Transformation

by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

If we're deeply addicted to a substance, then the triumph of overcoming substance abuse is a great release. Likewise, to gain some independence from the raging conflicting emotions that consume us much of the time in subtle ways has a powerful after-effect. That freedom encourages us to replace the conflicted mind and habitual tendencies with something much better — an abundance of loving-kindness and compassion. We will see how loving-kindness and compassion can enrich our minds. When the negative tendencies are removed and transformed, we are able to generate all the positive qualities that are inherent to mind.

Our tendency to cherish the self, protect the self, and be exclusively focused on the self can be changed with a simple and effective method. We remove our self as the focus of cherishing and protection, and replace the self with others. When we do this, we’re not getting rid of cherishing. We’re not getting rid of protecting — just changing the focus from our self and putting others first. The new cherishing is developed through logic and reasoning. To put ourselves as the focus of cherishing and protecting has no logic. It is just instinct and habit. And it is never the case that it brings us more happiness. I’ll paraphrase from The Way of the Bodhisattva: “If taking yourself as the focus of cherishing and protecting achieved happiness, you would already be happy, because this has been going on for a long time. In truth, however, this has not worked; therefore, we are all in samsara.” The tathagatas have not taken the self as the focus of cherishing and protecting, but rather have taken others as the focus. They have achieved Buddhahood, which is proof that it does work.

This can be reasoned from cause and from effect. Just as we desire happiness, so does everyone else. Just as we desire freedom from suffering, so does everyone else — so why discriminate? The logic here is to make everyone who desires happiness important, everyone who desires freedom from suffering important, and therefore put everyone in the centre of our cherishing and protecting, making everyone’s well-being and freedom our focus. That is from the cause side. From the effect side, when we put the focus of cherishing and protecting on the self,  what surges out are the disturbing emotions. But if we make others, all sentient beings, the primary focus, loving-kindness and compassion surge forth.

From every angle, we can see that it makes sense to do this. The only problem standing in our way is the habitual pattern of doing otherwise. Working with that pattern will take some time and struggle. These tendencies of cherishing and protecting are difficult to get rid of. But changing our focus can make an enormous difference. Since we are already very familiar with cherishing and protecting, simply changing the focus of these behaviours can have an incredibly good result. Knowing what we have to work with makes a lot of sense. Whether we are driving East or West, driving is driving. We are already familiar with driving, so why not see if we can change directions?

We all know the sorts of concerns that come out of cherishing, loving, and caring. Every aspect of these emotions is very familiar. Up until this point, it’s all been in relation to the self; that’s what’s messed it up. Now the focus is on directing the same feelings, the same emotions, not onto the self, but outward. The Mahayana teachings in the Buddhist canon are incredibly wise, intelligent, and deep in wisdom. In the Hinayana the emphasis is more on what to get rid of, what to eliminate. In the Mahayana it is on transformation, changing our attitude or focus. For someone who has actually never loved, to imagine loving others is very difficult. For someone who has never felt compassion, to imagine feeling an abundance of compassion is nearly impossible. But someone who has felt a tremendous amount of love and compassion for himself is capable of extending that to others. 

The only challenge, really, is habit. Habit tugs away at us to follow in the same old rut. Still, remedying this is easier than trying to generate something we find inconceivable. We progress on the path of loving others as we love ourselves, caring for others as we care for ourselves, being compassionate to others as we are compassionate to ourselves, being concerned for others as we are concerned for ourselves. Progress comes in finding the freedom to do so clearly and cleanly, without confusion or reservations. In this way, freedom becomes abundant in our life. Joy and contentment become abundant in our life. This process takes some time because the heart needs to catch up with the head. But retraining the heart to respond to what the head commands it to do can be successful, sooner or later.

There is an incredible intelligence at work here, in which the thinking and reasoning are very clear. The heart has to follow the head. Heart is the experiencer of pain and pleasure. The heart tastes life, so when it feels all of this freedom and joy, a sense of great relief and contentment arises. When compassion’s positive qualities touch the heart that generates the compassion, the heart is sustained in happiness by the very thing it has created. The heart needs the thinking mind to lead it on the path, but truly the feelings spontaneously follow.

So my point here is that to train one’s mind and heart at the same time is the Buddhist path, the Mahayana path. The basic makeup of mind is not changed or eliminated. Instead, we use the innate tendencies to create a different effect, by training in a different focus. There is an interesting statement in a Sutra text that says, “Where do the tathagatas come from? Tathagatas are given birth to by egos.” Generally speaking, egos are what prevent us from becoming tathagatas. We get rid of the focus of the self by placing others where one’s self previously was and then learning how to generate loving-kindness, compassion, goodness, and protection for others. This method of transformation makes the teachings truly accessible and comprehensible.

Hopefully we can learn all of this in more depth as we go into Shantideva’s teachings, and hopefully we can also discuss how it makes sense to do this based on our own experiences. We can study the ways this was done in the past and also discuss how we can actually integrate this with our own experience. Imagine the effect this would have on our mind. When we access the need, it makes us very strongly interested — unless from time to time we just fall asleep.

Sometimes, we all want to ignore what’s good for us. We know that eating salad is good, but sometimes we just don’t want to eat salad! We avoid the salad and eat junk food instead. Of course, this happens sometimes. I encourage students to really examine what is taught here. See how it can be integrated with your own personal experience, and consider its effects, and the need for this kind of practice. When you examine them in this way, the teachings will have a lot of meaning. Moreover, the teachings will become an integral part of your life. When this does not take place and the teachings are not able to become an essential part of your life, something else will fill that spot: Work becomes essential; survival in this modern world becomes the essential meaning of life. Hustling and bustling become essential. The survival instinct that we secure in these ways becomes the most essential aspect of our life. In doing so, however, the world fails to actually secure its happiness.

If someone is to become a practitioner, a true student of Dharma, that person has to know that practice is an essential part of one’s life, intimately interwoven with one’s own experience. Of course, we need to keep our jobs. We need to be responsible with our family. We need to do a lot of different things in our lives, but none of these become essential. Rather, they become important in support of what we find the most meaningful in life — becoming a  student of Dharma, a practitioner of Dharma. All these other things are just simply in support of that. In this way, then, our interest in the Dharma and practice will not wane over time. It gets stronger as we directly experience its results and benefits.

Otherwise, life’s demands and stresses to keep things in relative order — even just paying the bills so that we can have a decent life — can sweep us away so that we ignore our Dharma practice and studies. We never even think that we are missing much of an opportunity. That’s because we haven’t yet truly realised how beneficial Dharma is for our mind. Ultimately, the Dharma has the capacity to free us from suffering. Suffering is something that may be tolerable in the short term, but the prospect of suffering over many, countless lifetimes is not.

You need to study the Dharma to have some kind of revolution in your mind, and to understand how this revolution is relevant to life’s essential meaning — not just to survival and covering the basics, even though you also need to take care of that. This kind of dedication gives you a sense of strong determination to make your interest in the Dharma path come to fruition through your own efforts, year after year after year. Once you reach that point, the teacher’s job is done. 

Until then, however, the teacher has a certain amount of responsibility to oversee students so that they do not become “high school dropouts.” Parents have a responsibility to see their children through high school; after that, they’re on their own. Similarly, students need to get to the point of seeing how the Dharma changes their mind for the better. Hopefully, my teaching here in accordance with The Way of the Bodhisattva will bring you closer to understanding the Dharma from your own experience and to seeing how it is an integral part of the meaning of life in a very positive way. I don’t know if we will get completely to that point, but hopefully we can draw closer to it.

This is an orientation to the teachings in general. It is also an introduction to the bodhisattva’s path, the practice of truly changing our mind and what that can mean for our well-being and freedom from suffering. In the following sessions, I hope to elucidate mind, both certain particular problems of mind and also how those problems can actually become an asset simply by changing our focus. I will try to show how some of those tendencies are in one way a problem, and on the other hand can actually be a conduit that carries us to being a bodhisattva and the practitioner we want to become. I will explore how the teachings can become a resource for our intelligence and wisdom, and a transcript of our mind. I will use quotes and take guidance from the text of The Way of the Bodhisattva, in which a great bodhisattva, the Indian Mahapandita Shantideva, elucidates the path on which to travel. In this process, we will journey from a confused mind to a clear mind. The text is a support to effect the true transformation of mind, the transformation of our self-centred mind to a bodhi heart.

Mind is actually the teaching itself and needs to be understood through personal experience. These experiences will lead us to renunciation and heighten our interest, which makes us solid practitioners and sustains us on the path. I hope to weave all this together. These are the points I want to emphasise. Please do engage in questioning and discussions as fully as possible. Don’t be shy. This is not the time to be shy. We have to learn, and whatever I have to offer I  will offer.