“Buddha, the Able One, says, ‘Thus all fears and all infinite sufferings arise from the mind.’” – Shantideva

“Who will grant me fearlessness? How can I be released from these fears? If I shall inevitably become nothing, how can I continue to indulge?” – Shantideva

“… if the elephant of our mind is tightly bound on all sides by the rope of mindfulness, all fears will cease to exist and all virtues will fall into our hands.” – Shantideva

“All physical suffering and mental unhappiness, all the different types of fear, and the suffering of being separated from what we want arise from non-virtuous actions.” – Shantideva

“Because we have attachment for our body, even a small object of fear frightens us greatly; so who would not revile as an enemy cherishing this body, which is the source of that fear?” – Shantideva

“…spiritual realizations directly protect us from suffering and fear.” – Transform Your Life, pg. 79

“If we take the rope of mindfulness and tie our elephant mind securely to the post of virtue, all our fears will swiftly come to an end.” – Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully, pg. 134

“… all fear comes from the untamed mind.” – Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully, pg. 135

“If we have great compassion we shall have nothing more to fear from samsara…” – Universal Compassion, pg. 28

S.R. Forbes

Fear.  Fear is a complex thing, especially with panic disorder.   We must be afraid of something, right?  And yet it is this “something” that is missing from the cruel equation that is the panic attack.  What am I afraid of?  Well, perhaps the usual things: death, illness, loneliness, loss.  But with a panic attack, it becomes very difficult to pin down some cause.  Yes, I used to panic about “things,” such as exams or due dates, but for the vast majority of the time, the panic seemed to just appear, to arise sometimes very rapidly and intensely out of nowhere.

There is an unfortunate, cruel experiment done to dogs.  Electric shocks are applied at random for no apparent reason, no cause.  The dogs develop a condition known as “learned helplessness.”  It’s a torture technique to make creatures (and people) more docile.  Panic disorder is like this.  Panic is applied at random so that, ironically, what one fears the most, what one fears constantly is fear, is panic itself.

I realized, a little more deeply than before, that my panic attacks must be the ripened effect of past negative actions, actions from previous lives.  Buddha teaches us that our suffering comes from negative or harmful actions performed in the past, but this is difficult to understand unless we have some personal experience of its truth.  This newfound conviction in the law of karma arose due to the following reasoning:

1)      All effects have a cause.

2)      Panic is an effect.

3)      Panic has a cause

4)      Causes precede effects.

5)      If a cause cannot be found in this life, it must have occurred in a previous life.

6)      Panic’s cause cannot be found in this life.

7)      Therefore, the cause of panic must be from a previous life.

This is my personal negative karma ripening.  This is precisely why I’ve never found a specific trigger for my panic attacks, this is precisely why Dharma practice has been the most effective, powerful, swift and consistent medicine.

So, what do I need to do?  I need to apply great, steady, continuous effort to purify my mind, to purify my past negative actions.  Otherwise, my personal suffering will never end.

***

Tea is nectar for the brain.  Good tea, I mean.  A good, fresh green or oolong massages the temples, puts the brain at ease.  Refuge is the true protection, though.  Imagine Vajrasattva, inseparable from your root guru, or Spiritual Guide, pouring nectar-like blessings down upon you as he sits at your crown.  These blessings fill the body and mind, purifying the real cause of panic; negative karma.  This provides not only temporary comfort, like the tea, but ultimate comfort: a mind completely at peace now and in the future.  So, we can see that healing is necessarily tied to spiritual well-being, spiritual health.  No mortal doctor can purify your mind.  No ordinary being can heal your heart completely.  Perhaps they can help a little, perhaps even a great deal, but no one in this ordinary world provides real, complete liberation, nor real freedom.  Real freedom comes from the beyond, the spiritual world.

The so called “freedom” we enjoy in the West is not real freedom.  It is a suffering.  Fear can shell your mind, like a cannon, again and again, even if your so-called external “enemies” are far away or vanquished.  In fact, there is no real external enemy at all.  Our “freedom” in the West is nothing but the ability to allow our attachment to run rampant, destroying our world, our communities, and ourselves.  Attachment is a cause of pain, why do we think of it as freedom?  Oddly, to be truly free takes discipline, takes restraint, control, and purity of mind.  If you want freedom from your fears, learn to control, pacify and release your mind from its obsessive self-concern.

Temporary freedom from panic, or any suffering, is deceptive.  It is not enough.  Strive for more.  Being functionally miserable is no way to live; you deserve better.  Strive for bliss.  Live a life of appreciation.  Appreciate every breath.  As human beings, with human minds, we have so much potential.  We can accomplish so much with our minds, for good or for ill.  “You are your own enemy, you are your own protector,” as it is said.

How can we learn to live fearlessly?  How can we accomplish this?  I don’t know as I have not accomplished it yet!  But, from what I have read and understood, delusions (and especially self-grasping) are the source of all fear.  We can be truly fearless only when we’ve released our mind from self-grasping.  Otherwise, the potential for mental and physical pain is still present.

Vajrasattva, Buddha of Purification

Technology, Communication, and the Fate of the Wired

I often find myself on the bus these days, going to the U District in Seattle from my current residence in Shoreline seeking… something, anything to relive the exciting bits of recently left college days (while ignoring painful memories of exams, homework and due dates, gratefully no longer part of my life).  Hindsight is not only 20/20, it is through rose-colored glasses too.  On the bus, I’ve come to observe a very common sight, a habit both of myself and others.  Enter: the iPod.

Inevitably, someone arrives on the bus, ear buds blaring, essentially ignoring the bus driver (and everyone else), eyes darting, not to the faces of others, but rather about a small brightly lit screen searching playlists.  I use the iPod as the supreme example, though texting is a close second, of what I would like to call, “iCulture,” a relatively recent but major phenomenon and subject of this essay.

iCulture has begun to spread amongst all ages though it is especially prevalent in my age group, the college-age, young folk.  It is definitely a force, a cultural move and shift that can be seen everywhere.  To ignore it seems unwise, perhaps even reckless.  When we look deeply at this trend, it appears that the faults outweigh the merits of our unbridled search for happiness through technology.  The goal of this essay is to outline some of the downsides to iCulture and really to reassess our own behavior and the technological trends that have taken hold of our communities, both locally and globally.

We are becoming a culture of bubbles, pod-people, if you’ll excuse the pun.  In our bubble, we have our iPod, our cell phone, our precious Facebook, all manner of gadgets and technology which, though they promise happiness and increased communication with others, an exciting and rewarding lifestyle, are sadly having the opposite effect: isolation, confusion, death of communication.

We no longer know how to communicate.  We text our friends, rather than meet them face to face.  We ignore strangers, humans just like us, instead of introducing ourselves and starting a conversation, even a new friendship.  Instead of our real world and culture, we prefer artificial, digital communities, like Facebook or World of Warcraft.  We “friend” with the click of a button.  We chat, not even with our voices, but through the silence of letters and abbreviations.  So, why is this?

One theory is that we like to numb out.  Terrified to face our self, our mind, or our world we try to drown out all suffering with manic sounds, blazing light, and endless text all accessed easily with our newest, latest and greatest electronics.  With the hope of making life easier and more livable, we try with all our might to ignore all that is around us.  Why?  To put it bluntly, the world is unbearable.  We are surrounded by suffering, so much so that to face it feels impossible.  Cancer, oil spills, war, earthquakes, torture; there is so much suffering in the world and so, much like a turtle whose head retreats into its shell at the slightest hint of danger, we try to protect ourselves by numbing out.  We have become very good at ignoring, becoming callous, becoming jaded.  So, what’s wrong with this?  Why change, why not continue?

Firstly, iCulture is unrealistic.  We are a community of connections, of interrelations, not of individuals.  Everything that we enjoy, even the technology we surround ourselves with, is the product of others, the result of the intelligence and effort of others.  Others depend upon us and we, too, depend upon them.  Isolation is unrealistic and potentially dangerous.  To explain this, I would like to talk very briefly about a Buddhist concept called “dependent origination” or “dependent arising.”

Dependent origination or dependent arising is the notion that all the things around us are the product of other factors.  For example, in Seattle we enjoy both endless rain and an endless stream of lattes; both are examples of dependent arising, of phenomena that are the product or result of a great number of causes and conditions.  The lattes are perhaps more fun to talk about, so I will use these as an example.  The next time you purchase a latte, try to be mindful of the process and interrelations involved.

On a very basic level, we can see that there are several ingredients and materials involved.  All are essential; the coffee beans, the milk, the cup, the barista, the café itself, everything comes together to produce the phenomenon, “latte,” which we drink in the morning, delicious.  The latte depends on all these factors to come into existence.  Without coffee beans, there is no latte.  Without the cup, it is undrinkable.  Without the milk, it’s an Americano.  Now let’s take this a bit further.

Where did the coffee beans for the latte come from?  They came from a farm with plants, soil, moisture, sunlight, the hard work of the farmer, his food, home, family, the transportation of the beans and all the elements and people involved there.  All of these are “ingredients” or factors that must be included to produce our beverage.  If any are taken away or changed we no longer have something to sip in the morning.  At this point, we begin to see the infinite number of causes and conditions that produce a given phenomenon.  For example, we could look even closer at the process of producing the latte and learn all about the people involved, what their needs and wishes are and so forth.  The main point is that this search is exhaustive.  This is dependent origination.  You can break this chain down further and further and find that there is no phenomenon independent of its parts, causes, conditions and, if you want to be more profound, the mind itself that labels these factors.  So what does this have to do with iCulture?

Simply put, dependent origination applies not only to inanimate things like rain and lattes, but also to our local and global communities.  We are not at all individuals; we are not isolated from each other, though we may try desperately to shut down and ignore, politely, all those around us as we slip in the ear buds.  Whereas the newest gadgets we are sold try to convince us we can be independent from others, that we can live with no real human interactions or relationships and enjoy a life of independence and self-responsibility, dependent origination shows that we cannot survive without each other, let alone find happiness.  Without others, their efforts, actions, assistance and so on we could not live, let alone have anything to make our life enjoyable and happy.  Our pod-people culture is not based on reality.

Another theory as to why iCulture is potentially destructive, and I must credit one of my best friends, Laura O’Neill, with this one, is that we’ve forgotten how to listen.  To truly listen in an undistracted, face to face fashion has become somewhat old-fashioned.  Our ability to communicate is decaying before us.  This may seem an odd statement when we consider the example of the cell phone, a device that promises unmatched communication with everyone and everything, but nevertheless when we investigate, we find that even this device has many pitfalls.

Simply walk through a college campus and see how few people talk to each other at a table.  We are all immersed in our iPhones, our “crackberries,” our netbooks, sending texts, checking e-mail and so on.  Someone may argue that texting and email are new forms of communication; how can you claim that these interfere with our ability to communicate?  Yes, they are new, fast, and powerful tools, but at what cost?  What are we willing to sacrifice to be able to check our e-mail 24/7?  Conversation at dinner with our friends?  A healthy relationship with our family?  I may sound old-fashioned, but perhaps it is time to reassess the way we communicate with others.  Let’s create communities of warmth and compassion, full of kind and caring members, instead of blowing each other apart online in nightmarish, thankfully digital, environments.

To do this, perhaps we do not need to totally “unplug” for the rest of our life, but take a middle way approach and limit the use of our gadgetry or take a step back from time to time.  For myself, I can say that going one day, just one day, without my cell phone is both relaxing and surprisingly difficult.  I would recommend everyone give it a try.  You will be very surprised how difficult it is to go even a day without internet, for example.  We are becoming a world of junkies.  We’re addicted to our gadgets; this is precisely why everyone is so excited to get their next hit, a newer, better, faster iPhone and will wait in line for hours to purchase technology that will be outdated in a year.

In a world of ever more powerful technology, we must learn to use what we invent responsibly.  We must learn when it is time to step back and take a deep breath.  Most of all, we must learn how to be happy with less.  Newer, faster and fancier electronics cannot bring lasting happiness.  In fact, to produce our gadgets we are polluting and harming our planet, causing global warming and so forth which will cause lasting damage, not contentment.  If we reflect on our own experience, we will find this to be true, contrary to every iPod, Xbox, or Starcraft ad our eyes happen to come across.  In my own experience, I can say confidently that the happiest moments of my life are when the phone stays at home and the ear buds come out so as to fully enjoy the splendor of nature, the stillness of my own mind in meditation, or tea with a great friend.

Individualism and the Fate of the Wired

I often find myself on the bus these days, going to the U District in Seattle from my current residence in Shoreline seeking… something, anything to relive the exciting bits of recently left college days (while ignoring painful memories of exams, gratefully no longer part of my life).  Hindsight is not only 20/20, it is through rose-colored glasses too.  On the bus, I’ve come to observe a very common sight, a habit both of myself and others.  Enter: the iPod.

Inevitably, someone arrives on the bus, earbuds blaring, essentially ignoring the bus driver (and everyone else), eyes darting, not to the faces of others, but rather about a small brightly lit screen searching playlists.  I use the iPod as the supreme example, though texting is a close second, of what I would like to dub, “individualism,” a cultural phenomenon and subject of this essay.

Individualism has begun to spread amongst all ages, though especially in my age group, early 20s, and so I come across it a fair bit, especially around college-age, young folk.  It is definitely a force, a cultural move and shift that can be seen everywhere.  We are becoming a culture of bubbles, Pod-people, if you’ll excuse the pun.  In our bubble, we have our iPod, our cell phone, our precious Facebook, all manner of gadgets and technology which, though they promise happiness and increased communication with others, an exciting and rewarding lifestyle, are sadly having the opposite effect: isolation, confusion, death of communication.

We no longer know how to communicate.  We text our friends, rather than meet them face to face.  We ignore strangers, humans just like us, instead of introducing ourselves and starting a conversation, even a new friendship.  Instead of our real world and culture, we prefer artificial communities, like Facebook or World of Warcraft.  We “friend” with the click of a button.  We chat, not even by voice, but through the silence of letters and abbreviations.  So, why is this?

One theory is that we like to numb out.  Terrified to face our self, our mind, or our world we try to drown out all suffering with manic sounds, blazing light, and endless text all accessed easily with our newest, latest and greatest electronics.  With the hope of making life easier and more livable, we try with all our might to ignore all that is around us.  Why?  Because the world is unbearable.  We are surrounded by suffering, so much so that to face it feels impossible.  Instead, we have become very good at ignoring, becoming callous, becoming jaded.  So, what’s wrong with this?  We all do it, so why change, why not continue?

Firstly, iCulture is unrealistic.  We are a global community, a community of connections, of interrelations, not individuals.

Another theory, I must credit Laura O’Neill with this one, is that we’ve forgotten how to listen.  To truly listen in an undistracted, face to face fashion.

It would not be a lie to say that this paper has been a joy to write. I personally feel this topic to be endlessly fascinating, timely and meaningful for myself and potentially many others. To quote my Spiritual Guide, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, once more regarding our search for happiness, “We are choosing wrong. The method to make our self happy is wrong.” True happiness can only be found and a harmonious society solidly built, if we put the teachings on lojong into practice. I have confidence in this method, not out of dogmatism or religious conviction, but rather out of a sense of practicality, even logic. If we neglect to improve our minds and continue to “choose wrong,” to look outside for the solutions to our problems, we will find only frustration because the root of our problems lies within the human mind. Yes, our efforts to help others materially are important and may help superficially, but on a deeper level the sources of our suffering, unhappiness and dissatisfaction will remain. Lojong is a science. It has been shown again and again to work over centuries of practice in the East, and more recently in the West. It is a true, powerful method to help alleviate suffering and to find great inner peace and happiness.

It is my hope that whoever reads this paper will not only ponder these ideas, but to at least try to practice them, to give them a try with an open mind. Every single person on our planet wishes for happiness and freedom from pain and problems. These can be attained through a deep understanding of the human mind and human condition. Our condition is suffering. We are constantly in mental and physical pain, though perhaps try very hard to deny this fact. Let’s work together to stop this, to find ways to reduce, even eliminate suffering. Only then can a truly happy and peaceful society be created. There is a saying in Buddhism that has always fascinated me, “Suffering is optional.” Let’s work together to prove this truth.

In his Training the Mind in Seven Points, Geshe Chekawa (1102 – 1176 CE) writes that lojong, or “training the mind,” is “like a diamond, like the sun, and like a medicinal tree.” What does he mean by this? The analogy is as follows. In his modern commentary to this text, Universal Compassion, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes:

“… if a diamond is cut into little pieces each fragment, however small, is still valuable. In this respect the instructions on training the mind are like a diamond because, while it is most valuable to practice all the instructions on training the mind, it is still very worthwhile to practice just some of them.” Universal

Compassion, pg. 6

In the same way, it will be argued in this thesis that implementing even a single, particular instruction from lojong texts has the potential to bring about great, positive results with respect to the many social problems that manifest in our communities, our nation, and our world. The more methods applied, the more revolutionary the changes can be. Geshe Kelsang continues:

“Just as full sunlight completely dispels all darkness but even a few rays provide a measure of light… if we engage in only some parts of the practice this will

help to reduce our ignorance and self-cherishing.” Universal Compassion, pg. 6

According to the Tibetan lojong texts as well those of earlier Indian masters such as Shantideva (8^th century, CE), self-cherishing is the root of all suffering. In the same way, this paper will attempt to demonstrate that most, if not all our social problems come from this mind of selfishness. This is a new concept to most of us and will be explained later. Finally, Geshe Kelsang writes:

“Just as every part of a medicinal tree… provides medicine and is useful in curing disease, so every part of the instructions on training the mind can cure the

mental disease of the delusions.” Universal Compassion, pg. 6

What are delusions, in this context? Delusions are defined in the book, Understanding the Mind, as states of mind that create an unpeaceful and uncontrolled mental environment. It will be argued here that delusions, sometimes called inner poisons, are the true source of society’s problems; trying to address these problems whilst ignoring inner change, or inner transformation is ultimately futile. First, however, it is important not only to know what lojong is, but also how it fits into the history and culture of Tibet as well as where it is positioned in the context of the Buddhist path to enlightenment.

Part I: Lojong as Buddhist Practice

What is Lojong?

Lojong is a Tibetan word meaning “mind training,” and refers to a method for radical inner transformation. It is radical in both its goal and its promise, its potency and its profundity. In essence, lojong is a meditative path for letting go completely of all self-preoccupation, self-centredness, and self-cherishing whilst building within oneself a powerful, compassionate heart and supreme intention. This intention is bodhicitta, the wish to attain enlightenment for the sake of each and every living being, benefiting them through revealing the Buddhist path to the same state, Buddhahood.

What is transformed? Why is transformation necessary? In Transform Your Life, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes that Buddhist teachings are often likened to a mirror in which one can see one’s own inner faults, self-destructive tendencies and harmful actions and intentions. In his teachings, Buddha mapped out the workings of the human mind quite extensively, revealing delusions and the antidotes to them. There are many many types and levels of delusion within the mind which obstruct its pure, clear nature. It is through these teachings that one can understand where suffering and mental pain come from and how to remedy these through meditation and new ways of thinking. These new ways of thinking Buddha called “paths,” the fourth Truth in the Four Noble Truths, because they lead the practitioner to inner destinations: the alleviation of various sufferings and the inner destinations of liberation and enlightenment. The following example may help to understand this point.

When we are harmed, criticized, or slandered our natural reaction is to feel hurt and become defensive and angry. Anger, in Buddhism, is likened to fire by masters such as Shantideva. It scorches our mind and its blaze can lead us to harm others, usually with our thoughts or speech. In extreme cases we may even lash out and harm others physically. All violence, according to these teachings, stems from the mind of anger. It is therefore considered one of the three root delusions, along with attachment and ignorance. The opponent, or antidote to anger is patient acceptance. Buddha taught that one can oppose and completely eliminate one’s anger with this profound mind. It should be noted here, that eliminating anger and repressing it are two very different things. In his book, How to Solve Our Human Problems, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes that

“patience is a mind that is able to accept, fully and happily, whatever occurs… Being patient means welcoming wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are.” (How to Solve Our

Human Problems pg. 33)

It becomes clear, upon reflection, that this is not a natural state of mind. Being truly and deeply patient is not usually our natural habit; it takes training to think like this. Naturally our mind wants to not accept, and definitely wishes for things to be different than they are. What is fascinating is that our very natural habit of anger is also incredibly destructive for ourselves and others; our mind is very skilled at destroying our own happiness and inner peace. Training the mind reverses these self-destructive tendencies and habits. With strong patience, comes a strong basis for more profound practices.