How America lost its "La"

and how we get it back

Padmasambhava in his manifestation as Dorje Drollo, Vajra of Transcendent Wrath

Trigger Warning: If you are not a Tibetan Buddhist, all of what follows will seem very strange to you.

Pre-buddhist Tibetans have a useful concept called bla, pronounced la. Generally, bla is mistranslated as soul, but is it not a soul in the theistic sense. La is often considered to be a support for life force. The thing about la that distinguishes it from the theistic soul is that one’s la can be stolen, it can wander, and it can be impacted, especially by shocking things. La can be lost, it can wander away, be stolen, or weakened, but the la can also be summoned back or retrieved (bla ‘gugs) or in the case of its being stolen by formless nonhuman beings, the la can be ransomed (bla bslu). The la can be hidden away as well. Often the la of the ancient kings of Tibet would be hidden in a rare piece of turquoise call a la stone (bla rdo). Such items would be then carefully hidden and protected. To this day, in many apotropaic Tibetan Buddhist rites, the symbolic use of la stones continues.

The symptoms of the loss of la are very marked: weakness that cannot be attributed to a physical condition, chronic fatigue, listlessness, dissociation, and so on are all symptoms associated with loss of la. Loss of la only responds to ritual remediation.

My teacher of Tibetan Medicine, Gen Phuntsog Wangmo, once related a story to us about a woman who had lost her la. During the Cultural Revolution, she witnessed a relative being shot to death in front of her. The resulting trauma manifested as a loss of la. With the application of the proper procedures for summoning her la, some of which involved walking around with her and calling her name, she eventually recovered.

When I saw yesterday the video of the extrajudicial murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, I immediately thought of the story above. The thought occurred, “America has lost its la.”

There is no doubt that the world, the entire world, has fallen into the hands of banal, evil men and women. Truthfully, the Dharma view is that this is result of our collective lack of merit. Our society, for many reasons, has become increasingly unvirtuous.

Our lack of merit, in my opinion, begins with American adventurism into the Buddhist countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as our abandonment of Tibet by Nixon. I am of the generation that watched Cronkite report on the Vietnam War every night, body counts and all.

The la of the American people has wandered away, stolen by the dön demons of unfettered greed, avarice, and malice. And now we are ruled by a venal, vain, pompous, arrogant, and ignorant demon king, an actual enemy of living beings, one who makes Dasgriva, the ancient rakṣasa king of Śṛī Lanka, look like an amateurish imposter.

Watching the murder of Renee Nicole Good caused me to realize that we Dharma practitioners have something we must do, especially those of us who follow Vajrayāna Dharma with its myriad skillful means. Of course, if we like we can add our voices in dissent to the actions of this cruel regime. But such dissent, while necessary, easily slips into verbal nonvirtues. We see it all the time. I chuckle almost every time I read Jeff Tiedrich, for I am only human, and the schadenfreude is sweet. But we all must admit, it appeals to our anger and frustration.

If Dharma practitioners do not purify their minds, they will not generate merit. If they do not generate merit, they will never be able to assist the world to be free of the evil of this regime or any other. If we do not have compassion for the human beings who are inflicting this evil upon the world, our minds will never be pure. So we must have compassion for the man who murdered Renee Nicole Good. He has lost his way. He has lost his la. His la has been stolen.

So how do we summon America’s la back? We practice. Especially, we Vajrayānīs need to apply ourselves to Dharmapāla practices and other appropriate abhicāra rites. Even if we are not qualified to perform such rites, we can recite the Praise to 21 Tārās, practice Vajrakīlaya, Guru Drakpo, and other wrathful manifestations in order to protect all the people in the world at risk of harm in this time. We can also do sang offerings, offer serkyems, and we can call America’s la back. We can, through our practice, remind America of who she imagined she was, and frankly, has never been, and maybe in time, she will get there.

We can exhaust ourselves in anger and frustration, or we can increase our merit and compassion. We cannot do both. There is no such thing as compassionate anger or angry compassion. Anger, frustration, and so on are all negative mental factors that dissipate and destroy compassion. We must instead increase our faith, conscientiousness, and so on and, most important of all, our wisdom. If we do this, if we try to create a field of merit in our own way, perhaps we can see our way together through these terrible times, this time of famine, illness, and weapons.

Padmasambhava Looks Like Me, now destroyed.

I will leave you with the famed supplication of Removing Obstacles from the Path, Barchey Lamsel:

དུས་གསུམ་སངས་རྒྱས་གུ་རུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ༔

dü sum sangye guru rinpoche

Buddha of the three times, Guru Rinpoche,

དངོས་གྲུབ་ཀུན་བདག་བདེ་བ་ཆེན་པོའི་ཞབས༔

ngödrub kün dak dewa chenpö zhab

lord of all siddhis, venerable one of Great Bliss,

བར་ཆད་ཀུན་སེལ་བདུད་འདུལ་དྲག་པོ་རྩལ༔

barché kün sel düdul drakpo tsal

remover of all obstacles. Powerful, Fierce Tamer of Māra,

གསོལ་བ་འདེབས་སོ་བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་ཏུ་གསོལ༔

solwa deb so jingyi lab tu sol

I supplicate you, please grant your blessings.

ཕྱི་ནང་གསང་བའི་བར་ཆད་ཞི་བ་དང༌༔

chi nang sangwé barché zhiwa dang

Pacify outer, inner, and secret obstacles,

བསམ་པ་ལྷུན་གྱིས་འགྲུབ་པར་བྱིན་གྱིས་རློབས༔

sampa lhün gyi drubpar jingyi lob

and bless me that my wishes are effortlessly accomplished.