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Happy Vajrayogini Day: Becoming the Vajra Queen

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 7. Kadampa meaning of special days , , , ,

Today is Vajrayogini Day, which takes place every year on the first tsog day of Heruka and Vajrayogini Month.  On this day, we can remember her amazing good qualities and try to ripen them within ourselves.  By doing so, we can draw closer to her and eventually become her.

Our Vajra Queen

Within the Kadampa tradition, our highest yoga tantra deities are Heruka and Vajrayogini.  Heruka is great bliss inseparable from emptiness and Vajrayogini is emptiness inseparable from great bliss.  Ultimately, they are the same person, differing only in aspect and emphasis.  Practically, they are our spiritual guide’s truth body inseparable from our own pure potential.  By relying upon Heruka and Vajrayogini, we can quickly ripen our Buddha nature and attain union with their enlightened state.  Our highest yoga tantra deity is also known as our “yidam,” which essentially means it is the actual Buddha we want to become.  Gen Tharchin explains we design our own enlightenment by the specific type of bodhichitta we generate.  In our tradition, we take Heruka and Vajrayogini as our yidam. 

Vajrayogini is known as the Vajra Queen because she is the highest of all the female enlightened deities for us.  Many people, both in movies and in real life, develop tremendous loyalty and respect for their political queen, willing to dedicate their lives to fulfilling the wishes of their noble queen.  How much more respect and devotion should we feel towards our Vajra Queen who leads us beyond samsara?

Understanding our Partner as an Emanation of Heruka and Vajrayogini

Sometimes, people can get confused about viewing their spouse or partner as an emanation of Heruka or Vajrayogini. Does that mean we should do whatever they say? Does that mean we should ignore their appearing faults and harmful behavior, pretending they are not appearing? Does that mean we can never modify or end the relationship if it becomes unhealthy for us or our partner? It means none of these things. Conventionally, we relate to conventional appearances exactly as normal. Emanations that take the form of conventionally normal people should be related to exactly as is conventionally normal. They are appearing in a normal aspect to teach us how to relate to conventionally normal forms in Dharma ways.

But at a deeper level, Heruka or Vajrayogini are our eternal partners. Sometimes they appear as the person we are married to (or are with). Sometimes our relationship with the appearance of our ordinary partner ends, but our relationship with Heruka or Vajrayogini does not end with that. It continues, just in different aspects. It is like before and after Venerable Geshe-la passed away. Prior to his passing, we tended to think our spiritual guide was Venerable Geshe-la, but when he passed he revealed clearly to all of us that our spiritual guide was never the appearance of Venerable Geshe-la, it was Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka all along. He was just temporarily appearing as Venerable Geshe-la so we could develop a relationship with him. But when Venerable Geshe-la passed, we realized we don’t need the appearance of Venerable Geshe-la to preserve our daily living relationship with our spiritual guide because Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka is still with us. In the same way, we thought our partner was the person we married, but in truth our partner has been Heruka or Vajrayogini all along. They appeared temporarily as our partner so we could develop a relationship with them.

Sometimes our relationship with the person we thought was our partner ends (they die, the relationship ends, etc.), but that’s just the karma of that appearance exhausting itself. Our relationship with Heruka or Vajrayogini as our partner continues. It is eternal.  Sometimes it will remanifest as some other ordinary appearance and sometimes it will shift into an internal relationship like the one we now have with Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka. It is hard to say. But the point is Heruka and Vajrayogini have always been and always will be our eternal partner. What that looks like according to conventional appearance and where the locus of our relationship is with them may shift, but this fact is always true. In the end, we will find ourselves with them in Keajra and realize in truth we have been there with them all along – we were just mistakenly seeing what has always been. When we realize this, we will have a great laugh with them and reminisce about all the adventures (both good and bad) we had along the way, but we will see it all as exactly what we needed at different points along our path to Keajra. It’s all good, we just haven’t woken up to it yet, but we’re getting there. 

So even if our relationship with somebody who we thought was an emanation of Vajrayogini for us ends, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t Vajrayogini for us then and it also doesn’t mean they are not still Vajrayogini for us. They still are, but their conventional appearance is pushing us in a different direction. Just as the appearance of Venerable Geshe-la passed, so too the appearance of a specific person as our partner in this life can pass.  But our partner has always been Varjayogini and always will be.  She appeared in the form we needed for the time we were together and now she is appearing in different ways, but she remains an emanation for us – just encouraging us to practice in different ways. The fact that our relationship with them may be over doesn’t mean they weren’t an emanation of Vajrayogini for us.  They brought us to where we are now, and our relationship with Vajrayogini continues, just now in a different form.

Perhaps a new conventional emanation will appear as our partner or perhaps our relationship with her will become primarily internal like it is with Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, we don’t know our karma. We learned so much being with our partner and that is all due to the blessings of Vajrayogini.  The fact that our partnership with the mistaken appearance of the conventionally appearing emanation may have ended doesn’t change who has always been and who always will be our partner – namely Vajrayogini. 

And the deeper truth is this: Vajrayogini has come for us, even if we haven’t recognized her yet. She came for us the first time we received the empowerment. In Guide to Dakini Land, Venerable Geshe-la describes how after having engaged in extensive mantra recitation and having received certain signs, we can put sindhura powder on our forehead and go out in the world until the powder transfers to some woman, who we should then have no doubt is an emanation of Vajrayogini who has come for us. That’s one way it can happen. For me, and this is a true story, I was sitting in a Panda Express eating my Beijing Beef and I was suddenly hit with an unmistakeable feeling that Vajrayogini had come for me, right then, right there. I felt her in everything around me, even the Chinese noodles. I started crying with release and joy. There was this six year old kid staring at me wondering why this middle-aged man was crying in the corner eating his lunch! Ever since that day, I have had the feeling that Vajrayogini is with me. She appears in various ways in my life, but I feel her presence daily – not just externally, but internally. I’m learning to allow her to take me by the hand and escort me home to Keajra where we will always be together, sharing our great bliss with all living beings, guiding them home.

Heruka and Vajrayogini’s love for one another is eternal. They are not an ordinary couple. They can enter into any couple and love each other through the field of their karma. When two pure Kadampas who share the same lineage, empowerments, and view come together, Heruka and Vajrayogini’s love for one another can flow very powerfully and we get a sense of what it means that enlightenment can be attained in one lifetime through the Ganden Oral Lineage instructions. Our job is simple: get out of the way and let them love each other through us. There will be hiccups along the way, but that is due to our negative or contaminated karma interfering with the natural flow of love between them. But we don’t need to worry, their love can heal it all. We just need unwavering faith, a pure bodhichitta motivation, and a qualified understanding of pure view. Pure view does not try say that everything the other person does is somehow perfect from the side of the object. No, that is grasping at inherently existent pure view. Pure view exists on the side of the mind. It knows how to receive perfect benefit from whatever the other person does. Even when they seem to act in deluded ways, it serves as a powerful teaching or opportunity for us to identify the delusions within our own mind and work on them. Wonderful. We can then say that the person is an emanation of Vajrayogini appearing in seemingly deluded ways to give us an opportunity to train in the Lamrim of Sutra and Tantra. Then, there are no problems.

Vajrayogini’s Uncommon Qualities

Vajrayogini practice has many uncommon qualities that surpass even Heruka practice.  First, her three-OM mantra is the king of all mantras.  Geshe-la explains in Guide to Dakini Land:

“By reciting this mantra we can help others to fulfill their wishes and gain peace, good health, long life, and prosperity. We gain the ability to avert others’ diseases, such as cancer, strokes, and paralysis, as well as all physical pain and dangers from fire, water, earth, and wind.  Some practitioners who have a strong karmic link with Vajrayogini, through their daily practice or by merely reciting this mantra attain outer Dakini Land before their death, sometimes even without engaging in close retreats or intense meditation. Some attain Dakini Land in the bardo by remembering as if in a dream their daily recitation of the mantra, thereby enabling Vajrayogini to lead them to her Pure Land. In Dakini Land these practitioners are cared for by Heruka and Vajrayogini and, without ever having to undergo uncontrolled death again, they attain enlightenment during that life. It is for these reasons that the three-OM mantra of Vajrayogini is called the `king of all mantras’.”

Vajrayogini’s body mandala is also unequaled.  Again, Geshe-la explains in Guide to Dakini Land:

“In the practice of Heruka’s body mandala, Deities are generated at the outer tips of the twenty-four channels, at the twenty-four inner places. In Vajrayogini’s body mandala, however, the Deities are generated at the inner tips of the twenty-four channels, inside the central channel at the heart channel wheel. This is the main reason why Vajrayogini’s body mandala is more profound than those of other Yidams.”

Finally, Vajrayogini practice has an uncommon yoga of inconceivability, which is the most profound practice of self-powa in existence, enabling us to transfer our consciousness to the pure land where we can complete our spiritual training without ever having to take another samsaric rebirth.  Through this practice, Geshe-la explains:

“The uncommon yoga of inconceivability is a special method, unique to the practice of Vajrayogini, whereby we can attain Pure Dakini Land within this life without abandoning our present body.”

By contemplating these incredible benefits of Vajrayogini practice, we can generate a strong faithful wish to rely upon her in this and all our future lives.

How we can activate Vajrayogini’s good qualities in our life

We do not consider the good qualities of Vajrayogini to simply think how amazing she is, the goal is for us to generate wishing faith, wishing to acquire these good qualities ourselves.  At first, it can seem like her good qualities are so far away that knowledge of them is more academic than anything else.  But there is a method for activating her good qualities within us right now, where we quite literally start to become her and fulfill her function in the world.  How?  Through faithful recitation of the Eight Lines of Praise to the Mother.

Becoming Vajrayogini is not like an on-off switch but is rather like a volume knob – the more we rely upon her, the more we come to embody her good qualities until eventually we gradually become her.  In our practice of divine pride, we train in imputing our “I” onto Vajrayogini, thinking, “I am Vajrayogini.”  If we impute “I am Vajrayogini” onto our ordinary samsaric body and mind, this is not only a mistaken imputation, it might land us in a psychiatric hospital!  For an imputation to be valid, the basis of imputation must be valid.  For an imputation to be valid, the name, aspect, and function must all be in alignment.  A tennis racket may be used to strain spaghetti noodles, but we would not call it a strainer.  In the context of Vajrayogini practice, her aspect is the beautiful red Dakini, her function is to bestow the qualities of her mind, and her name is Vajrayogini.  If we impute our I onto these three – her name, aspect, and function – we can validly say we are Vajrayogini.

Oftentimes, especially in our early years of Vajrayogini practice, we tend to place primary emphasis on the “aspect” of Vajrayogini, imputing our “I” onto this mere image.  But this rarely works to generate much feeling of actually being Vajrayogini.  In contrast, when we feel like this aspect is performing the function of Vajrayogini in our mind, then when we impute our I onto Vajrayogini engaging in her enlightened deeds, it is very easy to generate a qualified feeling of divine pride being Vajrayogini leading all beings to freedom. 

For me at least, the supreme method for generating a feeling of Vajrayogini accomplishing her function is using the Eight Lines of Praise as an invocation for her to accomplish her special function through us.  When we do this, we will feel her enter us and accomplish these eight special functions through us; and on this basis, it is easy to generate a qualified divine pride.

We can understand how to do this as follows:

OM I prostrate to Vajravarahi, the Blessed Mother HUM HUM PHAT

To prostrate means to wish to become, it is a form of wishing faith.  Vajravarahi refers to her function of destroying ignorance, recognizing her as the essence of the perfection of wisdom that destroys ignorance.  Blessed Mother means she is the mother of all the Buddhas, both in the sense of all Buddhas are born from bliss and emptiness (definitive Vajrayogini), but also in the sense of the actual mother of all the Buddhas in that they arise from her.  In this sense, she is simply the highest yoga tantra version of Mother Tara.  When we recite this line, we imagine we invoke this power to destroy the ignorance of all living beings and give birth to all the Buddhas, requesting that this function be accomplished within our mind.

OM To the Superior and powerful Knowledge Lady unconquered by the three realms HUM HUM PHAT

Superior means she can see directly the ultimate nature of all phenomena; powerful Knowledge Lady means she has the power to bestow great bliss; and unconquered by the three realms means she has the power to overcome all delusions of the desire, form, and formless realm.  When we recite this line, we imagine we invoke her to bestow bliss on ourselves and all living beings, which bestows a direct realization of emptiness on the minds of all, enabling them to completely abandon all the delusions of the three realms.  We feel as if this is actually happening inside our mind.

OM To you who destroy all fears of evil spirits with your great vajra HUM HUM PHAT

Nobody is an evil spirit from their own side, they only become evil spirits for us if we relate to them in deluded ways.  It is our delusions that create all evil spirits in our life, and we can say from one perspective all evil spirits are really just our delusions so condense that they take on a life or personality of their own and function like they are an “evil spirit.”  But through Vajrayogini’s blessings, we can come to experience all beings and all phenomena as manifestations of her mind of bliss and emptiness.  In this way, what was previously experienced as an evil spirit in our life is now experienced as the dance of bliss and emptiness.  Instead of harming us, we receive blessings.  All fear is destroyed because they are now seen as bliss and emptiness, and indeed we can say all “evil spirits” themselves are destroyed, not in the sense of they are killed, but in the sense that there is no longer a valid basis for imputing “evil spirit.”  When we recite this line, we imagine that we come to see all phenomena as manifestations of bliss and emptiness, and so we fear nothing and nobody has the power to harm us in any way.  We strongly believe our view of everything has changed and now we fear nothing because we experience it all as great bliss.

OM To you with controlling eyes who remain as the vajra seat unconquered by others HUM HUM PHAT

Vajra seat here means she is always in union with Heruka who is eternally filling her with great bliss as she bestows the realization of emptiness on his mind.  Her controlling eyes can subdue negative behavior simply by looking at others, much in the way a mother’s firm stare brings her children in line without saying a word.   When we recite this verse, we imagine that while in union with Heruka – being filled with bliss and bestowing upon him the realization of emptiness – we can look out onto all living beings subduing all of their negative behavior in an instant.  We feel this compassionate power coursing through us and that this function is actually being accomplished.

OM To you whose wrathful fierce form desiccates Brahma HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to Vajrayogini’s ability to subdue the pride of all living beings, even the highest gods.  Geshe-la explains that pride is the death of all spiritual learning.  If we are free from pride, we can use the Dharma to overcome all our other faults; but if we are consumed by pride, we cannot overcome any of our faults.  Subduing our pride is, in this sense, a prerequisite for all spiritual progress.  Vajrayogini does not merely subdue our pride, she desiccates it, which means to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality.  We generate pride when we observe some uncommon characteristic we have and then think that somehow makes us better than others.  Perhaps a candle in a dark room provides some light but standing next to the blazing of the sun its luminescence is humbled.  In the same way, we may think we are special in some way, but standing before the Vajra Queen we are stripped away of all pretension and are drained of any emotional or intellectual basis for thinking we are special in any way.  Vajrayogini’s mere presence has this humbling effect on all living beings, opening their mind to generate faith in the spiritual path.  When we recite this line, we feel as if the pride of ourselves and all living beings has been thoroughly desiccated and everyone now bows down with humble faith in her magnificence, ready to learn from her.

OM To you who terrify and dry up demons, conquering those in other directions HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to the ability of her wisdom blessings to burn up the inner demons of ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions of all living beings.  According to Sutra, the root of samsara is self-grasping ignorance, but according to Tantra, the root is ordinary appearances and conceptions.  Ordinary appearances are, essentially, the things that we normally see – all of which appear to exist from their own side, independent of our mind.  They appear to have some objective existence that we believe our mind merely observes accurately.  Ordinary conceptions are believing these appearances to be true.  We think everything really does exist in the way that it appears.  Due to ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions, we remain trapped in the nightmare of samsara, and the same is true for all other living beings.  The fire of Vajrayogini’s wisdom blessings has the power to burn through all ordinary appearances and conceptions like the fire at the end of the aeon, stripping away samsara from everyone and enabling them to see directly pure worlds.  Samsara is nothing more than a dream that need not be.  Vajrayogini has the power to burn it all away.  When we recite this verse, we imagine we invoke the fire of her wisdom blessings to radiate out like a spherical burst in all directions stripping away the ordinary appearances and conceptions of all living beings, and then we strongly believe that as a result of this enlightened action all beings are now able to see directly her pure world, Keajra Pure Land.

OM To you who conquer all those who make us dull, rigid, and confused HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to her ability to protect us from evil spirits who would interfere with our spiritual practice by making our minds dull, rigid, or confused.  There are countless evil spirits who would interfere with our practice, and we have all experienced the effects of their interference in our practice.  Vajrayogini can subdue these spirits in four ways, the first of which was already explained above by viewing them as manifestations of bliss and emptiness.  The second is just as would-be attackers are deterred through knowing they are outmatched, so too evil spirits know they stand no chance against Vajrayogini and so they keep their distance.  The third is through the wisdom fire of her protection circle, the basis for any negativity is burned away as it approaches, and thus cannot even enter like a magical shield that disarms all those who would enter her realm.  Negativity simply can’t get through.  The fourth way is through the power of her love and compassion for evil spirits who would do harm.  Just as Buddha Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree defeated all the spirits through the power of his love, so too Vajrayogini’s unconditional love defeats the evil intentions of all those who would interfere with our practice.  As Geshe-la famously said, love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.  When we recite this verse, we imagine we invoke Vajrayogini to dispel all interference from evil spirits in these four ways, and strongly believe as a result all interference is permanently subdued.

OM I bow to Vajravarahi, the Great Mother, the Dakini consort who fulfills all desires HUM HUM PHAT

This refers to Vajrayogini’s ability to fulfill all the pure wishes of living beings.  Buddhas do not fulfill our worldly wishes – nothing can since samsara is by nature contaminated.  But they can fulfill all our pure wishes.  Like a loving mother who helps fulfill all the pure wishes of her children, Vajrayogini works tirelessly to fulfill all the pure wishes of all living beings.  What are pure wishes?  They are spiritual wishes, such as wishing to abandon lower rebirth, escape from samsara, and gain the ability to lead all beings to enlightenment.  They also include any wish to overcome our delusions, purify our negative karma, or gain any of the realizations of the stages of the path.  Vajrayogini is the real wish-fulfilling jewel who possesses the power to fulfill all the pure wishes of all living beings.  When we recite this verse, we strongly imagine that she does so in an instant and everyone is spontaneously born into the pure land. 

We can recite these Eight Verses anytime, both in meditation and out of meditation.  We can also recite specific lines of the eight verses as targeted prayers for specific situations we find ourselves in.  The effectiveness of our recitations depends primarily upon the purity of our motivation, the depth of our faith, the degree of our single-pointed concentration, and the extent of our realization of emptiness of all phenomena.  The more we improve these four conditions, the more we will begin to feel Vajraygoini entering into us and accomplishing her function through us in the world.  With deeper experience, it will almost feel like she takes on a life of her own inside of us, spontaneously accomplishing her function in this world.  Once we have a taste of this experience, generating qualified divine pride both in and out of meditation is easy.

May we all come under Vajrayogini’s loving care and behold her sublime face.  May we become empty vessels through which she may accomplish her enlightened deeds in this world, bringing benefit and happiness to ourselves and all living beings in the process.  May she burn away all ordinary appearance and conception until we see ourselves directly as the Vajra Queen.

Happy Je Tsongkhapa Day: I Rejoice in the Great Wave of your Deeds

Kadampa Ryan 7. Kadampa meaning of special days , , , ,

In many ways, October 25th, or Je Tsongkhapa Day, is my favorite day of the Kadampa calendar.  Why?  Because he is the founder of our tradition, our living spiritual guide, and the source of all good.  On Je Tsongkhapa Day, we can remember his great kindness, strive to emulate his example, and ultimately decide to mix our mind inseparably with his.  I pray that all those who read this develop unchanging faith in Guru Tsongkhapa, and in dependence upon this faith, effortlessly follow his joyful path.

Understanding How Holy Days Work

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

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

Je Tsongkhapa is the Founder of the New Kadampa Tradition

Buddha Shakyamuni is the founder of Buddhism in this world, and all of the different types of Buddhism (Zen, Theravadin, Kadampa, etc.) are all different presentations of his teachings.  Buddha gave 84,000 different instructions, but different traditions will place different emphasis on different aspects to correspond with the karmic dispositions of those who follow that tradition.  We cannot say one tradition is better than another in some absolute sense, rather we can say, “this tradition is better for me,” and “that tradition is better for her,” etc.  In this way, we can each cherish our own traditions while respecting all others.

Atisha is the founder of the Kadampa tradition.  ‘Kadam’ means a special presentation of Buddha’s 84,000 teachings called the “Lamrim,” which the Buddhist Master Atisha introduced when he went from India to Tibet in 1042 AD.  ‘Pa’ means somebody who puts into practice.  A Kadampa, therefore, means somebody who takes Atisha’s Lamrim as their main practice.  Atisha is primarily known for uniting the vast and profound paths together.  The vast path refers to the accumulation of merit, the principal cause of a Buddha’s body; and the profound path refers to the accumulation of wisdom, the principal cause of a Buddha’s mind.  By practicing the union of the two, our practices of the vast and profound paths reinforce each other and we create the causes to attain a Buddha’s body and mind simultaneously.  His path is generally presented as the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, namely renunciation, bodhichitta, and the correct view of emptiness.  Renunciation is the wish to escape from samsara ourselves, bodhichitta is the wish to become a Buddha to lead others to liberation, and the correct view of emptiness eradicates the root of samsara, self-grasping ignorance.

Je Tsongkhapa (1357 to 1419 AD) is the founder of the New Kadampa Tradition. Just as Atisha presented the union of the vast and profound path, Je Tsongkhapa introduced the union of Sutra and Tantra. Like the old Kadampas, practitioners of the New Kadampa Tradition also take Atisha’s Lamrim as their main practice. The difference is New Kadampas can practice the Lamrim at the gross level (Sutra) and the subtle level (Tantra) as completely non-contradictory. Sutra is how we practice Buddha’s instructions with our gross mind, Tantra is how we do so with our subtle and very subtle minds, but both are methods of practicing Lamrim.

Ultimately, Tantra is much quicker than Sutra because our gross minds arise from our subtle and very subtle mind. If we pull weeds but fail to take out the roots, the weeds will grow back; in the same way, if we pacify our gross minds but fail to purify our subtle minds, the delusions will keep coming back. Tantra is a special spiritual technology for purifying our root mind, or our very subtle mind, of all of our delusions and their karmic imprints, thus eradicating samsara at its root. We purify our very subtle mind by meditating on its emptiness. This one meditation functions to simultaneously uproot all of the contaminated karma we have accumulated since beginningless time. Je Tsongkhapa showed how the paths of Sutra and Tantra are not only completely non-contradictory, but are mutually reinforcing, and by practicing them together in the context of Atisha’s Lamrim, we can quickly attain enlightenment.

The New Kadampa Tradition has five main aspects of the path: renunciation, bodhichitta, the correct view of emptiness, generation stage, and completion stage. These can be understood as there is one action on the path: changing the basis of imputation of our I from our ordinary samsaric body and mind to the completely pure body and mind of a Buddha. There are two reasons why we do it, renunciation (for ourselves) and bodhichitta (for others). And there are two levels at which we do it, the gross body and mind of a Buddha (generation stage) and the subtle body and mind of a Buddha (completion stage). Je Tsonkghapa is the founder of this way of practicing.

Since Je Tsongkhapa, there has been an unbroken lineage of his teachings down to our present-day lineage gurus, including Je Phabongkhapa, Trijang Rinpoche, and our very own Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.  There is no difference in meaning between the Dharma Je Tsongkhapa taught and what we currently practice, the only difference is the cultural presentation, analogies, and languages used to express that meaning.  Everything we practice, directly or indirectly, comes from Je Tsongkhapa.  We are Je Tsongkhapa’s tradition.  The New Kadampa Tradition – International Kadampa Buddhist Union (NKT-IKBU) was founded by Geshe-la to present Je Tsongkhapa’s teachings to the modern world. 

Je Tsongkhapa is our Living Spiritual Guide

One of the hardest parts of the Buddhist path for modern people is relying upon a “guru.”  At first, it all seems very “cult-like.”  I remember telling my first teacher Gen Lekma once, “I’m down with all of the Dharma teachings except this whole reliance upon the spiritual guide thing!”  When I told her this, she was in the middle of swallowing some tea, and she nearly spit it out in a laugh.  After collecting herself, she looked at me and said, “I have found that the things we struggle the most with at first later become the things that have the biggest transformative impact on our mind.”  Truer words have never been spoken. 

To understand why reliance upon the spiritual guide is the root of the path, we have to back up a bit.  Why do we need teachers in general?  Because we are ignorant and don’t know.  Why do we need spiritual teachers?  Because we are ignorant of the spiritual path, not knowing its destinations nor how to follow the path to these destinations.  Why do we need a root guru or root spiritual guide?  Because we need somebody who has completed the path and can guide our mind to the same state.  It takes humility to learn from any teacher, it takes great humility to rely upon a Spiritual Guide. 

Normally, we say Geshe-la is the root guru, or Spiritual Guide, of the NKT.  It is true everything we study and practice comes from him, and he has created for us all of the conditions we now enjoy for our practice, such as temples, centers, teachers, sangha friends, books, sadhanas, and so forth.  But what does he say?  He says don’t look at me, rather look at Je Tsongkhapa at my heart.  We view Geshe-la as an emanation of Je Tsongkhapa, but Je Tsongkhapa is our actual Spiritual Guide.  What does Je Tsongkhapa say?  He says don’t look at me, rather look at Buddha Shakyamuni at my heart.  What does Buddha Shakyamuni say?  Don’t look at me, rather look at Heruka at my heart.  Guru Heruka is our actual spiritual guide.  He appeared as Buddha Shakyamuni to introduce the Dharma to the people of this world.  He later appeared as Je Tsongkhapa, who in turn appeared as Geshe-la.  This is Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka. Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka is, always has been, and always will be the spiritual guide of the Kadampa tradition. From one perspective, it is the same person – the same mental continuum – appearing at different points in time according to the karmic dispositions of the people of this world.

But from another perspective, Je Tsongkhapa is still our Spiritual Guide today. His emanation bodies may change, but the jewel in the lotus remains the same person. When Buddhas attain enlightenment, they become deathless beings. Their emanation bodies may pass away, but they do not, they continue to live. We can continue to develop a living relationship with these holy beings because they are still with us today. He is still here, guiding us, teaching us, blessing us, and so forth. Geshe-la, the Gen-la’s, and all of our other spiritual teachers are essentially spiritual telephones which connect the pure world of Je Tsongkhapa with our present samsaric reality. Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka speaks and works through all of them. When we rely upon our outer spiritual teachers they explain to us how to develop a relationship with our inner spiritual teachers who then take us to enlightenment. The outer teachers and the inner teachers are not separate beings, but different layers of the same being appearing to different levels of purity of mind.

Whenever we engage in any Guru Yoga practice, our main job is to feel we are in the living presence of our spiritual guide – seeing all of the Buddhas as inseparable from our guru and our guru as inseparable from all the Buddhas.  Every practice we engage in is about creating a close karmic relationship with our spiritual guide in his different karmic aspects.  In dependence upon this karmic relationship, we gain greater and greater access to our spiritual guide’s blessings, until eventually, it is almost as if we gain the ability to download their enlightenment into our own mind.  In the end, we mix our mind with our guru’s mind, where we make no distinction between our mind and his enlightened mind.  From one perspective, it is like a mind transplant where his mind becomes ours; from another perspective, it is like removing the obstructions to our own root mind and discovering that our actual mind was his enlightened mind all along. 

Because Je Tsongkhapa is the embodiment of his Dharma, by mixing our mind with his, we mix our mind with his special union of Sutra and Tantra and eventually come to see ourselves as a wave inseparable from the ocean of his omniscient mind.  We view all phenomena as arising from emptiness, all emptinesses as the nature of our mind of great bliss, and the union of our realization of great bliss and emptiness as inseparable from our guru’s Truth Body, or Dharmakaya. 

Je Tsongkhapa is the Source of all Good

This is somewhat harder to understand.  All good things come from good karma.  All good karma comes from virtuous actions.  All virtuous actions arise due to receiving blessings from the holy beings.  Je Tsongkhapa is the synthesis of all the Buddhas, therefore he is the source of all blessings, virtuous actions, good karma, and ultimately good results. 

Sometimes, we like to take credit for our good deeds, therefore we think Je Tsongkhapa is not the source of all good, we are. Or maybe it is a mixed affair, where he helps us with his blessings, but mostly it comes from our own effort. This doubt comes from grasping at a duality between ourselves and our ultimate nature. Our good deeds arise from our good intentions, but where do they arise from? They pour into our mind when we open it up to the sun of our pure potential. Just as the sun pours in whenever the blinds are opened, so too virtuous intentions come into our mind when cracks in the layers of the karmic obstructions on our mind appear. But what is our pure potential? By nature, it is Guru Tsongkhapa. All Buddhas impute their I onto the truth body or Dharmakaya. What is this? It is a mind of great bliss that realizes directly and simultaneously the emptiness of all phenomena. A Buddha’s body and mind are the same entity, the same nature, which means their truth body pervades all phenomena. Because we too are empty, we have a pure potential. This pure potential fully realized is Je Tsongkhapa. Every time we access or ripen this potential, we are releasing some of Je Tsongkhapa into our mind. Thus, he is inseparable from all of our good intentions – he is our good intentions manifesting in our mind.

There are many prayers to Je Tsongkhapa, but the most famous is the Migtsema prayer, which explains that Je Tsongkhapa is the synthesis of Buddha Shakyamuni, Vajradhara, Avaolokitehsvara, Manjushri, and Vajrapaini. There is also the single-pointed request which explains he is the guru, he is the yidam, he is the daka, and the Dharma protector. If all of the goodness in all of the universe were gathered together, it would produce the appearance of Je Tsongkhapa. Put another way, Je Tsongkhapa is a holy being who has managed to successfully impute his I onto the synthesis of all goodness. Thus it is perfectly correct to say he is the source of all good because he is all goodness itself.

But how can we understand he is the source of all good, including that of non-Buddhists?  Everything we perceive is ultimately created by our mind, arising from our mind.  There is no creator other than mind, and there is nothing that exists outside of our mind (if it did, that thing would be inherently existent).  This means that everything is part of our karmic dream. Any good we perceive in the world is a reflection of the goodness in our mind.  We created the karma for that goodness to appear.  We already established that all goodness that arises in our mind comes from Je Tsongkhapa, thus any goodness that arises in our karmic dream also arises from him. 

Remembering Je Tsongkhapa’s Kindness

On Je Tsongkhapa Day, our main practice should be to remember his kindness.  We can do this by contemplating what Geshe-la said about Je Tsongkhapa Day.  I find it particularly helpful to remember his kindness in my own life.  He has given me my spiritual life.  Without my Dharma practice, I don’t know how I would have turned out in the wake of my mother’s suicide on my wedding day or all of the other challenges I have faced in my life.  Je Tsongkhapa’s way of thinking has come to dominate my way of thinking, and I am much happier for it.  It suffices to ask myself what my life would be like if I had never met his Dharma to see the profound impact it has had. 

More importantly, he has provided me with the spiritual tools I need to close the door on ever taking lower rebirth again through purification and refuge practice.  Through his kindness, I have found the door to liberation that will enable me to once and for all cease the samsaric nightmare I have been trapped in since beginningless time.  He has shown me not only that I can attain enlightenment and thereby be in a position to help all those I love who are also drowning in samsara, but he has provided me with incredibly simple step-by-step instructions for how to do it.  In what can only be described as a miracle, I have found qualified tantric teachings of generation and completion stage through which it is possible to attain enlightenment in one life or barring that, at least getting to the pure land where I can complete my spiritual training.  His blessings flow into me day and night, even while I sleep, holding me back from quite literally going insane.  Without him, I would be lost.  With him, I have been found.  By relying upon him, I can fulfill all my own and other’s pure wishes.  He is a true wish-fulfilling jewel who has kept alive the holy Kadam Dharma in this world, and it is my job to do all that I can to internalize it and then pass it on to future generations.

Emulating his Example

If I were trapped on a desert island and only allowed one book, it would be Great Treasury of Merit. Normally we say Joyful Path of Good Fortune is like the hub of the wheel of Dharma, and all of the other books are like spokes of that wheel. But the axis around which Joyful Path turns is Great Treasury of Merit which presents the very synthesis of Je Tsongkhapa’s Dharma by showing how all the essential meanings of his teachings fit together with exactly the right proportionalities of how important each teaching is. In truth, the book is about 70% how to rely upon the Spiritual Guide and 30% everything else, which is exactly correct. The sections on visualizing the spiritual guide explain the meaning of his holy form. Buddhas can manifest their inner realizations as outer forms, and Je Tsongkhapa’s body is quite literally all of his realizations as form. By generating faith in his holy form, we mix our mind with all of his realizations. The sections on prostrations, praises, and making requests explain his many good qualities and special functions in our life. Reading these with faith, one cannot help but be amazed. In truth, I would say the true hub of the wheel of the Kadampa teachings is Oral Instructions of Mahamudra and Mirror of Dharma. In my mind, Mirror of Dharma is the Oral Instructions of Lamrim. Around this is Great Treasury of Merit, round that is Joyful Path, and then emanating like spokes are all the other books. But if I’m only allowed one book, I still pick Great Treasury of Merit.

There are two aspects of his example which appeal to me most.  The first is how he demonstrates the practice of moral discipline and the second is the great wave of his deeds. 

His outer form is of a fully ordained monk, revealing the practices of the vows of individual liberation. His inner form is Buddha Shakyamuni, revealing the moral discipline of a Bodhisattva. And his secret form is Vajradhara or Heruka, demonstrating the moral discipline of a tantric master. At my very first Kadampa festival, when Geshe-la first opened the temple in Manjushri, he gave a three-day teaching on essentially one subject – overcoming distractions. He explained that we have everything we need to attain enlightenment, the only thing that is missing is our practicing these instructions without distraction. The practices of moral discipline are how we overcome our gross distractions by letting go of each object of abandonment. Moral discipline is not wishing to engage in negativity, but holding ourselves back from doing so. Rather, it is realizing we no longer wish to do so, and so we “let go” of wanting the objects of our transgressions. Normally, we think moral discipline is a list of ‘don’ts’ that deprives us of our freedom. We have everything backward. The practice of moral discipline is a profound shift in our mind that is experienced as a “release” into greater and greater levels of inner freedom by leaving behind the chains of samsara.

Every day in our Heart Jewel practice, we rejoice in the great wave of Je Tsongkhapa’s deeds. What exactly is this great wave? We can say it is his special method for eventually liberating all beings. He attained enlightenment. What did he do with his enlightenment? He formed new spiritual guides for carrying forward the tradition. What did those spiritual guides do? Create more spiritual guides still. In this way, his virtuous deeds multiple exponentially until eventually the wave of his kind actions will carry every single living being to the state of full enlightenment. He has set in motion a spiritual self-perpetuating machine whose function is to liberate all beings from all suffering forever. In one short life, he initiated a wave that will never stop until all of his pure wishes are fulfilled.

We have the incredible good fortune to not only receive benefit from him but to become ourselves part of his great wave. He has laid at our feet exactly the same Dharma he taught and realized. By picking up the Dharma he has given us and bringing it into our mind, we too can become a fully qualified spiritual guide able to carry forward this great lineage for the benefit of all those we have a close karmic relationship with. If we do not do this for those we love, who will? It may be aeons before his wave comes around again to these beings, but we can carry them with us right now. Gen Tharchin says the beings who we generate bodhichitta towards as bodhisattvas are among the first we lead to enlightenment when we attain the final goal. Look around at everyone you love, see how they are drowning, and now remember Je Tsongkhapa has given you the means to do something about it by becoming part of his great wave.

Deciding to Mix our Mind with His

In the final analysis, attaining enlightenment is very simple:  all we need to do is mix our mind inseparably with somebody who has already attained enlightenment.  In this way, the duality between their mind and our mind vanishes, and their enlightened mind becomes our mind and our mind becomes their enlightened mind.  Everything else in the Dharma is why we should do this and how to do it.  As practitioners of the New Kadampa Tradition, whose mind do we mix ours with?  Lama Tsongkhapa’s.  It’s as simple as that.

Every object of meditation is an aspect of his mind.  Every instruction we practice comes from his mind. Every realization we gain is an infusion of his mind into our own.  Every practice we do is changing the basis of imputation of our I from our ordinary contaminated body and mind to his completely pure body and mind.  Every deity we rely upon is like a facet on the diamond of his mind.  Every phenomenon we see is a wave on the ocean of his mind.  He is everything.  Our job is so simple:  just mix our mind with his.  Whatever we mix our mind with, we become.  Since he is the synthesis of all the Buddhas, all Dharmas, and all Sanghas, by mixing our mind with his, we too become the source of all good.

The only thing that is missing is deciding to dedicate our lives to this goal.  There are so many things we do in life, but how many of them do us any good?  Only deciding to mix our mind with his will free us.  We can reach the point where our every thought, word, and deed is him working through us.  We need not struggle in our spiritual practice, we merely need to request his blessings.  We need not invent the path, we can simply follow the one he has laid out for us.  We need not ever doubt, we can internally request his wisdom.  There is nothing he cannot provide us, all we need to do is decide to rely upon him.

Today is Je Tsongkhapa Day.  Every decision we make today is karmically equivalent to making that same decision ten million times.  What better way to mark this holy day than making the firm internal decision to dedicate our life to mixing our mind with Lama Tsongkhapa’s, our living Spiritual Guide.  I pray that everyone who reads this transforms their life in this way.

Happy 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 that 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.  At a technical level, their main cause is the karmic tendencies similar to the cause created by our own past mental actions of delusions. When a deluded tendency ripens in our mind, say thinking that external things are causes of our happiness or attachment, and we assent to that tendency, we create the new mental action of generating a delusion. If a deluded tendency ripens and instead of assenting to it, we realize it is deceptive and we apply opponents or antidotes – or even simply choose to not follow it and let it return back to our root mind like clouds dissolving back into the sky – we are training in the moral discipline of restraint and creating the karmic causes for a higher spiritual rebirth (another precious human life, reaching the pure land, attaining liberation, or even attaining enlightenment).

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 – forever.  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 (American) 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 putting my instructions into practice,” 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 protect 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 family, 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?

On Mixing Dharma and Politics – Not Letting Political Differences Divide the Sangha

Kadampa Ryan 4. Practicing in Daily Life , , , ,

For a lot of Americans, the political changes happening in the United States right now are deeply troubling. The same is true for a lot of non-Americans who see what is happening. Yet at the same time, there are a lot of other Americans who are pleased with what is happening. The same is also true around the world.

There is also no doubt within the global Kadampa Sangha we have many examples of people who are both pleased and displeased with the changes that are occurring. Yet let’s be honest here, the Kadampa community on the whole does tend to skew left politically, so I would guess there are many more people who are troubled by what is happening and others who are afraid to voice their support for fear of being judged by their spiritual community.

Perhaps because it is part of my job, I have given a lot of thought to the question of the relationship between Dharma and politics. On the one hand, VGL is very clear we should absolutely not have any mixing of Dharma and politics at all. When religion and politics mix, the politics do not become more enlightened, rather the religion becomes more political. The spiritual path is primarily about future lives. The Dharma has a lot of opinions about delusions and karma, it has absolutely no opinions about who’s in power and what direction they are taking a given country or the world. This causes many Dharma practitioners to fall into the extreme of thinking we shouldn’t think or talk about politics at all for fear of mixing the two. There are others who come to this same conclusion because each time politics is mentioned in Dharma circles it usually ignites a firestorm, like stepping on a bee’s hive, creating unnecessary division within the sangha. There are others still who might not share the dominant political views within the Kadampa community and when they express views that are contrary to the dominant view, they get attacked for being a bad Kadampa or something – how can you possibly support what is going on and be a good Kadampa??? Call it Dharma cancel culture if you want. This hurts, so they conclude it is better to just say nothing.

On the other hand, VGL is also very clear that our job is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life. He said he has given us the Kadam Dharma, we know modern life, our job is to unite the two. Politics and what is happening in the political realm is unquestionably part of modern life. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend things like wars, revolutions, or major political developments that are affecting the lives of billions are not happening. This is especially true in democratic countries where power is first and foremost vested in the people. Politics is fundamentally about how power is shared and used. Power is inextricably part of modern life. Protecting others creates the causes for power. We cannot both protect others and not accumulate power. How we use the power we have is fundamentally a political question. Democratic systems are political systems – governing how power is shared and used.

So how can we reconcile all this? I would say by relying upon the wisdom realizing emptiness, remembering without inner peace outer peace is impossible, training in the instruction that everybody is welcome, and doing our part to uphold the internal rules of the NKT.

Each one of us has a different karmic point of view on what is happening in the world. There is no one single correct karmic perspective, there are just countless different ones. As a result of this different karma, we will each diagnose the ills of the world through different lenses. We are quite literally seeing different things, or at least different angles on the same thing depending upon our karmic positionality. Since we each see the world in different ways, it is entirely natural, normal, and not a problem that we will each have different political opinions about things. This creates some space in our mind to accommodate different political views among people who share a common love of the same Dharma.

VGL was very concerned about world peace and we should be too. We have Temples for World Peace, World Peace Cafe’s, and he often taught without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. In Toronto during the Iraq war, he famously said, “love is the real nuclear bomb that destroys all enemies.” So does this mean all Kadampas must be peaceniks? He also taught it is possible to kill virtuously if it is protecting even more others. Many Kadampas have different opinions about the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere. What is the Kadampa solution to all this? Inner peace. Our job is to internally be at peace with the world and everything that happens in it. Being at peace with everything does not mean being aloof or doing nothing, rather it means we are able to maintain our inner peace with whatever appears. If we are internally at peace with the world, we are already experiencing world peace even if war is raging all around us. How do we become at peace with the world as it is? By removing any and all delusions we have about whatever is appearing. We don’t deny what is appearing in political realms, we just do the inner work to be at peace with whatever is appearing.

VGL also extensively taught about how within the Kadampa community that “everybody is welcome.” Because the world will appear to us in different ways according to our karma, we will quite naturally have different political views and opinions – and we will act on those views and opinions, even if that means some Kadampas find themselves on opposite sides of various political aisles. What matters within the Kadampa community is not what your political views are – the Dharma doesn’t have a single political point of view on any question – rather what matters is are you applying the Dharma to overcome whatever delusions you might be having with respect to what is appearing in the political realm. For some, that will mean supporting whatever is happening, for others that will mean fiercely opposing it with every fibre of their being. And both are perfectly OK as long as each person is countering whatever delusions are ripening within their mind. After the George Floyd murder, many within the Kadampa community (like much of the rest of the world), became very concerned with questions of diversity and inclusivity also within the Kadampa community itself. Some others thought this was mixing Dharma and politics and many divisions within the sangha emerged. My answer to this is “everybody welcome.” That doesn’t just mean everybody is welcome regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth, but also regardless of their political views. If we make it seem like only certain political views are welcome in Kadampa communities and consistent with the Dharma teachings we are, in my view, fundamentally betraying one of VGL’s main legacies of purifying the Dharma of politics. Good Kadampas fight their delusions and yes the delusions in the world, but they can do so from any political point of view they happen to be coming from. As a spiritual community, we MUST create the space for people of any political persuasion to feel entirely welcome. Otherwise, we are not practicing “everybody welcome.” And again, to be honest, this primarily means creating more space for right-leaning views and eliminating any trace of cancel culture within Kadampa communities towards those who might hold different political views.

Finally, within the Kadampa community itself, people will have a wide variety of different opinions about how power is distributed and used within the Kadampa community itself. Some will criticize parts as being too authoritarian, some will criticize other parts as being too rebellious, some will criticize the pricing policies or how the profits are spent, and others will criticize how we take care of our sangha members in retirement. Some will feel threatened when any decision made is questioned, others will feel like they don’t have the space to say anything for fear of being exiled or fired. All of this is entirely natural and not even slightly a problem. VGL has given us the internal rules for navigating all such questions. It is our constitution. VGL has said he wants the International Kadampa Buddhist Union to be entirely democratic. Each one of us will have a different positionality or role within the internal rules, but we all equally take on the internal rules as part of our moral discipline of being a Kadampa. We should each fulfill our role within the internal rules as faithfully as we can, upholding the internal rules above our own individual interests or perspective. There will naturally evolve different schools of thought about how we interpret the internal rules, some strict constructionists, others originalists, others still viewing it as a living document. This is no different than how judges interpret the constitution in different ways. No problem, all that is normal. We each fulfill our role within the internal rules with the least delusions and the most wisdom we can muster. We fulfill our role within the internal rules in a way that is consistent with the Dharma we have been taught. We need to create the space for this tension within the Kadampa community. Democratic systems divide power, with each part checking and balancing all the others. It’s not a problem that different people will have different views about the decisions being made (and how they are being made). This is a feature of the system, not a bug.

Politics is an inevitable part of modern life, even within the Kadampa community. We do not need to fear political differences within the Sangha about what is happening in the world or even what is happening within the Kadampa community. What we need to fear is delusions and contaminated karma, we need to fear ordinary appearances and conceptions. We don’t mix Dharma and politics, but we do engage in our politics in a Dharma way. Because we each will have different delusions with respect to what is appearing, we will naturally support or oppose different things and that is perfectly OK. As long as we are all fighting delusions, we are building inner peace. From this inner peace, outer peace will naturally emerge.

How to Make Definitive Prayers and Requests to the Buddhas:

Kadampa Ryan 3. Tantra, 4. Practicing in Daily Life, 5. Reliance upon Dorje Shugden , , , ,

From one perspective, all Dharmakayas – the truth body of a Buddha, the ultimate, definitive Buddha – are the same nature of the union of bliss and emptiness of all phenomena, like the different spaces within different empty bottles that when broken merge together seemingly indistinguishably. But we would not say there is just one Dharmakaya – that would be grasping at singularity with respect to the Dharmakaya.

Yet, at the same time, we can and do distinguish different Dharmakayas. There is Heruka’s Dharmakaya, Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya, Medicine Buddha’s Dharmakaya, Tara’s Dharmakaya and so forth. But we would not say there are entirely distinct Dharmakayas, as that would be grasping at inherently existent plurality of Dharmakayas.

Now we could say from the perspective of Guru Yoga there is just one Dharnmakaya, the Dharmakaya of our spiritual guide, and all other Buddhas arise from that. But even that is grasping at a singular of our Guru’s Dharmakaya. Our guru is a mere name that emanates all the Buddhas and all the Buddhas come together to form our guru. Both are equally true, just from different perspectives.

We might think, “OK, that’s interesting, but it seems like a philosophical point with no practical value.” Not true.

When we dissolve all things into the Dharmakaya, we should not lose track of whose Dharmakaya we are dissolving things into. Dissolving all phenomena into different Dharmakayas accomplishes different functions. Each Buddha accomplishes a different function in dependence upon the specific bodhichitta they generated as bodhisattvas on the path. For example, Tara promised to help all Kadampas with their Lamrim practice and to provide protection from diseases and so forth, Dorje Shugden promised to help arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment, and so forth.

The essential point of the union of appearance and emptiness according to highest yoga tantra, as I understand it at least, is the subtle conventional truths of objects are ultimate truths that abide inside emptiness. Inside the emptiness of the table is the subtle conventional truth of the table, the mere name table. We do not say emptiness in the abstract, it is always the emptiness of something, in this case the emptiness of the table. Inside the emptiness of the table is still the mere name and function of the table. There has always only been an empty table, yet it still accomplishes the function of a table. The name and function of a table does not cease when we realize its emptiness, but they exist and abide inside its emptiness. It remains a mere lack of inherent existence, but of something that does something.

The same is true of the emptiness, or truth bodies, of the different Buddhas. We can think of it like ice cream. Mint chocolate chip and cookie dough are both equally ice creams, but they definitely have different flavors. In the same way, the Dharmakaya of Heruka, the Dharmkaya of Dorje Shugden, the Dharmkaya of Medicine Buddha, and the Dharmakaya of Tara all all equally Dharmakayas, but they have different names and functions. Emptiness itself may not do anything, but all empty things have specific names and functions.

What is the practical value of this understanding? The main value is it removes completely anything and everything that obstructs the different Buddhas from bestowing their blessings on our mind and accomplishing their functions in our life.

For example, imagine you are experiencing a very difficult situation in life. If you dissolve everything you normally see that is creating such difficulty for you into Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya, we are not just saying none of these appearances exist. Dissolving everything into emptiness is not just a profound way of putting our head in the sand, thinking it will all go away if we don’t look. Dissolving everything into Dorje Shugden’s truth body is a way of offering that which is giving us trouble to Dorje Shugden, requesting him to transform it into a cause of our enlightenment and to perform his function to arrange all the outer and inner conditions necessary for our swiftest possible enlightenment. After we have dissolved the appearances into his Dharmakaya, when they re-emerge we will see and understand them from Dorje Shugden’s perspective. We will have the wisdom to see how this difficulty is exactly perfect for our swiftest possible enlightenment. Dissolving everything into his Dahrmakaya is a way of purifying the contaminated karma giving rise to the obstacles in the ocean his truth body. So the karma giving rise to those appearances which are indeed obstacles will be purified and even our external situation might change.

We might say how is this any different than just requesting Dorje Shugden to accomplish his function with respect to our difficult situation? It’s not different, it’s just a more powerful and more profound way of making the request. It is more powerful because it is making the request free from any obstructions grasping at inherent existence of ourself, Dorje Shugden, or our difficult situation. No obstructions to our request means more power to receiving his blessings. It is more profound because this is how we make definitive prayers and requests. Dissolving the disturbing appearance into Dorje Shugden’s Dharmakaya is how we definitively make a prayer and request to him to accomplish his function in our mind and life. Subsequent to our request, all appearances that arise will be experienced directly as the fulfillment of our prayer and request, gradually at first, but then later completely. What was experienced as an “obstacle” will now be experienced as “perfect for our practice.”

The exact same thing is true for the Dharmakayas of all the different Buddhas. Dissolving all phenomena into Heruka’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of compassion and non-dual appearance and emptiness. Dissolving all sick people and sickness into Medicine Buddha’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of healing outer and inner sickness. Dissolving all things into Tara’s Dharmakaya subsequently transforms all appearances into objects of Lamrim, and so forth.

It is not unlike making mandala offerings. When we make a mandala offering, we offer all objects of attachment, aversion, and ignorance to our spiritual guide, freeing our mind from such delusions. Dissolving all phenomena into the Dharmakaya is like making a definitive mandala offering. Dissolving all phenomena into the different Dharmakayas of the different Buddhas is like making definitive mandala offerings requesting the specific blessing and function of each Buddha.

Making our offerings, prayers, and requests in this way takes them to a whole new level, increases their power, and enables us to train in the union of faith and emptiness every moment of every day. Faith and prayer are emptiness in action.