Spiritual Guide – Kadampa Life

What if Buddha was around today?

Happy Turning the Wheel of Dharma Day! June 4 marks the anniversary of Buddha Shakyamuni’s first ever teaching in this world.

A question: if you knew that Buddha was alive and wandering this Earth, what would you do? …

… I know what I would do, I would be right there! I would find him. I would follow him. I would offer my services to help him bring the medicine of Dharma to everyone who wanted it. I would feel this was something unimaginably epic!!!

I would do the same if I knew, for example, that Je Tsongkhapa was around, or Nagarjuna, or Saraha, or Atisha …

And Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso IS around. A fully accomplished Buddhist master of the same caliber as these great practitioners of yore, he IS alive and wandering this Earth. He has done an extraordinary amount for Buddhism and Buddhists in the world today, continuing to turn the Wheel of Dharma for a huge and growing number of modern people. His life and works are epic.

Today also happens to be his 90^th birthday and Kadampa Centers everywhere are doing long-life practices for him to stay on this troubled Earth as long as possible. That way, people can still find him.

Carrying on from this article.

If you’ve read the biographies of the great Buddhist masters I mention above, you’ll know that most people had no real clue who they were or how influential they were going to be until later in their lives or even after they’d passed away (if ever). It seemed to dawn on people over time just how incredible these people were. That is not unique to Buddhism – don’t we often only fully appreciate people’s greatness after the fact?

In particular, whenever I read anything about Je Tsongkhapa or by Je Tsongkhapa it feels like I’m reading something about or by Geshe-la. Here’s what it says about Je Tsongkhapa in Great Treasury of Merit, for example:

Although Je Tsongkhapa was an emanation of Manjushri who possessed clairvoyance and miracle powers, he did not appear as a special, exalted being, but manifested as an ordinary, humble practitioner.

Geshe-la is truly humble – he has lived simply in modest surroundings all his 90 years, just practicing what he preaches, helping others all day long, completely uninterested in any status or other worldly concerns.

In this aspect he showed an immaculate example to others, gave pure teachings, and led thousands of people into correct spiritual paths. He spread a very pure Buddhadharma throughout Tibet, showing how to combine the practices of Sutra and Tantra, and in particular how to practice the Vinaya and Highest Yoga Tantra together.

Is this not what Venerable Geshe-la has been doing his entire life? What else has he been doing? Except that instead of his activities being confined to Tibet, due to the wonders of globalization and modern technology the Kadampa Buddhist teachings are now starting to reach the entire world.

The meditation on relying upon a Spiritual Guide

It says in Great Treasury of Merit:

Our Spiritual Guide is any spiritual Teacher who sincerely leads us into spiritual paths by giving correct instructions. Thus our Spiritual Guide can be eastern or western, lay or ordained, male or female.

And so on. They can be anyone.

It was Buddha Shakyamuni who first taught the importance of relying upon a Spiritual Guide (Skt. Guru yoga). For example, in the Condensed Perfection of Wisdom Sutra he said:

Good disciples who respect their Spiritual Guide
Should always rely upon their wise Spiritual Guides.
If you ask why, qualities of wisdom arise from them;
They reveal the perfection of wisdom.
The Conqueror who possesses all supreme good qualities says
“The qualities of a Buddha depend upon the Spiritual Guide.”

As with any other teaching of Buddha, it is good to ask ourselves about the validity of relying upon a Spiritual Guide — is it true, does it work, does it make sense to me, how will it help? Buddhism is not about blind faith, including — perhaps especially — when it comes to relying upon a Spiritual Guide.

The first question is probably why would I want to rely upon a Spiritual Guide? The great Indian Buddhist Master Padampa Sangye (who I’m guessing taught in a place called Tingri) said:

O People of Tingri, the Spiritual Guide will lead you wherever you wish to go.

So where is that exactly? If we don’t mind staying in samsara forever, including in the lower realms, we don’t need an enlightened teacher to show us the way out. But:

If we wish for a human rebirth our Spiritual Guide will lead us there, if we wish for liberation he will lead us there, if we wish to be reborn in a Pure Land he will lead us there, and if we wish to attain enlightenment he will lead us there. No one is kinder than our Spiritual Guide.

What is a Guru?

As explained here, the actual Spiritual Guide (Skt. Guru) is not like a person we normally think of, but is the omniscient wisdom of bliss and emptiness.

In Vajra Cutting Sutra Buddha says that those who think is body is a physical object and that his speech is sound are mistaken because his actual body is the Truth Body. ~ Great Treasury of Merit

The idea of what a Guru actually is can be hard to understand, and developing this understanding of his or her real nature is a huge part of a Buddhist’s spiritual journey.

Ultimately the student or disciple is seeking union with that state of compassion and wisdom, which is enlightenment, so as to become enlightened themselves. Guru yoga provides the technology for this.

It is also a doorway into seeing everybody in a pure way, as a Buddha, including ourselves, so as to manifest our own boundless potential for enlightenment. For as Venerable Geshe-la says in How to Transform Your Life:

Because we cannot see others’ minds, we do not know who is actually a realized being and who is not. Someone may not have a high position in society, but if in his heart he maintains loving kindness to all living beings, in reality he is a realized being.

(This also includes fellow practitioners within our spiritual society, I might add. If the past is anything to go by, there are probably plenty of highly realized beings lurking amongst us, not teaching from high thrones, no reputation at all, simply pulling the weeds, preparing publicity, or sitting around doing seemingly nothing. Think of Shantideva or Geshe Jayulwa or Biwawa or a lot of the Mahasiddhas, for a start — no one had a clue who they really were.)

When we are relating to our Spiritual Guide in this ultimate sense, we are not relating so much to a personality as to omniscient wisdom and compassion appearing for us, and our mind mixes with this, receiving blessings or inspiration. (Blessings are not that mysterious – check out these articles.)

Moreover, we develop faith in the context also of having faith in our own potential for enlightenment – without that, there is not much point in developing faith in enlightened beings.

The goal of Buddha’s teachings on Sutra and Tantra is to transform us from an ordinary, limited, deluded being, who suffers and can only benefit in a limited, temporary way into an enlightened being, who can genuinely protect countless others and lead them to perfect happiness. Our ability to make that transition depends upon blessings to transform our mind. Those blessings come when we shine the sun of our faith on the snow mountain of our Spiritual Guide. In the International Spring Festival this week, Gen-la Khyenrab said that our Spiritual Guide is the focus or lens through which all the blessings of the Buddhas come into our heart. He quoted:

The ultimate goal of human life is to attain enlightenment, and this depends upon continually receiving the special blessings of Buddha through our Spiritual Guide. ~ How to Transform Your Life

Four reasons why our Spiritual Guide is a Buddha

As Gen-la Khyenrab also explained, the object of the Guru yoga meditation as presented in Lamrim is our faith believing that our Spiritual Guide is an emanation of all the Buddhas of the ten directions.

Buddha attained enlightenment with the sole intention of leading all living beings along the stages of the path to enlightenment through his emanations. ~ How to Transform Your Life

So the question is:

Who is his emanation who is leading us along the stages of the path to enlightenment?

This is the jist of the meditation. And there are a lot of things we can ask and contemplate to increase our understanding and experience of Guru yoga, letting our faith grow naturally over the months and years. This seems like the perfect day to say a quick something about the four main considerations given in the Lamrim teachings, which you can read about in detail in the big Lamrim book called Joyful Path of Good Fortune.

Buddha Vajradhara said that Spiritual Guides are Buddhas

He said this in Two Examination Tantra:

In degenerate times, when the practice of Buddhadharma is in decline, I shall manifest as a Spiritual Guide … I shall appear as an ordinary being, and I shall come in many forms.

If our Spiritual Guide isn’t this seemingly ordinary being who is an emanation of Buddha Vajradhara, then who is? It also occurs to me that a transcendent being can appear as ordinary, but an ordinary being cannot appear as transcendent.

Our Spiritual Guide performs the enlightened actions of a Buddha

As Geshe-la says in Great Treasury of Merit:

The Buddhas have spent aeons investigating which is the best way to help sentient beings, and they have concluded that it is to manifest in an ordinary form as a Spiritual Guide, demonstrate a perfect example, and guide sentient beings by giving Dharma teachings.

Let’s think about this for a moment … if all the Buddhas right now wanted to appear in your life to help guide you to enlightenment — which they do — how would they do that? “Ok, Luna’s ready. What do we have to do?!”

Discussing this with each other, they might well conclude that it would make sense to appear as a monk in the notoriously Buddhist country of Tibet, who studies and practices Buddhism for decades in the well-established monasteries, manages to escape when the Chinese invade, goes into a 16-year retreat, and then is invited by his own highly regarded teacher to fly to the West deliberately to help modern people like you. There he teaches and translates and sets up Centers, and you encounter him, read the books, and meet other practitioners. Through this you realize that everything he says is incredibly helpful and liberating and that you want to practice it. So you do. And you are guided along the spiritual path.

What would a Buddha do differently?

Our Spiritual Guide has given us literally everything we need – there is nothing we don’t have when it comes to traveling this path to liberation or enlightenment. Why is nothing lacking? Why is everything appearing for me? Where is it all really coming from?

In these degenerate times Buddhas continue to work for the benefit of all living beings

Benefiting others is the very meaning of becoming a Buddha – it is the whole reason why they attained enlightenment! It is why we ourselves are training for enlightenment, and Buddhas have already been there and done that.

To the coarse beings of these impure times who, being so hard to tame,
Were not subdued by the countless Buddhas of old,
You correctly reveal the excellent path of the Sugatas. ~ Offering to the Spiritual Guide

Who knows what Geshe Kelsang really thought in those first few years as he met his first spiritually bedraggled and clueless Western disciples (speaking for myself). Yet, whatever he thought, he didn’t leave us to our own degenerate devices, but has been consistently gentle and understanding, just like Je Tsongkhapa:

Je Tsongkhapa was like a mother teaching her children. A mother patiently teachers her children everything they need to know, from how to eat and how to walk, through to how to read and how to write. In the same way, Je Tsongkhapa patiently taught the Tibetans everything they needed for their spiritual development, from the initial step of entering into a spiritual practice through to the ultimate attainment of Buddhahood. ~ Great Treasury of Merit

Appearances are deceptive and our own opinions are unreliable

As I write this outside in a café, a man at the next door table is hacking and coughing – he is reminding me of the pandemic that is not over yet, despite my complacency that has set in on this warm summer’s day, and that people are still hacking and coughing and dying all over the world. Who is he, really? For that matter, who is the homeless dude who swore at us yesterday as he swigged his whisky, before bicycling away fast on a green bike that he stole from right under our noses? Amongst other things, he reminded me how crazy it is that we don’t have affordable housing in this wealthy country, how easy it is for me to take my home and resources for granted, and how much I want to become a Buddha to help everyone find shelter (mind you, it wasn’t my bike, hahaha!.)

In How to Transform Your Life, Geshe-la says:

We cannot say for sure that our closest friend or worst enemy, our mother or even our dog, is not an emanation [of Buddha]. The fact that we feel we know someone very well and have seen him or her behaving in deluded ways does not mean that he or she is an ordinary person. What we see is a reflection of our own mind. An ordinary, deluded mind will naturally perceive a world filled with ordinary, deluded people.

Therefore, naturally this must also apply to someone who actually seems to check the boxes for being a suspected emanation. We are advised in general to check out a Spiritual Guide’s qualifications, of course. In Great Treasury of Merit, Venerable Geshe-la says:

A pure Spiritual Guide must have authentic spiritual attainments, hold a pure lineage, cherish the Buddhadharma, and with love and compassion give unmistaken teachings to his or her disciples. If we meet such Spiritual Guide we should consider ourself to be very fortunate.

However, it is also worth remembering that nothing exists outside our mind. Therefore:

While my mind is impure I shall continue to experience hallucinations and mistaken appearances. Only a completely pure mind can perceive things the way they really are. ~ Joyful Path of Good Fortune

Everything we see right now is relatively faulty and ordinary (speaking for myself). Which means that even if all the Buddhas were to appear right in front of me – and perhaps they are – I would see them as ordinary or not at all. As Geshe-la says in Joyful Path:

Before they purified their minds many of the Mahasiddhas and Yogis saw their Spiritual Guides in low and imperfect forms.

It’s true, they did! Check out the various biographies. It’s not just us!

Asanga saw his Spiritual Guide, Maitreya, as a dog. Naropa saw his Spiritual Guide, Tilopa, as a fisherman. Devadatta and Bhikkshu Legpai Karma saw the completely perfect Buddha as a very limited being.

Like them, to overcome ordinary appearances we need faith that our Spiritual Guide is a Buddha appearing in this ordinary form so that he or she can actually benefit us. This pure view gives our mind a transcendent focus and we are able to reach for the sky. Then over the years as our mind gradually clears, we will come to see our Spiritual Guide more and more unmistakenly. One of my favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde, as it happens:

We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.

Point is …

In Essence of Vajrayana, Venerable Geshe-la quotes Geshe Potowa, one of the great Kadampa Geshes:

Whether or not our Spiritual Guide is precious depends upon us and not upon our Spiritual Guide. If we view our Spiritual Guide as a Buddha, we will receive the blessings of a Buddha. If we view him or her as a Bodhisattva, we will receive the blessings of a Bodhisattva, and if we view him or her as an ordinary being, we will receive nothing.

So it is up to us – and it is also for us, not our Spiritual Guide. He doesn’t need us to seem him as pure. He already has everything he needs.

It is very helpful to understand that all we ever perceive is a reflection of our mind. An impure mind can only perceive an impure world. If we are waiting to see an objective, truly existent Buddha, we are never going to see one. We need to reach beyond our appearances, beyond the impure, suffering appearances that are capped by the karma we have, to tune into something transcendent and pure.

Geshe-la goes onto say:

Knowing this is very helpful because for as long as our mind remains impure it is impossible directly to perceive anyone, including our Spiritual Guide, as a real Buddha. Our task at the moment therefore is to use our imagination, and the many valid reasons explained in the book Joyful Path of Good Fortune, to train in the recognition that our Spiritual Guide is a living Buddha. Through continually training in this recognition our faith will increase and our mind will become purer and purer, until eventually we will directly perceive our Spiritual Guide as a real Buddha.

If we consider and meditate on these four points, we will develop a conviction that our Spiritual Guide is a Buddha; and with this recognition we will feel very guided. And since we have never travelled to enlightenment before, this guidance is exactly what we need.

Thank you Geshe-la. I will dedicate myself to the flourishing of Kadam Dharma.

Over to you – I’d love to read your comments and stories on this auspicious day 😇😍

Seeing the divine in everyone

9.5 mins read.

Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche is about to turn 90 on Turning the Wheel of Dharma Day, June 4^th 2021. There are celebrations and long-life retreats planned all over the world, and it would be deeply auspicious if all of us who appreciate him could join in.

Geshe-la was already well into his forties by the time he arrived in England to bring us – total novices – the entire modern Buddhism. There are now hundreds of thousands of Kadampa students all over the world and he is still going strong. Put that in your pipe and smoke it next time you feel you’re too old or that you’ve left it too late to get anything meaningful done in your life, lol.

The Dharma Wheel still turns …

Buddha Shakyamuni was the first Buddhist teacher in our particular world to show us a doorway into ultimate truth, the illusory nature of all phenomena — knowledge of which frees our mind. This is a person we can trust.

In the same way, a modern-day spiritual master is continuing to turn the Wheel of Dharma with his practical presentation of Kadampa Buddhism. Venerable Geshe-la is a reliable wealth of wisdom for how to solve our daily problems and find lasting peace and joy. As the author of 22 books on all of Buddha’s teachings, the spiritual architect of 5 World Peace Temples, and the visionary behind 1400+ Kadampa Centers and branches around the world, he is showing his students what it means to think big—and how to correctly imagine a previously unbelievable reality of pure happiness.

Carrying on from this article, Living Buddha.

Many people consider Geshe-la to be their Spiritual Guide because he has provided them with teachings, teachers, books, empowerments, centers, temples, and so on. Based on that faith, they feel some connection with him in their hearts, and through that a connection with something very profound and peaceful.

As with any deep relationship, we need to allow ourselves time to get to know our Spiritual Guide on different levels. We don’t need blind faith. As it says in Joyful Path of Good Fortune:

We need to become acquainted with someone who has all the qualifications of a Spiritual Guide, and gradually gain confidence through their teaching and example so that we can rely completely on their guidance.

Then we develop pure view to bring about faith in their true nature, and we contemplate their kindness to bring about devotion and respect.

Will there ever be a biography of Geshe Kelsang Gyatso?

People often ask this and the short answer is, I have no clue. But I do know it would be a challenging project.

As mentioned in this recent article, Trust in the infinite, our actual Spiritual Guide is imputed on the Truth Body of Buddha — ultimate bodhichitta that is the union of omniscient wisdom and a supreme good heart.

Pervasive nature of all things stable and moving,
Inseparable from the experience of spontaneous joy without obstructions;
Thoroughly good, from the beginning free from extremes,
O Actual, ultimate bodhichitta, to you I make requests. ~ Offering to the Spiritual Guide

Given that this is who our Spiritual Guide actually is, it is quite hard to write a biography! Or at least one that could begin to do him justice.

Another reason we can’t begin to capture all our enlightened Spiritual Guide’s deeds on paper is because everything is empty of existing from its own side, and we are blindfolded by hallucinations and mistaken appearances.

A Buddha’s mind is everywhere, and wherever their mind is, so too is their body. As I talk about here, we all have our own Spiritual Guide. Whenever a Buddha appears, so too do their countless emanations and deeds, way beyond the ability of even many voices to explain. As it says in Guide to the Middle Way (XI.41):

Just as a bird does not turn back due to lack of space,
But returns when its strength is consumed,
So the disciples and Sons of the Buddhas
Turn back when describing the good qualities of Buddha, which are as limitless as space.

Some biographies of great practitioners take this into account, and to common appearance they therefore sound totally hagiographic, even hyperbolic. For example, have you ever read the book Sky Dancer, the Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel? Her life and deeds as a Guru Dakini very much defy ordinary conceptions and appearances — and we’re either ready to hear and be inspired by it or we’re not! Take just her birth for a start:

“At sunrise of the tenth day of the monkey month of the year of the bird, Getso, my mother, gave birth painlessly. The earth shook, thunder rolled, and a rain of flowers fell from the sky. The lake increased in size, and on its banks a vast number of different species of flowers bloomed. The palace was covered by a net of rainbow light, a miracle to which all present bore witness. Then the sound of music filled the sky … and between the clouds in the sky a host of goddesses appeared who sang these auspicious verses….”

I mean, you were either there or you weren’t. In other words, an ordinary mind experiences ordinary things like COVID or mortgages, and a pure mind experiences things like this! According to common appearance, therefore, these kinds of Tantric biographies are reserved for those with a lot of faith and pure view.

Who isn’t a manifestation of Buddha?!

The things we normally see don’t exist. Which means, for all we know, that everyone could be a manifestation or emanation of Buddha. As Gen Rabten put it in the Summer Festival of 2020:

We are taught that Buddhas help in many ways through bestowing blessings and through emanations and so forth; and we know whether we are a Buddha or not. We know, you know. But we don’t know about anyone else — for sure — we don’t know for sure. We probably have strong opinions, but we don’t know.

In his Tara teachings of 2006, quoted last Summer Festival, Venerable Geshe-la explained how our mother is an emanation of Arya Tara, backing it up with some compelling reasons.

“Generally, of course, Tara’s great kindness pervades every living being without exception each day. There is not a single person who does not receive Arya Tara’s blessings every day. How? … This is difficult to understand unless we already have some basic Dharma knowledge or understanding. But I can give a simple reason … Immediately, from the time we were born from our mother, someone has cared for us, helped us, fed and clothed us. We have received so much care. Later, we continually received help from many people in different aspects…

When you were born you were completely powerless to do anything. You could not find food; you could not say anything. Everything was taken care of by your mother. From then until now your mother has continually cared for you.

But the mother that you see caring for you, the mother that you normally see, does not exist. So who cared for you? Who is this someone who cares for you continually?

I can say that it is an emanation of Arya Tara. But you cannot see this. You cannot see the mother who is really caring for you. The mother that you see does not exist. You cannot see the existent caring mother because you see only an inherently existent mother and say, ‘She is good, she is bad, she is helping me,’ and so forth. In reality, such a person does not exist. Then I can say, ‘If you receive care from someone, then this is an emanation of Arya Tara.’ If we debate probably I will win! So you should think about this carefully.”

As Gen Rabten went on to comment (and it was so good that I’m quoting it in full):

This is very profound because it is turning our whole sense of what our reality is on its head. Ordinarily, we live in a world that we grasp at as inherently existent, objectively existent, existing outside of our mind; and everything is in all the little boxes that we put things in. This is my mother and this is this place and these are these people … and when we go deep into the meditation on emptiness we realize, well, none of that is true. There is no outside, objective reality. There aren’t any inherently existent people. So then who are these appearances that are helping me? And what Venerable Geshe-la is saying is that every appearance of someone helping me is an emanation of Arya Tara. …. We can gently navigate our way into this special, almost magical way of viewing the world, being filled, populated by emanations of Arya Tara.

Training in seeing everyone as pure helps us and it helps them, for many reasons. And our Spiritual Guide is an easy candidate to practice with!

Who needs you to be ordinary?

It also helps a lot if we train in pure view of ourselves.

Who needs you to be ordinary? Maybe try this — go through the various spheres of your life and ask, do my children need me to be ordinary? My parents? My boss? My co-workers? Everyone in India? My dog? Etc.

If you reply, yes, my children need a Dad, it is perfectly fine to hold yourself to be their Dad and, for example, Avalokiteshvara at the same time. Not only can you be earning their keep and taking them to football matches, but you can also simultneously be giving them constant blessings and leading them to enlightenment. Moreover, if we have divine pride of ourselves as an enlightened being, based on wisdom and correct imagination, others’ minds are blessed just by seeing us, listening to us, or touching us.

In the Condensed Root Tantra it is said that just by seeing a sincere Heruka practitioner we purify our negativities and attain liberation; just by hearing or being touched by such a practitioner we receive blessings and are cured of sickness; and just by being in the presence of such a practitioner our unhappiness, mental disturbances, delusions and other obstacles are dispelled. ~ Essence of Vajrayana

Applying this to our Spiritual Guide

We can train in this pure view with our mother and with anyone else who has helped us. By following the mind-training instructions we can train with those who are giving us a hard time, who can function as a kind teacher by allowing us to perfect our patience. And we can train even with ourselves through the power of Tantric practice. So of course we can train in this pure view with respect to our Spiritual Guide, who is probably the most likely candidate for a Buddha.

The nature of enlightenment itself is compassion — Buddhas automatically bless each and every living being all day every day. So when we get our grasping out of the way, opening the shutters of our mind, we’ll see that this sun has been shining all along; and then we will always have the experience of being helped and guided.

At the end of the day I think that what is important is not an objective reality of the Spiritual Guide, because there isn’t one, but how our own hearts and minds transform when we rely upon an enlightened being as our Spiritual Guide or our Spiritual Guide as an enlightened being (it works both ways). Once we are free from the obstructions to liberation and omniscience, we’ll see our Spiritual Guide as he or she really is. Until then we have to be content with what we can infer, and be inspired by the stories of their life and deeds.

Thank you for reading this! Your comments are so welcome below. I am really looking forward to June 4^th and hope that a lot of us can tune into the long-life practices for our precious Geshe-la, perhaps even attend our nearest Center if possible! (Find your local center here.)

Celebrating a great Buddhist Master on his birthday

A Spiritual Guide

When the student is ready, the teacher appears

A light in the darkness

7 mins read.

In this last article, When the student is ready the teacher appears, I was in the middle of talking about Venerable Geshe-la — there are just so many things to say about him, but I had to stop in order to give you time to eat your supper and scream at the TV.

Joking of course. But having said that, I do hope you’re finding time to tune into Dharma books and Buddhist TV (livestreaming meditation classes) as an antidote to all the crazy stuff going on. In these “unusual times”, and I speak here to myself as well, one thing that can be quite unhelpful is spending too much time imbibing bad news on TV or social media. If we find our anxiety, depression, irritation, or sense of powerlessness are increasing as the weeks and months go by, this could mean that we are consuming life’s appearances passively, not working with them actively*.

(*Getting pulled down the rabbit holes of addictive game-like conspiracy theories or spending hours trying to convince others of how free-thinking and right we are doesn’t count, btw. And life is so short, just a matter of months, do we even have time for that?)

Reminds me of Shantideva’s question — if there is something you can do about it, why worry? If there’s nothing you can do about it, why worry?

Legit question: How can we stay involved in social media but still cut through the noise? Samsara is nothing if not beginningless and endless noise. If we find we are getting totally caught up in it, experiencing frustration, might it be more effective and sanity-restoring to just get away from the deep diving online dialogues (monologues?!) for a while? The world probably won’t end if we stop discussing it for a bit. We could spend more time instead filling our hearts with love (and even bodhichitta) and doing something practical and “real” to help the people immediately around us, in our families and communities? Civic engagement. Volunteering. Helping our Dharma Centers. What do you think?

I think people have just spent too much time online of late, not surprisingly. We know it’s addictive. We know conspiracy theories spread in this environment. The thing I mainly don’t appreciate about conspiracy theories, as a Buddhist, is that we are supposed to be in the business of vanquishing mental elaborations and samsaric narratives, not seeking out more. We are in the business of training our minds because all of us are creating our reality with our minds. And the biggest conspiracy theorist and yarn spinner of them all is our mind of self-grasping ignorance – we have to see through its convoluted sad-world-creating lies before it’s too late.

I personally think a lot of conspiracy theories fall into the category of what Buddha described as intellectually-formed delusions, which we pile up as so much clutter on the prison floor of our innate self-grasping and other delusions, in front of the escape route. Plus holding false views as supreme, holding wrong views, and so on. Buddha knows our psychology very well, he left no stone unturned in his description of the human mind and what games we could play on ourselves. Check out How to Understand the Mind for more. We all need to be hyper-vigilant these days with respect to our own minds, not just what everyone else seems to be up to. As the saying goes:

More Dharma, less drama.

We could instead choose to take charge and advantage of how creative our mind is by using Buddha’s wisdom and compassion teachings to check what’s meaningful AND create the causes for freedom and happiness. So simple! So effective. Rather than fall victim to negative unpeaceful thoughts and hallucinations that make us feel worse and worse (and cause us to fall out with our oldest friends), we can use every appearance and experience actively to create compassion, love, unity, joy, and lasting mental freedom. Becoming more and more like those who have truly freed their minds and become a lasting source of happiness for others.

Two practical suggestions

Next time we’re about to read or see a video or article or discussion online, and are in any danger of getting sucked into yet another dystopian narrative, we can ask ourselves: “What would Buddha believe?” I find this helps me.

The other is to spend far less of our valuable days online altogether — to read Dharma books or listen to more teachings instead, schedule these in, be more disciplined. I don’t think it’s any accident that Venerable Geshe-la’s message for us at the beginning of the last two International Kadampa Festivals has been Aryasura’s incredible benefits of listening to Dharma. We need to give ourselves this chance to stay inspired and happy. That’s really important.

What IS “in fact” going on?!

In another of Venerable Geshe-la’s recent messages to everyone, he said:

There is not much reason to worry. With respect to the difficult situations that are appearing to us, we do not know whether they are good or bad. So, we should make our own life peaceful and happy through putting Dharma into practice. This is our job. We can solve our problems through the practice of Dharma. Everything is uncertain. This is samsara’s nature of impure life. So we ourself should be an example. We can solve our problems, we should maintain a peaceful and happy mind all the time through putting Dharma into practice.

One reason we don’t know whether these difficult situations are good or bad is because everything depends on the mind, everything is empty of existing from its own side, objectively. Difficult circumstances, for example, can be immensely helpful, not harmful, if we use them to increase our renunciation or compassion.

What CAN we trust?!

In a world of hallucination, what can we actually trust? What can we beneficially believe? If we open our eyes and look with real empathy, coming from an understanding of who we all really are, we see so much more.

So, for example, when we see people doing or saying things we don’t like, rather than falling for the blame game and becoming upset or angry, we can remember that they are not their delusions, that they are being controlled by their delusions. Hating them is not helpful. Instead we can do the internal work of developing love and compassion for everyone concerned, and this will lead to sustained patient, skillful, and joyful actions on others’ behalf, really trying to help people in whatever practical way we can, without us succumbing to bitterness, exhaustion, or despair.

We can remember, for example, the Kadampa motto for a meaningful life, which is to harm our delusions as much as possible and help others as much as possible. Now is the time to be proactive and creative! Our world is not as solid as it appears, rather more like an illusion or a dream. Our thoughts are infinitely flexible and changeable, and we can vastly improve our own and others’ reality.

Which brings me back to the main subject of this article …

What does this have to do with relying on a Spiritual Guide? A lot, as it happens, because he or she shows exactly how we can harm our delusions and help others as much as possible – through his teachings, practical encouragement, and own uplifting example. He is a light in the darkness of the confusion, and we can follow that light right out of here — if we decide not to lose sight of it by falling down a rabbit hole.

Venerable Geshe-la has written 22 books that are extraordinary – if you haven’t read all or any of them yet, you are in for a treat (just ask Prince Harry, who recently listed Eight Steps to Happiness as his favorite motivational book.) These books flowed out from Geshe-la’s extensive learning, practice, and wisdom — for us — so that people in the modern day could practice Dharma in their everyday lives. He changed the whole presentation of this rich tradition of Kadam Dharma without adding anything or leaving a single thing out. He received permission from Trijang Rinpoche to teach the entire path of Sutra and Tantra to you and me so that we could actually practice it with all our modern issues, with everything that’s going on – in our jobs, in our families, in our societies, in our lives.

It was not always like this – there was a time when Buddhism was the precinct of monks (and to a lesser extent nuns) in monasteries, not just in Tibet but in other Buddhist countries the world over. Lay people would be considered the less serious practitioners, whose main job was to support the ordained community. Tibetan Buddhism came over to us from a monastic tradition, and in the very early days you could be forgiven for thinking you had to be a monk and sit in your room all day long to get anywhere, both spiritually AND in the organization. (Not that there is anything wrong with sitting in your room all day long, in fact it can be very helpful — I would submit that we probably all could benefit from more study and meditation if we can carve out the time, especially in these turbulent days. Point being, though, that we can go far by applying the teachings in the midst of a “normal” daily life.)

I had an hour-long conversation with Geshe-la back then about whether or not lay people could become enlightened. (The answer is ….. wait for it …. Yes!!!) The only reason I needed to ask him this was because of an attitude around at the time that to be ordained was the only proper way to be. Geshe-la never said this and, in fact, pretty much the day he landed on English soil he said he wanted there now to be four types of teacher – nuns, monks, lay women, and lay men – and that they would study together and be equal. He has always aimed for equality, but has had to skillfully offload the baggage that came over with that generation of Tibetans.

I will finish this article for now with a quote from Venerable Geshe-la:

I am working very hard to spread Kadam Dharma throughout the world because I wish each and every living being to attain real happiness, the pure and everlasting happiness of enlightenment. This depends on each and every living being having the opportunity to practice Buddha’s teaching. I am strongly applying effort to prepare this precious opportunity and with sincere strong prayer. This is my cherishing of all living beings in a practical way. You can do this too.

And, would you look at that, I am out of space again! There’s more in this next article, Modern Day Kadampas. Meantime, please share comments, stories, or anything you like in the box below.

More Buddhist views on conspiracy theories

Why rely on a Spiritual Guide?

What can we really know about anyone?

When the student is ready, the teacher appears

Yesterday Michelle Obama, an amazing woman who always strikes me as grounded, wise, and resilient under pressure, offered comfort to others by sharing how she herself of late has been coping with low-grade depression. It’s not at all hard to understand why. And people all over the world are feeling it too, for all kinds of reasons.

Lying in bed late last night, unable to fall asleep with all that’s been going on, I found myself mulling over everything seemingly wrong in my life, in my friends’ and relatives’ lives, in this country and the world at large, and not restricted to human beings. It was a lot! Yet I also realized it was nothing — on one level, a deeper level — that I couldn’t actually handle.

In these unusual and unsettling times, would you agree it is more apparent than ever that we need actively to be seeking something trustworthy? Something and/or someone to help us navigate beyond anxiety, depression, fear, anger, and overwhelming confusion to a heartfelt peace, stability, inspiration, and transcendence? The time-honored benefits of relying on a qualified spiritual guide are compelling in this regard, not just for ourselves but for others — so that we can provide an ongoing brave and safe space for them to land. If we really want to change things, I think we all need the firm basis of refuge.

Carrying directly on from this article.

Once we have decided to rely upon a spiritual guide, the big question is – obviously — who?! Who is my Spiritual Guide?

In the book Great Treasury of Merit, Geshe Kelsang says that our Spiritual Guide

… is any spiritual teacher who sincerely leads us into spiritual paths by giving correct instructions.

This can be anyone – from East or West, lay or ordained, male or female etc, black, white, or green with pink spots. It doesn’t matter who they are as long as they are able to guide us along the spiritual path because they’ve been there themselves, always showing us an inspiring example of what is possible. That is our Spiritual Guide, that person.

We have complete choice over that – everyone in Buddhism always chooses their own Spiritual Guide, that’s how it works. I can’t tell you who yours is, but I can tell you more about mine.

Moreover, not just for me, but for this current generation of Kadampa teachers and practitioners, I would say we are probably in unanimous agreement that our Spiritual Guide is Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, otherwise known as “Geshe-la”.

Just so you know, “Geshe” is short for “ge way she nyen,” the Tibetan term for “spiritual friend”. “La” is a term of endearment and respect. “Rinpoche” means “precious,” and is an honorific for highly regarded Teachers. “Kelsang” means “good fortune”. “Gyatso” means “ocean”. And “Venerable” means “Venerable.”

This generation of practitioners who have been lucky enough to be in this world with him would probably all agree that Geshe-la is our root Spiritual Guide, even if we have also received a lot of teachings from his other disciples. Some of his disciples have more experience and knowledge than us, so they can help show the path, act as role models, advise us, encourage us. But for anyone who wants to follow the path of Kadampa Buddhism to its completion, I would recommend Geshe-la as their fully qualified guide because (a) he is the obvious candidate for the job, and (b) anything we learn from any other Kadampa teacher is coming from him in any case — they’ll all tell you that. Also, any love, wisdom, or skill these practitioners have gained comes largely from following his example.

Therefore, if we can go direct to the source, then why not?! But it is nonetheless entirely up to us who we end up choosing, and it depends on our karma as well.

Meeting Geshe-la

Within that, of course, many people have not met Geshe-la in the flesh, as it were. However, luckily, he is not a fleshy person, there is a lot more to him than that – he is an enlightened being who possesses omniscient wisdom and compassion. That’s one reason why he makes such a good Spiritual Guide — he is everywhere all the time. His physical body is like some kind of overcoat, as he once said, and not who he really is. You may not have been in his direct physical presence but you still know him.

It’s a bit like how, right now, I’m not in your physical presence and you’re not in mine – we could well be on different continents. If I know you are in London, say, and I think of you there, then my mind is in London right now, as well as up a mountain in Evergreen, Colorado looking after some friends’ chickens. Mind is extraordinary. Even an ordinary mind like mine can be anywhere I decide to put it, so of course an enlightened being’s mind can go anywhere and is everywhere all the time. Geshe-la’s mind is very much with us all the time. He said, “My mind will always be with you;” and I’m not the only one who has had innumerable experiences where I know this to be true. If we understand that enlightenment is reality, it is easier to understand the real nature and power of a Spiritual Guide.

Relying on a Spiritual Guide is a bit like tuning in and just knowing he is there. And the sheer act of knowing he is with you, always, means there is a connection and relationship right there already. From his side he already knows you. From your side you just need gradually to get to know him.

I am always with you

Geshe-la is exceedingly quiet and humble, he doesn’t really put himself forward, much less make himself the center of attention; but his wisdom is everywhere, in everything. He is in all those 23 books because he wrote them – one time he said he was like the tape recorder for the tapes of Manjushri Je Tsongkhapa’s teachings. He is responsible for over 1200+ Buddhist centers around the world and all their teachers who are his disciples. All the five World Peace Temples, portals into the Pure Land, that are being plonked all over the world — Heruka’s mandala — all come from him. All of this comes from his heart of compassion and wisdom, his enlightenment.

If you have walked through the door of any Kadampa Center or listened to the livestream of any class, you already know Geshe-la. When you see your local Kadampa teacher, or any other disciple, Geshe-la is at their heart. Buddhas’ minds can go anywhere, is everywhere, and Venerable Geshe-la has appeared in this world for the specific purpose of leading us to enlightenment. That’s all he has ever done — lead people along the path to increasing freedom and happiness. In all the 39 years I’ve known him I’ve never known him do anything else. I think this all means that he is very well qualified for this job of Spiritual Guide.

Modern Day Kadampas booklet

I want to say a bit more about him, referring to a booklet called Modern Day Kadampas written by a dear old friend called Jim Belither, who was the NKT secretary for about an aeon and is now the chief Tharpa editor (thank you for over 40 years of non-stop usefulness, Jim!) I don’t know if this booklet is still in circulation or not, but it is still true, even though many more good things have happened since its publication. (Hey, Jim, maybe you should update it … ) This tradition of Buddhism is growing fast because people are able to apply the teachings to their everyday lives and are getting results.

Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche is a highly respected meditation master and scholar. He was born in Tibet in 1931 and ordained as a Buddhist monk at the age of eight.

Back in the early eighties, other Tibetan Lamas such as Venerable Geshe-la’s friends and sometimes his teachers like Kyabje Song Rinpoche would come teach us and spend time with us. (Once or twice I practiced my Tibetan on them to help them feel at home, but they just laughed at me uproariously.)

Anyway, a fellow monk from Geshe-la’s childhood told me that even as a child Geshe-la was unusual. At the age of 8 or 9 he would study the philosophical treatises all day long with the rest of them, and then meditate on Lamrim all night long while they slept.

It was traditional for the young monks to have an older disciplinarian monk in charge of them, and Geshe-la and two friends had one who was almost blind. One of the little monks played a trick on him, I don’t remember what, and the elder monk was not happy: “Who did this?! I will beat you.” And Geshe-la spoke up, “It was me.” It wasn’t him, but he took the beating.

Geshe-la’s own Spiritual Guide

He studied both philosophical and practical subjects of Buddhism under many highly qualified Teachers, especially Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.

The beautiful Lama Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche was the Teacher of all this present generation of Gelugpas who came out of Tibet, including the 14^th Dalai Lama.

Geshe Kelsang has likened Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche to a vast reservoir from which all Gelugpa practitioners of the present day received waters of blessings and instructions.

Trijang Rinpoche was widely revered, and Venerable Geshe-la was a heart disciple. Geshe-la has always said that everything he has and that he can pass on comes from his root Guru – he shows a very good example of relying upon his own Spiritual Guide. In this year’s Summer Festival during the commentary to Eight Verses of Training the Mind by Geshe Langri Tangpa, Gen-la Dekyong quoted Geshe-la as saying:

When I was in Lhasa I met my Spiritual Father, Vajradhara Trijang Rinpoche, for the first time. Just seeing him reminded me of Bodhisattva Langri Tangpa. I felt great devotion towards him. I often thought he must be an emanation of Langri Tangpa. A senior monk later gave me a small book that listed the names of Trijang Rinpoche’s previous incarnations, among these was the name ‘Geshe Langri Tangpa’. I was so happy to find my previous belief confirmed!

Any time and any place Trijang Rinpoche taught, Geshe-la said he would try to go:

I thought only if I receive his speech, if I hear his speech, this is enough. From his teachings, from his blessings, he gives me spiritual life, real spiritual life. I was born from him. All my teachings of Sutra and Tantra came from him. Through receiving blessings from him, I have the opportunity to benefit and help internationally with people’s spiritual development. All my ability to teach, write books, organize, help, benefit — everything came from this Lama. Without this Lama, Geshe Kelsang is powerless. He is still my life. He is still in front of me.

Coming to the West

Back in Modern Day Kadampas, it says:

Geshe Kelsang arrived in Engand in late August 1977 at the invitation of Manjushri Buddhist Centre, then Manjushri Institute. [Ed: now Manjushri KMC].

No time for the whole story here (more here), but, in brief, Geshe-la was one of two Geshes at Manjushri Institute back in the day, the other one teaching the traditional monastic Geshe studies; and he became an English citizen asap so he could freely teach what he wanted to as opposed to what Tibetan Lamas were told to teach by the Tibetan government in exile. He has always been a bit of a freedom fighter, to put it mildly. And he learned English as soon as he could. I was around by 1981, reading stuff to him in English that he’d asked me to transcribe and edit, and he was like a sponge – you only had to explain a word once and he would never have to ask twice, nor ever forget it.

When he first flew over London … and London is really big, especially for someone coming out of an 18-year solitary retreat in the Himalayas — he asked his translator: “How many people live in London?” Upon hearing the answer, 10 million, he said: “There are only 5 million people in Tibet! I must stay here and bring Dharma to London and England.” (And the rest of the Western and then whole modern world, as it turns out.)

I might have told this story in the wrong order … what brought all this about is that the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959 and Geshe-la escaped over the Himalayas with just two texts and his robes.

After leaving Tibet in 1959, Geshe-la spent the next 18 years mainly emphasizing retreat in various locations in the Himalayan region and northern India.

He left the only country he had ever known (the snowy-mountained roof of the world), his monastery, his family, his language, to live in hot India with its very different culture, food, etc. He had lost everything, but people who saw him at that time said he remained just as blissful as ever.

(Given the unusual times we are all living through in 2020, where even my own country is feeling alien, I find there’s a lot to be inspired by in this example.)

He entered a long retreat of 18 years, receiving teachings from the Wisdom Buddha Je Tsongkhapa directly; and perhaps he might have stayed there happily forever. Luckily for us however Manjushri Institute invited him to come over and teach them — and Trijang Rinpoche asked him to accept Manjushri’s invitation. So he agreed, and that is how he ended up on that airplane over London. He came to these barbarian lands where people like you and me live, to bring us the entire path to enlightenment.

A bit more about him …

Geshe-la is a complete Yogi, having studied every teaching on Sutra and Tantra and realized it in his own experience He is happy day and night, and needs nothing from us other than our help in establishing Centers to offer the same teachings that are so precious to his heart. He has never been remotely seduced by worldly pleasures. As it says here:

His personal life continues to inspire his students as an immaculate example of someone who has found inner happiness through practicing Buddha’s teachings. Despite repeated offers from Manjushri Centre to prepare more spacious accommodation, Geshe-la continues to live there simply in the one small room that he moved into in 1977.

He has never been bothered about comfort. I remember the admin team wanted to update his very old bathroom, and he declined, saying “What does a monk need with a washer tap?” (It is worth pointing out though that he knows modern people generally prefer far higher standards of living, and encourages the NKT Centers to make everything comfortable.)

As mentioned in this article of how Kadam Dharma came to America (the so-called “frog story”), a student offered him a car, but when Geshe-la saw the famine in Ethiopia he asked this benefactor, “Can I sell the car and give it to Live Aid?” He gave his house away. If you would visit Venerable Geshe-la, you might give him a gift, only to see the next person come out holding it 😄 Everything flows through him, he is the epitome of generosity. He doesn’t need wealth, fame, or a good reputation – he has never given a monkeys about any of these things. His only interest is in helping people and in Dharma – I have never seen anything to contradict that.

He is a great healer (see this story here.) And he loves animals (he has a couple of dogs and a cat with 3 legs), with compassion for even the smallest insects. Once I was visiting him in his room at Manjushri KMC, when the wasps were dying by the window, as they do in the Summer. Picking one up, he blew ever so gently on her as she died — the love coming out of him was mesmerizing. He loves everyone like that, finds everyone to be important, with no exception, equally. For this is what Buddha teaches, and he has fully internalized those teachings. He embodies them.

This is a good example of how we can be too.

It would be really really hard to write a biography that does justice to Geshe-la. I know this because he was once kind enough to let me attempt it – just ten glorious and inspiring days later he took the project away, saying it was too hard, which is true. Someone else continued for a bit, but now I think it is shelved, at least for the time being. Me and this other person both agreed that there are just so many versions of him – hundreds of thousands of people now have stories to tell of how he has transformed their lives. How do you begin to get that down on paper?

Beyond some sparse biographical details, I think he will be known publicly with regard to the preeminent qualities of his teachings, practical example, and Dharma activities, including the tradition he has established. When I really think about that, isn’t the same true for all the great Buddhist teachers of the past, including Atisha, Je Tsongkhapa, and Trijang Rinpoche?

It appears that everyone has their own Geshe-la guiding them. And that’s how it is with an authentic Spiritual Guide, everyone has always had their own. Although there is just one moon in the sky, its reflections show up on every body of water – and in the same way, Buddhas can and do emanate in numerous receptive minds and lives.

Out of space! But there’s more in this next article. Please leave any comments you like in the box below.

A Spiritual Guide

Buddha’s teachings on Sutra and Tantra take us places we’ve never been before mentally, or for that matter physically.

In our beginningless lives, in lifetime after lifetime, including year after year in this one, we have been searching for happiness high and low, pretty much non-stop. We have also been searching for freedom non-stop. Yet here we are, still not perfectly happy, still not free. Despite our unending search for happiness, liberation and enlightenment are magical inner destinations that (speaking for myself) we have not yet reached.

Every day seems to bring difficulties and pains — do you know anyone who is as happy as they’d like to be? Why not? It’s not through lack of trying. Maybe it is because we haven’t yet travelled the path to real happiness and freedom. And one reason we have not yet travelled that path is because we have not yet followed a trustworthy guide.

Without a Spiritual Guide to lead us, we have no idea where we are going, existentially speaking. No Google map can point us the way to mental freedom. No YouTube video can show us how to fix the endless pains of our samsara. No pilgrimage to Mecca or even Bodh Gaya can land us in the invisible destination of bliss and emptiness.

To quote Gen Rabten at the really really good International Kadampa Summer Festival (still ongoing til Aug 25th, click here!)

We are here because we want new ideas. We know that if we always think what we’ve always thought, we will always feel what we’ve always felt. We want different outcomes for ourself, for our family, for our communities. We look at the tarnished history of our world, and the suffering and the injustices, and we want something different. That is going to require different ideas, new ideas, new ways of thinking.

The spiritual path is one that will definitely take us through some unfamiliar terrain within our own minds – terrain that is fascinating, wonderful, sometimes challenging, and ultimately transcendent, eventually culminating in full enlightenment for everybody’s benefit. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know someone who has already taken this journey, who in fact lives there? Especially if they are offering to guide us along the way, inspiring us to deal with the challenges, and showing us how to avoid any pitfalls?

The practice of relying upon a Spiritual Guide is common to all Buddhist schools, Hinayana and Mahayana, and has been since time without beginning. It is considered an essential ingredient of the path both to liberation and to enlightenment. As Geshe Kelsang said (quoted by Genla Dekyong in the Festival):

How to solve human problems is very simple in reality, but because we are ignoring the advice of enlightened beings, our problems are endless and never finish.

Personal spiritual trainer

The big yellow book, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, contains all the stages of the path to enlightenment in detail, and is the go-to book for Buddha’s teachings on relying upon a Spiritual Guide. At the beginning of that chapter, Geshe Kelsang says:

Reliance upon a Spiritual Guide is called the “root of the path” because all other spiritual realizations of Sutra and Tantra depend upon it.

One reason for this could be that we had no idea these realizations even existed before meeting our Spiritual Guide. Generally, we don’t know we need a Spiritual Guide until we’ve tasted some Dharma, at which point it becomes a bit obvious, and increasingly more obvious the more we delve into these deep and far-reaching teachings on Sutra and Tantra.

Just as in our ordinary education we need to rely upon the help of well-qualified teachers to guide us from the level of nursery school to the completion of college or university training, so in the spiritual training that leads to full enlightenment we need to rely upon a well-qualified Spiritual Guide.

If I decide for some reason that I would like to make airplanes, the day I start reading the manuals is the day I know that I am going to need someone’s help and instruction.

It’s all very well to dismiss this seminal practice to say we need to follow our heart or follow our bliss, except that we’ve already basically been doing that for a inconceivably long time. We’re going around in circles. If we want to learn things that we’ve never learned before, things that are going to take us somewhere completely new, if we want a transcendent route out of the cycle of suffering, we have to follow a transcendent Guide.

As Gen Rabten put it last week:

We have had countless lives, in every one of which we longed to find a lasting happiness and an end to suffering. We have travelled through each and every realm countless times. And never once have we fulfilled our wish for happiness and peace. This cyclic existence, samsara, is not an external prison, but a prison created by our own mind. There is just one door through which we can escape. That door is the realization of emptiness. In this life we have met a pure spiritual path that has led us to this door. Not once in our countless previous lives have we found a better position than this. If we step through this door, our samsara and all our sufferings will cease. We will find our own nirvana and the ability to lead others to theirs.

Who benefits from this practice?

We do. A qualified Spiritual Guide is not going to be bothered from their own side whether or not we rely upon them because they already have everything they could possibly want or need.

In Buddhism, as I think I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions, faith in Buddha and our Spiritual Guides depends on faith in our own Buddha nature. If on the basis of at least suspecting that we have the potential for boundless freedom, and perhaps first giving ourselves a few moments to feel some of the peace we already have in our heart, we think through some of the following benefits we’ll experience from relying upon a Spiritual Guide, this will increase our wish to find and rely upon one. This in turn will increase our effort or enthusiasm, which will lead to all these benefits.

We progress towards enlightenment

If I rely completely upon my Spiritual Guide, he or she will reveal what I have to practice to attain full enlightenment …

(For the purposes of keeping this article reasonably short, I’d like to direct you to Joyful Path to find the rest of this quote and other quotes below, page 98 onward).

Our Spiritual Guide reveals the truth to us and explains what we need to do, such that we can accomplish our spiritual goals swiftly, even “in this very lifetime”. How is that even possible?! If you are wondering that, check out Buddha’s Tantric teachings. Enlightenment in one lifetime is possible if we find a qualified Tantric teacher.

Here is one of my favorite quotes, which is by Padampa Sangye in One Hundred Verses for the Tingri People:

If we rely upon our Spiritual Guide he can lead us wherever we wish to go and so we should repay his kindness by offering faith and respect. If we wish to attain enlightenment, our Spiritual Guide will lead us there…. If we wish to be reborn in a Pure Land, he will lead us there. He will lead us to whatever virtuous destination we desire.

Decades ago I had a clear dream in which Geshe-la told me:

I will take you wherever you want to go. Don’t be concerned about what other people are doing or how they are looking at you, just follow me.

And it’s true. It has been true for me so far, and for many others, and for practitioners since the time of Buddha including Buddha himself — they have all had Spiritual Guides who took them where they wanted to go. No one has ever attained enlightenment without a Spiritual Guide. I don’t think you’re going to be the first.

We delight all the Buddhas

Buddha Vajradhara says:

When disciples make offerings to their Spiritual Guides, I myself and all the other Buddhas enter into the body of the Spiritual Guide and accept the offering.

And there’s more, it’s pretty deep, you can learn more about how that works from the chapter.

We are not harmed by demons and other evil influences

When we have refuge in our Spiritual Guide, we are not going to experience spirit attacks and so on. Most humans cannot see spirits, and probably a lot of humans don’t even believe in them; but a lot do as well. (Recently I have been told by various housemates that when I’ve been away they’ve heard voices and seen lights flicker on and off in my attic apartment. I don’t mind. In any case, these apparently benign spirits go away when I come home.)

According to Buddha, there is a whole so-called spirit or hungry ghost realm, one of the six realms of samsara; and quite apart from the fact that life is ghastly for them, some of these spirits can give us a hard time. There is no space in this article to look more into this, but it reminds me of the quote from Hamlet:

There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

We easily overcome our faults and delusions

If I rely upon my Spiritual Guide, through his or her kindness he will show me how to abandon faults and delusions and so I will be able to avoid harmful actions and their results.

Here, Geshe Kelsang mentions the example of Milarepa, which, if you haven’t read yet, and even if you have, I strongly recommend – it is a really good story, popular in Buddhism. Milarepa had done some atrociously bad things, like murdering about 30 people, by the time he met his Spiritual Guide. I am assuming that none of you reading this is a mass murderer, but even if you are, and have gotten away with it this far, although it is eating away at you, if you rely wholeheartedly on your Spiritual Guide and their instructions you can abandon and purify every single evil action.

Milarepa attained enlightenment in that very same lifetime! Which means there’s a lot of hope for the rest of us. The stronger our faith, the more “easily” we can overcome our faults and delusions. “Easily” sounds good to me.

Our experiences and realizations of spiritual grounds and paths greatly increase

The story is told here of Geshe Jayulwa, who had no time for meditation or study because he was always serving or cleaning up after his Spiritual Guide. One day he went outside to empty the trash and

… his mind naturally developed single-pointed concentration on emptiness and, without having to exert extra effort or engage in meditation, he gained a realization of emptiness.

This happened due to the purification and huge good karma he got from humbly serving his kind Spiritual Guide, who in turn was freed up to help so many other people. Without us helping Venerable Geshe-la, for example, he cannot get much done practically speaking – he has said that he is like one hand and his students are like the other.

We never lack spiritual friends in all our future lives

Je Phabongkhapa is the Spiritual Guide of Trijang Rinpoche, who is the Spiritual Guide of Geshe Kelsang – making him, I do believe, our spiritual great-grandfather. Which is good news because he was a formidable Lama. He says:

Although our Spiritual Guide may at present appear to be ordinary, if we do not assent to this ordinary appearance but practice regarding him or her as a Buddha, we shall create the cause to have actual Buddhas … as our Spiritual Guides in the future.

Right now everything appears to us as ordinary because we have ordinary minds. This makes ouropinions unreliable, and even if Buddha Shakyamuni or Manjushri or Tara were to appear in all their glory in front of us, their illusory bodies made of wisdom light, and say “Hello!”, what would we see? An ordinary person. (In fact, they may have already tried to say “Hello!” to you.) Buddhas are already all around us all the time. Enlightenment is r eality. In The New Eight Steps to Happiness, Venerable Geshe-la says:

Buddhas are like the sun and our ignorance is like the clouds that obscure the sun. When clouds disperse we see that in reality the sun has been shining all along; and, in a similar way, when we remove the clouds of ignorance from our mind we shall see that the Buddhas have always been present all around us.

Traveling the spiritual paths of Sutra and Tantra is very much the process of unveiling that reality – we’re not seeing all that wonder because our ordinary appearances and projections are getting in the way, like clouds. So we practice seeing our Spiritual Guide as an embodiment of all these Buddhas appearing in a form that we can relate to, talk to, and understand – but never for a moment thinking that the ordinariness we perceive belongs to our Spiritual Guide, but rather to our own perceptions. You can see how this unordinary view is creating the cause to see Buddhas in their actual forms.

We do not take rebirth in the lower realms

You may think, “I wasn’t planning on doing that anyway.” But the thing is that we have been in samsara since beginningless time and are travelers bound for future lives. This world is not our permanent home, as Buddha said, and we have at most a few hundred months left before we have to leave this body and its world.

When we fall asleep tonight, everything about today is going to disappear and we will enter a different world in a different dream body — maybe it’ll be a nice world, but it could just as easily be a nightmare. Then tomorrow with any luck we’ll wake up into a world similar to today’s world (though not the same, as explained in these articles on subtle impermanence).

A similar thing will happen when we die, except that we won’t be waking back up into anything even remotely resembling what is appearing to us now. In the time it takes to go through the death process, the few hours or less that it takes to die, everything about this life will disappear. We will be parted from everything and everyone we know in this life, including our body, friends, career, and children. We have to think about these things because it is only a matter of time before this happens to us.

And at that point, we will definitely want our Spiritual Guide with us. He is the one person who can accompany us in the death process and stay with us in all our future lives. No ordinary being can do this, however much we want them to come with us. Our Spiritual Guide can, and he will. Therefore, this is a very important benefit.

All our wishes, temporary and ultimate, are easily fulfilled

I don’t have anything to add for that one, at least not right now.

Does any of this sound good to me?

We can close our eyes and contemplate all or any one of these benefits, asking ourselves, “Is this what I want? Would I like this benefit? How might that work?” If we do this, and it moves our heart, we’ll naturally have a wish to find and rely upon a Spiritual Guide. And if we have that wish, we will find and rely upon one. As the old saying goes:

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

For which Buddha could refuse you?! All of them attained enlightenment because they found living beings’ suffering impossible to ignore and wanted to be in a position to guide us out of samsara. Therefore, if someone is finally seeking lasting freedom and happiness, what Buddha is going to say, “No, not you, sorry. Mm mm. I attained enlightenment to guide all living beings to freedom and bliss, but there is an exception to every rule, and I’m afraid that’s you.” No, that’s not going to happen. Therefore if you want to follow the path with a Spiritual Guide, one will appear, one has already appeared to be honest.

Coming up next … once we have decided to rely upon a Spiritual Guide, the big and obvious question is – Who?! Who is my Spiritual Guide?

Meantime, please leave your comments in the box below!

Inner being

5 min read

Refuge is what we turn to to get rid of our suffering. We go for refuge because we need refuge, or protection, from our various problems, big or small. We arguably spend all day going for refuge, trying to get rid of one thing by turning to something else.

Like, just now I was feeling a big sleepy, so went to grab a coffee from my local NYC coffee shop. (Passing waves of people on the street seemingly on their way somewhere, no doubt in pursuit of relief just like me.) If we are feeling unwell, we turn to medicine; if we’re lonely, maybe we turn to friends or Tinder; if we’re hungry, we eat something if we can; if we’re bored, maybe we go online; if we’re uncomfortable, we shift our body into another position. Etc. Those are relatively tame things to do – we also have a large variety of more suspect things we turn to, such as opioids or the pursuit of power, status, and extreme wealth (check out this video:)

Sped-up movies

You know those sped-up movies? Watching them, we can see how we’re always on the go — going here, doing this, going there, doing that. Getting up, sitting down, propping ourselves up, lying down, walking around, sitting down again. Each day is a constant pursuit of little relief hits from what are basically physical or mental aches and pains. And we’ve been doing this our entire life. In all our lives, since beginningless time.

But the interesting thing is that we have just as many problems to solve as ever, don’t you find? We have just as many physical aches and pains, quite possibly more given that this body doesn’t get more comfortable as it gets older. Not to mention the near-constant mental aches and pains. So, we’re turning for refuge to other things all the time, but they are clearly only providing some temporary relief at best.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t eat, drink coffee, get a job, surf the internet, etc. That’s not Buddha’s point. His point is, are we finding the lasting happiness and freedom that we all long for? Are these temporary refuges sufficient for us, or could we actually be doing more? Could we be getting rid of our aches and pains more effectively?

And so far we’re not even talking about those BIG problems — namely ageing, sickness, major loss, catastrophes, and death — just the run of the mill irritations and discomforts. Coffee, the internet, power/status, and hot dates don’t even touch the big problems.

Ultimate refuge

This is where we turn to the subject of refuge in Buddhism. This is a vast subject — all Buddha’s teachings are included within refuge one way or another, because basically Buddhist refuge means that instead of turning to worldly solutions, or sense pleasures, or indeed anything outside our mind, we turn inside to the practice of Buddhadharma.

The main object of refuge in Buddhism is our own efforts in practicing Dharma: such as increasing our inner peace, getting rid of our delusions (sometimes known, with good reason, as “afflictions”), practicing patience, love, compassion, and wisdom. We turn to Dharma experience because we appreciate that it is the effective and lasting protection from our problems.

There would be no Dharma without Buddha Shakyamuni, he taught it in our world; and Buddhas also emanate as Spiritual Guides who can guide us and bless our minds. Without Buddhas, or enlightened beings, it would be impossible to practice Dharma. And we also turn to Sangha, such as our fellow Dharma practitioners – others who are also interested in solving their problems, if you like, from the inside, not always from the outside.

Buddhism

At the time of Buddha Shakyamuni, when he was walking around in a form that everyone could see, he never used the word “Buddhism.” The word “Buddhism” is a new invention. It is one of those Western “ism” words — we took Buddha and added ism to the end of it.

Buddha instead would apparently call his disciples “inner beings.” Nangpa cho, if you want to know the Tibetan and impress people at parties; which I believe, though correct me if I’m wrong, literally means inner Dharma. Those who practice the teachings, go for refuge to the Three Jewels, are inner beings, because instead of turning outwards for solutions to their problems they are trying to turn inwards to transform the mind.

And the reason we practice Dharma is out of compassion, to free ourselves and others. To end suffering. To end suffering for everybody: humans, animals, insects, everybody. That’s the end goal in Buddhism — to ourselves become more and more of an object of refuge until eventually we ourselves are a Buddha.

Going for refuge to Dharma

Putting effort into practicing Dharma means that we take delight in it, really enjoy it. We see it as a real solution to everything that ails us and everybody else. We love it, we understand its benefits, we understand that it works. So we naturally turn to it with effort. Effort doesn’t mean straining and pushing, it means enjoyment — its full name is joyful effort. If we enjoy things, we do them, you’ve probably noticed.

Going for refuge to Buddha

We also put effort into receiving blessings and inspiration from Buddha. We can do this by just feeling close to enlightened beings, because from their side they’re already close to us, indeed one with us. By tuning into blessings, our minds experience huge amounts of power and inspiration.

Going for refuge to Sangha

And then we put effort into receiving help from Sangha, which means we allow ourselves to be encouraged and inspired by other people who are practicing Dharma. They’re all trying to gain the experiences of cherishing others and patience, for example, and all trying to get rid of their attachment and irritation. The fact that they haven’t managed it all yet doesn’t matter; we’re still motivated by them because they’re trying. They can be very good examples for us. And we can make an effort not just to receive help from Sangha but to help them too.

My feeling is that Sangha don’t have to be signed-up Buddhists – I find anyone who is relying on inner refuge, for example compassion in the face of adversity, can work as refuge and inspiration for me.

Over to you. Any thoughts to contribute on the subject of inner being?

The power of Sangha
Buddhism: an idea whose time has come
What is Buddhism? ~ a short, simple guide

Using bliss to overcome attachment and other delusions

A guest article by a modern Buddhist practitioner who works full time as a manager of software development teams.

Leveraging objects of desire as a basis for rapid inner transformation is part of the quick path to enlightenment. To accomplish this transformation, we need to practice on the basis of a pure motivation and some understanding of ultimate truth, emptiness. These practices also require some experience of Buddhism and a Tantric empowerment. See the article Tantra: Transforming enjoyments for a similar practice that anyone can do.

Before engaging in them we develop the motivation of bodhichitta, a determination to become a fully enlightened being in order to liberate all living beings permanently from suffering. With this motivation we then recall our knowledge of emptiness, remembering that nothing exists from its own side. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso summarizes this preliminary practice in Part Four of The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra:

We should first develop the supreme good heart, bodhichitta, that sincerely wishes to liberate all living beings from suffering permanently by ourself becoming the enlightened being Heruka, and the understanding and belief that our body, our self and all the other phenomena that we normally see or perceive do not exist at all. ~ page 124

Learning to transform objects of desire

How can we begin learning to transform objects of desire? When we gaze upon an attractive person in the meditation break, or eat some delicious food, it induces a feeling of bliss in our mind. If we train our mind to recognize and hold this blissful feeling, we can use it as an object of meditation. With this feeling of bliss, we then contemplate emptiness by recalling that: 1) this appearance is not independent of our mind and 2) this appearance is not outside of our mind:

If the pleasurable experience is independent of our mind, then everyone would perceive that person or object as attractive. Since the experience depends on our mind, the person we normally perceive, the independent person, does not exist at all.
If the pleasurable experience is outside of our mind, then we could not experience it. Since pleasure is a feeling in the mind, this indicates that our mind is creating both the experience and the person or object who is the object of that experience, rather like an experience in a dream. Another way of saying this is that the person is an appearance of our mind, appearing to our mind.

These are very profound topics, but they will start to make sense naturally if we build familiarity with them now. Thinking in this way we can mix the feeling of bliss with the knowledge of emptiness. This recollection helps to oppose the mind of attachment that would suck our mind into the object. Instead, we can be like a bee extracting pollen from a flower, understanding that the pleasurable feeling is arising within the space of our mind. We can enhance this entire experience by connecting it to our Spiritual Guide’s mind of spontaneous great bliss at our heart.

Taking refuge in our own inner bliss

This process helps to train our mind in refuge, which is the foundation of being a Buddhist. We are learning to turn within to our experience to find the happiness and freedom we seek. With familiarity, this bliss within our heart will grow and we will naturally rely on it to find satisfaction. Over time it will become infinitely more satisfying than any of our ordinary enjoyments.

According to Lamrim, a mind of refuge contains faith in Buddha, his teachings the Dharma, and the Sangha practitioners. To incorporate this we can remember that this experience of bliss and emptiness is Dharma, protecting us from delusions and suffering. It is also mixed with the mind of our Spiritual Guide inseparable from Buddha, as well as the experience of the past and present Sangha Yogis and Yoginis.

By enjoying objects of desire in this way, we can come to understand how these practices destroy attachment, like a fire consuming the wood that started it. Every object of desire will take us straight into our heart to build an increasingly transcendental experience there.

Bringing the experience of bliss into the meditation session

Once we have some experience of enjoying objects of desire in the meditation break we can learn to apply this to the meditation session. For example, we can learn how to generate bliss in the meditation session by gazing upon a visualized god or goddess. This is easily done if we recall the bliss experienced from the meditation break.

There are many times in the meditation session that we can apply this in the context of our sadhana, or practice — for example, after dissolving our Spiritual Guide into our heart and before meditating on bringing death into the path of the Truth Body. In Tantric Grounds and Paths Geshe Kelsang says:

At first our experience of bliss will not be very strong, but if we develop familiarity with this meditation we shall gradually develop a special feeling of bliss. We should maintain this experience and keep our own subtle mind focused on this feeling single-pointedly. ~ page 243

In this way, we use the meditation break to enhance our meditation session and vice versa.

Four complete purities of generation stage Tantra

JTK five visions.jpg — Khedrubje’s five visions of Je Tsongkhapa

We train in the practice of transforming objects of desire explained above on the basis of the four complete purities. In generation stage, this means enjoying objects while imagining we have complete purity of 1) place, 2) body, 3) activities, and 4) enjoyments. This means that we feel we are in an enlightened world, have the body of an enlightened being, and benefit all beings without exception, and that all our enjoyments are free from impurity. This correct imagination helps us to dissolve away the contaminated ordinary characteristics of our enjoyments and to experience them in a pure way.

To train in this, while enjoying ourselves we can recall the verse from Offering to the Spiritual Guide:

All beings are actual Heroes and Heroines.
Everything is immaculately pure,
Without even the name of mistaken impure appearance.

By enjoying in this way, we are making offerings to all the Buddhas. As Geshe Kelsang says in The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra:

… we enjoy any objects of desire as offerings to the holy beings who reside in the Temple of our body. This practice is a special method to transform our daily enjoyments into the quick path to enlightenment. This is Tantric technology! ~ page 104

Four complete purities of completion stage Tantra

In completion stage, we enjoy objects of desire in dependence upon the great bliss developed from meditation on the central channel. The bliss developed in dependence upon completion stage is vastly superior to any other experience of bliss. This experience develops in the root mind at our heart and contains the four complete purities. It is a non-conceptual experience of emptiness, which means it is free from gross and subtle appearances. This realization of the true nature of things with a very subtle mind is free from mistaken appearance. Due to this, there are no impure places, bodies, enjoyments, and activities appearing to it.

One practice I like to do in accordance with completion stage is offering the blissful experience to myself generated as the Dharmakaya or Truth Body of my personal Deity, such as Dharmakaya Heruka. This, in turn, enhances my mind of bliss and deepens my experience of emptiness. I offer my experience of the four complete purities of great bliss and emptiness to my Spiritual Guide’s mind mixed with my own mind at my heart. This practice feels like a mandala offering in that it fills my mind with good karma and joy!

Progress through practice and familiarity

This practice of transforming enjoyments encapsulates every aspect of Buddha’s teachings. If we gain familiarity with developing bliss in this way, our winds will gradually come closer to abiding in our central channel. Buddha teaches that when this happens we will experience a bliss that is stable and subtle, and that gives rise to unceasing physical and mental suppleness. Our mind will become lucid and flexible, and in this space we can let go of delusions quickly and easily.

This mental suppleness allows us to easily mix virtuous Lamrim minds into everything that happens, every appearance, both in and out of meditation. As a result we will experience deep inner peace and happiness day and night. Accomplishing this is the real meaning of our human life. Once we do, we will possess a wishfulfilling jewel of a mind that bestows endless benefit on ourselves and others.

I hope this is helpful. You can find out all about it by reading Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s Tantric books. Please feel free to make comments and I will try to reply 🙂

Why pray?

By the way, during that meditation I described on the meditation on the nature of the mind, the moment we notice we are distracted we can ask the same question, “What is it that is aware?” so that we return to the clarity of the mind, allowing the distracting concern to dissolve back into the clarity like a wave settling into a still ocean.

There are other legitimate things to do as well if we find ourselves too tempted to get involved with our thoughts — we can recall subtle impermanence, that these things are already gone, and in that way let them dissolve spontaneously away. Or we can recall the suffering nature of contaminated phenomena, that the end of collection is dispersion and so on, motivating us to deepen our meditation. These ways into the clarity of the mind were taught by Venerable Geshe Kelsang in his fantastic 2000 AD teachings combining Mahamudra and the four seals, and I’d love to get around to talking about them some day as they have helped me immeasurably. The main object of meditation is clarity, so once we have found that we stick with it; but we can use various contemplations to help us get there.

This article is part of a series of Mahamudra articles. Those of you who know about Lamrim, or the stages of the path to enlightenment, may wonder where meditating on the nature of the mind appears in the 21 meditations? It doesn’t explicitly, but it is our favored object of tranquil abiding (#19), and it does appear in many other places in the Kadampa books, such as How to Understand the Mind and Mahamudra Tantra, and in detail in two chapters of Clear Light of Bliss. It also features in Venerable Geshe Kelsang’s new book, The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, in which the first of the five stages of the actual practice of Mahamudra is identifying our own mind and meditating on tranquil abiding.

Prayers and blessings

You may have noticed that in this tradition we like to practice in conjunction with prayers (whether we say them out loud or not). When some of you first encounter the prayers, you think, “How wonderful, I love them!” … but there are not many of you. A lot of people’s initial response is “What? I thought they didn’t have this in Buddhism! I came to relax and now you want me to sing?!” And then we reconcile ourselves to the idea: “Ah well, I’ll settle my mind with the breathing meditation, let my mind rest and ramble during the prayers, and then focus again when I am back on the meditation.” That, of course, is not the idea. As Geshe Kelsang has warned us many times, we don’t want to get into the bad habit of parroting the prayers. Instead we can start off really well by communing with enlightened beings.

The main purpose of prayers is to change our mind in a good direction and to receive blessings. With blessings we are essentially connecting our mind to an enlightened being’s mind and, in doing so, adding a lot of power and fluidity to our meditations. This exponentially facilitates and deepens our experience.

This meditation on the nature of the mind is part of the Mahamudra practice, which is the heart essence of our lineage, the Ganden Oral Lineage, and lies at the very heart of our Spiritual Guide’s experience. So this particular Mahamudra lineage that we are receiving comes directly from Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the new Kadampa tradition; and it is exceedingly blessed. As Venerable Geshe-la says in Great Treasury of Merit, thousands of Je Tsongkhapa’s disciples gained deep experience through putting these methods into practice, attaining the illusory body, clear light, and full enlightenment.

It is very important for us to recognize and think about blessings, for otherwise, when we meditate, WE try to meditate. Meaning that while identifying ourselves in an ordinary limited way, we try to coerce our mind into having very profound experiences of the subtle dimensions of reality. Basically, we are TRYING in the wrong way. We are putting the onus on our SELF, and in particular our ordinary sense of self.

I think often when we sit down to meditate we immediately bring up an association with our self, the one that is not that good at meditating. We only think about this sense of self when it is time to meditate, when we feel we need to cajole it, “This time, you are going to do it!”, and then basically push to have an experience of the clarity of the mind. And of course what can happen is that we end up not having this experience, which in a rather subconscious gratifying way affirms what we knew all along, ie, that we are not very good at meditating. It reinforces our underlying sense of discouragement, a common type of laziness.

This is a great shame with this great gift of Mahamudra. Hence, blessings.

Buddha is not outside our mind

Everything we experience is not outside our mind, nothing is outside the mind. For example, is the sound of the bird inside or outside? You cannot separate it from your perception, you cannot draw a line between the perception and the sound; so it is inside. Your experience of your friend is your experience of your friend, inside, not out.

Homs Syria — Aleppo, Syria, February 2016. We need enlightenment.

So when we bring to mind Buddha, he or she is not outside my mind. There is no need to buy into the dualistic appearance of a gap or separation – my isolated meditation over here and the Awakened Ones having a great time over there. When we pray, we are not petitioning external forces but awakening our own potential by recognizing it is not separate from the minds of all enlightened beings. And we are doing this for everyone.

Venerable Geshe Kelsang says every single peaceful mind and happiness arises through Buddha’s blessings. (There is a great explanation of that in this guest article.) According to Geshe-la:

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. Only human beings can attain this through practicing meditation. How fortunate we are! ~ The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, p. 3.

We can understand that whenever we develop a positive mind, in that moment, when we allow ourselves to be happy, we have disengaged from delusions to some extent. We have allowed our mind to come into alignment with a Buddha’s non-deluded reality, which is pervaded by peace, joy, love, etc; tapping into a profound enlightenment.

Settling

So we need to allow that to happen rather than the clutching “Yikes, grab my peace, it’s disappearing!” rodeo experience of meditating. Our meditation should not be a rodeo; it should feel instead like a settling. The word we use, in Clear Light of Bliss for example, is “Settling like a still ocean.” We use our own experience of peace to help settle into a vast transcendent experience of peace, joy, etc.

My peace is already connected to Buddha’s peace, great! So we start not from disconnection but from connection, from refuge, and allow the prayers to deepen that experience naturally. Geshe Kelsang has likened prayers to an old man’s stick, a reminder to their meaning. So we let the words suggest the minds, as opposed to forcing the minds and getting tired and distracted. We enjoy what we’re saying, saying it from the heart, while abiding in that communion.

Then when it is time to meditate, we do so while continuing to bathe in that experience – we don’t LEAVE the blessings. It’s not like filling our car up with gas and then driving off, here I am all on my own again. We meditate WITH blessings, we can even let the Spiritual Guide do the meditation for us for he really wants to help and he is very good at this. Instead of combat with obstacles, nay-saying, and distractions, we can really relax. From the point of view of the Spiritual Guide, there are no obstacles, and we are already fantastic. We could do a lot worse than to get into the habit of seeing ourself through his eyes.

Look in the mirror

Do you want to know what else I do?! I look at a picture of my favorite enlightened being and think I am looking in the mirror. We don’t have to feel that we are unworthy or light years away from our Spiritual Guide or the Buddhas. That is ordinary appearance, and they don’t ever see us as ordinary or limited.

So feel free at any time during the meditation to reconnect with the Spiritual Guide and simply ask, “Please help me with clarity.” If we throw a pebble in the pond and wait, ripples will gradually arise. We ask for some guidance or inspiration, and then we wait.

Do leave a comment to add anything else that is helpful or ask questions.

What’s the relationship between blessings and inner peace?

A guest article by a long-time Kadampa practitioner

Venerable Geshe Kelsang has said that the function of Buddha is to bestow blessings continuously upon living beings and cause them to experience inner peace. Often I take these words superficially without relating them to my daily experience; but on those rare occasions when I do …

My experience of peace now, at this time, is arising from the blessings or inspiration of holy beings affecting my mind here and now!!! …

… a completely new world opens up before me.

Such a difference between words to the ear understood by the intellect, and wisdom from the Spiritual Guide experienced, even just for a moment, within daily life.

A beautiful piece of advice that Kadam Morten gave in the New York Festival was to learn to recognise the presence of blessings in our lives. Whenever we experience some degree of inner peace, we should recognise that experience as moments of blessing, to enjoy those moments with an understanding of the deep and close connection we have with enlightened beings. As he said (according to my recollection, so please forgive mistakes):

When you experience inner peace, right there is your Buddha nature, right there is Buddha and Buddha’s blessings.

Often when we experience some inner peace (and I can only speak for myself) we can easily take these moments for granted and let them pass without noticing what is actually happening. When those fleeting moments pass and the clouds of disturbing conceptions have rolled back, covering the pure inner sky of our mind, we are once more unhappy and wondering where we can go to, what can we hold on to or push ourselves away from to return to that pure space. When the mind is peaceful – and thus blessed – it is easy to feel connected to holy beings and develop our relationship with them. By contrast – again I speak for myself – when the mind has no peace it is hard to develop faith in, or even remember, our connection with Buddhas and their unobstructed power to bless and transform our mind. The instinct is to immediately search outside the mind… and so journey further into suffering.

To me this shows a lack of deep understanding of where peace and happiness really come from. We need to take Geshe Kelsang’s teaching to heart – to develop a deep understanding and belief in the non-deceptive dependent relationship between Buddhas’ blessings and our own inner experience of peace and happiness.

The more I think about this dependent relationship and, more importantly, the more I learn to experience it in daily life, the more I start to realise that we are not the independent entities we normally perceive – unrelated to, and separate from, everything else in the universe. Normally it feels like our state of mind just is what it is, from its own side, existing as a discreet entity whose qualities of peace or disturbance do not come from anywhere but are simply inherent characteristics of our mind itself. However this feeling is mistaken. Just as a rainbow arises entirely from the gathering of different necessary conditions and cannot be separate from them, so our peaceful mind arises from the blessings of Buddha.

For me, learning to let go of my sense of independence and separateness goes hand in hand with learning to become more open and receptive to blessings. While on the one hand we long to feel more connected to Buddhas and be nourished by their blessings, our grasping at an independent self creates the illusion of a big gap between our self and these beings, undermining our receptivity. Our mind that we wish to change feels “in here” while Buddhas and their benevolent power seem “out there”. These two, which we yearn to experience as deeply related and connected, are held by our ignorance to be truly separate, different, unrelated. While we try to feel ever closer to our Spiritual Guide and develop powerful faith so as to receive the blessings of all the Buddhas, our inner ignorance always holds us at a distance, weakening the power of our faith. The ignorance in our heart doesn’t really believe we can change, let alone “be changed”, by the influence of a pure being so “different” and “other” to ourselves.

With faith we make sincere requests but ignorance makes it feel as if our prayers are telegraphed across a big existential gap and that blessings are received from some distant Dharmakaya or holy space.

Through contemplating the dependent relationship of our own experience of inner peace and blessings we begin to realize that we already have a deep, profound, powerful, and intimate connection with enlightened beings. That relationship is already there – we do not need to create it. But we can learn to recognize it and increase our trust and reliance upon this relationship as a dynamic and vital source of refuge and transformation.

When I recognize (on the basic level that I am able) that all that I am and all that I experience is entirely dependent on other factors, that every moment my mind and my self are being re-created and transformed by many conditions, I let go (however slightly) of my sense of existing independently, permanent, and separate. Instead I can begin to experience my self as a dependently arising be-ing, in connection with the universe and receptive to conditions of transformation. There is no real gap between myself and Buddhas, no space between my mind and their blessings. This wisdom opens the heart more and more to the blessings of our Spiritual Guide, which in turn further awaken our Buddha nature.

Likewise there is no real gap or difference between ourselves and all other living beings. We already have, right now, a profound, powerful and intimate connection with all the countless mother beings of the universe. We do not need to create this relationship. It is already there. Just by recognizing this relationship our heart begins to open with a natural, uncontrived love and compassion, through which the blessings of Buddha can pervade and transform the entire universe.

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For more articles on blessings, click here.

Blessings are not that mysterious

Blessings may be ineffable, but I don’t think they are entirely mysterious. It is possible for our consciousness to be affected by others’ states of mind; in fact it happens all the time.

Have you ever walked into a room where someone is feeling incredibly hostile but not saying a word nor even making a face – they are just sitting there but their negative energy is practically palpable? Before you know it, you feel uneasy as well, and if you’re not careful you can become quite negative.

Alternatively, have you ever walked into a room where someone is feeling incredibly open and loving, and again they are not saying a word but you can feel their positive energy and it uplifts your own mind?

If we can be affected by ordinary people’s minds in this way, (I think some Western psychologists call it “resonant empathy”), perhaps it is not so hard to get a sense of how blessings work. As described in What are blessings?, blessings are “transformation through inspiration” — how? By being affected by the infinitely creative, loving and wise minds of holy beings, which are not something we randomly run into but everywhere all the time. The function of a Buddha or enlightened being is to bestow blessings, it is as if they cannot help it! Blessing everyone is their job! My teacher Geshe Kelsang’s definition in Mahamudra Tantra:

Enlightenment is defined as an omniscient wisdom whose nature is the permanent cessation of mistaken appearance and whose function is to bestow mental peace on all living beings (by bestowing blessings).

(BTW, anyone whose mind fits the definition above is a Buddha (Sanskrit for “Awakened One”), regardless of what tradition they appear in). Buddhas’ minds are always everywhere, they pervade all phenomena, including us. Why? A Buddha’s mind is inseparable bliss and emptiness free from all obstructions. Everything is always empty of inherent existence. The emptiness of all phenomena is always indivisible with the bliss of a Buddha’s mind.

It is also very helpful to remember that whenever you generate a positive mind, such as love or compassion or inner peace, this is no different to the inner peace of all enlightened beings, you are already mixing your mind with theirs. And recognizing this allows their blessings to pour into you effortlessly.

As mentioned in Blissings, we can receive the blessings of all enlightened beings through our Spiritual Guide. Our Spiritual Guide is able to appear as a person we can relate to — who can teach us or set a good example — but the actual or definitive Spiritual Guide is the so-called “Dharmakaya” (“Truth Body” or omniscient mind). This is described as the “pervasive nature of all things stable and moving”. This verse from Offering to the Spiritual Guide sent (nice) chills down my spine when I first heard it, and still does:

Pervasive nature of all things stable and moving,
Inseparable from the experience of spontaneous joy without obstructions;
Thoroughly good, from the beginning free from extremes,
O Actual, ultimate bodhichitta, to you I make requests.

(Ultimate bodhichitta from a Tantric point of view is the same as Mahamudra, the union of bliss and emptiness. There are different levels of this, and in this verse it is referring to the ultimate bodhichitta that is a Buddha’s omniscient wisdom, which is the Truth Body or Dharmakaya completely free from obstructions).

Everything is always empty of inherent existence, and where there is emptiness there is bliss. They are indivisible. Why?

vajra and bell — Vajra and bell, always touching, symbolizing indivisible bliss and emptiness

There is no such thing as an object without a mind (or “object-possessor”) knowing it, and no such thing as a mind (object-possessor) without its object. The object emptiness is not inherently existent or “out there” independent of mind; like everything else its very existence depends on the mind knowing it. Which mind? It is the clear light mind of bliss that knows emptiness non-dualistically, that sees it directly free from any mistaken appearance, which is the actual object-possessor of emptiness. And this mind likewise cannot exist without emptiness as its object. They exist only in relationship to each other — just as you cannot have a husband without a wife or a wife without a husband.

Omniscient wisdom, the nature of bliss, is therefore always mixed inseparably with the emptiness or ultimate nature of all phenomena including you, me and everything else that exists. At the moment I have mistaken appearance that blocks me from seeing this, but it is true, and through blessings I can feel it. Eventually we will realize the union of bliss and emptiness for ourselves.

In this respect, does the Dharmakaya seem so different from my Grandfather’s understanding of a creative God?

I find even my limited and clumsy understanding of how bliss and emptiness pervade all phenomena is crucial to understanding the spiritual technology behind tuning into blessings. Wiser folks than me can make more comments on this in the box below and you can consult Great Treasury of Merit pages 189-91 for incredible commentary on the verse above.

Visualizing blessings as lights and nectars

Bliss is the same nature as love and compassion, and so it radiates eternally and spontaneously from all enlightened beings – hence, “blissings”. To feel that we are receiving blessings having asked for them, it can be really helpful to visualize them flowing from holy beings (or their minds) into us in the form of blissful lights and even nectars — clear light, white light, multi-colored lights, it doesn’t matter, whatever seems right. Different Buddhas are associated with different colors so you can find out about that whenever you want — for example, if you want healing blessings, believe you are receiving blue lights and nectars, for blue is the color of Medicine Buddha.

All traditions understand the power of blessings and anyone can experience them in this way. In fact Jon Dicks says on Facebook: “Maybe what we feel is a akin to the experience of Hildegard of Bingen when she had a vision: ‘And it came to pass, when I was 42 years and 7 months old, that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming….’ I put this in because many religions, in addition to Buddhism, talk about blessings and being blessed.”

And even if we don’t fully understand the spiritual technology, it still works.

For the previous articles on this subject, see What are blessings? and Blissings.

Your turn: please share your understanding or experience in the comments box below.

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