Lam-rim 48: Four Opponent Forces; Vajrasattva; Taking Responsibility

I think what is quite relevant here, in our meditation, is not only to review our lives and to go through all the various things that we might have done in our present lifetimes – which could be quite an inventory and take quite a lot of time to do thoroughly – but also to infer from the general circumstances that we are experiencing now what the causes might have been in previous lifetimes.

For instance, if we are never able to stay with our loved ones, our relationships always break up, and so on, this indicates that in previous lifetimes we spoke divisively. We said nasty things about other people’s friends, partners or teachers, which caused them to part from each other. As a result, the relationships we have now don’t last. We can give many other examples: If we are poor, it’s because we weren’t generous. If we are always sick, it’s because we hurt or damaged the life force of others, etc. 

I know that we haven’t discussed in great detail what ripens from karma, but one of the things that ripens from it is feeling like doing things similar to what we’ve done in the past. If, let’s say, we are never able to maintain relationships or we always have to leave our loved ones and are never able to stay with them, there should be a trace of the tendency to speak divisively now. We might not do it with the intention of causing relationships to break up; nonetheless, we criticize all the time, say nasty things about other people to people who know them or are associated with them. So, examining the types of unfortunate things that we experience now can help us to identify certain negative patterns of behavior within ourselves and to be more mindful not to repeat them. 

I think this is something that’s very important to be aware of, not just in meditation but at other times as well. I would therefore like for us to take a little bit of time to examine ourselves to see if we have any of these types of negative patterns and to identify the areas that we might need to work on.

Participant: In which ways can one weaken the life force of others?

Dr. Berzin: One can weaken the life force of others, obviously, by hitting them, hurting them, not taking care of them, not providing medicine, and this sort of thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we go around hunting and fishing. It could be that, just in general, we don’t take care of others. So, see if that’s a tendency that we might have. It may be that we had it more strongly in childhood and that now, having practiced and worked with the Dharma, we have it less strongly. Nonetheless, it’s a tendency that we might still notice within ourselves and, perhaps, need to pay particular attention to in order to overcome it.

Participant: Normally, it’s behavior toward others, right?

Dr. Berzin: Right, but not exclusively so. For instance, being poor is the result of being miserly, not sharing with or giving to others. However, one can also be miserly toward oneself. There are people who have plenty of money but who never spend it on themselves. We’re not talking about being extravagant. We’re talking about being unnecessarily stingy toward ourselves – for example, always buying the worst quality of food in order to save a few pennies when it’s totally unnecessary. So, it doesn’t necessarily have to be directed toward others.

[meditation]

Participant: What came to my mind was that this approach is quite different from the Western psychological approach where one asks about the circumstances and experiences in this lifetime that could have influenced your personality. The Buddhists ask about your own actions in past lives that could have relevance.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Buddhism looks for causes in previous lifetimes.

Basically, we are looking at our own behavior, rather than the behavior of others toward us. In the teachings on karma, we find that a result of karma is not only that we unknowingly feel like repeating previous types of behavior but that we also unknowingly are drawn into situations in which others act toward us in ways that are similar to how we had acted toward others in the past or in which others provide circumstances for us to experience something similar to what we’ve done the past. Therefore, if we abused others in the past, not only would we have, in this lifetime, a tendency to abuse others, we would also likely be born into a family that would abuse us or be born in a country where the government would abuse us or something like that. So, everything fits together.

We also don’t look at those who provide circumstances as being causes – ultimate causes – for what we experience, because their providing circumstances comes from their own karmic potentials. Remember, we had this huge discussion about how our karmic potentials don’t cause somebody else to hit us with their car; rather, they have to have the karmic potential to injure someone for us to be injured by them. So, they just provide the circumstances for our karmic potential to be injured to ripen – in this case, by being hit by the car they are driving. 

Participant: One notices that one picks up patterns from one’s parents. I’ve certainly picked up many patterns from my mother. Is this something that is karmic?

Dr. Berzin: We could say that we are born into a family in which the family members have similar types of karmic patterns. Do we actually learn these patterns from our parents? That’s hard to say. Remember, things don’t come just from one cause.

Participant: A lot of my behavior is similar to that of my parents.

Dr. Berzin: But we also rebel against certain types of behavior of our parents. We don’t mimic everything, do we?

Participant: But I notice that even if I don’t like it or have rebelled against it, I still copy it.

Dr. Berzin: This is especially so in the case of raising children. It happens very, very frequently that, by default, we do what our parents did. So, even though we might have objected very, very much to the way that they treated us, we nevertheless find ourselves treating our children the same way. That’s very, very common.

Participant: I really hated certain behaviors of my mother, but, still, I repeat them.

Dr. Berzin: I would still argue that it’s not the case with all her behaviors – that you don’t repeat all of them. I can think of certain habits that I have that were habits of my parents, but I certainly don’t have all the same habits.

Participant: What does this have to do with karma?

Dr. Berzin: The point is that everything fits together. The type of family that we’re born into fits in with our previous karma. We have a completing karmic potential to be born into a certain kind of family. And the family that we’re born into is going to provide circumstances that are conducive for certain karmic potentials that we have to ripen. Often, those circumstances will involve being exposed to habitual patterns of behavior that are similar to those that we have a tendency to engage in. 

Now, karma entails just positive and negative behavior. But there are also some types of behavior that we repeat that are unspecified. That’s not mentioned so much. Some habits are like that; they’re unspecified. My mother, for instance, loved to throw things away. She never liked to have clutter around the house. She thought having flowers in the house was useless because they would just die. So, we never had flowers in the house. I notice that I am exactly the same: I don’t like clutter, and I never buy flowers. Now, those are both very neutral things, neither positive nor negative. So, what previous life thing is that involved with? Maybe a similar pattern? But it doesn’t really matter. It’s neutral. 

I think we need to focus on the positive and negative things, rather than the neutral, and try to reinforce the positive and minimize, or even get rid of, the negative. But the whole thrust of the Buddhist teachings on karma is that we need to not place blame on anybody else. We need to take responsibility for ourselves, for our own behavior, and not do so much of “my mother treated me like this, and my father treated me like that,” or “they didn’t give me enough of this,” or “they gave me too much of that.” We need, instead, to look at the feeling that come up now to act or speak in negative ways, recognize that these are very self-destructive – and possibly destructive to others as well – and exercise some self-control so that we don’t act on them. That’s the whole point.

It’s like with disturbing emotions. There are various causes for them to arise, one of which is the influence of others. So, sure, the influence of others, including our parents, can provide the circumstances for the disturbing emotions to arise, but that influence is not a root cause. And as it says in the Thirty-Seven Bodhisattva Practices, if friends or family cause anger or desire to arise or cause us to waste all our time on trivial things, it’s the practice of a bodhisattva to leave, to go away – if we can. Not everybody can, economically. Some people, even at the age of thirty, live with their parents because they don’t have the money to leave, even though it means remaining in circumstances that cause their negative emotions to arise very strongly. In that case, one has, of course, to apply other methods.

But if one does have the opportunity to avoid the negative influence of others – so-called misleading friends, for example – then one tries to do that. If, for instance, we have a problem with drugs or alcohol, hanging out with friends that are always drinking and taking drugs is obviously going to have a negative influence on us. If we want to overcome these negative habits, we’re going to have to have better friends and leave that type of company.

Participant: I also feel it’s very important not to put the blame on other people. But sometimes in order not to do that, it’s important to understand what someone did to you – for example, what your mother or someone else did that caused you to feel a certain way – so that you can see what you would do differently. If you understand, you can begin to identify what behavior would be better and then start doing that, so that you can start to separate yourself and then to understand, “OK, this person did this, but maybe it was not on purpose. She has things to deal with it, and maybe I can help.”

Dr. Berzin: What you are pointing out is very true. We’re not saying here that we should totally ignore how our family treated us, how they brought us up, and so on. But in order not to place the blame on them, there are, in a sense, two things we need to do. One is to see what they did, to recognize the negative things that they did that were not very helpful. The other is to try not only not to repeat those behaviors but also to correct those behaviors in ourselves. 

It is often the case that when our mothers or fathers weren’t particularly good mothers or fathers – they ignored us, weren’t affectionate with us, and so on – when we have children, we compensate by trying to be good fathers or good mothers. We try to be especially affectionate, generous with our time, and stuff like that. That way of dealing with our past is, of course, very constructive, rather than always looking for someone else to be a mother or father substitute – which is also a very common, neurotic aftermath of not having been satisfied by the way our mothers and fathers treated us. So, instead of always looking for somebody else to be a mother or father to us – which is, of course, not fair to the other person – we look to ourselves to be good fathers or mothers to an appropriate other, such as our children or our students or… 

Participant: Or to ourselves.

Dr. Berzin: Or even to ourselves. You’re right.

The other aspect that you mentioned, which is very true, is the aspect having to do with – you didn’t use the word, but I would use it – forgiveness. Although, as we said, forgiveness comes from a different type of cultural and philosophical background than that of Buddhism, Buddhism does speak about not holding a grudge. In any case, the thing is to try to understand our parents’ backgrounds. This is what is often done in therapy. We try to understand why our mothers and fathers acted the way that they did. We try to take into consideration that they’re human beings, that they’re not just defined by their roles as mothers and fathers, and try to understand the difficult circumstances they grew up in, how their parents treated them and so on. Usually, as children – not even as children but even as teenagers or young adults – we don’t really recognize all the aspects of our parents’ lives. We think of them only in terms of their roles as mothers and fathers. That is, of course, completely distorted and does not represent the reality of who they are. So, this is very important. But the point I was making before, which does not contradict what you said, is the importance of not placing blame on them and condemning them: “You were a bad parent,” or “you didn’t give me enough attention.” OK? 

So, we have covered openly admitting our negative actions. Regret we’ve covered somewhat as well. Now we get into the four opponent forces. 

[1] Regret

Regret is not the same as guilt. Guilt implies a strong identification with a “me” that is “bad” – “What I did was so bad, and I’m so bad” – just holding onto that and not letting go of it. This is a completely confused state of mind. We’re not denying that, conventionally, what we did was mistaken and possibly destructive, but that doesn’t mean that this is our fixed identity and that we have to hold onto it forever. We can purify ourselves of the consequences. We can apologize to others if we’ve hurt them and so on. Even if we have killed somebody, still, in our minds, we can apologize to that person. I’m thinking of soldiers in the army. Nowadays, an awful lot of people have fought in various wars – in Iraq, Afghanistan, in the Middle East. They have experienced terrible trauma, particularly if they’ve been forced to kill somebody. It’s important not to deny that, but instead, to actually imagine the person and to apologize, in a sense. This is what is recommended. 

I might have mentioned this before, but I think it’s very worthwhile to mention again. If someone has had an abortion – and this would be true not only for the woman who has had an abortion but also for the partner of the woman – it’s important to acknowledge that the fetus that was aborted was a living being and not to think that it was just a nothing. One of my friends, who is a Zen priest – a priestess, actually; she’s a woman – does a ceremony (which I believe she learned to do in Japan) for women who have had abortions. In it, they address the fetus and say, “I’m sorry that circumstances caused me to abort you. It’s not that I have hard feelings toward you. It’s not that I have hatred toward you or anything like that. And I offer all sorts of positive force (so-called merit) from my actions to you for your future lives.” In other words, they make a very positive type of closure with that being. This seems to be very healing for women who, for one reason or another, have had abortions. In her experience, she’s found it to be very, very helpful and very beneficial to do. This is part of feeling regret, as opposed to just feeling guilty.

Participant: I’m wondering if it is necessary to express our regret verbally to the person we hurt or if feeling the regret within ourselves is enough.

Dr. Berzin: I think that everything depends on the circumstances. If the person that we’ve hurt is feeling badly about what we’ve done, then I think, certainly, an apology is due. Even in the bodhisattva vows, the importance of not holding a grudge, apologizing, accepting apologies, and so on is mentioned. I think that’s quite important. 

Also, the advice that’s given in the Eight-Verse Attitude Training, or mind-training, is to give the victory to others, even if it was not our fault. Saying, “I’m sorry if whatever I’ve done has caused you grief,” ends it. Well, usually, it ends it. The other person might say, “Being sorry is not enough.” That also is the case. If I hit your mother with my car and killed her, for example, is it going to really help to say I’m sorry to the family? Not really. But it’s better than not saying anything. 

In the four opponent forces, we have (1) regretting, (2) promising to try not to repeat the action, (3) reaffirming the positive direction that we’re going in or want to put in our lives, and (4) applying some remedial measure to counter what we’ve done. So, for instance, if we have bombed a village during a war, let’s say, in Iraq or Afghanistan, we could sponsor an Iraqi or Afghani orphan to go to school or something like that. That’s a real countermeasure. So, rather than destroying something among these people, we help them. We give these people some opportunities. Saying that we’re sorry is not necessarily going to do very much. Besides, who are we going to say we’re sorry to, especially if we’ve sent a missile from a ship or dropped a bomb from an airplane?

Participant: I know it would be hard, but it would also be important for the family of those who’ve been killed to try to understand that each person has their own karmic potentials that ripen and that the results of one person’s karmic potentials are not a consequence of the other’s karmic potentials? They would need to work on their attitudes too.

Dr. Berzin: That’s true. But that’s something that’s very difficult for us to affect, especially in cases of killing.

Participant: You are in the worst position to affect that.

Dr. Berzin: True.

Participant: Maybe if you say you’re sorry, you can show that you can put yourself in the other person’s position and that you share the pain. 

Dr. Berzin: If it’s actually possible to meet the people, and if they’re actually willing to meet you, saying you’re sorry could be helpful. It’s certainly better than saying nothing.

So, we have regret, and, if possible, we apologize. 

[2] Promise Not to Repeat the Action

Then we promise not to repeat the action again. This is what we were touching on in our meditation at the beginning of the hour – trying to recognize patterns in ourselves, negative behaviors that we tend to repeat. When we can recognize those really clearly, promising not to repeat an action becomes much more meaningful. 

The Caring Attitude, Mindfulness, and Self-Discipline

Of course, promising never to do something again is very difficult, isn’t it? It’s very difficult for that to be sincere. Our wish never to repeat it could be sincere, but will we be successful? So, what would it involve? Mindfulness. Shantideva has a whole chapter on this. First of all, he calls it the “caring attitude.” That’s the name of the chapter. We have to care about the results of our behavior. We have to take it seriously that if we continue doing what we’re doing, it’s going to be disastrous for us in terms of future lives. It might not be disastrous for us in this life, but in future lives, it certainly will. So, we really care about what’s going to happen. We take it seriously. 

On the basis of the caring attitude, we have discipline as Shantideva explains in his chapter having to do with ethical self-discipline. This involves mindfulness (the mental glue), which means to hold on to this intention not to repeat the action, and alertness, which means to pay attention to what’s going on, making sure that we don’t lose mindfulness. As Atisha says, “When with others, watch your speech; when alone, watch your mind.” So when the wish to do that destructive action arises, then – ding, ding, ding – the alarm system goes off and re-establishes mindfulness. In that way, we continue holding on to our intention. That’s self-control – not to act on the wish to repeat the destructive actions. Which is very difficult.

I’m thinking of the example of being critical, a very common habit. It’s very easy, especially when we live with somebody, whether a family member, a partner, or whatever, to get into the habit of being critical of what they do, what they say, and so on. It makes for a difficult situation. But we have to catch ourselves, which means that we have to care: “If I continue like this, always criticizing, the relationship is going to be a very unhappy one – not pleasant at all.” And what about future relationships, etc.?

That doesn’t mean that anything goes in a relationship. We have to set limits. If the other person is acting in a completely improper way, we have to say something. But to be critical about every little thing – how they cook, how they chop the vegetables, how they do whatever (because, of course, only our way of doing it is the right way and every other way is wrong) – is a bit absurd, isn’t it? 

So, this promise to try not to repeat an action is something that we shouldn’t leave just on the level of a promise. We need to really make an effort not to repeat it.

[3] Reaffirmation of Our Safe Direction and Bodhichitta Aim

The third force is reaffirming the direction that we want to go in, in our lives, namely safe direction, working to get rid of all the shortcomings, disturbing emotions, etc., and trying to gain more and more understanding and more and more positive qualities – to put it very simply. That’s the direction that we want to go in – working on ourselves. And with bodhichitta, we’re working all the way to enlightenment, trying to be as altruistic as possible. 

By being destructive and not doing anything about it, we’re just going in the opposite direction. So, that safe direction is very important to reaffirm. That’s why we have these trainings: the actions for training in taking safe direction and the trainings for the bodhichitta resolve. It’s to reaffirm that direction every day, basically saying, “What am I doing with my life? Does my life have a meaning? Does it have a direction?” We all know that when life has no direction and it all seems meaningless, it makes for a very unhappy state. This is why I call refuge “putting a safe direction in our lives.” It’s a very active thing. So, we reaffirm that going in that direction is really what I want to do, what I am doing. 

[4] Application of Remedial Measures

Then we apply some sort of opponent measure, some remedial measure. As I said, it could be doing something like sponsoring a child from the war zone in which we fought – so, something that is quite related to the negative thing that we have done. Or it could be doing any of the various types of purification practices. 

That gets us to the topic of what we can expect to accomplish by doing, for instance, Vajrasattva meditation.

Vajrasattva meditation, for those who don’t know, is a 100-syllable mantra (which is basically a very long Sanskrit sentence) that one repeats. With that, we are basically requesting that Vajrasattva, who represents the natural purity of the mind, will, by reinforcing the natural purity of our minds, enable us to get rid of the fleeting stains of the negative karmic tendencies, disturbing emotions, and so on – to put it very briefly. 

When we recite the mantra, we imagine Vajrasattva, usually, on our heads, though he can be in front of us. Then, depending on the class of tantra we are doing this with, we visualize various lights, nectars, and so on coming into us and basically flushing out – visualized in very graphic form – the negative things that might be in us. There are tons of different visualizations that can be done, many variants of the practice. I have a big article on this my website. 

The question is, what can be accomplished with this purification practice? This has to do with steps. We need to do the purification in steps. As I think we’ve mentioned, the only thing that can really get rid of these karmic potentials and tendencies is the non-conceptual cognition of voidness as it is the only thing that can eliminate what causes these tendencies and potentials to ripen in the first place. However, we can use these various opponent forces as provisional measures. 

Preventing Negative Karmic Potentials from Increasing in Strength

Remember, one of the principles of karma is that from a small action a large result can follow. This is because the strength of the karmic potentials continues to grow and grow. So, the first step is to have these potentials stop growing in strength. It’s usually said that if we recite the Vajrasattva mantra 21 times every day that this will at least keep the negative karmic potentials from getting stronger. So that is one aspect. 

Weakening Negative Karmic Potentials

According to the abhidharma texts, if we have regret and apply the four opponent forces in a modest way, we can prevent the negative potentials from getting stronger. Note that in abhidharma, the remedial constructive measure – the fourth of the four opponent forces – does not include Vajrasattva meditation. An example of such a remedial measure would be apologizing when we’ve had an argument with our spouse. What that does is weaken the heaviness of the karmic potentials so that the time of ripening becomes increasingly uncertain. And the more perfectly we do the practice, the more the probability of it ripening at all approaches zero. Remember, we had this with having anger toward a bodhisattva – that it could devastate a positive potential such that it becomes very weak and the time of its ripening gets postponed until some point way, way in the future. So, the certainty of when it will ripen doesn’t go to zero, but it approaches zero because it’s getting way, way far in the distance and very, very weak. It’s the same thing with the Vajrasattva meditation. 

In some traditions, Vajrasattva practice entails repeating the mantra 100,000 times, in others, 108,000 times, in yet others, 130,000 times. The exact number doesn’t seem to be so essential. The point is to do a lot of them and doing them absolutely perfectly with proper concentration, proper motivation, and proper aim. Proper aim means aiming the practice at purifying all our negative karmic potentials and karmic tendencies for destructive actions, not just the negative potential from one specific destructive act we did.

When done absolutely perfectly, then, although we might meet with the causes and conditions that would previously have caused these karmic tendencies to be activated and to ripen, they won’t actually be activated: they can no longer ripen. Nevertheless, there are still very subtle karmic tendencies that account for the fact that we could still repeat destructive actions in the future. 

Sometimes that’s described as having “burned” these seeds, but that doesn’t mean that we have gotten rid of them completely. The burned seeds of karma are still present as imputation phenomena on our mental continuums and function to delay our attainment of liberation. 

The problem is that we still have the constant habits of karma (las-kyi bag-chags). These constant habits of karma, together with the constant habits of grasping for truly established existence (bden-’dzin-gyi bag-chags), cause our minds to be limited and to give rise to appearances of truly established existence, of solid existence – which is impossible. Nor have we gotten rid of our grasping for truly established existence (bden-’dzin). Note that grasping for truly established existence is a way of being aware of something. Karmic constant habits are neither ways of being aware of something nor forms of physical phenomena.

When our minds make appearances of solid and truly existent things and then grasp at those appearances as if they corresponded to reality, we get all our disturbing emotions, especially when we’re also grasping for a solid “me,” a solid you, a solid thing that you just said or did and so on. So, then anger and other disturbing emotions come up. What does that do? That causes us to act in karmic ways and to build up more karmic potential and tendencies. 

Chances are that if we do Vajrasattva practice, our practice will not have been absolutely perfect, though it could still have been effective. Then, just because the previous karmic tendencies might have been weakened by our Vajrasattva practice, that doesn’t mean that our practice prevents us in any way from building up more negative karmic potential; it just gives us some breathing space. We therefore build up new networks of negative karmic forces as well as karmic tendencies for negative actions. 

We have to be quite realistic, then, about what the effect of Vajrasattva purification actually is and not imagine that if we just recite the magic words 100,000 times, all of a sudden, we are completely absolved of all our sins, as it were, and are completely purified. Think about that for a moment. 

It’s like if we had a big argument with our partner and yelled at them, and then afterwards we apologized. Then maybe they would not have a grudge, and what we had done would, in a sense, be negated. However, that’s not going to prevent us from yelling again, is it? It just clears the air of what had gone on in the past. 

[meditation]

Ngondro

Obviously, we don’t necessarily have to do Vajrasattva meditation in order to do provisional purification. Vajrasattva meditation is certainly a standard Buddhist practice, but other types of constructive behavior can also work as remedial measures, particularly if they’re repeated over and over again with very strong motivation. 

As you know, we have these ngondro (sngon-’gro) practices, the preliminary, or preparatory, practices of doing 100,000 of various types of practices. One of the practices that I, at least, considered to be a ngondro practice was helping my teacher Serkong Rinpoche. I acted or served as his secretary. I arranged all of his tours in the West. I went on them with him. I got all the visas and stuff like that. I always thought that writing hundreds of letters, making innumerable phone calls and trips to embassies and stuff like was one of my preliminary practices. As it is explained, if one does very positive things to help one’s teacher, particularly to help one’s teacher to teach and to reach others, the positive karmic result is very, very strong. So, there are many things that we can do. It doesn’t necessarily have to be for our teacher. It could be making teachings available and so on, particularly if we think of what we’re doing as a type of purification practice.

Still, Vajrasattva is particularly effective, I think, not necessarily because of the words that we say. The Tibetans pronounce the words quite differently from the original Sanskrit. I think it’s because of the visualizations, the graphic way in which we imagine the negative forces leaving us – which is very helpful for letting go of guilt. Guilt, you remember, is holding on to “I’m so bad.” Here, we imagine it actually being cleaned out and leaving us in the form of various substances, whether it’s black ink or something more forceful. There are many, many variants of the visualization. In any case, imagining that purification occurring in a graphic form is very, very helpful. I think that’s what makes the Vajrasattva meditation so effective. And, of course, the fact that you’re saying this mantra that has been said by so many generations is also of help. 

We only have a few more minutes, so I don’t want to start the next topic. But I think the question here is whether we believe that we – our mental continuums – can be purified. Perhaps, because we have already gone through this, we can understand how they can ultimately be purified, which is to rid our mental continuums of what would cause the negative karmic potentials to be activated and to ripen. But, just in general, what are our attitudes about purification?

If we consider ourselves to be inherently bad, like with original sin, we might think we can somehow be absolved and forgiven and, in that way, be liberated from negative things. Is this how we’re looking at it? 

Participant: We take responsibility to purify ourselves of what we did and, also, to change.

Dr. Berzin: Right, but is it actually possible to purify the mental continuum?

Participant: Why not?

Dr. Berzin: Why not? Because we might think that these negative things are innate features of our mental continuums and that there’s no way of getting rid of them.

Participant: Yes, but we have learned that there are no innate features.

Dr. Berzin: We have learned that there are no inherently existent features. There are, however, innate features, or qualities, such as the arising of and mental engagement with mental holograms. There are various features that are innate to the mental continuum. However, the negative tendencies aren’t. 

This question has to do with the whole issue of whether liberation and enlightenment are possible. They are possible only if purification is possible. They’re possible only if the nature of the mental continuum is pure. One has to conclude, then, that all these negative karmic tendencies and potentials – the positive karmic ones as well – are based on ignorance. They’re based on and reinforced by an incorrect view of how everything exists; they’re not backed by anything. So, when we have correct understanding, which can be verified by logic experience, and so on, we can eliminate them. Ultimately, that understanding is the thing that purifies.

Participant: I think that this process is very, very long. So, I think one needs something for medium range.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s why we have regret, the promise not to repeat, etc.

Participant: Sometimes you have regret and you promise not to repeat an action, but then something triggers something in you and you do it again. So, you also need something that will help you to deal with that – that “OK, I really tried, but then I failed again.” 

Dr. Berzin: This is why it’s very important not just to have safe direction in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha – the actual Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha – and to keep that in mind, but also to have a supportive community of like-minded people who are also actually trying to do this. Being in the company of others who are also working on themselves, trying to overcome their negative habits, their negative patterns is very, very helpful. We see this in Alcoholics Anonymous. We see this in Narcotics Anonymous. It’s the same idea. Having a group of people who are working toward a similar goal and working on overcoming the same types of problems gives support, doesn’t it?

Participant: One needs something so that one doesn’t get discouraged.

Dr. Berzin: Right. We get that type of support when we are able to discuss with other people. It’s not that one has to have group therapy at a Dharma center, but sometimes having something like a discussion session helps. When everybody can talk about what they worked on during the week, such as overcoming anger, they can see that everybody has difficulty with that. Also, when people share their experiences – “Well, I got angry about this or that, but I dealt with this in this or that way,” or “I really felt like getting angry, but I was able to overcome that,” and they tell you how they did it – it helps us find ways to deal.

Participant: One has to use provisional measures. Where else would one start? One cannot start with meditating single-pointedly on emptiness. It would be nice, but that’s not possible.

Dr. Berzin: Right. As beginners, we don’t start by meditating on voidness. That’s why we have these Vajrasattva practices, why we have these basic four opponent forces.

Participant: So, then one has an aim. One goes in a specific direction. Otherwise, what to do?

Dr. Berzin: That’s why I use this expression “safe direction.” 

It’s interesting, in the lojong (blo-sbyong), the attitude-training, one of the points is to work on our strongest negative emotion first. One would think that one would start with easier ones and leave the more difficult ones for later. But actually, it advises working on the strongest one first. So, what’s the wisdom behind that?

Participant: It’s the biggest hindrance. 

Dr. Berzin: Right. If we can identify what our biggest hindrance is, we can start to work on it. But that doesn’t mean that we use the strongest medicine first. 

As Shantideva says, first, we have to recognize the target – what we are aiming to minimize or get rid of. Then, after we’ve acknowledged and admitted that this is a big problem – anger, attachment, or whatever it might be – we have regret. But it isn’t only the karmic tendencies that we’re targeting here. It could also be the disturbing emotions – shyness, arrogance, low self-esteem, etc. – that bring on these karmic tendencies. Whatever it is, I regret it; it’s something that I really want to get rid of. And I’m going to try not to repeat it by continuing to reaffirm what I’m trying to do with my life and by actually applying the level of opponent forces that I’m able to deal with now. 

Now, there are many different types of opponents. Some say, “Well, just observe.” Just observe that there’s the anger and so on in your mind. Note it. But that doesn’t mean to let it get out of control, does it? 

Participant: I think that if you really manage to notice what’s going on, that protects you from getting entangled in it.

Dr. Berzin: But I think that just seeing it isn’t enough. I think we also have to see that we really don’t want to act on it. But just the fact that we become conscious of it, rather than being unconscious of it – to use our Western terminology – allows us to deal with it. 

Participant: Just noticing it takes the energy out of it.

Dr. Berzin: That’s a very important point. It weakens it very, very much. So, that’s something that we can start with.

Participant: I remember somebody telling me that he noticed how quickly people went back to their old habits after doing these very sincere, three-month retreats in McLeod Ganj. Although their minds were very clear and bright after the three months, the awareness that they gained went very quickly. Hence, we could see that doing some sort of daily vipashyana or mindfulness meditation would really be important for being able to take something away from the retreat. Otherwise, we could just think, “Oh, this is over with. So, let’s go ahead like before.”

Dr. Berzin: Right. Just because we have done a Vajrasattva purification practice doesn’t mean that we can just go off and follow our old patterns. This is the point that I was making before – that, although Vajrasattva practice could, if it’s been done properly, weaken the karmic tendencies that we had, it doesn’t prevent new karmic tendencies from being built up. So, you were saying that during a three-month Vajrasattva retreat, what is often included is some sort of vipashyana training to be attentive to what’s going on in our emotional lives so that we can exercise more control afterwards. Yes, that’s very important. That’s part of “I’m going to try not to repeat it.” 

Next week, we’ll start the discussion about the topic we had started to deal with, which is the certainty or uncertainty of karmic ripenings. There are, for instance, certain karmic tendencies that are uncertain to ripen at all because we can get rid of them; we can purify ourselves of them forever. But then there’s also the dimension having to do with the uncertainty of the time frame in which the karmic potential or tendency will ripen. That gets into a very interesting discussion that involves differentiating whether we have deliberated and decided to do something before we did it, whether we did it it but didn’t think it over beforehand, and so on, and how these different variables affect the ripening of our karma. So, we’ll get into that next week.