Month: March 2016

Astrology for 3/11/2016

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3/11/2016 Friday by Norma

A friendly attitude permeates the day, companions are enjoyable and emotional satisfaction is palpable. Engage in small, detail-oriented tasks for best results. If you look at the big picture you’ll think things are progressing too slowly, but if you keep you eye on what needs to be done right now, you’ll be satisfied. Joyce Brothers said, “Happiness hides in life’s small details. If you’re not looking, it becomes invisible.” Avoid political and ideological discussions, they’ll turn out badly. If you’re talking more than usual, consider that you’re overworked and take a rest. Various obstacles pop up today, but they can’t hurt you unless you take them seriously. It’s a great day to succeed in a long term project, to improve your health and to enjoy the company of pleasant companions.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message affects your life!

Astrology for 3/10/2016

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3/10/2016 Thursday by Norma

Inspired and visionary speaking and thinking is highlighted today. Medicines are effective and physicians are doing the job. Henry Ward Beecher said, “To array a person’s will against sickness is the supreme art of medicine.” Men feel tired but women are on the go! Need to get something done? Ask a woman, get out of her way and watch the magic happen. What’s good today? Mystical thinking combined with energetic activity, a workable combination. Friends are great, groups are helpful and people keep getting healthier!

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message affects your life!

Are You Willing?

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Excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

You cannot be a ‘sugar daddy’ in this world; there are no ‘sugar daddies’ in this world. You cannot be the conqueror or the savior as you cannot conquer someone else’s mind. Each person has to relieve themselves of the hatred, greed and ignorance in their own minds. But you can be the savior, and you can be the conqueror, in the sense that you, yourself, can liberate your own mind from hatred, greed and ignorance. In so doing, you can be a way or a path or an instrument by which the hatred, greed and ignorance in the minds of others can also be liberated. Therefore, your prayers have to consist, at least in part, of liberating your own mind from the causes of suffering. At the end of every practice, at the end of every teaching, at the end of every empowerment or anything that you do as a Buddhist, the prayer is this: “May I attain liberation in order to benefit beings.”

It’s very difficult for Americans to hear this kind of thing. It is a real struggle. We don’t like to hear about suffering; it’s so hard for us to hear about suffering. Yet, if you go to different parts of the world, they know about suffering. They know it exists. There are lots of people in the world that can say, “Hey, I’ve heard about this. I know this song.” But we who live comfortably don’t like to talk about it. We think it’s beneath us somehow to speak of suffering. We’ve become hardened to the idea.

You might say, “Well, I don’t believe that it does any good to talk about suffering. I think it does good to think positive thoughts and to constantly create a positive world.” I don’t think that’s the answer. We have become hardened to the idea of suffering, and we must first cultivate within ourselves a willingness to understand the nature of suffering so deeply and profoundly that we can do something other than scratch the surface.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 3/9/2016

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3/9/2016 Wednesday by Norma

You have out-thought and out-run trouble, congratulations! Nevertheless the activities of the day should be kept private: don’t talk about what you’re doing and don’t reveal confidences. Help others to the best of your ability. If you volunteer at a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, a prison or a hospital your efforts will have a positive impact. Gautama Siddhartha said, “There isn’t enough darkness in the world to snuff out the light of one little candle.” An energetic person appears with a great idea and perks things up during the day, listen to what you are told and act on it. What’s good today? Friends, helpful work, aquatic adventures and a problem that is being steadily resolved.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, based on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message affects your life!

The Root of Suffering

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Excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

In order to cure the symptom of suffering you might decide to manipulate the circumstances, or the environment. If you see people who are hungry, you give them food. If you decide you want to feed them for the rest of their lives so that they are never hungry, then you have to feed them three times a day, every day, for the rest of their lives, or teach them how to feed themselves. What are you going to do when they get sick? They will get sick. What are you going to do when they get old? They will get old. What are you going to do when they get lonely? What are you going to do when all the different kinds of discomfort pop up? What does it matter if you help a few people? What about the other 5.9 billion on the planet? What about the animals? Where will you start? What will you do, if your intention is merely to manipulate the environment so that the discomfort that you see is finished? Even if you have worked every moment selflessly and have given away all your money, and then have gotten money from other people to help, doing everything that you could to make these things happen, you wouldn’t put a dent in it, not even the tiniest dent. Why? Because you are trying to manipulate something that is very superficial.

This apparent reality that we are viewing isn’t that deep. It’s nothing. It’s a ghost. It’s a puff-ball. We can’t move it, because wherever we move it, it will appear somewhere else. We cannot manipulate our environment. We cannot manipulate phenomena and achieve any real lasting success. We can achieve temporary success. We can have the satisfaction of seeing someone fed who has been hungry, and that person can feel the satisfaction of a meal. If we fed people on a grand scale, it might be a grand satisfaction. But it is not permanent, it is not a solution, and the reason, according to the Buddha’s teaching, is that hunger and poverty and loneliness are not the causes of suffering. They are the results or the symptoms of something else. According to the Buddha’s teaching, the root causes of suffering are hatred, greed and ignorance.

We might take issue with that statement. Say we think about a hungry Indian child, or a hungry American child, or a hungry Ethiopian child. Sure, all of them probably do hate because they’re hungry; and they probably are ignorant because they’ve never gone to school; and they probably are greedy. Boy, if you handed one a biscuit, he’d just grab it and run because he’s so hungry. But we have to probe more deeply. We are only looking at a set of symptoms. According to the Buddha’s teaching there is an underlying cause that makes phenomena appear as it does in any given situation, and that cause is karmic. The Buddha’s teaching is that all phenomena arises from a cause, and that everything that is seen, felt, and heard is actually the emanation or the result of one’s own mind. The mind itself produces all visible phenomena. I hope you can really hear that. To change suffering as it appears in the world can never be permanent. It can never do much good. What has to be done is to change the karmic background or cause and effect scenario of one’s own mind. In doing so, you can hopefully come to a place where you can also be of benefit to others.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

It Really Works: Creating the Causes for Happiness

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

We are really happiest when we are completely surrendering—letting that love, that concern for the welfare of others, that Bodhichitta—be the captain of our ship, instead of that nasty little manipulative self-serving ego that’s running around trying to control everything and making everybody, including ourselves, crazy.  We will find that the level of neuroses in our lives begins to go down. And we will find that, lo and behold, just like the Buddha taught, we have really begun to create the causes for happiness.  It really works.

There are changes that you’ll go through, changes that I go through constantly, even still.  You may find that happiness does not take the form you thought it was going to take, but let me tell you something.  I’m forty-six years old.  If you have come anywhere near my aged self and haven’t figured out that life is not going to do what you thought it was going to do anyway, then you have been asleep at the wheel!  Why not make it work for you? Because nothing is going to take the form you thought it was going to, no matter what you do.  Most particularly, if you spend your time trying to control and manipulate others, and if you live a life completely concerned with ego-cherishing, then life really won’t deliver.  But hey, figuring that out is all part of growing up.  We see that.  Your five-year plans, your ten-year plans, forget it.  I guess about some aspects of your life you can do that, but you will find that as the Bodhichitta begins to truly manifest in your life, it requires true surrender. And your life will not take the form that you thought it was going to, because this Bodhichitta cannot be controlled.  It is not a toy for you to make only you happy.  It is the display of that nature that is our ground of being and to which we are all equally entitled and ultimately responsible for.  As you begin to taste that nectar, you realize that in all the world, sentient beings are suffering. And in worlds and worlds that we cannot see, sentient beings are suffering; and that we have in our hands, like a precious jewel or a golden key, the means by which some understanding or some help can come to them. So let us now commit our lives and remain absorbed in that kindness, and transform this present life and every future life into a vehicle by which the end of suffering will be brought about and all sentient beings will be liberated.

So this is the teaching, and this is our wish. And I hope from the depth of my heart that each one of you will consider it very carefully and then make the choice for transformation.  We hate that word.  Transformation is a scary key word.  We sort of like it in theory—it sounds so dynamic and powerful. But when, let’s say for instance astrologically, someone says to you, “Well, you know you’re about to go through a major transformation,” we are terrified.  Quick, batten down the hatches.  Don’t let anything change.  But, if you live long enough, you’ll find out that life is going to transform you one way or the other.  You will go through transformations.  You will go through things.  So go through that which will benefit you and all sentient beings.

Do not leave this continent of precious jewels empty handed.  When you go into your next life, I hope from the depth of my heart that you have somehow managed to take the nectar from this life and truly internalize it, and enter into your next life nurtured by the power of Bodhichitta.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 3/8/2016

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3/8/2016 Tuesday by Norma

Pay attention to a dream or intuition this morning, it’s helpful. Hospitals, physicians and medicine are highlighted. Take instructions from licensed practitioners and sidestep alternative therapies for the time being. If you feel bogged down or overwhelmed, ask for help. A pleasant, good-natured and efficient person is at your service! Avoid the tendency to be hard on yourself (“I should be able to do this, what’s wrong with me?”). Be patient if you are incarcerated, hospitalized or in a jam, help is nearby. It is actually possible to work your way out of trouble today. Singing, chanting, painting, visualizing, and dreaming are all helpful and effective.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see which area of your life is affected by this message!

The Nature of Dreams

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in response to a question:

Questioner: What do you think dreams are? Are dreams a mirror of daily consciousness? Is there anything to do with them?

Jetsunma:

A great question! And more than one way to look at it. Physicists are beginning to recognize dreams as a glimpse into other probable realities that we are connected to. And that maybe these dimensions are all mind. They are getting close.

I say all realities are a Bardo in that we seem to be passing through them, and “Bardo” means passage. Dreams are as real as any other state, no more, no less. What you bring back from a dream may well be significant, in that on a subconscious level you want to remember it. That can be on the emotional level where we tend to sort out info and take what we need. Other dreams can be sorting info from the future, present and past. If we glimpse a future probability we might see it as prophetic. From the past? Some sort of processing. About the present, we puzzle and organize. And try to fill in the blank bits according to our preconceived notions. However, all concepts, waking or dreaming, are our fabrication of karma. We, the seer, the dreamer, the objects we “see,” the probable uncountable endless realities, the entire cosmos, inner and outer, are all empty of self nature! Like in quantum physics we are beginning to see that all is fundamental space, that even atoms and molecules are space! All inherently empty.

It is that trickster, the habitually confused ego, trying to run the show. So we cannot see the void ground of nature. The ego does not allow for that, as its purpose is opposed to the very idea. Ego argues with primordial emptiness. Yet without it there would be no dream. Just uncontrived unborn and yet spontaneously liberated space. It’s really not so scary. And quite relaxing to see all as impermanent and free.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 3/7/2016

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3/7/2016 Monday by Norma

Friends and groups are supportive and it’s a good day to set new goals. The news from afar is annoying and everyone is speaking too loudly. Lower the volume if you wish to make an impact. Mark Twain said, “The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” Notice those who have nothing to say, they know the most. Elsewhere, people are more than happy to help out- to type your report, to fix your car, to do any job for you so spread the work around. The tone of the times is Piscean, with an emphasis on healing, creativity, water and sensitivity. Someone can solve a problem you didn’t know you had.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message impacts your life!

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