WSW 21: Not Achieving Spiritual Aims, Untamed, Unfocused Mind

Verse 40 in the poetical version: 

When success in our practices always eludes us, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now, deep within, we have clung to our ego, fully immersed in self-cherishing ways; hereafter let’s dedicate all of the virtuous actions we do, so that others may thrive.

Now, again that’s taking a lot of liberty with the text in poetical fashion.

The verse literally says:

At times when no matter what we practice, it does not reach its aim, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having held a bad outlook inside. Now, no matter what we’re doing, let’s make it something for the purposes of others.

“No matter what we practice, it doesn’t reach its aim” – in other words, we are doing some meditation practice or whatever type of Dharma practice in order to achieve something, some spiritual goal or at least some progress to improve ourselves, and it doesn’t work. We never seem to make any progress, even though we try to work on our anger or whatever it is that we’re trying to do, our attachments etc. “This is the sharp weapon of negative karma coming back on us from having held inside us a bad outlook.” That outlook of course again is referring to grasping for solid “me,” and self-cherishing, and being selfish. This is an interesting point. According to the way that it’s usually explained in the commentaries that I received, it’s unreasonable to expect instant results from our Dharma practices. We can apply all these practices, and meditation, and so on, and although of course they’re very effective as methods, they’re effective as methods in the long run. Meanwhile, if we haven’t purified ourselves of negative karma from the past, that negative karma is constantly ripening. In the short term, when we’re not experiencing any good results from our practice, we shouldn’t put the blame on the practice itself, although of course we could be doing the practice in an incorrect way, or with complete mental wandering, or other things like that. Rather, we should see that success in practice comes not just from the very practice itself, but it’s a whole wave of what we’ve been doing in the past, and all of that is going to affect the progress that we make along the path. 

What that really underlines is the importance of purification, that not just doing our ordinary usual type of meditation practices but thinking particularly in terms of purifying negative karma and negative potentials. There are lots of different methods for doing that. Usually the 100-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva is very effective, but just repeating this mantra is not going to purify our karma by itself. You can have a tape recorder repeat it, so that’s not the point. The point is to apply the opponent forces with it and have the proper state of mind with which we do this purification practice. This is to openly admit that we’ve done negative things in the past, that they were negative, and that they were mistakes. It’s not that we were bad, but we think, “These are mistakes that I made, and I regret these mistakes. I don’t feel guilty about them, but I really wish that I hadn’t done them, and I’m certainly going to try my best not to repeat them.” I reaffirm the safe direction that I’m going in life is refuge and reaffirm my bodhichitta aim: “I’m trying to help everybody and improve myself to the point where I really can effectively help everybody.” 

We reaffirm: “What in the world am I doing with my life? Why do I want to purify?” Then with that, we apply some counteractive practices such as the Vajrasattva with the mantra, and the visualization of the various negative things leaving us. I always try to tell people it’s like letting go – especially when people are really troubled by guilt, and they hold on to these negative things: “I’ve been such a bad person, and what I did was so bad.” In the purification process, you visually imagine these negativities leaving you in the form of all sorts of black and terrible substances. Well, what does that represent? That represents letting go of the guilt – flushing the toilet, in a sense. Don’t just hold on to it and say, “How horrible, what a mess I’ve made.” Flush the toilet and let go, with an understanding of voidness. Of course, it’s not that you think, “Now I’m just going to forget about it, it didn’t exist;” but don’t hold on to it. Realize that effects come according to cause and effect, and the more positive things we throw into the system, the more strength that will have in terms of ripening. When we gain the understanding of voidness, if we can stay focused on voidness, we won’t have any of the negative states of mind that will activate the negative karmic potential. That’s the way you get rid of it: you get rid of it by eliminating what will activate it. If there’s nothing that will activate it, if it’s impossible for it to be activated, it’s finished.

Of course, it’s not so easy to stop all of that, but at least that’s the direction that we want to aim in. The more positive things that we do, the more positive habits we have – that helps very much in getting to that point where we’ll stop activating the karma. We have to, in our progress along the path, first of all never to get discouraged in terms of it going up and down, because that’s the nature of samsara – it goes up and down. It goes up and down on the gross level in terms of better rebirths and worse rebirths, and it goes up and down from minute to minute in terms of our mood of happy and unhappy. Happy and unhappy is what ripens from previous karma, so that’s constantly going up and down. Likewise, any progress that we make in being able to have less anger, less attachment, less mental agitation, and so on, is going to go up and down. Don’t expect it to just get better every day. That’s the first point: really be realistic about progress on the path. Progress on the path, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama always says, you have to measure in terms of, let’s say, five years. Compared to five years ago, am I better able to deal with difficult situations? Can I deal with it in a calmer way, not get so upset, not act so crazy? If we’re able to deal with it in a calmer way, and we’re able to deal with other people in a nicer way, we’ve made some progress. Nevertheless, each day it’s going to go up and down, and when it goes down, as it says in the verse, that’s because of having these negative selfish attitudes in the past that are ripening, that are causing the downward curve in our progress. 

“Now,” it says, “no matter what we’re doing, let’s make it something for the purposes of others.” Here the main emphasis is overcoming selfishness through the tonglen practice. I think this is the important point here: when we’re working to overcome our anger, for example, or attachment, don’t have the motivation be so that “I can be happier so that I don’t suffer so much from this,” but try to make the motivation one of, as it says here, “something for the purposes of others.” “I want to overcome my anger so that I don’t make other people unhappy by getting angry with them. I want to overcome my attachment so that I don’t make other people unhappy and suffer because of my attachments” – either attachment to them or attachment to other things that really can be very unpleasant for other people when they have to deal with me. Even if we don’t have any understanding of voidness together with our practice, at least try to make it for the benefit of others. That also is important in terms of not only setting the motivation beforehand but the dedication afterwards, at the end: “Whatever positive force has come from this, may it enable me to not to get angry at other people so that I don’t make so much trouble for them. May it help everybody else decrease their suffering – at least that I don’t cause them so much suffering and pain. 

That’s not so easy, because I think that our general tendency, when we dedicate, is to think just of ourselves: “May I achieve this, may I achieve that,” and so on. Even if we think in terms of somebody else, often we will dedicate it to just some specific person: “May this friend or this relative get better,” if they’re sick, for instance. But what we really want to do in the Mahayana sense is to dedicate it to everybody, and to mean it. It’s easy to say the words without really meaning it. 

How do we understand voidness? Now, there are lots and lots of teachings on that. It’s necessary to really study about it. I have quite a few articles about it on my website as a start. But the main point of voidness is that we project onto people and things and ourselves an impossible way of existing. What voidness is all about is that this impossible way of existing is not referring to anything real; it’s not the way that things actually exist. The understanding of voidness has to be with a very strong decisiveness that you cut off this projection being fully convinced that this is absolute garbage: this is absolutely wrong and incorrect. There has to be this decisiveness, otherwise it is not so effective. That’s why one needs to study and become convinced through logic, usually, that this is impossible. An easy example that’s not talking about voidness would be believing that there is Santa Claus – that Santa Claus actually came down the chimney and put the presents underneath the tree. You stay up all night, and you peek through the door, and you see no Santa Claus comes down the chimney (you don’t even have a chimney); it was my parents who actually put the presents underneath the tree. You’re very convinced that there is no Santa Claus, and then you stop believing in Santa Claus and stop thinking that Santa Claus has come. 

Similarly, we take a very simple example about an impossible way of existing. We might think, “I’m the center of the universe, I’m the only one that’s important, I’m the only one that should have his or her own way.” Then when we think about that logically, how can that possibly be? If it were really so, then everybody in the universe is stupid and wrong, because they should all realize that I’m the center of the universe and I’m the most important one. But if we think about it logically, this is ridiculous: why is my wish for happiness any more important than anybody else’s wish for happiness? You have to become totally convinced that this projection is absolute rubbish and cut it off. That’s the understanding of voidness. Voidness is sometimes called emptiness; it means that I exist, of course, but devoid of existing in this impossible way. If we use psychology terminology, there is the healthy ego. The healthy ego exists, but it is devoid of existing as an inflated ego, and what you have to realize is that the inflated ego is exactly that, it’s an inflation, an exaggeration, and cut it off. That’s what voidness is talking about. In terms of impossible ways of existing, it gets more and more and more subtle, so you have to work through from the grosser levels to the more subtle levels.

It requires not only discipline to get the understanding and discipline to apply it, but it requires all the methods of concentration: to be mindful, which is the mental glue to hold on to that understanding; and alert, to notice when you’ve lost it, and to bring your attention back to holding it again – to holding that understanding. That’s basically what voidness is talking about, and it gets very subtle in terms of what the projection is. This is because once you cut off the gross projections, then you have to be careful not to think that “I’m not projecting any garbage anymore,” because when you get rid of the gross ones, then you can see the more subtle ones that are still there.

First you start with identifying what the projection is. If you can’t recognize what the projection is, then you don’t have a target to shoot at. If you are shooting a bow and arrow, you have to have the target to hit. If you don’t know what the target is, you can’t identify it, you can’t hit it. Even if you have the logic, you could be using it to refute the wrong thing. One of the ways of identifying it is when you’re really upset. The classic example of what really upsets Tibetans very much is if they’re accused of being a thief. That’s one of the worst things that you can accuse a Tibetan of. That’s the thing that will drive any Tibetan crazy, and then the response is: “What, me? What do you mean? I’m not a thief!” – this strong sense of a solid, findable “me” that’s independent of everything else that’s sort of sitting inside your head and pressing the buttons. 

You have to recognize it first. Then you have to understand how the logic refutes it. In other words, you have to be convinced that the logic is logical, and then you go through the logic to say, “This is impossible” – to become convinced that this is impossible. Even when you understand that this is impossible, still it’s not so easy to really cut it off very decisively; that His Holiness always describes as the sword of Manjushri that just goes, “Hah! Just chopped it off.” But that’s not very easy to do, I must say, because we are attached to it. It’s called “grasping for a true existence.” You hold on to it and you don’t really want to let go, even though you realize that it’s complete nonsense. When we were talking about attachment or desire, this exaggerates the good qualities of something – whether it is the good qualities of a person, or the place where you live, or an item of clothing, or whatever. Then you have to see that this is an exaggeration: “It’s just a human being, it’s not this Mister or Miss Perfect;” “It’s just a place to live, it doesn’t have only good qualities;” “It’s just a piece of clothing, it’s going to fall apart, go out of fashion.” I always describe that as popping the balloon of fantasy. With that decisiveness, you really have to pop the balloon – the inflation, the exaggeration – and it’s gone. 

If there are no questions about this verse, let me read it again: 

At times when no matter what we practice, it does not reach its aim, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having held a bad outlook inside. Now, no matter what we’re doing, let’s make it something for the purposes of others.

It’s referring to when we practice Dharma we don’t make progress. This is because of the negative karmic force from all that we have done in the past. It’s not that there is something wrong with the practice, but the results are going to not come immediately, and what we experience now immediately is the results of past negative karma. That was built up in terms of thinking of ourselves only. Now, when we do any practice, at least try to not make it for just ourselves but, as it says here, “for the purposes of others:” “May I overcome my anger so that I don’t bother other people with my anger and cause suffering and problems for them.” 

This is something that we see with so many other people as well, particularly various Dharma practitioners that we might know and we tend to criticize: “Oh, this person has been practicing for so long, and they’re still addicted to their negative emotions and negative habits.” We tend to become a bit intolerant of that and cross. We should see that this is a problem that we all face, and do the tonglen practice of taking on from them that problem, and giving to them – not only to ourselves – the understanding of why this is happening that they’re not making so much progress: “May they change their attitude in terms of their practice and do it for not just the benefit of others, that of course, is the best, but at least do it for not causing more suffering to others.” Let’s think about that. 

Even if we’re not doing formal Dharma practice, I’m sure most of us are at least trying to work on whatever methods we have to be less angry and less attached, and think in terms of doing that not just so that we ourselves will not suffer so much, but also so that we will not cause so much trouble and unhappiness to others because of our anger, and attachment, and complaining. Actually, I think it’s very helpful if children are involved, because when we make a scene of being angry, or attached, or so on, maybe the children aren’t the aim of that attitude, but they get upset by seeing that in us. That’s a strong reason to not be so overly demonstrating, and expressing our anger, attachment, etc., so that we don’t freak them out.

Now, we’re up to verse 41. The poetical version:

When our mind is untamed though we act with great virtue, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have engaged in those worldly ambitions that aim at success for ourselves in this life; hereafter let’s work with pure one-pointed effort to nourish the wish to gain freedom’s far shore.

The literal version:

At times when, although we’ve performed constructive actions, our own mind-streams are untamed, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having gladly taken on grand ambitions for this life. Now, let’s hold tightly onto the wish for liberation.

Well, this is referring to a situation that is a little bit similar to what we just had. We do a lot of constructive things – whether that’s meditation, whether that’s trying to help others, whatever it might be – and yet our mind-streams are untamed. We still get angry, we still get upset, we still get attached, jealous, and so on. “This is the sharp weapon of negative karma coming back on us from having gladly taken on ourselves grand ambitions for this life.” In other words, our motivation, our aim, was ambitious. Why are we doing these constructive acts? It’s because we have ambitions for this life: “I want to be liked,” “I want to get money,” “I want to get power,” “I want to have friends,” “I want whatever it might be.” We gladly took that on, it says here – these grand ambitions. We’re very happy to work toward making ourselves more happy in this lifetime – having more friends, more peace of mind, and things like that – but, because of that, our mind-streams are still untamed. That’s because we’re thinking in a very limited way just for ourselves, and basically this is quite a selfish aim. It says, “Hold on tightly now” – the antidote for this is hold on tightly to the wish for liberation. As I have mentioned, I think that this is really quite difficult – let alone bodhichitta is difficult. To really think in terms of enlightenment, we really have to have some clear idea of what enlightenment is, and what that means. But as for liberation itself, I think it’s very difficult to really sincerely want to stop taking rebirth under the force of karma and disturbing emotions, because we’re attached to friends, and worldly happiness, and comfort.

If you speak in terms of liberation versus enlightenment, then there is the selfish aim of liberation for oneself alone, but this is a steppingstone towards enlightenment. We have to get liberated before we can gain enlightenment. We have to stop taking rebirth in samsara and overcome that problem ourselves, and all of this is always done in that larger context. Tsongkapa said that as well: you have to turn from the wish to benefit this lifetime to the wish to benefit future lives.; you have to turn from that to the wish for liberation; and you have to turn from that to the wish for enlightenment. But each of these are steppingstones on the way. That’s why we have called it a graded path. I think that it’s very easy to jump and skip all these stages, and just want enlightenment, with having no idea what enlightenment really is, and not taking seriously improving future lives. But guess what, you’re probably not get enlightened in this lifetime, so what’s going to happen to you in the next lifetime? We need first to seriously want to gain liberation from this whole bit of having to deal with biological urges, and having to deal with all the attachments, and anger, and these sort of things that come up, and having to deal with all the problems of taking care of a body, etc. 

One of the big problems here is to overcome as well the attachment to having friends and family. What does liberation actually mean? I think is not so easy to conceive of what it really would mean. “I want to continue having rebirth, with having precious human life and support from really nice friends and really nice family and all of that.” It’s hard enough to, as I say, to really sincerely aim for that. But that’s something that we can relate to a little bit because that’s something that we might want in this lifetime as well. But what about liberation? There are two ways of gaining liberation. There is gaining liberation following a Hinayana path with a Hinayana motivation, all the way until you get liberation, and then only at that point starting the Mahayana path; or there is what I imagine is emphasized here, which is following the Mahayana path, and along the Mahayana path you achieve liberation. This I think is more the point here. 

So, we would continue to take rebirth with liberation because we’re not yet there in terms of enlightenment. At least from the Gelugpa Prasangika point of view, you attain liberation before enlightenment. There are other tenet systems that say you would achieve the two simultaneously, but let’s take the view that you achieve liberation first, so you want to work in that direction. Liberation will come along the way to enlightenment, and at that point, we will continue to be reborn but without all the attachment, and anger, and impulsive behavior from karma, and things happening to us that we don’t particularly want to happen; we actually are free of all of this. I think when you think in those terms, then liberation becomes a little bit easier to deal with as something that I’d like to aim for. It’s a little bit easier to relate to, I think, in those sorts of terms. 

Now, when you become liberated, you still have to be a baby, and a child, and go to school, and stuff like that? You do have to earn a living, find a job etc. That’s a real drag: you have to do that every lifetime – how boring is that? You have to get an education and all of that and, if you’re still strongly influenced by biological drives, you have to find a partner. “Boring” is the general state of mind that one needs to gain toward that. What would it be really like? How does an arhat find a job? I think that you would continue to have the positive circumstances that would ripen – not necessarily from good karma, but that would happen anyway. 

That’s an interesting point: the positive circumstances that an arhat, a liberated being, has – they’re not the ripenings from karma because they’ve gotten rid of all karma. So, where does it come from? I don’t know. There are two types of force: one is tainted karmic force, which is built up with unawareness or ignorance, and that sort of just ripens into the good things of samsara; but then there’s untainted force as well, which can ripen into liberation and enlightenment. I think that the nice things that happen would be the result of that, once you have achieved arhatship, and so things would in a sense just fall from the sky. The circumstances will just happen – people would offer to support them, etc., ripening from this previous wish to benefit everybody and so on. This is the point here. But if you’re only wishing for your own benefit, then what’s going to happen is the opposite. This is what it’s saying: “At times when, although we’ve performed constructive actions, our own mind-streams are untamed,” so we’re not liberated; we still get anger, we still get attachment, and then you still get karma, because we’re doing constructive actions for selfish purposes. We gladly we to do this so that I’ll be happy in this lifetime, and maybe even I’ll be happy in the next lifetime. That’s why it always says that if you do things for your own purpose, it’s going to only bring you problems; if you do things for the benefit of others, it brings this longer-lasting happiness. Shantideva said, look at the difference between ourselves, who have been working forever just for our own sake, and a Buddha, who works just for the sake of others. Which one is happier? Which one has fewer problems?

That’s this verse, so why don’t we do a little bit of meditation on that. Then we’ll end the class for this evening. 

At times when, although we’ve performed constructive actions, our own mind-streams are untamed, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having gladly taken on grand ambitions for this life. Now, let’s hold tightly onto the wish for liberation.

No matter what it is, if you’re worrying about things for this lifetime, you just have more and more worry. There’s never an end to the worry; as they say, it’s like the growth of an old man’s beard – it doesn’t stop. 

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