.  Buddhas have the ability to manifest their mind as form.  When we engage in checking meditations of different deities, we focus on different aspects of their form recalling the inner realization it represents.  A moon in Buddhism symbolizes the realization of emptiness.  The ornaments of a Buddha’s body typically symbolize their inner realizations of the six perfections.  Amitabha in her top-knot indicates Amitabha is her spiritual guide.  Amitabha is the Vajra Speech of all the Buddhas, and is the same nature as Geshe Langri Tangpa, the author of Eight Verses of Training the Mind, our root text for Lojong practice.  Recalling this, we can generate faith that through our reliance on Tara we will be able to realize emptiness, complete the six perfections, and train in transforming adverse conditions into the path.

Praising Tara by her wrathful posture

Homage to you who dwell amidst a garland of flames
Like the fire at the end of the aeon.
With your right leg extended and left drawn in,
You destroy the hosts of obstructions of those who delight in the Dharma Wheel.

Buddhas engage in four types of enlightened action – pacifying, increasing, controlling, and wrathful actions.  Wrathful actions are forceful actions that skillfully differentiate between the person and their delusions or faults.  They are able to be ruthless with delusions while being loving with the person.  They are like a wisdom anger against the inner objects to be abandoned along the path.  If we fail to make the distinction between the person and their delusions, our wrathful actions are just ordinary anger and usually wind up harming living beings.  Pacifying and increasing actions are relatively easy to do without delusions, controlling actions can be done if we are free from attachment to the other person doing what we want, and wrathful actions can only be performed with compassionate wisdom differentiating clearly the person from their faults.  They also typically require the other person to have faith in us to receive well our wrathful actions, but this isn’t always necessary.  Buddhas are often surrounded by blazing wisdom fires indicating their ability to burn through negativities and protect others with great power.  When we recite this version, we imagine Tara radiates such powerful energy around her like the fire at the end of the aeon.  Her right leg extended symbolizes her ability to swiftly come to the aid of living beings.  Because she is the completely purified wind element, she can move as fast as mind to any object.  If we think of the moon, our mind is instantly there.  But how does it get there?  By being mounted upon winds.  Tara is the wind all virtue is mounted upon.  Her right leg extended shows her swift ability.

Happy NKT Day: Why we are encouraged to follow one tradition purely without mixing

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days

The first Saturday of every April is New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) day.  Normally, on this day we generate a mind cherishing our tradition.  I’m sure there are many other people who will write about all of the different reasons why they cherish this tradition, and I rejoice in all of that.  But here, I am going to intentionally stir the hornet’s nest a bit by talking about a particular type of cherishing of the NKT, namely generating the mind that wishes to follow one tradition purely without mixing. 

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.  To many, this instruction can seem very strange, even cultish.  Many people might even wind up rejecting the NKT precisely because this is something taught within the NKT. 

This post (and the linked, more extensive document) attempts to explain the rationale behind this instruction so that people can be happy with putting it into practice.

What is the advice?

This is probably best summarized in Understanding the Mind, where Geshe-la says:

“We must be careful not to misunderstand the effort of non-satisfaction. Practising this effort does not mean that we should become dissatisfied with our tradition or with our main practice, and try to follow many different traditions or mix together many different practices. Every Teacher and every tradition has a slightly different approach and employs different methods. The practices taught by one Teacher will differ from those taught by another, and if we try to combine them we shall become confused, develop doubts, and lose direction. If we try to create a synthesis of different traditions we shall destroy the special power of each and be left only with a mishmash of our own making that will be a source of confusion and doubt. Having chosen our tradition and our daily practices we should rely upon them single-pointedly, never allowing dissatisfaction to arise. At the same time as cherishing our own tradition we should respect all other traditions and the right of each individual to follow the tradition of their choosing. This approach leads to harmony and tolerance. It is mixing different religious traditions that causes sectarianism. This is why it is said that studying non-religious subjects is less of an obstacle to our spiritual progress than studying religions of different traditions.”

Geshe-la also elaborated during the Dorje Shugden empowerment in 1995 when he said:

“Sincere practitioners of the Kadampa Buddhism of Je Tsongkhapa’s doctrine should understake as their heart commitment to cherish the Kadam Dharma, the doctrine of Je Tsongkhapa, and to practice and teach this to others without mixing it with other traditions.  We must take some responsibility to enable pure Buddhadharma to flourish throughout the world.  If we make the commitment to accomplish this aim, then this is called our heart commitment.  Keeping this heart commitment is the basic foundation for receiving Dorje Shugdan’s protection, blessings and special care continually.  Because Dorje Shugden is an enlightened being, he has compassion for all beings and is ready to to give his protection, blessings, and special care, but from our side we also need some necessary conditions.  These are to cherish Kadam Dharma, to practice Kadam Dharma purely without mixing it with other traditions, to teach Kadam Dharma without mixing it with other traditions and to take some responsibility to help pure Dharma flourish throughout the world.  Doing this as our commitment is the best method for receiving Dorje Shugden’s protection, blessings and special care continually.”

Following one tradition purely is spiritual advice, not a rule

Throughout all of VGL’s books, he gives countless pieces of advice about how to transform our mind into the enlightened state.  This instruction on following one tradition purely without mixing is likewise spiritual advice given to us by our Spiritual Guide.  Like all instructions, we are free to follow it or not.  It is our choice.  VGL explains in Transform Your Life that if we do not at present understand a given instruction, or do not see its utility, we should avoid various extremes.  To put the instruction into practice when we do not understand it or when we disagree with it would be one extreme (leading to a wide variety of problems).  To reject the instruction would be another extreme.  The middle way he teaches is to not reject it outright, but to put it aside for later when it does seem to be important or useful for our spiritual practice.  Once we see the instruction as something that is important, if we still have doubts we should follow his advice in Clear Light of Bliss when he quotes Buddha Shakyamuni as saying ‘do not believe me because I am called Buddha, instead verify for yourself.’  We should examine all the arguments with an open mind, contemplating deeply their meaning without any preconceptions or attachments to our view, and then only decide to put this instruction into practice when we ‘want to’ and we ‘see its value’ for our spiritual development.  This approach should likewise be used when it comes to the spiritual advice to follow one tradition purely without mixing. 

If we relate to this instruction like a rule imposed upon us from the outside, but we do not ‘want’ to follow it, then the result will be we generate resentment towards the rule and towards those who make it.  This then undermines our faith, we can generate all sorts of negative minds, and eventually this can destroy our spiritual practice. 

So, in short, when should this instruction be practiced ?  When we want to put it into practice.  Who does it apply to ?  Only those who wish to apply it to themselves.  All moral discipline is self-imposed.  We apply it to ourseleves because we see the benefit of doing so and the harm of not doing so.  We take refuge vows because we wish to center ourselves within Buddha’s teachings.  We take Bodhisattva vows because we wish to center ourselves within the Mahayana.  We take Tantric vows, because we wish to center ourselves within the part of the Mahayana that is the Vajrayana.  Specifically, our Tantric vows entail a commitment as to whom is our Spiritual Guide, our teacher.  We do all of these things from our own side because we want to and see the value of doing so.  We place limits on the sources of our spiritual understanding and practice (Buddha’s Hinayana teachings for those who have taken refuge and Pratimoksha vows ; Mahayana teachings for those who have taken Bodhisattva vows ; our Spiritual Guide’s teachings for those who have taken Tantric vows). 

VGL has added a fourth layer of vows for those who wish to be NKT teachers and officers, namely the internal rules of the NKT, which he has correctly labeled as A Moral Discipline Guide.  VGL said that for us, these vows are more important than even our Tantric vows.  It is our choice whether we wish to assume these guidelines as part of our moral discipline or not.  Nobody can force us to do so, nobody is requiring us to do so.  We do so because we wish to.  If we wish to do so, then we are authorized by VGL to teach NKT Dharma and be an officer in an NKT center.  If we do not wish to do so, then we are not authorized by VGL to do these things.  We may still consider him our Spiritual Guide, appreciate his good qualities, put his teachings into practice, etc., but we do not have these special authorizations to teach or be an officer.  The internal rules have many layers of meaning.  It is not up to anybody outside of us to say whether we have the intention of keeping the moral discipline of the internal rules.  Only we can say.  So if internally we wish to take on the internal rules as part of our moral discipline, unless there is a gross violation of these rules that requires action, it is up to us to use our own wisdom to decide how to put these instructions into practice.

What is mixing traditions? 

In order to understand this instruction, we must understand what it means (and what it does not mean) to mix traditions.  To understand this, we must first understand what it means to mix in general.  To mix means to combine two or more things in some way. 

What does it mean to mix our mind with teachings in general ?  To mix our mind with teachings means to familiarize our mind with the meaning of a teaching.  It is to gain an intellectual understanding of the meaning of a teaching and to believe (or appreciate) that meaning to be true for your mind and practice.  In Understanding the Mind, VGL states :  “Basically Dharma practice is quite simple because all we need to do is to receive correct Dharma teachings by listening to qualified Teachers or by reading authentic books, and then mix our mind with these teachings by meditating on them.”  In Joyful Path, VGL explains that we mix our mind with teachings (meditate upon them) in three different ways :  through listening to (or reading) Dharma instructions, through contemplating their meaning (analytical meditation) and through placement meditation on them. 

To mix spiritual traditions, therefore, means to do this process of mixing our mind with teachings in general with the teachings from more than one spiritual tradition.  If one is an NKT practitioner, to mix traditions would mean to mix one’s mind with teachings from the NKT and from a tradition other than the NKT.  The internal rules of the NKT state that the NKT will always be an entirely independent spiritual organization.  What distinguishes the NKT from other traditions is its three study programmes.  In the definition of the three study programmes, all three programmes state clearly that their content is derived exclusively from the teachings and commentaries of VGL.  Therefore, any teaching that does not come from VGL (either directly from him or indirectly through an authorized NKT teacher) would be considered as belonging to another tradition.  A clear test as to whether something is part of the NKT or not is whether it has been published by Tharpa Publications.  Any book or source published by something other than Tharpa Publications is necessarily from another tradition.   Any teaching received by a spiritual teacher other than one who is an authorized NKT teacher would necessarily be a teaching from another tradition. 

Mixing is not a black or white thing, but actually has many many levels of subtlety.  Just as there are many different levels of ignorance, so too there are many different levels of mixing.  It is impossible for us to be completely free from any mixing until we are a Buddha, so the question is not whether something ‘is’ mixing or not, the question is whether somebody has within their mind the intention and the desire to go in the direction of completely abandoning every last trace of mixing within their spiritual understanding and practice.  If one has this intention, then over time we gradually gain a deeper and deeper understanding of what it means to mix, and in this way we can gradually improve the purity with which we practice.  Wanting to do this is part of cherishing the NKT.

In short, the nature of the inputs into our spiritual understanding determines the nature of the outputs of that spiritual understanding (unless we have perfect discriminating wisdom, which none of us have, or at least I do not).  If we have only NKT inputs, then it guarrantees we will have only NKT outputs (internal realizations, teachings, etc.).  If we have NKT and non-NKT inputs, then our spiritual understanding will be a mix of multiple sources, which will result in a mixed output (or at least a great danger of this).  Therefore, unless we can claim we have a perfect discriminating wisdom and experience of NKT teachings, even if we do not want to mix, we will not be able to not mix on some subtle level if we read other tradition’s teachings.  This is especially true for those spiritual teachings that are quite similar to NKT teachings.  There seems less risk of mixing by reading Christian books than there is in reading books on Tibetan Buddhism, especially those books written by diciples of Trijang Rinpoche, even if they are also Dorje Shugden practitioners.

If we understand that the way in which we attain enlightenment is by mixing our mind inseparably with that of our Spiritual Guide, it is clear that if we mix our mind with the teachings of a different Spiritual Guide we will be mixing.  Our mind will be a ‘mishmash’ (as VGL calls it) of our Spiritual Guide’s teachings, of the other Spiritual Guide’s teachings and of our own thinking of how to combine these two.  It is possible for us to take VGL as our Spiritual Guide and continue to mix his teachings with those of similar (or dissimilar) traditions, especially when we are at the beginning of our practice and our discriminating wisdom and experience are undeveloped.  However, he still advises us against doing this.  But there are many pieces of advice he has given us that we are not yet ready to put into practice and he encourages us to put those aside for later.  The instruction on following one tradition purely without mixing is no exception.  However, there definitely comes a time in our practice where we want to start leaving these other sources behind and instead mix our mind completely and exclusively with the teachings of our Spiritual Guide.  By doing so, we can mix our mind more thoroughly with his mind, draw closer to him and his blessings, and eventually attain enlightenment.  It is clear that we cannot fully mix our mind with his if we are still partially mixing our mind with teachings from other traditions. 

I understand this is challenging for some

I understand that this instruction is challenging for many people because it seems contrary to our normal way of thinking about things.  My first teacher told me, “The things we find the most difficult at first later wind up being the teachings that bring about the greatest transformations in our mind.”  So I encourage everyone to investigate for themselves with an open mind.  In the early 2000s, I wrote the attached document in answer to questions some of my students were asking about this topic.  I try address every angle of the question.  If you still have some doubts or hesitations about this topic, I encourage you to look through the arguments presented, in particular work through the answers to the objections that arise.  If you still have questions about it, I’m happy to try provide my thoughts. 

Here is the table of contents of what is contained in the larger document.

This document is organized as follows :

  1. References within VGL’s teachings on this advice
    1. On following one tradition purely without mixing
      • From Understanding the Mind
      • From Great Treasury of Merit
      • From Meaningful to Behold
      • From the Commentary to the Dorje Shugden empowerment, Spring Festival 1995
      • From the NKT internal rules
  2. On sectarianism
    • From Joyful Path
    • From Clear Light of Bliss
  1. The mind with which we examine this question
  2. How to understand this instruction
    • Following one tradition purely is spiritual advice, not a rule
    • What is mixing traditions ?
    • What are the causes of mixing ?  Why do people mix ?
  3. Rationale for the spiritual advice to follow one tradition purely without mixing
    1. Considering valid reasons
      • Advantages of not mixing
      • Disadvantages of mixing
      • Disadvantages of even slight mixing.
    2. Contemplating useful analogies
      • Analogy of the burning room
      • Analogy of climbing a mountain
      • Analogy of a Formula 1 racing car
      • Analogy of commitment to a partner
      • Analogy of specialization
  4. Refutation of objections to not mixing
  • Objection 1.  We can gain a better understanding of a subject when explored from multiple perspectives
  • Objection 2:  We can gain a higher and deeper understanding of universal truth through synthesizing multiple systems of thought.
  • 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 ?
  • 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 ?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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. 
  • 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 !
  • Objection 9:  It still seems very closed-minded to be so categorical in shunning anything that is non-NKT.
  • 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.
  • Objection 11:  OK, I agree, something needs to be said.  But why do you have to do it in such a foreceful way. 
  • 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.
  • Objection 13:  OK, fine !  Just tell me what I can and cannot do.
  • Objection 14:  If that is the case, then why do different teachers have different policies and standards on this one ?
  • Objection 15:  But how does your standard compare to that of the NKT as a whole ?  Are you more strict ?
  • 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.
  • 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 ?
  • Conclusion

Dedication

I dedicate any merit I may have accumulated from writing this that all beings may find the spiritual tradition that speaks to their heart, and that all beings may joyfully follow one tradition purely without mixing, regardless of what tradiction speaks to them.  I pray that those reading this do so with an open mind and understand that advice such as this is offered by Geshe-la out of his infinite compassion for us understanding what is spiritually the most effective way of progressing along the path.