Month: April 2016

Deepening on the Path: The Importance of “Caring”

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called, “Bringing Virtue into Life”

If your eyes are open at all, you have seen that you have often boxed your own ears, that you have often hurt yourself by engaging in non-virtuous activity that has brought you suffering.  Maybe you’ve had time to see a little bit of that.  But I’ll tell you that according to the Buddha’s teaching, and this is the truth, every bit of non-virtuous behavior that you have engaged in will bring about unhappiness. So it’s not logical to engage in non-virtuous behavior and that includes the lesser non-virtuous behaviors.  The big ones like killing, we can get that.  Killing, stealing, that sort of thing, but what about simple selfishness?  What about judgment of others?  What about just not giving a big flip?  Not caring?  What about reading the newspaper and thinking “Wow millions of people are starving over there.  Too bad.”  You don’t think that’s a non-virtue?  That’s how we read the paper, every day.  Of course that’s a non-virtue. We’re not caring.  We’re not praying for them.  We’re not sending them anything.  We’re not doing anything to help.

The Buddha also taught us that virtuous behavior brings about happiness, but we have exactly the opposite idea.  Most of us don’t like to practice, for instance.  We don’t like to sit down and practice.  Who likes to sit down for two hours at a stretch?  I don’t know about you, but I get fanny fatigue big time.  Two hours at a stretch.  That is not how I want to spend the day.  So we think like that.  We think “Oh, you know, if I sit down today and practice for two hours, I’m really going to suffer!”  So we have this weird idea that virtuous activity like practice is going to bring about unhappiness, and it’s because of our lack of understanding.  What we don’t realize is that yes, while we have maybe the antsy-ness or the fanny fatigue or whatever it is that we get, ultimately that two hours of practice will ripen. And when it ripens it will be like a precious jewel within your life.  At some point there will be an event or a change or a lift or a gift or something that you very much need in your life. It will appear as though out of nowhere. and it can be directly traced to previous virtuous behavior.

The Buddha also teaches us that if we offer even something, if we’re very poor and all we have is something simple like a candle or a butter lamp. If we offer only that, placing it on an altar and with a full and generous heart visualize it as being everything that we have, everything that we could ever have and offer it to the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha and particularly to the Lama as the representative of all three, then let that merit be used to benefit sentient beings.  What we don’t realize is that while that took some time out of our busy day, yes, and we did have to prepare a butter lamp or light the candle or whatever hardship we had to engage, still we have created unbelievable happiness for ourselves. Actually, the Buddha has taught that if we could manage to make that offering with complete and total absorption in the expanse of that generosity, then we would be reborn eventually in unmovable samadhi, complete happiness, because we are engaging in the kind of activity that creates the habitual tendency of supreme generosity.

We are taught also to make offerings of our body, speech and mind.  For instance, we visualize that our body becomes like food and we offer our bodies.  Of course, we don’t cut off pieces of ourselves.  Nobody would want to eat that anyway, I don’t think. But we do visualize our body as being transformed into this nectar that nourishes all sentient beings, and without holding on to ourselves, we offer ourselves in that way. So we offer our bodies to benefit sentient beings.  We offer our speech to benefit sentient beings.  We practice so that what comes out of our mouth will be of benefit to others, such as mantra or teaching about Dharma or some spiritual advice.  We try very hard to give our speech to benefit sentient beings. And we offer our minds as well to benefit sentient beings.  We make that offering. The way that we practice that offering is by no longer using our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish nonvirtue. Instead we use our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish virtue for the sake of sentient beings. That is the true meaning of offering our body, our speech and our mind.

Many practitioners unfortunately say that.  They say “I offer my body, speech and mind” and they make all kinds of grand gestures but, boy, when it comes down to the clinch, they ain’t offering nothing, and that’s the truth.  Not a thing.  It isn’t happening.  So we, as Dharma practitioners, have to learn how to practice more deeply than that in order to assimilate the causes for true happiness.  It is that kind of virtuous activity that we have to engage in.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 4/19/2016

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4/19/2016 Tuesday by Norma

Something ends and something else begins in two separate areas of life today. Don’t initiate anything new early in the day, the situation will change and you’ll be flummoxed. Richard Hooker said, “change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.” A partner requires attention and you’re happy to help. One financial decision is excellent, but don’t try to push for more success. What’s good today? Tending to past issues, consensus with partners, a secret happiness and improvement
in health matters.

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

The Illusion of Power

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue into Life”

A lot of people play the power game of trying to gain power and domination over other people simply because they feel if they can control others it will make them happy.  They will be powerful.  They will be shielded from hurt because they are dominant. Others are weaker than them and they don’t care whether they hurt the people under them or not.  They do whatever they want to do in order to make themselves happy.  That’s what people do.  What they don’t realize is that in every conceivable sense they are making themselves more and more unhappy. That kind of power over others will never produce happiness. In some future time that very person who is such a power monger will be the most powerless of sentient beings.  Think about the helpless little creatures that are kept in cages in pet shops to be sold to who knows.  Think about the helpless little creatures that are kept in laboratories to be tested on for who knows what purpose.  That kind of helplessness.  So we are talking about curable suffering and unhappiness and we bring it on ourselves through cause and effect relationships. This is one of the teachings that the Buddha has given us that is very, very logical, and we can see small examples of it within our lives.  If we engage in non-virtuous behavior, it will produce unhappiness.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

 

 

Astrology for 4/18/2016

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4/18/2016 Monday by Norma

A hardworking person is making genuine progress, keep it up! The joy of work is here today, but sadly, you must put energy into something you thought was finished. An upset must be handled. Be willing to fess up to problems and things go well: deny, rationalize and evade and things get worse. You’ll know by your disposition. Feeling grumpy? The minute you come clean, you’ll be fine. This is a great day to problem solve, to talk things over and to take action. Definitely involve others in your plan, they are as affected as you are. Hugh Downs said, “To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like saying, ‘Your end of the boat is sinking.'” I’ts a good day to fix things and feel satisfied with your progress.

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

Generating the Deity

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Chenrezig

From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

As you generate yourself as a Buddha or Bodhisattva, reciting mantras and devotional prayers, your mind arises as a pure form. This is different from the ordinary mind that struggles to wake up each morning, dragging along its ego-clinging baggage or karma and looking for happiness in futile ways. This pure form is an expression of pure cognition, free of conceptualization and limitation. It is pure awareness, a state of pure luminosity. The deity we generate is an expression of that pure state. All phenomena are understood to be the deity’s body, voice, and activity. Thus, phenomena cease being something we grasp.

Generation-stage and completion-stage practice disassemble the entire time-and-space grid, disassemble the moment itself. You dissolve into emptiness and purify all things into their natural state. Thus, the mind relaxes from the tension that is gathered around “I,” and it becomes possible to reconstruct the moment naturally through the creation of the mandala and through allowing the mind to arise as the deity. This great skill is accomplished when the entire process becomes effortless.

“How,” you may ask, “can it be effortless? The mandala, the whole process, seems very complicated.” Actually, it is less complicated than what you are currently perceiving. You have a mandala going right now. Look around you. You sit on a world that sits in a galaxy that sits in a universe, and it is all lit up. How do you ever manage to conceive it? And on top of that, you pay your electric bill, call people on the phone, feed your pets and yourself. You enter a metal thing that flies through the air from one place to another. It is an extremely complicated mandala. In addition, you are constantly moving through a chain of lives in six major realms in a completely un-predictable pattern.

The generation of the deity is far easier. It is natural and spontaneous because it is not built on the assumption of ego. It is not constructed of tension because the deity is understood to be real but insubstantial. It is understood to be that which does not need to be constantly maintained. The tension of survival associated with desire and egocentricity is not there. With the continuation of this practice and the skill developed through good concentration and an effortless effort, all perception is purified. The five senses are not given their lead. They are not permitted to feed back information that satisfies the need of self to be self. They are purified by the mind naturally arising as the deity. The karma of endless cycles of birth and death is purified at last.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology for 4/17/2016

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4/17/2016 Sunday by Norma

An old love is at your side, ready to help in whatever way is most needed. Accept offers of assistance and listen to advice from on high, it’s excellent. Five planets in fire signs signify an “I can do it all by myself” time, and you can, but there are certain details that you don’t know about. Step aside and let someone else do the job. Love is fun today and so is work, provided you don’t mix the two. Liane Cardes said, “Continuous effort-not strength or intelligence-is the key to unlocking our potential.”

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

Examining the Path: His Holiness Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok

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The following is an excerpt from a public talk by His Holiness Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok:

There are three major world religions and countless minor religions, spiritual pursuits that are available in this world which we should actually embrace in this lifetime. It doesn’t really matter which one one embraces in terms of the point that is being made here. The point is that everyone should enter a spiritual pursuit so that there is a purpose to this life.  Otherwise it is like the cows and the horses that are just grazing and eating the grass and just kind of surviving aimlessly. There is no point to spending your life just so that you can acquire the comforts of eating good food and drink and just getting by.  This is really, truly the greatest waste of a human existence.  Nor is it suitable to just enter any path without examining that path, without questioning others about that tradition.  One must carefully examine the spiritual path that one is going to enter because this is something that affects you for this and all future lifetimes.  You shouldn’t just do this mindlessly in a state of delusion.  For example, if one day you can choose whether you are going to eat delicious food or foul food and you check to see whether it is good or bad, then it is quite important that you would choose the best, and you would want it to be very delicious.  When it comes to the spiritual practice and Dharma, this is something that affects you for all of your lifetimes, so it is totally unsuitable not to examine the path that you are going to be involved in.  Another reason for examining is because it also very unsuitable to become partial about religious dogmas and to actually feel some hate for other religions.  People who feel this way are usually people who are not intelligent enough to examine.  If you examine each of the religions, at least you can gain some sense of appreciation.  At the same time you can understand very clearly which is a pure path, which is an impure path, which path is beneficial, which path is nonproductive.  If you are unable to discern that because you haven’t examined, then you are someone who is experiencing the conflicting emotion of delusion.

For example, in this world there may be spiritual traditions or religions which actually encourage adultery or encourage thievery or encourage the killing of other sentient beings or animals for ritual offerings or sacrifice or what have you.  Maybe these types of activities might even go against the rules of the country, might even break the law of the country and yet are still encouraged by the religion.  We have to examine to see if these are activities that are the play of desire and attachment, anger and delusion, or not.  If we clearly examine, then we can recognize for ourselves that this is non-beneficial and nonproductive, and it is something that we can avoid getting involved in.  But in order to avoid getting involved in it, in the beginning we must examine.

In some religions, some spiritual traditions, there is only a focus upon some personal gain or some personal pursuit for one’s own happiness.  It is very self-oriented.  This is also something that we should examine, because if that is the case, it is not pure and not ultimately beneficial.  If there is no focus upon how one can truly be of service and of benefit to others—because if the religion you are involved in is only going to bring you happiness in this life and doesn’t even focus upon how you can somehow bring happiness to others in this life—how could it possibly be truly pure?  In this way we must examine it. and we should get involved in a religion that focuses on the benefit of others as well.

The excellent spiritual traditions, the sublime traditions, are those which bring benefit to self and others alike. So first and foremost, please examine to see if the religion that you are engaged in or thinking to engage in has these qualifications.  Finding then a religion that brings benefit to both self and others is a prerequisite, but the methods in order to employ that must be available.  It must be a profound path that brings about the benefit of self and others.  For example, even if an old woman who has no arms has love and compassion for her son and wishes to uplift him and help, she cannot.  She has that wish but there’s nothing she can do because she’s crippled.  Therefore if we want to achieve ultimate, permanent results in this and future lifetimes, we have to be sure that our path has the power to bring about those results.  It can’t just be something that is filled with fancy rhetoric and good thoughts, but doesn’t have any methods which produce good results.

Speaking of those methods then, the spiritual path that can bring that about is one that includes the different sciences and also transmissions based on experience, and also has the valid source through which strong faith and conviction can be developed.  There must be a true and valid source of the lineage of a spiritual tradition. That must be established over a period of time by those who are intelligent scholars and true practitioners who have been able to uphold the line of the lineage of transmission.  One has to go back and see where the religion finds its origin.  The religion should be validated by the presence of the different categories or sciences of spiritual knowledge or development that validate the ability of that path to bring forth the results of what one wants to accomplish.  You can’t just expect to go to someone who promises you that if you do this according to what I am teaching then it is going to bring you happiness and peace, and if you avoid this you won’t suffer.  This kind of shallowness is something that must be avoided and can only be avoided by examining the tradition to see if it is validated by the different categories and presence of sciences and methods which have already been tested.  And thirdly, from the point of view of, experiential validity, one must be able to see that it has been proven by those who have practiced this path that both temporarily and ultimately the results have been and are and will be achieved.  One has to take a look and see if those results have borne out through the different efforts of the practice of those who are practitioners on the path—if they have been able to bring out the fruition, and if the results that they have achieved are permanent or not.

In this world, in terms of benefit both temporary and ultimate, Lord Buddha Shakyamuni has presented the methods which are according to his miraculous activities and deeds.  For the most part, those great leaders of other religions are also considered to be emanations of the compassion of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni.  For instance in Hinduism, the leader Jangjuk is said to be an incarnation of Buddha Shakyamuni, and also Wangchen, or King Brahman, is said to be an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara.  So even these religious leaders of those traditions that are said to bring only temporary benefit, that bliss comes about through the miraculous activity of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni.  Also in the Christian path, a religion that is founded upon the principles of love and compassion for sentient beings, these principles of love and compassion are also the essential points of the Buddhist doctrine, and the fact that that is so is due to the concerned miraculous activity of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni.  This also points out why it is very unsuitable for us to ever have partial attitudes towards other religions. Really, when we think in terms of what has just been presented to you, all the religions in this world have very much in common.  The most important points are the points which are similar, and we shouldn’t try to find the differences.

Astrology for 4/16/2016

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4/16/2016 Saturday by Norma

Get together with someone you love and head out together. A sense of personal integration is here, you are at peace with yourself and consequently with everyone else! Nevertheless, a feeling of doubt must be listened to; if a breakage occurs, an adjustment. will resolve the situation. Drive carefully today and be respectful of those who are moving slowly. The happiness of the times can make you impatient with those who aren’t as speedy as you. St. Francis said, “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.” A woman is inspiring and magnetic and a man is chivalrous and energetic. These two are a great pair!

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

Coming Home

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From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Many people don’t like to be challenged. We want our religion to fit nicely into our lives. No untrimmed edges, everything nice. Don’t rock the boat. We want our practice to be conventional—and convenient. But do not expect “nice” in your relationship with your Root Guru. Hope and pray that you get ripped open and rearranged. It should sometimes feel like a train is running over your head. The door opens from the inside. Open the door of your mind, the door of your heart, the door of your devotion. Deepen. To the extent you can allow that to happen, accomplishment occurs.

The Lama should change your life. If you do not wish to change, you are in the wrong religion. So far, what you have given rise to in this life is samsaric, and you must break its hold. You wish to attain realization.  Think of yourself as a Volkswagen entering a repair shop. Somehow, you’re supposed to emerge as something that can circle the earth flying. Isn’t that quite a change? But you have to be hungry for it. You have to let it happen. It’s called surrender. And it’s total or nothing.

The Lama should interfere with you. This is also unpleasant news for Westerners. We have convenient, reassuring rules about who can solve our problems, who has access to our lives: parents, psychologists, lawyers, accountants, lovers, family, and so on. But what I’m saying is that you should pray for the Lama to come and upset your life. Expect to have holes poked in it. Expect it to change.

Why should the Lama have the ability to enter your life? What we see, what looks like a person, is only a display. If you are letting a person into your life, you are not practicing Guru Yoga. You should not let an “ordinary” person into your life. But when you understand the nature of the Lama, you realize the Lama to be the condensed essence of all the objects of refuge. The very fabric, the nature of the Lama arises from the mind of Enlightenment. When you practice Guru Yoga, you must also understand that the Lama is none other than your own true face, the nectar of your realization. The Lama is the precious awakening. So you are inviting the precious reality of awakening, the Precious Buddha Nature, that Nature which is beyond acceptance and rejection. You are inviting that nectar to fill your cup.

How many minutes a day should you spend in devotional yoga to the Guru? Can there be too many? Might you go crazy? No. If you spend every waking and sleeping moment with the Lama enthroned upon the lotus of your heart or seated above the crown of your head with your heart and mind in the posture of adoration, love, longing, taking refuge, calm abiding—it is not too much. This is because you are relying on something that is not of the world. It is not samsaric.

You should try to develop a personal relationship with the Guru, but not with his or her personality. Whenever you see or experience something good or beautiful, offer it to the Lama for the sake of sentient beings. “May all sentient beings come to know the nourishment of finding and experiencing complete non-duality with the Guru.” Not only do you include the Lama in every aspect of your life; you dedicate that practice so others will find their teacher. In that way, your connection with your teacher becomes strengthened.

The Lama should be part of everything, everything. You should always follow your Teacher’s instruction, always rely on his/her guidance. When you receive a beautiful gift, mentally offer it to the Lama for the sake of sentient beings. “By the merit of this offering, may all sentient beings be drawn to the Lama’s presence and see the Lama as the ultimate refuge.” Offer the food that you eat: “May all sentient beings feast on the great compassionate intention of the Guru.” As you do this, your food becomes a ritual substance that awakens the Bodhicitta that brings you closer to enlightenment. It becomes holy stuff. It becomes part of your life in the most profound and amazing sense. Guru Yoga becomes the most precious jewel in your life. Everything becomes joyful. Everything becomes a big YES, a big outward-moving experience. There is a lack of contraction in your psychology. And on a deeper level, everything in samsara is transformed into the path. This practice, I can tell you from my heart, is a feedback loop. It is never an energy that merely goes out. It comes back a million fold. The more you become absorbed in your Guru Yoga practice, the happier, the more nourished you will be. The feeling is that of strength, of calm, of coming home.

From the depth of my heart I pray, gathering together whatever virtue I have accumulated, in the three times. This I offer to the Supreme Lord, Guru Padmasambava. May you all, every sentient being, attain the bliss of non-duality, and joyfully awaken to see the true face, the Great Lord of Light, the Root Guru. Lord Guru, rest upon the lotus of our hearts, that we may at last know happiness.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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