Dharma for the modern world

Modern Buddhism or Kadampa Buddhism is the presentation of Je Tsongkhapa’s Kadam Dharma for the people of the modern world. But what’s so different about the people of the modern world?

On one level, not much, because living beings have always suffered from the same delusions. However, our karma and culture are different. We like things that are easy. We like things that are swift. We like things that will produce results with almost no effort. We like profundity that’s very simple for us to understand.

I was thinking about how Kadampa teachers regularly give teachings on emptiness to people who have just walked in off the street – “Everything is like a dream! There’s nothing outside your mind! You can’t find anything!”, and everyone is going, “Whoah!!” This is something we perhaps take for granted, yet it is very unlike the old days in India or Tibet where students would generally have to have studied the entire stages of the path as preparation, waiting many months or years before they got to hear about emptiness. There were probably a lot of teachings on emptiness being given around the world this week by Kadampa teachers, which were direct, simple, and practical, but also deeply profound. Liberating, too, because they are Buddha’s teachings presented in a way that modern people immediately appreciate: “I can do that. I understand that. I can meditate on how everything’s like a dream. This is helping me loosen up, understand that nothing is as fixed as it appears, and realize how important it is to change my mind.”

This is not how it was done in Tibet – but modern people are typically not inclined nor able to spend 20 years in a monastery. Having said that, once we are interested in emptiness, we can then delve into it very deeply with books such as The New Heart of Wisdom and Ocean of Nectar. To realize emptiness, we also need the motivation of renunciation and bodhichitta, amongst other things. In other words, there is no scrimping — on the three study programs we learn the full Kadam Dharma of Je Tsongkhapa.

Likewise, we may receive Tantric empowerments and teachings early on compared with past practitioners. This gives us vision and some taste of where we are heading, a result-oriented feeling for liberation and enlightenment, on which experiential basis we can spend many happy years deepening our understanding and realizations by practicing all the Sutric and Tantric commentaries. Integrating our practice into the quick path of Tantra makes it a lot easier to sustain the interest and effort in Dharma over a long period of time in these degenerate and distracting times.

We can mix modern Buddhism easily with a busy family and professional life — through engaging in simple but profound practices, we can make progress day by day, and our compassion and wisdom will grow. Someone told me yesterday that it was her one-year anniversary of finding “these incredible teachings”. She told me: “I know I still have a long way to go, but looking back I can see that I’ve changed beyond recognition already, and I’m so glad I found this community.” As we look back over the years — regardless of setbacks and providing we’re sticking it out — we can see that our compassion, love, patience, and wisdom have grown. We ARE making progress. And we can see other people making progress as well.

As you have probably noticed, the modern world tends to be very distracted. How do we practice the entire path to enlightenment when we’ve got the attention span of a goldfish?! By, for example, discovering many ways of transforming our modern daily life activities into Dharma, and learning meditations that help us effectively develop concentration and mindfulness — the absorption of cessation and clarity of mind to name but two. (There’s a bit more about modern Buddhism here: Buddhism and the Internet.)

By the way, although I know I can get carried away with how skillful my teacher has been in presenting Buddhism for us, I would never say that Kadampas are the only people on this planet practicing Dharma that is appropriate for modern lives. (Just in case you’re wondering.) There are billions of people on this planet; I have no idea what they’re all up to. Different people have karma with different teachers and ways of practicing — one of the most wonderful things about Buddhism, in my opinion, is understanding this and therefore not trying to convert people. The Tibetan traditions, also, have worked for Tibetans for centuries, producing many incredible practitioners. I am speaking about this Kadampa tradition because of course it’s the one I know and practice myself. As Geshe Kelsang says in the book Modern Buddhism:

Today we can see many different forms of Buddhism, such as Zen and Theravada Buddhism. All these different aspects are practices of Buddha’s teachings, and all are equally precious; they are just different presentations. In this book I shall explain about Buddhism according to the Kadampa tradition, which I have studied and practiced.

How to be an emanation

In his teachings in Portugal, Venerable Geshe-la said:

In reality, my root Guru Trijang Rinpoche is Lama Tsongkhapa and Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka. When he disappeared, his emanations still appear everywhere. I can say, sometimes I am his emanation. I am not saying I’m an enlightened being or I am Heruka, but I can be his emanation. How? Through my deep faith, the wisdom being of Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka enters my body and abides at my heart inseparably from my mind. Because the wisdom being of Lama Tsongkhapa abides inseparably in my heart, my mind changes from an ordinary mind into the supreme good heart, bodhichitta. Because my mind becomes pure, with a good heart, my actions become pure. And this makes all my activities successful because a pure good heart always brings good results. So in reality, temporarily, I can be an emanation of the Wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa, an emanation of my root Guru.

You know me, I like words. So I looked up the definition of “emanate”, which is “to flow out, issue, or proceed, as from a source or original; come forth; originate.” “Origin” in turn can mean source or fountainhead. And then Geshe-la said:

In the same way, you can also be my emanation.

We choose who is our Spiritual Guide – it is entirely up to us, as explained here: When the student is ready, the teacher appears. In viewing our Spiritual Guide as Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, we are making a strong connection to whomever we’ve chosen as our own living Buddha so that we can become just like them and pass it on:

Please nourish me with your goodness
So that I in turn can nourish all living beings. ~ Liberating Prayer

That connection that we have to our Spiritual Guide will be everything for us, just as Venerable Geshe-la says his connection to his Spiritual Guide is everything to him. This is Mahayana Buddhism — our connection to our Spiritual Guide ends up being everything. Why? Due to becoming closer and closer, we get those blessings streaming into our heart day and night, for one thing; and we also get closer and closer to their good qualities, which is all a Spiritual Guide wants for us. They don’t need anything else. They don’t want our money or our adulation. They just want us to become like them so that we too are free and can benefit people all over samsara. They want us to attain the same union of Heruka.

Through the wisdom being of a Buddha entering and abiding at our heart, we will receive special blessings. We will develop a pure mind, a pure motivation, a special good heart, and our actions will become pure. We will work solely to benefit living beings by spreading Buddha Dharma exactly like enlightened beings, Buddhas. Like Buddhas are spreading Dharma, we are also spreading Dharma. Because we are doing their job, at that time we are their emanation. We are emanated by enlightened beings. ~ Geshe-la in Portugal

To the extent we keep this recognition, to that extent we can function like a Buddha. And when our delusions reappear, which of course they will for now, we go back to functioning as an ordinary being.

When the wisdom being disappears from our heart, through conditions from our side, through our developing an impure, wrong motivation, wrong views, wrong intentions, strong delusions, we will no longer receive blessings and our Dharma activities and practices will no longer work. Our spiritual development will be unsuccessful, we will also experience problems. This is important to understand. ~ Geshe-la in Portugal

Then when once again, through our “deep faith, the wisdom being of Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka enters our body and abides at our heart inseparably from our mind”, we temporarily become an emanation again. Rinse and repeat until we attain the union of Heruka and can emanate countless bodies ourselves.

The tulku system

In Tibetan, the word for “emanation body” is “tulku”. On the subject of emanations and tulkus, another way the New Kadampa Tradition differs from the Tibetan tradition is that we don’t subscribe to the tulku system. (I can think of various reasons for that, including the danger of it being misapplied and misunderstood in Western culture, to avoid disempowering hierarchies, and to prevent mixing religion with politics.)

It would be lovely, for example, if Venerable Geshe-la took rebirth again in our world; but he has made it clear with this teaching on emanations and other things he has said that it is not relevant to how we keep practicing and flourishing Kadam Dharma. We ALL need to become his emanations. Even if he does reappear as a boy or a girl, there will be no formal recognition – he or she will pass through the Teacher Training Program like everyone else and, if qualified, can then be elected into some position or not as the case may be. (I think this shows a lot of confidence in the system he has set up.) That’s why we are not praying for Geshe-la’s swift return – instead we are gaining the profound recognition that he hasn’t gone anywhere. Therefore, we can all learn equally to have him at our heart, in this way spreading his matchless excellent deeds throughout the world.

Everybody talks about emanations. But in this way we can say Buddha’s emanations exist everywhere. We can be an emanation. ~ Geshe-la in Portugal

Touching the source

What does it mean to make this connection with Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka? For me, it means tapping every day into that source of all happiness and goodness – enlightenment – so that I can then try to pass it on to others. We are requesting: “May I become just like you.” Through bringing him into our heart and letting our minds mix inseparably, we become his emanation, which means we’re able to do all the things he can do, reach all the people he can reach, allow him to touch people through us. Ultimately, we don’t become LIKE our spiritual guide — we BECOME our Spiritual Guide. We become one with our Spiritual Guide.

Venerable Geshe-la tuned into his own Spiritual Guide constantly. For example:

Sometimes people say to me, “I received your beautiful teachings.” I myself believe “Oh, these teachings come from Je Tsongkhapa Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka who is always abiding at my heart.

He also said:

Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka is using me like Buddha Shakyamuni used Avalokiteshvara to give the Heart Sutra. Buddha himself was remaining silent, and the wisdom being of Buddha Shakyamuni entered the heart of the disciple Avalokiteshvara. People heard Avalokiteshvara’s words, but in reality it is Buddha himself through Avalokiteshvara. I also believe this.

You can check out that story in The New Heart of Wisdom. He went onto say:

Although people praise me, in reality it is all these holy beings, Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, through me. I am like their TV or tape recorder. This I understand.

There are no lone wolves in Mahayana Buddhism. There is no such thing as a self-made Buddha. None of us can do it on our own. No one’s ever done it on their own and no one ever will. Relying upon a Spiritual Guide whom we see as one with Buddha has worked for everybody who’s done it and will continue to work, including for us. It’s our turn.

We have equal access to our Spiritual Guide – I think that’s even more obvious now that no one has a physical hotline to Geshe-la. We can all talk to him in our heart. In his London commentary to The Mirror of Dharma With Additions, Geshe-la says:

Through our Guru’s blessings we will develop new wisdom and clear understanding.

Venerable Geshe-la says we can make a decision — for example, “I will find a clearer understanding of the union of Heruka” — and then:

Our wisdom is naturally increasing; our Spiritual Guide is coming inside. I learned this myself, I would give questions to myself and I try to find the answers correctly through receiving blessings from Guru Tsongkhapa, Wisdom Buddha. Through appreciating Dharma, especially Kadam Dharma, through cherishing Kadam Dharma, creating merit through working for the flourishing of Kadam Dharma, all these conditions, this assembly helps me. Then I learn to solve all my own problems and become able to help others solve theirs.

Temple Portals

The New Kadampa Tradition have a number of International Kadampa Retreat Centers and Kadampa Meditation Centers around the world. If you haven’t already, I really hope that one day you can get to a retreat or a Festival at one of our huge World Peace Temples — portals to Heruka’s Pure Land:

Designed by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche based on the holy mandala of Buddha Heruka, these temples symbolise all the stages of the path we must accomplish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of others. They stand as beacons of inspiration for the people of this and future generations. ~ http://www.kadampa.org

I saw the other day that the King of Spain has bestowed an architectural award on the Temple in Málaga! It was received by the architect at a special ceremony in Almeira.

As it says here, “the institutions of Kadam Dharma are increasingly being recognised by mainstream society as valuable contributions to peace and harmony in this world.”

Finally, a quick favor – if you’re leaving your thoughtful comments or questions on Facebook, can you also leave them here in the box below so me and others can read and respond? Thank you 😊