WSW 11: Bad Conditions, Parted from Loved Ones, Gurus’ Displeasure

We’re up to verse 15, and verse 15 says:

When we are born in oppressive and wretched conditions, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have always had negative outlook; we’ve criticized others, seeing only their flaws. Hereafter let’s cultivate positive feelings and view our surroundings as stainless and pure.

This is actually a very interesting point that is made here, which is that if we’re experiencing very difficult situations where we live – here it says where we were born, but it could be not only in our birthplace but wherever we’re currently living or the type of places that we’re drawn to what is the cause for that? The cause is focusing on negative aspects of people, and negative aspects of an environment, and complaining about it, and criticizing it. Now, of course, anywhere that we live is going to have negative qualities to it, drawbacks to it, no matter how wonderful the place might be. It’s the same thing in terms of people that we’re with. No matter how nice the general population might be, there’re also nasty qualities that are there as well –with the environment, and pollution, and all these things. The question is, how much do we focus on these negative qualities, and what is that actually going to bring us? If we just constantly complain and criticize, what does it bring? It brings being born in terrible conditions because what we’re focusing on is the terrible conditions. If that’s the only thing that is on our mind – “How terrible, it’s so polluted, and so awful, and blah blah blah, the people are so terrible” – then I think we can understand how, in a sense, we’re so much grasping at the solid existence of that, and fixated on that, that our mind naturally goes to a place like that. It’s really funny, isn’t it, because you would think that we wanted to get away from it, but if we’re wanting to get away from it, still we’re making such a big thing out of it. 

Then the question arises, how do we deal with these problems of pollution, and crime, and these sorts of things in our environment? It says here, “Let’s cultivate positive feelings and view our surroundings as stainless and pure”. Does it mean to deny pollution, and crime, and people being cheats, and so on? Or how do we understand this? We have to see the facts but we don’t focus only on the negative things. If we see the negative things within a larger context of both positive and negative things, then they don’t become so horrible. But also, I think that we can look at the negative things – as it says in the lojong tradition – as something that we can change into positive circumstances. In other words, if we’re in an environment which is terribly polluted or in which there is terrible violence and crime, we can change that circumstance into a circumstance of being able to develop more and more compassion for everybody else who is in that situation. Because if everything is nice, we don’t really think very much about others and their problems; we just enjoy ourselves.

If we just focus on the negative things with a critical mind, without a mind of compassion, then that causes us to be reborn in a terrible place. So, when we think and we do tonglen here, what we would want to do is to take on not only the suffering of others but the cause of the suffering and give them not only a beautiful place but to give them the cause for a beautiful place. This would be this attitude of not denying the negative qualities of things but not fixating on them, and not making it the whole thing, and complaining about it, and just being very negative about it. I think this is the point.

I think sometimes, there can also be the problem that we don’t even want to see any of the negative things about a place. That would go to the other extreme. We just stay in our small, little circle of our home, and our family, and our friends; maybe we have a nice work situation or a nice study situation. We don’t even think of the people around who have a very miserable life. I’m thinking of South America, where the rich people live in this little ghetto where everything is so wonderful and marvelous, and they don’t think at all of the people in the slums. That world doesn’t even exist for them. They never go there; they never see it. This is an example of the other extreme that I think we need to avoid as well: just see things with rose-colored glasses – that everything is so nice, and we don’t look at the homeless people, the people begging.

When one sees that, and you’re not used to see people that are just picking through the garbage and so on to find something, then in a sense it could scare you. You go into denial because you don’t want to accept that. That also is something that we would want to avoid here. Everything in this training, of course, is intended to help us to develop more and more compassion for others. So, it’s a very delicate matter: how do we deal with negative aspects of society, negative aspects of our environment? By not going to the extreme of only complaining about it and not going to the other extreme of denying it. It was speaking in the beginning in this text about how a bodhisattva transforms the disturbing emotions, and so this is an example – and His Holiness even mentions this: you could say that there is a certain positive aspect that you could use within anger, which is to get it to cause you to actually get up and do something about the difficult situation. Because very often you can be angry about it and not do anything; just be angry. Or the anger goes in the direction of being fed up with the situation so that you actually do something about it. I just think of a simple example of taking down the garbage. I’m very bad about taking down the garbage in my house, but it reaches a point where it’s so full that it annoys me, and when it annoys me then I get up and do it, and take it downstairs. That’s a way of transforming, in a sense, and using anger in a positive way. But it’s very delicate when you try to transform disturbing emotions. As it says in the text, if we’re not careful, the disturbing emotions, which are poisons, can really poison us. We have to really be some sort of bodhisattva or on the bodhisattva path to be able to use it in a positive way.

Let me read the verse once more, and we can spend a few minutes thinking about it and doing some tonglen with respect to it. I mean, tonglen will be the second step. The first step is to examine in ourselves, do we have these causes for experiencing this type of thing of living in oppressive, difficult conditions; or when we have lived in these conditions, to see the cause, to examine ourselves? Even if we aren’t experiencing this in this lifetime, to see if we’re building up the causes of it now that can ripen into experiencing being in terrible conditions in the next lifetime or later in our life. Being in a really horrible nursing home that smells of urine, and the people don’t take care of you and so on. That could also happen just as well even in a very nice country. We try to then correct this aspect of that, if we have it in ourselves, of always criticizing. Then do the practice of tonglen with respect to this, of taking all the problems of others that are like this and giving them the solution. 

The verse is: 

When we are born in oppressive and rigid conditions, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we’ve always had a negative outlooks; we’ve criticized others, seeing only their flaws. Hereafter let’s cultivate positive feelings and view our surroundings as stainless and pure.

Just as an example of what we can think about: what is our attitude when we walk into somebody else’s house? Do we criticize? Especially if it’s a poor house or it’s not kept in a very nice way. Or we stay in a hotel, and the bed is uncomfortable, or it’s noisy. These are the things to examine in terms of our attitudes. I travelled all over the world, and I stayed in some very poor places, and I almost always stayed in people’s homes, and often they were not terribly nice or terribly comfortable. I must say that as I experienced it, while I was there, my mind wasn’t so critical or complaining. But the tendency that I found, and I think a lot of people have this, is afterwards, when you tell the story to somebody else, to make it more dramatic you complain and say how terrible it was. I suppose that underlying it is the wish to impress the other person at how wonderful you are that you were able to do something like that. I don’t think it was terrible strong in me, but I think the tendency was there to do that. Complaining and criticizing I think it comes on more strongly when you have an audience, doesn’t it? It’s interesting to examine what the motivation is for complaining to other people. Do you want sympathy? That could also be one aspect. Certainly, when somebody is complaining about the pain in their back and how terrible it is to get old, they are complaining to their children or to other people. They certainly do want sympathy, although they might not say so. It’s interesting, this whole phenomenon of complaining.

Verse 16:

When we are parted from friends and from those who can help us, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have taken the friends and good servants of others away, wanting them for ourselves; hereafter let’s never cause close friends to part.

This is speaking about divisive language, trying to cause division in others who are either friends or already not on good terms – for them to part even further. The result of that is that we are always parted from friends and those who can help us. We could have many friends, and we could have a lovely family, but sometimes it happens that we can’t spend any time with them, or they leave us, they go away. They are always apart from us, or we’re always apart from them. So, we examine, why is this? What could be the cause for that? It would be causing friendships to part in other people. It could be because of jealousy – that very often, I think, is a cause for that, isn’t it? 

We have a friend, someone we like very much, and we would like to spend a lot of time with this person. We would like them to spend a lot of time with us and not with their other friends. So, very subtly or not so subtly we try get them to stop seeing their other friends, to stop spending so much time doing other activities, and to stay with us. “Oh, you don’t have to go out tonight, stay here;” “You don’t have to go see your family this weekend, stay with me.” Do you recognize that syndrome? I think it’s very common, and it’s usually out of jealousy, isn’t it? Or we are running a business, and we want to get people away from another employer and get them for ourselves. That also obviously can be an example here, but maybe not too many of us are in the position of being employers. Or we work in the market, and we want people to not go to this other store and be friendly with them. We want them to come and be friendly with us and stay by us. That has somewhat of this mentality as well, but here we’re speaking about friends. If we’re trying to draw others away from their friends to us, then the karmic result of that is that we are on the other side: we are the one that our friends are always being drawn away from. The friends either they leave us because they don’t want to be with us anymore, or they leave just because of circumstances. It never works out that we can live with them or that they can live with us. 

This becomes a very interesting and perhaps, for some of us, painful thing to examine, which is the wish to have somebody exclusively to ourselves. “I want you all for myself and if you’re with anybody else at the same time, that threatens me. You’re going to abandon me, you’re going to leave me, you won’t have enough time for me.” You have a friend and then all of a sudden that friend that friend becomes romantically involved with somebody else, and maybe they even marry. Don’t you get the feeling that, “Well, this person is not going to really have time for me anymore?” Very often it is the case that they don’t have time for us anymore. It may not be the case but it could be. The thing is how to adjust to that, and not be jealous, and not try to discourage our friend from getting romantically involved. That’s a difficult one, if we’re insecure, and if we have a history particularly of being abandoned or feeling that we were abandoned, because that’s another aspect that this verse is talking about. We’re parted from our friends and so then you experience it as “I have been abandoned, poor me.” Then we get this desperate attitude of “Don’t abandon me!” and “If you’re with somebody else, you are abandoning me.” That’s terrible, if we experience it. It’s also terrible if somebody feels that way about us. They want to possess us exclusively and, if we go with our friends as well, they panic and feel that we’re abandoning them. That happens; I’m sure most of us have experienced both sides of this. The advice here is just to stop speaking divisively, to stop thinking like that, but it’s not so easy to do.

There are many things that we can think about in terms of jealousy. First of all, “There’re more fish in the ocean, this is not the only fish in the ocean.” What makes this person so special? But also, we need to realize that if we’re aiming for enlightenment, we want to be able to have our hearts open to everybody. Also, we need to have trust in the other person. If we think that they are going to abandon us, that means we don’t trust them, we don’t really trust their love.

This is what this verse is talking about. Let us read the verse again and then we can think about it and do a little bit of tonglen. “When we are parted from friends and from those who can help us, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done.” 

When we are parted from friends and from those who can help us, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have taken the friends and good servants of others away, wanting them for ourselves; hereafter let’s never cause close friends to part.

Actually, it is very interesting because the more that we insist that the other person stay with us and not go off with their friends, the more they’ll leave us. It’s very scary when somebody clings to us; the normal reaction would be to move away. One final interesting aspect about this that comes to mind is when we look at these syndromes, what one can’t really see very clearly is which comes first. When our friends are leaving us, then, often, how do we respond to that? We respond to that by saying “Don’t leave me!” We want them to leave the friends that they are going to and come back to us. So, which comes first? It’s because my friends are always going away that I’m always telling them “Don’t go with your friends, stay with me.” If I do that, then they go away more. It’s a vicious circle. The result just produces more of the original cause for the result to repeat. This really is a samsaric situation, isn’t it, that just has a self-perpetuating aspect to it. We really have to work on that to get rid of the underlying insecurity and grasping for a solid “me” that’s causing the whole thing in terms of jealousy. 

Verse 17: 

When supreme holy gurus find us displeasing, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have turned from the gurus and teachings, preferring the counsel of misleading friends; hereafter let’s end our dependent relations with those who would turn us away from the path.

So this is referring to situations in which the spiritual teachers, the gurus, aren’t very pleased with our behavior. The reason for that is that we have turned away from the advice of the teachers and followed the advice instead of misleading friends, who would turn us away from the path. This of course is something that can happen on many different levels. I think a very common one is when, rather than coming to class, friends saying, “Oh, come on, come to a birthday party, come to a movie, come to a concert, come to a club, a party.” That’s not necessarily turning us to go hunting or fishing, go rob a store,” so it’s not leading us into a destructive type of pattern; but it can just be on a more seemingly innocent way of not giving priority to our Dharma practice, or going to teachings. We follow their advice rather than the teacher’s advice, so the advice from the Dharma itself. 

There are very many examples that I can think of this from students of mine and friends of mine who have been in the Dharma. The Dharma teachings say very clearly that it is detrimental to your Dharma practice to drink alcohol, and to smoke marijuana and take other drugs. These students or people, they know that; you try to help them to overcome their attachment, let’s say to marijuana or hashish – not only their own attachment but the influence of misleading friends. I’m thinking of one particular person who really wanted very much to stop smoking, but he was living with somebody who smoked a lot of marijuana every day. Living with someone like that who then says, “Oh, come on, have a joint, join me,” then of course he did. He followed the advice of the misleading friend rather than the advice of the Dharma; it’s easier. 

One has to be very careful therefore about the company that we keep, especially when we’re not strong in our commitment to the path. We say, “Yes, I’m committed to the path but only to do the things that I like and that are easy. The parts that I don’t like I forget about.” This sort of things we have to be very careful about. It could be in many different areas, not only with drugs. It could be in the area of sex: somebody encouraging us to have sex with them that would be inappropriate – they are married or something like that – and the combination of our own attachment and desires plus the encouragement of this other person causes us to act in this way, which would not be pleasing to the teacher. They are not going to get angry with us, they are not going to throw us away and stop teaching us, and stop trying to help us, but they wouldn’t be pleased. 

So how do we deal with misleading friends? You need to keep a little bit of a distance until you’re strong enough, and that distance needs to be an emotional distance. But even when we have strength and equanimity, it’s not so easy living with somebody that’s constantly tempting us, as a bad example. Misleading friends, as it says in the teachings, don’t necessarily have horns on their head. They are not saying, “Come on, let’s shoot up heroine.” It could be in much more seemingly innocent ways. What sort of ways? Trivializing the need for ethical discipline; discouraging us from going to a Dharma course or going to India; or they are constantly talking about very trivial things like what the movie stars are doing, Hollywood gossip and stuff like that, which just then gets us involved in that. It’s a colossal waste of time. But it’s an interesting thing to really observe in ourselves: how easily are we influenced by misleading friends? How strong are we in our conviction? When is it appropriate to be flexible and when is it inappropriate to be flexible? Because also sometimes we need a little bit of flexibility. Where do we draw the boundaries without being stiff? People can really be turned off by us if we’re a fanatic, a puritan fanatic. If we have an aspiration to become a bodhisattva, we can’t be a puritan – that’s true. But there’s also the thing of protecting your ethical discipline and vows as you would protect your eyes. That’s said over and over again: “I will not give this up even at the cost of my life,” in the various prayers. So, how seriously do we take that? That’s a difficult one, isn’t it?

I think it’s is very important in a friendship to be able to set the boundaries, and to know when to say no to certain things in a friendship. I think it’s only really on that basis that you can start to have a healthy friendship with somebody. If you’re always just going along with whatever they do just so that they won’t abandon you and that they’ll love you, then there is something very unhealthy in this relationship. Again, it comes back to being secure in ourselves, our principals, our limitations; and being able to set those boundaries and say no when it’s necessary, but with a little bit of flexibility in terms of the circumstances – to see how the circumstances go but without necessarily compromising the important principals.

Let’s look at this verse once more. “When supreme holy gurus find us displeasing” – and I don’t think they actually have to voice that displeasure, to tell us that. One of the Dharma practices is to imagine that our guru is on our head or on our shoulder or in our heart all the time, as a witness for how we lead our lives, and they would be displeased if they knew. That would be sufficient; we don’t have to go and confess. We visualize the guru in a pure form – there are many different traditions for that. It depends on the lineage; usually you visualize them as a lineage founder or as one of the yidams. But again, it depends on the lineage; you do actually also visualize them in the ordinary form. The point is to actually think of the person, make it personal. “If my teacher were sitting in the room watching me do this, how would I feel? Could I do that?” We want to avoid being a hypocrite: being so nice and pure and wonderful when we’re with our teacher, and then acting really horribly when we’re away. That’s why it says in the Seven-Point Lojong – the Seven-Point Attitude Training – “Of the two witnesses, take yourself as the witness for your Dharma practice, not somebody else.” You yourself know whether or not you’re practicing. 

When supreme holy gurus find us displeasing, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have turned from the gurus and teachings, preferring the counsel of misleading friends; hereafter let’s end our dependent relations with those who would turn us away from the path.

Let’s think about this and do a little bit of tonglen as well for people who follow misleading friends. 

Let’s end here with a dedication. We think whatever positive force and understanding has come from this, may it act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.