The Decision to Surrender

A lot of people get confused how one practically surrenders completely to the spiritual guide. It seems as if you would become a lifeless zombie frozen, incapable of acting. The reality is it is the exact opposite. Right now we are a lifeless zombie incapable of acting since we are completely controlled by our delusions and have never tasted the enlightened experience of being all living beings.

It can seem like surrendering means you no longer make any decisions. But this is wrong. You do make one decision, over and over again: the decision to surrender and submit to the spiritual guide in all of his aspects. This is the best decision to make in every situation we find ourselves in.

I will repeat, this is the best decision to make in every situation we find ourselves in. There is no situation in which this is not the best decision, and if we make any other decision in any situation, we are making the sub-optimal decision. Any other decision is a product of our ignorance.

Given that things are empty, when reduced down to its essence, every situation has three components: what is appearing, how we respond and what direction we are heading in (towards what destination are we moving). What is appearing is dependent upon our past karma.

How we respond is dependent upon our present wisdom. What direction we are heading in (towards what destination we are moving) is dependent upon our aspiration.

In all three of these domains, our spiritual task is to learn to surrender/submit completely to the spiritual guide. With respect to what is appearing, we need to actively and continuously surrender/submit completely to Guru Dorje Shugden. With respect to how we respond, we need to actively surrender/submit to Lama Tsongkhapa.

With respect to what direction we are heading in (towards what destination we are moving) we need to actively surrender/submit to Guru Father Heruka (or Vajrayogini as the case may be).

Most of our worries in life are about what is appearing. We are such externally-oriented beings. As times become increasingly impure, this will only become more so the case. For this reason, I believe that reliance upon Dorje Shugden is already and will increasingly become our primary and most important refuge.

Dorje Shugden has the power to control what karmically ripens, both externally and internally. Normally, samsara is uncontrolled karmic appearance. When we surrender/offer all of our karma into Dorje Shugden’s care, then he becomes the master of our universe, he becomes the Director of our (Truman) show.

It is so simple to do: generate a pure intention, and request ‘please arrange whatever is best.’ By ‘best’ we mean, what is best for the swiftest possible of enlightenment of all living beings, understanding that our own enlightenment is an essential condition/pre-requisite for their enlightenment (the means to the end).

We have to get to the point where we actually don’t want to make the decision ourselves. We want him to decide everything for us. We have our own plans and our own goals, and we grasp onto them and become very attached to them. We generate enormous stress for ourselves through this. What freedom to let all of this go!

We need to be like a good soldier who is ready (indeed eager because he has complete confidence in his general) to go wherever he is to be deployed and to perform whatever mission is asked of him.

For a lot of RTs, they surrender themselves completely to VGL in terms of letting him decide where they go and what they do. They are happy to do so because they trust his omniscient wisdom. But for the overwhelming majority of us, it seems as if we are on our own in this respect. But this is not the case. We too can enjoy the same enlightened direction in our life by learning how to surrender/submit to Dorje Shugden.

I try to have no plans of my own, no agenda of my own other than to surrender/submit to Dorje Shugden. There is no stress, no anxiety, no worry, just an adventurous heart ready for whatever the Protector ripens next. There is no basis for aversion to anything (for example the baby crying when I am trying to mediate or do my journal).

My ignorance makes me attached to my wishes, and I suffer when they are thwarted. My faith in Dorje Shugden helps me let go of that aversion and be happy to assume responsibility for whatever the situation he emanates for me calls upon me to do. No questions asked, no hesitation, no worry, no second-guessing and no frustration, just the peaceful equanimity of a confident faith that the Protector has taken charge.

I am running out of time, so I will have to explain later how it works to surrender in terms of how we respond and the direction we are going.

But briefly, the way we respond to all situations is to oppose orthogonally the nexus of delusions arising in any given moment. This as well can be done quite simply through making simple requests such as ‘reveal to me what I should do’ or ‘please give me the wisdom to know how to respond’.

Likewise, we can simply ask ourselves, ‘what would VGL do?’ or ‘what would Lama Tsongkhapa do?’ much like Christians ask what would Jesus do. Then we do that. He has perfect wisdom and perfect skilful means, so really these two types of request are just two sides of the same coin.

In terms of what direction we are going, our job is to make ourselves useful to others. Our final goal is the complete freedom of all beings. This is what we are working towards. To bring this about, we need to recognize that we have imprisoned all beings in the samsara of our creation (our contaminated dream).

Thus to free them we need to gather and dissolve all our appearances into the bliss of the Dharmakaya (transform ourselves into Chakrasambara). As a way station or an interim step in that process, we likewise transform ourselves and our entire empty world into Heruka’s pure land.

Heruka’s pure land is like a funnel which gathers all appearances from the deepest hell to the highest pure land gradually inwards towards the Dharmakaya inside the nada inside Father Heruka’s heart. From the Charnel grounds into inside the protection circle, then into the celestial mansion, then into the deities of the commitment, body, speech, heart and great bliss wheels. Then into Father Heruka himself, then into his indestructible drop, then into the nada.

When you enter into the nada, it is like a magic portal that when you pass through the entire interpretative mandala dissolves behind you and you emerge into the infinite expanse of the clear light Dharmakaya. It is then that you realize that the entire path to enlightenment was like an unwinding of the contaminated karmic ball of knots we have been creating since beginningless time. We release ourselves (and all beings) from the infinite chains of our past deluded deeds. It all unwinds and dissolves and we emerge united with all beings in inseparable and irreversible freedom.

Source : http://kadampaworkingdad.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/the-decision-to-surrender/