Doubt, Vajrasattva, etc.

[Challenge23]

First of all, apologies for the title. I've spent awhile trying to figure out what to type here and that was the best I could figure out.

For those that aren't up to speed.

I've been a Buddhist for about 10 years. About 4 years ago or so I found a teacher in the Dudjom Tersar lineage and started practicing Ngondro after being given the teaching(once by one of the lamas working under him and once by him as part of a group class). I have been practicing Ngondro at varying levels of intensity since then(including all of the visualizations that my teacher requested that we do).

The main things that happened during this time was that I was involved in a very traumatizing and isolating relationship and was in therapy and medication on and off for clinical depression. This will become important later in the story.

As I practiced I realized I had very serious doubts about not just the Dharma but about everything. As someone who is at his core a very serious agnostic(I don't believe that we can be certain about anything in reality at all, even the absence of certainty) this isn't very unusual. What was new was that I realized the consequences of these doubts, especially in regards to what happens after we die.

As it stands we don't have a way to say that the Islamic, atheist, fundamentalist Christian, Buddhist or Hindu afterlife is what actually happens or how we get to a specific one if our actions determine where we go.

And since what you are supposed to do for all of them(be a good Muslim, nothing, get straight with Jesus, work towards Enlightenment, and worship God in a specific way) either don't agree or in some cases contradict each other it is pretty important to figure out either which experience happens to everyone or the mechanism by which it is determined what happens to people.

Now, of course, many people would say, "Well, if you practice then certainty will come." Here is the problem I've run into with that. Part of being diagnosed with depression is that, by definition, you can't trust your own mind. Because of this you have to verify everything via external methods, otherwise you might think that jumping off of a bridge is a revealed insight and be dead before lunch(not that I've had thoughts like that for a couple of years).

Another thing that has been worrying me is the difference between Enlightenment and happiness. When I originally started I thought that Enlightenment was the same as happiness. Though there might be some rough patches the path to Enlightenment seemed to be one that would lead to greater and greater happiness over time. I have not found this to be the case at all. Practice has made my life harder, not easier. When I practice I am reminded that I don't know with any certainty what happens when I die, that the primary method everyone says I have to use to verify this(internal experience) I can't trust, and that Enlightenment is(to me, at least) not logically understandable(and thus something to view with great skepticism). It's like when a dog pees on the carpet and you rub his nose in it to get him to stop.

Now, I told my teacher a very abbreviated version of this and his response was, "Do Vajrasattva instead of prostrations" which I have done. And it has produced precisely 0 change. I still don't know what Enlightenment is, I still don't know what happens when we die, and I still can't trust my inner experiences at all if they aren't vetted by rigorous standards. On the other hand, I have noticed that getting a new significant other, exercising, eating right, staying away from "doomer" media, taking St. John's Wort, and socializing with people has helped with my depression immensely. However, according to how I understand Buddhism that should not be the case at all. Practice should make things better and anything else should make things worse.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for precisely, here. Maybe this is just for me to be able to look at my own thoughts.

[Johnny Dangerous]

I've found the more you expect out of practice, the more you demand results of it to "change" things for you, the more apparent ugliness will become to you, demanding that Buddhism produce results for you is a dead end.

Don't try to use Buddhism as a way to escape your garbage, if you approach it like that you will just create misery for yourself, "enlightenment" is not another place you go to where all the sudden all your bad stuff doesn't exist. The first thing is to really, truly, give up on being any better than you are now. Give up on trying to fix yourself, misery is misery, there is no unique key that will unlock the door to leaving yours behind...give up the search for that.

I know it sounds crazy but I think it's true, you first need to completely accept, and abide with all the ugly things you are trying to get away from, if you can't do that any path you are on will ultimately end up with you running away from those things and obsessing on the ugliness of samsara..which is of and within itself, dwelling deeply in what you are trying to detach yourself from.

Of course socializing will make you feel better, even better, if you a have a friend who is sick and injured, spend time with them. Try to open yourself up to people in a way you normally wouldn't - if you listen to the words of many wise, altruistic folks this is their advice, when they feel dark they try to lift someone else's darkness - no matter how small a gesture.

[Punya]

Dear Challenge23

I'm glad to hear you have found ways to overcome your depression. I'm sure others will offer you more sagely advice on this topic but perhaps I can make a couple of points.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's new book "Not for Happpiness: A Guide to the So-called Preliminary Practices" would seem most relevant to your current dilemma. At the end of the book he says signs of progress include "noticing the futility of everything you do" and " ever increasing conflicts as a result of old habits". Like you I have become much more serious about practice over the past few years and I found this advice strangely reassuring. I was also fretting over my increased awareness of my foot-in-mouth disease and found Pema Chodron's "Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves From Old Habits and Fears" very supportive.

You also talk about what happens at the time of death. I have recently been studying the bardo teachings and I'm currently reading Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche's Mind Beyond Death. I find he gives very clear explanations and contemporary examples. In the Bardo of Meditation section he also talks about the benefits of the just "sitting" with your problems which is what Johnny is referring to. Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is, of course, another very readable book on this topic.

I hope this in some way helps.

Metta
Punya

[Punya]

One other thing. With the term "confession" in Vajrasattva practice, one of my teachers has said that this is a very incomplete translation. It actually refers to exposing our neurotic actions ie recognising them as such. In the Tibetan "shakpa", it is implicit that we "let it go" and that we have a sense that we are "forgiven". It's not about the Christian concept of guilt.

[Jikan]

I'm glad you got out of that relationship! You're settling into a much healthier path now. Seems to me that practice might be working after all...

[ghost01]

On the other hand, I have noticed that getting a new significant other, exercising, eating right, staying away from "doomer" media, taking St. John's Wort, and socializing with people has helped with my depression immensely. However, according to how I understand Buddhism that should not be the case at all. Practice should make things better and anything else should make things worse.

Your mind and body have needs, socialization, romance, and taking care of your health are big ones and practice does not replace these needs, but should give you a means of understanding and working with them.

Now, of course, many people would say, "Well, if you practice then certainty will come." Here is the problem I've run into with that. Part of being diagnosed with depression is that, by definition, you can't trust your own mind. Because of this you have to verify everything via external methods, otherwise you might think that jumping off of a bridge is a revealed insight and be dead before lunch(not that I've had thoughts like that for a couple of years).

I suffer from depression also, and I know what you mean, but you CAN take this too far, don't take it's usefulness out of context.. you can't trust your mind when your depressed sure, but if you have an enlightening experience, do you have to discard it because you can't 'prove' it was real? Not in the least.

When I practice I am reminded that I don't know with any certainty what happens when I die, that the primary method everyone says I have to use to verify this(internal experience) I can't trust, and that Enlightenment is(to me, at least) not logically understandable(and thus something to view with great skepticism). It's like when a dog pees on the carpet and you rub his nose in it to get him to stop.

No-body knows what happens when we die, period. However, if you sit long enough and with good guidance you should be able to discern for yourself something very reassuring. Just keep at it, not everything we experience needs to be picked apart by logic.. intuitive understanding is a big part of how our minds work, why discard it completely?

I'm not sure what I'm asking for precisely, here. Maybe this is just for me to be able to look at my own thoughts.

We all need to do it sometimes, I wish you luck.

[Ayu]

Hello Challenge23,

i can give you some of my impressions to this topic. I think, there is no advice i can give because we people are all quite different.

There were great changes is my mind by Vajrasattva-practice. But i didn't expect any effect. I just started it because i liked it. There were different phases.
First ist was just beautiful. Then a long time it became dry and i thought "I'm not able to think of the wonderful meaning of this mantra and of this sadhana. I'm doing it wrong!" But i couldn't do it better for one year maybe. My teacher told me, even to speak out the mantra for just 21 times gives an incredible wonderful effect to the whole universe. I admit, i believed him, because i feel huge respect for him. So that's why i just went on. There was great doubt in my personal capacity but that was like wandering in the rain. I didn't stop.
Then there came a phase of big feelings of happiness. This came like a shock so strong. And i could sense that this kind of strong happiness is not the goal for me. It is just another sensation, it is suffering...
For me the goal now is peace. This is where the path should lead to. It's a peace full of calm joy, lightness, friendlyness.
I came more near to this by Vajrasattva-Practice, but the results were not totally apparent. It works in a more subtle way most time.

[Adamantine]

Now, I told my teacher a very abbreviated version of this and his response was, "Do Vajrasattva instead of prostrations" which I have done. And it has produced precisely 0 change. I still don't know what Enlightenment is, I still don't know what happens when we die, and I still can't trust my inner experiences at all if they aren't vetted by rigorous standards. On the other hand, I have noticed that getting a new significant other, exercising, eating right, staying away from "doomer" media, taking St. John's Wort, and socializing with people has helped with my depression immensely. However, according to how I understand Buddhism that should not be the case at all. Practice should make things better and anything else should make things worse.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for precisely, here. Maybe this is just for me to be able to look at my own thoughts.

Hi there, I will try to respond in more depth when I have more time, but for now in reply to this last paragraph, I will first bring up a joke you may or may not have heard:

A very devout religious Christian was stuck in the midst of a disastrous flood. All his neighbors quickly evacuated, but he said simply, "no, I'll wait, God will save me". Then the flood waters rose, he climbed to the roof of his house, and then a boat came by to rescue him, and again he replied "no, I will wait, God will save me". Finally, the waters overcame his roof and as he was swept away, a helicopter came and dropped him a line to climb, but again he insisted "no, I know God will save me". And so, he died. Then, later in Heaven, God appears before him and he immediately says tersely, let down: "God, why didn't you save me?" And God says to him point blank, "you shmuck, first I sent you a warning, then a boat, then a helicopter!"

Of course, the point being it may be naive to expect 'blessings' of whatever sort to appear in some fantasy preconceived ways, they may appear in mundane form, hidden form, etc. So perhaps these improvements you noticed, even things you attribute to your own decision-making (changing your relationship, being more social, taking St. John's wort) may be from the removal of obscurations accomplished as a result of the practice you've been engaged with.

Also, remember that sometimes things get worse before they get better since we have lifetimes of karmic habits and results we are trying to unravel and purify, and sometimes this does not bring instant happiness but apparently it's opposite. Of course, if you have significant doubts about prior lives this may be a hard pill to swallow. So I'd suggest studying the topic more in depth, regarding documented cases of children around the world remembering their last lives and having memories that were authenticated, etc.

[Konchog1]

The following is merely my understanding.

Whenever you think a thought electricity moves through a specific neuron in your brain. As you think the same thought over and over again, that neuron becomes stronger and following the path of least resistance, electricity is more likely to travel down that same neuron. Thus, the more you think a thought, the more it will arise unbidden. (a side note but I find the similarly between neurobiology and channel and wind theory amazing)

Thoughts cause action, even subtle body language. Actions affect people.

So, if you are depressed, unless you interrupt the depressive thoughts and introduce new thoughts, you'll get more depressive thoughts which will change how other people act around you.

This is karma acting within this life.

Now, an effect must be related to its cause. When we are born we have a mind. Where did it come from? The brain alone isn't related to the immaterial thoughts.

Similarly, we are subject to cause and effect our whole lives with our thoughts creating karma as explained above. Then when we die, our last thoughts are causes. Is there really no effect? Does that make sense?

Karma creates predispositions in our next lives. Our brain develops in response to genetics (caused by karma), environment (caused by karma), and karma.

There you go, karma and rebirth.

As to the rest of the opening post, if I were you I would take a break from Buddhism and when refreshed, reread the foundational texts of my school. (So Words of My Perfect Teacher I guess?)

[Adamantine]

As to the rest of the opening post, if I were you I would take a break from Buddhism and when refreshed, reread the foundational texts of my school. (So Words of My Perfect Teacher I guess?)

Konchog, I think it is a bit irresponsible to advise someone going through the arduous but profound discipline of ngondro to "take a break" from Buddhism. Ngondro in my experience and that of my peers will always cause doubts to arise, at some point or another. This I believe is a powerful form of resistance. Resistance manifests whenever we begin to make spiritual progress. It is almost a law of nature. We can label it the ego's trickery, or demons, or whatever but it all is a manifestation of mind, and it is the grasping to stagnation, to the crystallized forms we are attached to, clinging to our negative patterns and actions: and the flip side of this becomes resistance to change, growth, expansion, and letting go. There is an important condition in ngondro practice in our (Dudjom) lineage: you are required to do it every day, without skipping a day. It is considered essential to maintain the continuity, even if we only have time to do three repetitions of each section. Why? Because the momentum will bring us up against resistance, and the only way to break through it and change is to not back down, but to push through. "Taking a break" is precisely what the resistance wants us to do. If we give in to it, then it's won, and our spiritual practice (hopefully only temporarily) has lost. I have come up against many of the same issues as have most people I know. It is all a part of the ngondro process, and progress. The most important times for me doing ngondro were the times I went into solitary retreat, keeping an immersive schedule of 12-15+ hour days of accumulation. It is ideal to do this at some point with each section of accumulation. That is when one can really begin to taste the powerful effect the practice has on one's mindstream, because we need the support of silence, solitude, and continued unbroken practice to develop the sensitivity to gage our own subtle mind's condition and awareness. So if the OP can take a week, or 10 days, or two weeks at some point to do retreat ideally in the blessed setting of a retreat center, they will have much more perspective I think from which to contemplate these things. At least, that is my own experience, it may be different for others of course.

[Konchog1]

Well, it's my opinion of course.

But, if Challenge doesn't want to do Vajrasattva then he won't do it. That's that.

He may be pushing himself too hard. Whenever I can't understand something after trying a few days, I take a break after which I understand the matter.

And if Challenge is thinking of giving up Buddhism it's best he do it in a controlled way so he can experience life without Buddhism and see if he wishes to return or not. As opposed to being tired of Buddhism, leaving, and never thinking of it again.

I just reread my previous post and found that I wrote:

reread the foundational texts of my school.

I meant reread the foundational texts of your school.

[Adamantine]

Well, it's my opinion of course.

But, if Challenge doesn't want to do Vajrasattva then he won't do it. That's that.

And if Challenge is thinking of giving up Buddhism it's best he do it in a controlled way so he can experience life without Buddhism and see if he wishes to return or not. As opposed to being tired of Buddhism, leaving, and never thinking of it again.

I didn't see anywhere in the original post that said he didn't want to do Vajrasattva or that he was thinking of giving up Buddhism. I think those are leaps of interpretation.

Everyone who was raised in postmodern society, so heavily conditioned by cultural relativity and scientific materialism will come up against serious doubts at some point in their practice. This can either lead to an essential time for comtemplation, to resolve doubts through experiential recognition, or it can be a time to recognize that this is just conceptual elaboration that will never end, -the mind's trickery, and to push through the resistance and re-commit to the practice: trusting in the great masters of the lineage and that resultant wisdom is beyond conventional mind altogether. For either of these, retreat is extremely helpful. I also would highly recommend this book, it puts many of these things in perspective: http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Dance-Thinley-Norbu/dp/0877738858