“Milarepa said that he regarded everything that appeared to his mind as a Dharma book. All things confirmed the truth of Buddha’s teachings and increased his spiritual experience.” – Joyful Path of Good Fortune

For the last several months, China and much of East Asia have been dealing with the Coronavirus outbreak. There was hope, at first, that the virus could be contained, but most public health experts now believe that is impossible. It is now breaking out in Europe, North America, and most significantly in developing countries that lack sufficient public health infrastructure or administrative means to contain it. Some have said the spring and summer heat will kill it, but they forget there is a Southern Hemisphere, where our summer is their winter. While nobody has a crystal ball, all reliable sources point to one conclusion – the Coronavirus, or COVID-19 as it is technically called, is now and will remain for the foreseeable future a fact of modern life.

The question we must ask ourselves is how can we transform this into the spiritual path Milarepa-style? As Kadampa’s, we may not be able to stop the spread of the virus (though we need to do our part), but we can use the Dharma wisdom we have been taught to help stop the spread of delusions associated with this outbreak. The nurses and doctors who are heroically on the front lines of the virus outbreak should be our role models. The difference is we as spiritual practitioners need to be the first-responders to the arguably more dangerous outbreak – mass delusions. At worst, the virus can kill us only in this life, but the delusions people are generating towards this virus will harm us in this and in all of our future lives. Delusions are the true pandemic.

Countering Mass Delusions

Transforming this outbreak into the spiritual path for ourselves is vital – more on that below. But let’s first talk about how to help others swept away by mass delusions – specifically irrational fear and racism. All delusions function in the same way – they mentally project a mistaken reality, and then we relate to that mistake projection as if it were actually true. Countering delusions – others’ or our own – is the essence of the Bodhisattva’s way of life. The outbreak is triggering mass delusions, delusions only function is to harm, and we need to become part of the solution.

Irrational Fear

Planet-wide, it is no exaggeration to say people are freaking out. Human psychology is not individual rational actors, but rather the mentality of a herd. It is very easy to be swept away by the herd. Fear can be divided into two types – rational and irrational. It is perfectly rational to fear delusions, negative karma, samsaric rebirth, and even solitary peace. These things can genuinely hurt us and others and are the deep causes of all of our suffering. Irrational fears are misplaced fears – fear of something we don’t need to fear. The reality is on the aggregate, the total human suffering from delusions about the Coronavirus FAR EXCEEDS the suffering from the virus itself. Delusions are the real virus.

Let me be clear in my meaning here. I’m not saying we should not fear the virus or take the necessary precautions advised by experts. This virus has the potential to be a global catastrophe. Experts are now estimating that if we do nothing, somewhere between 30%-70% of the global population will get the virus. Globally, that’s between two and five billion people, with between 200 and 500 million deaths worldwide. This has the potential to be as devastating as a major war. But humanity is not doing nothing, people are acting to minimize the spread, and we should encourage everybody to do everything experts are advising. Externally, we need to act exactly as normal and take this thing as seriously as we would a mobilization for a major war. Before a hurricane, it is calm and skies are clear. That is when we need to prepare. Once the storm hits, it’s too late. If we all do what we are supposed to do externally, we can mitigate enormously the impacts of all of this, and possibly escape with relatively minimal overall impacts.

What I’m saying is the bigger pandemic is the delusions humanity generates in response to this crisis. Doing what is externally required of us is good, but not good enough. As Kadampas, we need to deal with the inner outbreak of delusions.

The short version is while we should externally do what we can to avoid getting the virus, internally we should not fear it. We can take precautions without delusions. Aversion mentally projects some external thing to be a cause of our suffering, exaggerates its harmfulness, and then relates to that exaggerated projection as if it were true. Typically, aversions can be countered by rational explanations, deflating the exaggeration, and presenting a more balanced view of the situation. Here, the analogy of the toy snake is particularly useful. If it is dark and we are not looking too closely, it is possible we can see a snake on the path, and be seized by strong fear. But then, when we look more closely, we realize it is a toy snake, and our fear subsides. Even though in fact there was not ever an actual snake there, one nonetheless appeared vividly to our mind and we generated real emotional fear. The truth of the situation didn’t matter. But when presented with new information realizing it was just a toy snake, our fear went away. Right now, when people think about the prospects of getting the virus, they see a real snake; when we know we can transform it into the path, we realize it is a toy snake. The virus is still the virus, but our fear of it goes away.

In the early stages of the Coronavirus outbreak, especially when we consider some transmission occurs even if the person does not have a fever or other symptoms, we start to mentally project everyone around us is infected and every surface we touch is covered with the virus. It can get to the point where we feel like going outside is just dangerous, like the whole world is filled with gaseous disease. Every time we see somebody wearing a mask, it then reinforces our fear that the virus is everywhere. This is our toy snake. In actual fact, statistically speaking, very few people actually have the virus – at present at least, this could change very quickly if people do not take the necessary precautions – and almost none of the surfaces we encounter are dangerous. But danger appears vividly to our mind, and we relate to these projections as if they were actually true and become seized by fear.

This is not to say nobody is infected and no surfaces are dangerous, just that what appears to our mind is not reliable and much of our fear is exaggerated and irrational. As we become aware of these facts, just like realizing it is a toy snake, the majority of our exaggerated fears will subside and we can deal with the situation in a balanced way. What is a balanced way? Externally, we take every precaution experts advise; internally, we learn to patiently accept whatever arises.

But what if we get sick? Shouldn’t we fear that? First of all, not all sickness is the Coronavirus. We have gotten colds and flus our whole life, and it could be just that – a cold or a flu. No big deal. Second, not all infections of the Coronavirus are fatal – experts put the mortality rate at between 0.025% and 1.5%. Young people seem to not be too affected, but older people are dying at much higher rates. The overwhelming majority of cases will be no different than any other flu people get. Not pleasant, but perfectly endurable and survivable. Some people have been infected and showed no symptoms whatsoever – it simply passed through them with barely a blip. But for vulnerable populations, it is a real risk. Regardless, whatever happens, our job is to transform it into the path by responding to it with wisdom and compassion.

Samsara is the nature of sickness. It is an unavoidable part of human life. We transform it into the spiritual path like we do any other sickness we might get. Diabetes, heart disease, and cancer strike people all of the time. We will inevitably get sick many times in our life, and likely die of some sickness. It is just a question of when and which sickness. Sickness itself is a fact of samsara, whether it is a problem for us or a blessing depends upon whether we transform its arising into the path.

In many respects, it’s almost better to just assume now we will get the virus. That way we can mentally begin to accept it and start thinking about how we will transform it into the path. When we see how we will do so, our fear will subside. This does not mean we should not still take all the normal precautions to avoid getting it, it just means we accept even if we do get it – even if we die from it – it will not be a problem because spiritually we will grow from it. By staring into the worst case scenario and realizing it need not be a problem for us, our fears will subside. Wisdom brings fearlessness. We only fear that which harms us, but if we can transform everything into something that spiritually helps us, we have nothing to fear.

Racism

Exotic diseases that start out in foreign places leads to a natural fear of unknown others. In today’s political climate, so-called political “leaders” are none too happy to stoke racist fears of immigrants and others for their own narrow political gain. “We need to ‘keep them out’ because they are all ridden with disease,” is a popular refrain. As long as we allow irrational fear to remain in our mind, we make ourselves susceptible to becoming ensnared in racist tropes. We may even begin propagating them ourselves, thinking we are keeping people safe. Long after the Coronavirus has left the front pages, the racism will remain. It is far more destructive to human society than the virus itself, and if we are not careful, we too can become part of the problem. There is no wall strong enough to keep out microscopic germs. The germs themselves don’t care what race anybody is. We have a responsibility to push back against racist exploitation of human illness.

How to Transform the Outbreak for Ourselves

Having looked carefully at the mass delusions of irrational fear and racism, how can we ourselves transform the outbreak into the spiritual path? Transforming some difficulty into the path does not make the difficulty go away, it just makes it spiritually useful. If the difficulty can become a powerful cause of our own or others’ enlightenment, then on-net from a spiritual point of view, the difficulty becomes a good thing, it becomes rocket fuel for spiritual growth.

How would Milarepa look at all of this?

First, and most obviously, the outbreak is a good lesson in karma. Some people get it and others don’t. Of those who get it, some die and others don’t. Why the difference? It’s the same as why some people die in a plane crash and others don’t – it’s a question of what karma do we have and what karma is ripening. We all have the karma to get the Coronavirus and countless other diseases. Karma is the deep cause. If you don’t want to get the virus or any other sickness, then apply effort to purify your negative karma. Further, negative minds activate negative karma, positive minds activate positive karma, and pure minds activate pure karma. So just as we are careful to wash our hands and not touch our face, so too we should be careful to not let our mind become negative, because that is how we activate the karma of ourselves possibly getting sick.

Second, use the outbreak to strengthen your renunciation. The only reason why we get sick is because we are still identifying with contaminated samsaric aggregates that get sick. Humans experience human suffering because they identify with human bodies and minds. We might be able to avoid catching the Coronavirus, but for as long as we remain in contaminated aggregates, we will inevitably get and possibly die from some sickness. The only long-term sustainable solution to sickness is to escape from samsara once and for all.

Third, we can use this as an opportunity to practice cherishing others. Even if we ourselves are not likely to die from this because we are not part of a vulnerable population, we can still become a carrier of the disease and inadvertently infect somebody else who is vulnerable. So we should all be careful as an act of cherishing others. We can help people who are afraid by presenting things in a balanced way and showing them how they can transform it into the path if they ever did get sick, or we can teach them about the nature of samsara. If we come to know people who have gotten sick, we can care for them and help them (while of course protecting ourselves from getting sick as well). The possibilities for cherishing others are limitless when surrounded by suffering.

Fourth, we can use the outbreak to increase our compassion. Look at how much suffering there is – both physically from the virus and mentally from the anxiety – in the world as a result of the outbreak. Think of all of the other sicknesses there are circulating throughout the world. All samsaric beings are, in effect, being cooked in a giant stew of disease. None of us can escape it for as long as we remain in samsara. And this will go on and on and on for eternity until we stop it. Sometimes considering such a state of affairs can make us extremely sad and depressed. But this only happens because we lack sufficient faith that there is a solution. Through reliance on the three jewels, we can eventually help all beings escape once and for all from all sickness. Seeing their suffering will still be unbearable, but instead of dragging us down, it will energize us to realize the solution. This is not a game. Outbreaks such as this can help shatter our complacency in our Dharma practice, and become the forcing action to start to actually get serious about progressing along the spiritual path. What other solution is there? In this way, the outbreak becomes a powerful cause of our bodhichitta, and through that, we will eventually gain the ability to help each and every living being find everlasting freedom from all sickness. If only one practitioner generates a qualified bodhichitta as a result of this outbreak, and that bodhichitta eventually leads to their enlightenment, then on the aggregate we can say the outbreak will have resulted in more good than harm. Now imagine thousands of Kadampas develop such a bodhichitta. This outbreak could mark the turning point in the spiriutal fate of millions. Whether it does depends entirely upon us.

In Universal Compassion, Geshe-la explains the practice of taking and giving is the essence of transforming adverse conditions into the path, or Lojong practice. If we ourselves discover irrational fear or racism in our mind, we can imagine that we are taking on all the irrational fear and racism of everyone in this world and the fear and racism in our own mind is that which we have taken on. Then, we use our Dharma wisdom to overcome it within our own mind, and then give back our fearlessness and universal love. Taking on our own future or others’ suffering is one of the most powerful methods for overcoming our fears. This courageous mind willing to take on others suffering so they don’t have to experience it eradicates our selfishness and, paradoxically, actually purifies the negative karma that could possibly cause us to get sick in the first place. Likewise, we can mentally imagine we take on everyone’s Coronavirus and give them back immortal vajra bodies free from all sickness. We need not fear practicing taking, we should fear not practicing it and remaining burdened by our negative karma.

The outbreak is also an excellent opportunity to train in Tantra. Tantric practice, fundamentally, is a method for creating pure worlds. It is not enough to just wish to escape from samsara and sickness, Tantra is our spiritual method for constructing alternative pure realities. Heruka and Vajrayogini never get sick because their bodies are made of wisdom light. There is no sickness in Keajraland because there is no karmic basis for it to arise. China may be able to build a new hospital in 10 days, but once built, people still die from sickness within it. Through our Tantric practice, we can generate spiritual field hospitals where all of the doctors are emanations of Medicine Buddha and all of the medicine is pure healing nectar. We can purify the deep contaminated karma giving rise to worlds of sickness and replace them with charnel grounds in which all appearances teach the truth of Dharma. The body mandala deities of Heruka and Vajrayogini are the supreme nurses who can purify the subtle bodies and minds of all beings, resulting in a permanent healing of all sickness. Such results might not be instantaneous, but if we are persistent with our effort, they are guaranteed. There is no need to give in to hopelessness and despair, the solutions lay at our feet. We need merely pick them up and use them and never give up until all beings know everlasting freedom.

Whether this outbreak is a cause of mass delusion and pernicious racism depends, fundamentally, upon all of us. We each have a responsibility to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Dharma wisdom shows us how. We cannot control how others think, but we can control how we react to the outbreak. If we do the right things for long enough, this world will get better. Ultimately, this outbreak is a powerful lesson in the truth of Dharma and a unique opportunity for us to supercharge our spiritual life. If we succeed in transforming the outbreak into the spiritual path, all of the suffering associated with it will not have been for naught. We can make it meaningful, and indeed spiritually beneficial for the world. Now, the ball is in our court. The only question that remains is what will we do with our opportunity?

Depression is not fun. But it need not be a “problem.” Mental illness in general arises when our deluded mental habits become chronic, often leading to our mind – and even our body or nervous system – becoming injured. Often, there is some external trigger, such as an abusive childhood or some extreme emotional trauma from life events. Some people, for a variety of karmic reasons, carry even a genetic legacy making them more prone to mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, and so forth. In any case, it is not our fault that our mind reacts to adverse life events in deluded, negative ways. Nobody intentionally becomes deluded, rather delusions just arise uncontrolledly as our habitual response to difficult circumstances. The good news is we can learn to change our mental habits, and our current mental state gives us a great opportunity to train in doing so. But we will not be able to do so unless we first learn to patiently accept our current situation. To “accept” in Dharma terms means “to be at peace with how things are.” Things are as they are, and from a spiritual point of view, this is not a “problem” for us.

Unfortunately, there is tremendous mental stigma associated with mental illness. Society seems to accept physical illness, such as the flu, a broken leg, or cancer; but it judges mental illness as some sort of personal failure. We then internalize this stigma, and begin to judge ourselves, viewing ourself as a failure because we are not well. Excuse my French, but this is just bullish*t! Samsara is the nature of sickness, and if truth be told, all physical sickness actually arises from mental sickness from either this or previous lives. Mental sickness happens, just as physical sickness does. It is not our fault, and it is not a personal failure. Society is simply wrong, and we should ignore the views of the ignorant.

Before we get to how to accept our depression, anxiety, or other mental illness, first two words about medications: take them! Geshe-la is very clear about a Kadampa practitioner’s relationship with traditional medicine, doctors, etc. If we have a headache, we take an aspirin just like everybody else, and then we practice patient acceptance while we wait for it to take effect. When we suffer from strong depression, etc., we are sometimes so impacted we are simply unable to “practice Dharma.” Medications help put us back into a zone where we can once again train our mind, and then we use the Dharma we have learned to work through the rest. We should view our medications as karmic emanations of Medicine Buddha and strongly believe they have the power to heal our mind. If we are to transform our ordinary food into medicine nectar, then surely we should transform our medications in the same way. Similarly, we should see our doctors, talk with our psychologist, and take the time to rest exactly as normal.

Healing our mind from depression and anxiety takes time. It is during this time that we need to practice patient acceptance. I find there are three main obstacles to accepting our current state: hopelessness, fear, and impatience wanting it all to be over.

Hopelessness primarily arises because either we assume our current state will last forever or we lack confidence in our capacity to make it to the other side. Hopelessness causes us to think our efforts to get better will fail no matter what, so we give up even trying. Hopelessness quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. First of all, nothing is permanent. Everything is constantly changing, and as they say, “this too shall pass.” Second, the laws of karma are definite. If we create good causes for long enough, we will get better. Finally, all of us are destined to eventually reach enlightenment, the only question is when. So whether it is soon or in a future life, it is definite we will make it to the other side. Giving in to hopelessness is not only self-defeating, it is factually wrong.

Being mentally ill can give rise to all sorts of fear. It can be very scary when, as a result of depression or other mental illness, we lose our normal mental capacities. We fear it might be permanent or we fear something going wrong and not being able to deal with it. This can then lead to anxiety, which can become generalized, leading to a further erosion of our mental capacities in a vicious cycle. How can we overcome this? First, we need to remember our pure potential is indestructible. It is our Buddha nature, and it lies within all of us. No matter how terrifying the storm clouds, the sky always remains untouched. Second, our mind being ill gives us countless opportunities to apply effort to heal it, so our current illness is rocket fuel for our spiritual development and karma. Third, we can use our temporary state to develop compassion for those going through aging, whose loss of capacity is irreversible, at least in this life. Fourth, we can use our current state as an opportunity to practice taking – either taking on our own future suffering now, or taking on others’ suffering similar to what we are going through. The practice of taking is one of the most powerful means of purifying the negative karma giving rise to our current difficulties.

Sometimes when we have been mentally ill for a long time, we can become impatient wishing it was all over. People who suffer form physical sickness or injury often develop similar impatience. If we indulge this mind and allow ourselves to become impatient with our recovery, we will not speed up our getting better, we will simply make ourselves more miserable along the way. The bottom line is we have no way of knowing if our current state will last only a couple of weeks or a couple of years. This too, we must learn to accept. How? Faith in Dorje Shugden. Dorje Shugden is a wisdom Buddha who blesses our mind with the ability to see how our situation is in fact perfect for our swiftest possible enlightenment. In this way, nothing is an obstacle and everything is helpful to our spiritual development. We can think of our convalescence period as a special form of spiritual retreat where we can work on our mind. We don’t know how long it will last, but we do know it is exactly what we need and we are protected. Anybody who has done long retreat knows it is not bliss, rainbows, and unicorns; rather it is more like hard work cleaning out the grime in the deepest recesses of our mind. It can be quite unpleasant, but we know it is only by doing a deep cleaning that we will be able to enjoy a lasting freshness and purity.

In conclusion, while depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses may be “unpleasant to go through,” from a spiritual perspective, they are a good thing. We need to embrace them in this way. If we accept our circumstance, we will no longer experience it as “suffering.” It will still be there, we will just experience it differently. We will experience it as deep healing of our mind.

It’s very easy to become neurotic. It’s even easier to disappoint others. We want to be a good person and our heart is bursting with compassion wanting to help in every way we can, but we are still incredibly limited in what we can actually do. Our attachment, pride, guilt, and misplaced sense of responsibility prevent us from patiently accepting our current limitations. The result is anxiety, burnout, and depression for ourselves and dependency, disappointment, and resentment for others. If we can learn how to accept our limits and communicate them to others, we can avoid all of these problems and transform our good heart into a qualified bodhichitta.

All of us want to be a good person. We want to help. We see those we love suffer and we want to rescue them. Our meditations on the faults of selfishness, the benefits of selflessness, and compassion drive us to want to commit our lives to serving others. We may even fashion ourselves as a bodhisattva dedicated to freeing all living beings from the ocean of samsara and leading them all to the everlasting joy of the Buddha lands. We read time and again that virtuous intentions such as these are supposed to lead to inner peace and happiness, but if we are honest we are miserable on the inside, useless on the outside and we seem inexorably headed towards some sort of dramatic crash. Perhaps that reckoning has already come. I would say much of this comes from an inability to accept and to communicate our current limitations.

Why do we struggle to accept our limitations?

First, we fail to make the distinction between attachment to others not suffering and compassion wishing others are free from their suffering. Attachment to others not suffering mistakenly thinks our happiness depends upon others not suffering, so when they go down, we go down with them. Our own well-being then depends on them doing well, and so we then feel others need to change or their problems need to stop for us to be happy. We then push ourselves to solve their problems out of personal necessity. Because we feel our happiness depends upon theirs, to accept we can’t solve their problems is to condemn ourselves to misery.

Second, our pride convinces us we are better than we actually are. We think we are this amazing high bodhisattva who can save everyone and we don’t want to admit – even to ourselves – that we are still just a beginner and are still quite limited in what we can do. This is especially a problem for teachers and parents and caregivers. Others are looking up to us and relying upon us, we don’t want to let them down (or have them realize we are a fraud), so we pretend we are more capable than we really are. Perhaps we have a unique opportunity to help others and make a difference, and so we keep taking on more and more responsibility, not considering whether we have the capacity to handle it all. Perhaps our own sense of self-worth is very much tied up with being the stable one who is there for others, and we feel if we admitted our limitations we would come crashing down.

Third, our guilt pushes us unhealthily beyond our limits. We know we are not supposed to be selfish, and we think we should be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. They are suffering, they are struggling, and we can make a difference. To not do so is to be selfish, and so we beat ourselves up to push beyond what is sustainable. How can we just let them suffer when there is one more thing we can do? We generate this long list of things we “should be doing” if we were perfect, and then we judge ourselves against this, viewing ourselves as a failure if we don’t do it all.

Fourth, we have a misplaced sense of responsibility that it is up to us to solve others problems for them. Doesn’t superior intention tell us that we need to assume personal responsibility for the welfare of all? Doesn’t emptiness explain that ultimately we are responsible for everything that happens in our karmically created dream? Surely, it is up to us. If we don’t do it, who will? Because we think we are responsible for relieving others from their suffering, they then start to think the same thing about us, so they look to us to solve their problems for them, and then get mad at us when we don’t. They then make us feel guilty for not being there for them, setting in motion vicious spirals within our mind.

What is the result of all of this non-acceptance of our limitations?

In the beginning it leads to great stress and anxiety. There is so much we need to do, and we don’t have time or the capacity to do it all, so we become stressed. We fear the consequences of what will happen if we don’t do it all, and so we become anxious. Others place enormous demands on us that we feel it is our responsibility to fulfill, and so we become pulled in ten directions at once but find ourselves falling short on every front. We then push harder and harder to try meet all of these demands. The sustained stress on our system eventually leads to some form of burnout. Our system simply can’t take anymore and we crash. The slightest thing seems like an insurmountable challenge to our fried system. As our capacity to do things declines, the list of our perceived failures grows as we are no longer able to do things that before we could. Our pride tells us we “should” be able to do these things and can’t admit that we are burned out. Our guilt beats us up for being so incapable and supposedly letting down everyone around us. Eventually, we start to fall into a depression about our reduced capacity, which lowers our capacity further in a vicious spiral. We then think we need to push ourselves to get out of our depression, but our burned out system can’t handle that, feeding our sense of hopelessness, failure, and guilt.

And what happens to others when we fail to accept our limitations? In the beginning, it creates a dependency of others on us. Because we have constructed ourselves as responsible for solving their problems, they think it is up to us to solve their problems for them. We don’t want to let them down and we want (need!) them to be happy, so we make all sorts of promises that we will do things for them. They then think their happiness depends on us doing these things for us. We have in effect disempowered them to assume responsibility for their own experience. Their dependency on us creates a terrible dilemma for us. If we solve their problems for them or do their work for them, then we feed their dependency. If we don’t do these things for them, then they will sink or fail, which is something we can’t tolerate or accept. But inevitably, we commit to more than we can actually do, leaving others feeling disappointed by us. We didn’t live up to our promises to them, and now they are suffering the consequences. Their disappointment then feeds our guilt, and perhaps they even manipulate us through our guilt to get us to do more for them. Since they think their happiness and well-being depends upon us doing things for them, when we fail to do so, they feel like their suffering is our fault, so they become resentful that we didn’t do what they think we should have. This resentment then poisons our relationship with the person we so dearly love. They think we are not doing enough, and we alternate between feeling guilty or resentful ourselves at their lack of gratitude for all that we did do for them.

Genuine acceptance of our limitations is the answer

What does it mean to accept our limitations? To accept something in a Dharma context does not mean to simply acknowledge something as a fact. We could acknowledge our limitations, and still be miserable about them. Likewise, it does not mean we don’t try do anything about them, thinking it is somehow a fault to grow beyond them. To accept something means to be at peace with it. We can humbly acknowledge the fact of our current limitations without falling into the extremes of either guilt or complacency. Our mind, quite simply, is not disturbed, but is rather energized. What enables us to accept anything is our ability to transform it into the spiritual path. A difficult situation, for example, gives us an opportunity to train in patience. A needy person give us an opportunity to train in giving, and so forth. Helping other’s through their suffering gives us an opportunity to train in skillful means. Accepting our limitations gives us an opportunity to train in bodhichitta.

Like with so many things, Yoda said it best when he told Luke, “Heeded my words not, did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” Seeing our limitations is our greatest teacher because it shows us what we must work on to take the next step on the spiritual path. We would want to do more, but we accept that we currently can’t. We don’t expect ourselves to already be able to be perfect and do everything perfectly. We don’t beat ourselves up for not already being better than we are or for having limitations. Rather, we use this awareness to encourage us to improve our wisdom, skills, and capacity so that we can eventually not be constrained in these ways. Superior intention is beyond compassion because it takes personal responsibility for freeing all beings from their suffering, but it is only humbly accepting our limitations that transforms our superior intention into a qualified bodhichitta. A failure to do so causes Dharma teachings to make us neurotic in all the ways explained above; but doing so is the last major step to becoming a bodhisattva. Then there is no contradiction whatsoever between complete humility and soaring spiritual aspiration. Accepting our limitations is the difference between developing a Jesus complex and becoming a qualified bodhisattva. It is the difference between the miserable path of self-flagellation and the Joyful Path of good fortune.

We can accept we can’t save others now because we know their present suffering is fuel for our eventual becoming of a Buddha for their sake. One day, we will lead them to freedom. We don’t need to pretend to be better than we are because that blocks spiritual growth and prevents us from being the best possible teacher for them. Long before Yoda said “we are what they grow beyond,” Kadam Morten said the best teacher is not the one who shows the example of being perfect, but rather the one who shows the example of happily improving. The best parent is the one who helps their kids learn from the parents’ failures. We don’t need to feel guilty about our limitations because they are normal. Dharma doesn’t tell us how we should already be, but rather explains the methods for how we can do better. While ultimately, our mind is the creator of all, the same is true for everybody else and the laws of karma are definite, so no matter how much we might wish others not suffer, fundamentally it is up to them to assume responsibility for their own future. We can’t do it for them. A genuine acceptance of our limitations is the answer to attachment to them not suffering, pride, guilt, and misplaced responsibility. In short, accepting our limitations helps protect us from pushing too far beyond them.

Learning to communicate effectively our current limitations to others likewise avoids dependency, disappointment, and resentment for others. If we are at peace with our own limitations, then we will be able to communicate them to others in a way where they are at peace with them too. And even if they are not at peace with them, we will be at peace with that, and so our mind will remain undisturbed. We can tell people, “I would want to help, but currently I can’t because of this limitation. But once this constraint is lifted, I can help.” Or we can say, “it doesn’t help you for me to solve your problems for you or to protect you from the consequences of your bad choices.” They may protest, but because we see it is best for them for us to not help, we will have the inner strength to compassionately say no. Being honest with others about our limitations also helps break down their attachment, pride, guilt, and misplaced responsibility, thus setting a helpful example. Because we are not over-promising, they are not left disappointed. Because we are empowering them to solve their own problems, there is no basis for resentment. And again, even if there is, it is a short-term problem until eventually they accept our role and their own responsibilities. And even if they don’t, we recognize that is not our responsibility, and all we can do is find within ourself how we are making the same mistake and stop doing so.

It is not easy to dedicate one’s life to helping others. Sometimes we may miss the old days when we could be selfish without guilt. But such nostalgia is a dead end. As Shantideva says, “the childish are concerned only for themselves, and the Buddhas work for others. Just look at the difference between them.” Once we see this difference, the final hurdle for transforming our compassion into a qualified bodhichitta is learning to accept our own limitations. I pray that all those who read this may one day be able to do so.

We live in an age of addiction. Porn, vaping, alcohol, marijuana, Facebook, video games, our phones, hard drugs, not to mention opioids which kill more than 30,000 people every year. Addiction devastates lives, but on a much more widespread level, it saps regular people of confidence and deprives us of any ability to gain control over our lives. More fundamentally, at a spiritual level, we can say all of us are addicted to samsaric life, and it is only this addiction which keeps us bound up in its endless sufferings. Virtually all of us know personally somebody struggling with addiction. The question is, how can we help? To answer this, I will first explain how addiction works and then offer some things we can do to help.

How does Addiction Work?

If we don’t understand addiction, we won’t be able to help those struggling with it. The best way to understand addiction is to identify it within ourselves. Addiction is a mental sickness, like depression, PTSD, burnout, bipolar disorder, etc. Addiction is fundamentally nothing more than a self-destructive habit of mind enforced, often, by physiological discomfort. It arises from a toxic combination of the delusions of strong attachment, pride, and lack of self-worth. Delusions are distorted ways of seeing things that we nonetheless believe to be true. Addiction persists because of an inability to keep the promises we make to ourselves, which then reinforces our sense of being a failure and of hopelessness. Let’s try unpack this.

Strong attachment. From a Buddhist perspective, attachment is a mind which mistakenly believes some external object is a cause of our happiness. We believe the object of our addiction – pick your poison – has the power from its side to make us happy. Attachment exaggerates this power and induces in us a desire to partake. We are “desire realm beings,” which means we actually have no choice but to pursue whatever we desire. If we desire to indulge in our our object of attachment more than to not, we will do so. Addiction is a particularly strong form of attachment that has reached uncontrolled proportions – in other words, even if we want to stop, and often part of us does want to – we feel like we can’t.

Pride. Practically speaking, pride is an exaggerated sense of ourself. Pride makes us feel like we are better than our lot in life, and makes us feel like we deserve better than what we have; but then feels slighted that we don’t have it. This sets us up for wanting a high. Our pride tells us we won’t get addicted, that we are better than others who have gotten addicted and we will be able to keep it under control. Then our pride prevents us from admitting we are addicted, telling ourselves all sorts of rationalizations and that we could quit if we wanted to, we just don’t really want to. Then our pride prevents us from seeking help when we need it. We have told everyone we don’t have a problem, and we don’t want to admit to them that we need help – we think we can break our addiction on our own. Then our pride feels attacked when others are just trying to help us by staging an intervention. At some point, our loved ones step in to try help us, but we then feel they don’t get it (we know better…), or that they are unfairly attacking us and we get defensive, thus grasping even more tightly to the rationalizations we have been telling ourself.

Lack of self-worth. The underbelly of pride is insecurity. Deep down, part of us knows we are not as good as our pride makes us out to be. But our sense of self-worth is bound up in our inflated view of ourself, so when it gets threatened, we feel attacked. Part of us knows we are addicted and that we have a problem. Part of us wants to stop, and perhaps we have tried many times, but we don’t feel we are strong enough. Knowing we have a problem we can’t fix makes us feel like a loser, and this grows into a feeling of hopelessness, which in turn makes us say, “screw it, my life sucks anyways, I might as well have at least some happiness from my addiction,” causing us to give in despite our earlier promise to not. Our indulging then fails to give us the joy we were after, and then we feel like a total loser and we beat ourselves up about how bad we are, thus feeding our lack of self-worth in a vicious spiral. The end of this path is a death of despair, either metaphorically by giving up on our life and ambitions or physically through overdose or suicide.

Inability to keep promises to ourself. The great Buddhist master Shantideva said fundamentally our ability to become a better person depends upon keeping the promises we make to ourself. Moral discipline is not something imposed from the outside, but something chosen from our own side. We decide for ourselves what behavior we want, and then make promises or vows to act in certain ways. Keeping those promises is how we grow internally. But, he cautions, if we make promises to ourself that we then break, we will lose confidence in ourself and our ability to keep our promises, and then they will become internally meaningless to us. Someone once famously said, “it’s easy to quit smoking. I have done so at least a dozen times.” When people start to try quit, they realize just how addicted they are. When they quit, but subsequently “fall off the wagon” and give in to their addiction, they lose confidence in themselves and make breaking their promises to themselves a habit. This makes it even harder to successfully quit next time because we know when we make the promise to ourself, we are likely to break it. Eventually, we don’t even try anymore, knowing our addiction is stronger than us until it eventually takes over our life.

Enforced by discomfort. Virtually all addictions are enforced by some form of discomfort, either mental or physical. In Buddhist terms, we call this “changing suffering.” We say there are three types of suffering – manifest suffering, changing suffering, and pervasive suffering. Manifest suffering is actual pain, such as a broken leg, cancer, or mental grief, etc. Pervasive suffering is suffering that is the nature of the body and mind we have taken rebirth into. For example, an animal experiences animal suffering because it has taken rebirth in the body and mind of an animal. The same is true for humans, hungry ghosts, hell beings, and everyone else in samsara. Changing suffering is what we normally think of as happiness. Drinking a cool glass of water is a temporary reduction in our suffering of being thirsty. The relief of sitting is a temporary reduction of our suffering of standing for too long. Indulging in our object of addiction is a temporary reduction in our suffering of withdrawal. We think indulging brings us happiness, but in truth it is just temporarily reducing some other suffering in our life – be it loneliness, helplessness, dissatisfaction, or even physical withdrawal symptoms because our body has grown dependent. Our inability to patiently accept these sufferings and discomforts makes us chase after some form of relief.

How to Help Those we Love

Ultimately, we can’t help those who don’t want to be helped. We need to accept this, and know it is not our fault. There is a fundamental difference between compassion, wishing others were free from their suffering, and attachment to others not suffering, thinking our own happiness depends upon them making the right choices. Making this distinction is one of the hardest parts of helping others, but it is vital. Why? If we are attached to others making the right choices, then when they don’t, we fall with them, rendering us useless. Further, the other person senses that we have a selfish desire for them to quit, and so they don’t trust our intentions trying to help them. This causes them to reject our advice, even if it is exactly what they need to hear. When we are attached to them making the right choices, we will begin all sorts of manipulation tactics to get them to change, which will just cause them to resist us and grasp even more tightly onto their wrong views because nobody likes being manipulated and we all know when we are being manipulated. Ultimately, they need to make the right choices from their own side or it won’t stick. As long as our pressure is in place, they might make the right choice; but then as soon as our pressure is no longer present, they will let loose. That’s not sustainable. Us thinking it is our responsibility to get them to break their addiction actually serves to disempower them to take responsibility for themselves, thus denying them of agency and causing them to become dependent upon us to get better. Then, when they don’t, they will blame us, feeding our guilt and misplaced sense of responsibility. This will then create a vicious spiral of dysfunction between us and the person we are trying to help adding yet another obstacle to the person getting better. We need to accept we can’t control the choices they make. We need to accept that they will make wrong choices and suffer the consequences of those wrong choices. We need to accept that they might need to hit “rock bottom” before they decide to dig themselves out. We need to accept we are not responsible for the choices they make. We need to accept that we might not ourselves be capable of helping them navigate out of their addiction, and perhaps they need professional help. We also have to accept we can’t make them admit they have a problem or to want to get help. Accepting all of these things is a prerequisite for our ability to help them. It is also a prerequisite for our own sanity and emotional balance in dealing with the situation.

One of the first things we need to do is stop enabling their wrong choices. Sometimes we are so attached to preserving a relationship with the person that we don’t tell them what they need to hear, and so we go along with their addiction, pretending that nothing is wrong. This can especially happen in the context of parents with their children or between spouses. There is no contradiction between speaking hard truths and wanting a good relationship. In fact, a lasting relationship can only be built on a healthy foundation, and a failure to speak truth inevitably dooms the relationship anyways. It is because we love them and want the relationship to work that we can’t enable them any longer. Along the same lines, we need to draw a clear line in the sand that we will not accept them making us involuntarily complicit in their wrong choices. This takes many forms, such as us protecting them from the consequences of their wrong choices or them doing things we don’t approve of with our money or in our house, or them asking us to lie or cover for them, etc. We can tell them, “I can’t control what choices you make, but I can control whether I am complicit.” We are under no obligation to make their addiction easier for them.

At the same time, we need to make it clear we are always there for them if and when they need help. Because we understand addiction is a sickness, not a failure, we don’t judge them for their addiction any more than we judge somebody who gets cancer. We need to communicate clearly we stand ready to help with open arms anytime. But we need to often wait until they ask for help, because if they don’t want our help and we “offer it,” they will just push it away, creating even more obstacles. It is possible that they want our help, but are afraid to ask. At such times, we can try skillfully just be there for them and show we are open to listening. Sometimes, they just need somebody who will listen, and them talking helps them come to some conclusions within themselves. If they see we listen with an open heart and without judgment, they might ask us for help or advice. Then, we can offer it. If they storm off on their own to go make wrong choices, as they go out the door, tell them, “Just know, I’m always here for you if you need me.” It may take many years before they come back, but knowing we are there for them provides a constant reassurance, and when they are in the dark parts of their addiction, they will remember us.

When we do ask for our help, we should begin by addressing whatever it is they perceive to be the problem, not what we think is the deeper problem. Oftentimes, they won’t be seeking our help on the addiction directly, but likely the consequences of some wrong choice they have made. Help them ethically navigate through those consequences while making it clear that they own them, but use these times to also address the deeper issue of why they got themselves into trouble to begin with. Don’t focus on the act of indulging in their addiction, dig deeper into the why they are addicted in the first place and what habits of mind lead them down such roads. If we address the deeper issues without directly saying “stop using XYZ,” then we are helping address the root causes while still leaving it up to them to make the choice to quit or not.

On addressing the addiction itself, help them identify for themselves how addiction works per the above. Fundamentally, all delusions are by nature deceptive. They promise one thing, but deliver the opposite. As explained, we are desire realm beings so overcoming addiction is NOT an issue of “will power,” rather it is an issue of changing our desires. If in our heart, we still want the object of our addiction, we might be able to use will power to stop for a little while, but we will just be repressing our attachment until eventually it grows in strength and overwhelms our will power. That is not a sustainable solution. Instead, we need to change our desires. There are two levels to this: not wanting the object of our addiction and not wanting to be addicted to anything. Both levels are addressed by “seeing through the deception of our delusions.” If we receive an email from a Nigerian Prince who wants to transfer $10 million to our bank account for safe keeping if only we send him our account numbers, it is dangerous only if we believe the lie. If we know it is a scam, we will correctly recognize the email as spam, and it will have no power over us. We simply hit delete and move on with our day. We can’t control whether the email arrives in our inbox, but we can completely cut its power over us by realizing it is deceptive. In exactly the same way, our delusions are the spam of our mind. These deceptive thoughts of attachment, pride, lack of self-worth, etc., arise in our mind, but they only have power over us if we believe their lies. We need to help the other person realize how their delusions are deceiving them. Mostly, you should just ask them questions which make them check their own experience to realize they have been burned by these lies again and again in the past, and they will continue to be burned for as long as they believe them. If they see them as deceptive, the thoughts will lose their power. In particular, all delusions exaggerate, so helping the other person break down the exaggeration in their mind will also reduce the power.

Oftentimes, reframing the choice of use or don’t use is helpful. If we are bored and think it is no big deal, indulging in our object of addiction seems like a good idea. But if we see that doing so strengthens the habits in our mind that sends us down the road of addiction, saps our self-confidence, causes us to eventually lose everything we hold dear, and makes us a puppet of their desires then it is a different choice. This is especially true when they are trying to quit. Let’s say they successfully go 10 days, but then are struggling. The pain of withdrawal seems so much more miserable than the relief they can get by indulging again. At such times help them realize that if they indulge now, all of the pain and misery they have accepted for the last 10 days will have been for nothing, and next time they quit they will have to go through all of this misery again to get to the other side. Help them realize if they make promises to quit, but then give in, then their inner promises will start to be meaningless, and if that happens, change becomes almost impossible – at a minimum, they will have to first reestablish the credibility of their inner promises before they start to get traction, and that will definitely mean they will need to go longer than 10 days next time. Help them see how these same habits of giving up show up in other aspects of their life, but if they learn to overcome it here, they will receive great benefit on many dimensions of their life. If they are spiritual, help them see the longer-term consequences of their choices. Help them understand it is not a question of will power, but of changing desires, and help them generate a larger, stronger desire that says no than the impulse to say yes.

One of the most important things is to stress the importance of keeping the promises we make to ourselves. First, help them realize that they have to decide from their own side to stop, not because of some pressure we apply. It is up to them. But that when they make a promise to themselves, they should keep it, come hell or high water. If we keep our promises, we can rejoice and our self-confidence grows. If we break our promises, we lose self-confidence as described above, until eventually our promises become meaningless and change impossible. Help them realize it is better to make small promises that they know they can keep than large promises that they know they will break. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say, “one day at a time.” We make a promise to ourself, “I will not drink today.” And then they keep it. And then they repeat that promise tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that, until eventually they are sustainably sober. Making promises is easy, keeping them is the practice. While we have made a promise, thoughts and impulses will arise encouraging us to break our promises. When these arise, we need to “see the deception” to cut their power. We need to remind ourselves of our wisdom desires to quit, knowing real freedom and confidence waits on the other side. We need to rejoice when we succeed in keeping our promise, and then make the promise again.

When those we love do fall off the wagon, help them not become plagued by guilt and beating themselves up. Instead, help them view it like learning to walk. You identify what mistakes you made, learn your lesson, then get back up and try again. If we want to quit, we can if we are willing to persevere and keep trying again and again until we eventually succeed. Sometimes people can succeed on the first try, for others, it may take years. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, we remain determined to one day win the war. One of the main reasons why we fall off the wagon is our inability to patiently accept the discomfort associated with withdrawal. What enables us to patiently accept our suffering is our ability to transform it into the path of personal growth. When we see working through our suffering helps us become a better person, then we have a valid reason to accept it. It is fuel for our spiritual development. Accepting this short term pain will result in long-term freedom, so it’s worth it.

Ultimately, from a Buddhist perspective, the world we inhabit and all the beings within it are nothing more than mere karmic appearances to mind, like a dream. If last night, we dreamt of somebody in a wheelchair, who put them there? Ultimately we did because they are part of our dream. In exactly the same way, if we are surrounded by appearances of people who are addicted, it is because our mind is dreaming them that way. They are a reflection of the addiction within our own mind. Venerable Tharchin once told me, “when you see faults in others, find them within yourself, and then purge them like bad blood. When you do, like magic, they will gradually disappear from those around you because ultimately they are projections of your own mind.” If we look at the world through an orange balloon, we might mistakenly think the world actually is orange. But when we remove the balloon, we then understand where the orange was coming from. In the same way, when we look at the world through the lens of our own addiction, we will see a world filled with addicts and think that they are actually there. When we remove the addiction from our own mind, then eventually people who are addicted will gradually disappear. This may take some time as the karma giving rise to these appearances gradually exhausts itself, but it will come. This may be hard for us to understand if we don’t have a lot of prior experience or understanding of the wisdom realizing emptiness, but fundamentally, as Geshe-la says, an impure mind experiences an impure world, and a pure mind experiences a pure world.

At a minimum, if we want to help others overcome their own addiction, we need to take the time to identify the addictions we ourselves have and overcome those within us. When we do, we will set a good example of somebody overcoming their addictions, and in the process we will gain the wisdom others need to be able to help them overcome their own addictions. Venerable Tharchin also says that when we gain wisdom realization, those who need that wisdom will begin to appear in our life so that we can share it with them. It is not a coincidence that the most effective addiction counselors were themselves once addicts. They know how addiction works, and they are sharing their experience with others who similarly suffer.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, never underestimate the power of prayer. Buddhas accomplish almost all of their virtuous deeds through the power of their prayer. We often lack the ability to resist our delusions on our own, but the blessings of holy beings can fill our mind with the compassion, strength, and wisdom we need. The effectiveness of our prayers for others depends upon the purity of our compassion for them free from attachment, the closeness of our karmic connection to them, the strength of our faith in the Buddhas, and the depth of our realization of emptiness understanding they are not separate from us. Prayer works if done for long enough. Don’t expect immediate results, just keep improving how qualified your prayers are and keep praying. Results may not even come in this lifetime, but as Buddhist, we have a long-term view. Eventually, we will become a Buddha, and eventually we will guide all those we love out of their suffering and to everlasting peace and happiness.

I pray that all those who read this are able to help those they love, and that all beings eventually become free from all addiction.