October, 2016 | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Astrology for 10/17/2016

October 17, 2016 by Norma

10/17/2016 Monday by Norma

Go shopping today! This is an excellent day for bargains, for picking winners and for solid judgment. It is a relief to return to the mundane details of life, to go about your daily activities with nothing more on your mind than what’s for dinner. Sink into your usual routine, take comfort from it and astonish yourself by doing wonderful work. Decisions you make today will improve your standing in the world; they seem ordinary to you but they are brilliant! E. B. White said, “Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” The peacefulness of this day, the ordinariness of what you do, is what opens the door to the extraordinary. A problem is leaving, let it go in peace and do nothing to bring it back.

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

Merit & the Karma of Happiness

October 16, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

You are able to practice because you had the karma to receive teachings. Merit has come to the surface of your mind; good karma is ripening. But linked with some of this ripening merit are some bubbles of not-so-good karma. So what happens? You sit down with the intention to practice, but now you’re just too tired. You start to fall asleep. Or you decide that you need to do some other things. You externalize what you think are the causes for your inability to practice. Maybe you even begin to doubt that you’re happy in the Dharma. You wish you were surfing in California, and this thought is like a little rat, gnawing in your head. It gnaws at you slowly and steadily.

You need to understand that good karma is ripening, but some negative karma is linked to it. Embedded in your mindstream is some non-virtuous activity associated with the intention to practice. Now you have repeated that pattern, in seed form, and it will ripen in the future. Sometime in the future, you will again sit down with the intention to practice, and you won’t be able to do it. So the sensible thing to do is to persevere, to push through as well as you can. Understand that your tiredness, sleepiness, and other excuses have no basis. They are puffballs.

When you find yourself making excuses why you are unable to practice, why you don’t really want to hear the teachings, the best thing to do is to break through by accumulating merit. By doing virtuous things. Study Dharma. Pray. Practice kindness and generosity. Meditate. Contemplate the teachings. Try to understand them more deeply. Be attentive. Make offerings. Repeat the Seven Line Prayer many times. Repeated with faith, it is an antidote that can end all your suffering. It can, the teaching says, lead to enlightenment. All these things are ways to accumulate merit. You must understand how merit (and lack of it) works, or you will have a difficult time maintaining potency on the Path. It will even be difficult, on an ordinary level, to have a good life. For you won’t have any way to understand what is happening to you. You will always blame external things, other people. It is true that when you encounter misfortune, other people are usually involved, and you may well have some mixed karma with those people. But the karma arises within your own mindstream; it isn’t somewhere outside.

Pull out of your addiction to reaction. Think of your mind as something like a mechanism, and you yourself as a mechanic. Understand that you can work with its levers, pulleys, and gears. To most people, their own minds are a mystery, a complete mystery. And they search for someone who can understand them.

What should you do? Persevere in your practice. What else? Create more merit. The big mystery of “me” is solved. Almost reluctantly, too, because it’s so lovely to remain a mystery. It’s so pleasant to think that there is something mysterious, special, and unique about us. How often we try to obtain something that seems just out of reach. Or we have it in our hands, and it slips away. What is going on here? Lack of merit, of course. And yet we keep on reaching and grabbing and forcing, all in vain. Sometimes we think we have made something happen by forcing it. And yet, we have merely rearranged our karma. The basic problem remains unsolved. Suppose you want a new car, but the cost is just out of reach. Both merit and lack are coming to the surface. Even if you contrive to get the car, you will still have, ripening, some non-virtue associated with lack. That lack will always show up somewhere—with the car itself, or in your relationships, your health, or in missed opportunities. So the key, whenever you lack something, is to accumulate merit.

Some people are unaware that it takes merit to be happy. Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to be happy, no matter what? And others … well, happiness seems to elude them. And it’s because there is no karma of happiness, no karma of having made others happy, ripening in their minds. You can’t even lighten them up with a joke. They just don’t have any happy bubbles ripening to the surface. “How are you today?” you ask them. “Not so good,” they reply. “Umm … Nothing seems to go right.” But if we haven’t got the karma for happiness, whose fault is that? Who did it to us? Someone else? No, but it’s a problem we can fix. The problem is within our own minds. We can create the karma of happiness by creating merit.

Astrology for 10/16/2016

October 16, 2016 by Norma

10/16/2016 Sunday by Norma

Avoid the inclination to make sweeping statements about things (“We’re doomed!”), the urge will pass and you’ll feel foolish later. Stay close to your partner and those who mean the most to you, support is important today. People in the throes of emotion should be comforted, consoled. Planets in opposition highlight the importance of avoiding a partisan stance. Offer every person you encounter the kindness and tolerance you’d give a small child under the same circumstances. Henry James said,
“Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” Offer every courtesy to others today: Open doors, set up chairs, say hello to everyone, let no-one be overlooked. Something you do or say today will be remembered far into the future.

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

Identifying What is Important

October 15, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Commitment to the Path:

These two particular teachings about the preciousness of this human rebirth and the impermanence of all things samsaric are supposed to make us see, recognize and call to mind and to be mindful of the difference between what is ordinary and what is extraordinary. What is ordinary experiences birth and death. It doesn’t travel with you. It’s a product of samsara and its building blocks, which are delusion, and the senses, which are also deluded. And while this is what builds samsara (and this is nothing to feel comfortable in), once you identify that, you can also identify what is extraordinary. And what is extraordinary is the Buddha nature.

We think about the Buddha nature as it appears in the world as the ground, the method and the fruit. The ground is that the Dharma, Buddhism—the way that the Buddha enters into the world—always comes from the mind of enlightenment. Whenever the Buddha speaks, the Buddha speaks from enlightenment, from the Buddha nature that does not experience rebirth. All teachings in Dharma, then, arise from the foundation, the ground. All teachings in Dharma are expressed as the method, or path. One thing that distinguishes us from other religions is that we have method, real solid method and many different methods, to suit different karmic propensities. But the method is given rise by the Buddha nature, so the method and the Buddha nature are not only similar; they are the same taste, the same stuff. So the path is enlightened as well. The result, of course, is Buddhahood, liberation from ordinary death and rebirth and the realization of the primordial wisdom nature, that awakened state that the Buddha described. That’s the result—Buddhahood which arises from Buddhahood, which is Buddhahood and remains Buddhahood. The ground, the method and the result are indistinguishable.

So now we have identified what is impermanent. We have identified what is useless. Now we begin, because of that teaching, to identify what is extraordinary, what is of benefit. From that knowledge we can begin to make choices about how to practice our path. You can see how it would be difficult to make a real commitment without understanding that. It would be a fad for you, a thing.

Tibetan Buddhism is really kind of stylish right now. We’re in vogue, but that’s not how we should approach this. We have to approach it with eyes open. And believe me, as you get older, you’re going to realize that, just like the Buddha taught, our lives are like a waterfall rushing down a mountain. Oh, you might think, that’s not bad. Waterfalls last a long time, but don’t you get it? You’re looking at a condition. When you see a waterfall, you’re looking at a condition. The cup of water that falls from the top reaches the bottom in a heartbeat and we’re like that. We look at life and we think, oh, it’s constant. Been here for a while. Probably be here for a while. But that cup of water falls down so fast that we come to the point at the end of our lives and we wonder. We look in the mirror and we see ourselves. We have graying hair and like I said, everything is falling south and all these changes are happening. For me, I look in the mirror and here is this middle age woman and I go, how did that happen.? I am just a kid. I’m just learning something here. How did that happen? And that is the experience that we have. It goes that quickly.

And while life seems like a jewel to be enjoyed, we do not understand that if we spend our time enjoying it, it will be over in a flash and we will have gone to a precious continent and brought nothing back. And it’s not to say you shouldn’t enjoy it. I’m trying to enjoy my life, but I get the big picture. And that’s the thing we need to do here. We need to get the big picture. If we are in this place of great benefit and we have met with the teacher and met with the path, we must encourage ourselves to take advantage of this precious opportunity. I hope that you’ll think about this again and again and again.

Lord Buddha teaches us that all sentient beings are suffering, that all of samsara is pervaded with suffering, that we are wandering in cyclic existence helplessly. We are taught that all sentient beings are the same in their nature and the same in the fact that they all wish to be happy. Even when they do crazy things, they are trying to be happy, to feel good. And we realize while there is all this suffering, there is an end to this suffering and that end is liberation. And that’s the only good news in all of life.

Astrology for 10/15/2016

October 15, 2016 by Norma

10/15/2016 Saturday by Norma

A surprise kicks off the day and the emotional reaction that ensues doesn’t help matters. Use time and logic to determine your own response; the more slowly you decide where you stand, the better. A detailed plan works best. Most of the activity is in the world today, which makes staying home is a nice option. Food solves many problems if you can remind yourself to eat. Avoid making sweeping judgments about anything. Marcus Aurelius said, “A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn away from them. This is enough. Do not add, ‘And why were such things made in the world?'” What’s good today? The reappearance of something that was lost, physical strength to carry you through a job and supportive partnerships. A smile really helps today!

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

Foundation of Faith

October 14, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Commitment to the Path”

The Buddha teaches that we never really know for sure when death will occur. Maybe a great bodhisattva or a great lama with some wisdom can predict a day. That often happens, but that is a different story. We’re talking about sentient beings in samsara. You think, well, I’m pretty healthy and I’ve had a checkup and I’m OK. But you know, you can get hit by a car. You can get hit by a truck. You can fall out of a plane. There are all kinds of ways to go. So none of us really knows when that time will come. Will it happen then that we disappear from this earth having had this jewel in our hands and it’s just gone? Then we’re no longer on this precious continent. We’re back in poverty and we have nothing. So we contemplate on this to make us aware that we need, want and find precious every blessing that we can get our hands on, and that we need, want and really care about our practice. Because it is this and this alone that provides the stable foundation that we can build a strong house of faith upon.

There is one other thing that the Buddha teaches us that is hard to understand, and this one is the toughest, the very, very toughest. It’s even tougher than you’re going to die someday. It’s the teaching about impermanence. Just when you think it is safe to go in the water, there’s another shark. Isn’t it the truth? You know, after a while you get a little punchy with samsara, sort of twitchy. After you get to be a certain age, you realize that there have been times that you have been blissfully happy, I mean, like really turned on. Up. But where are you now? This thing never lasts. You get so punchy that you get to the point where when you start to go up and you start to feel really happy and you start to think, “I’m handling things here. Everything is looking good,” that you are looking over your shoulder. You know the rest is right behind you and there is no sense getting too excited about too much of anything because it is all temporary. Of course, you have to live a while to understand that, until it beats you over the head. But we do get it eventually.

The Buddha teaches us that nothing is permanent. What comes together must go apart. What goes up must go down. Everything that has a beginning has an ending. And everything that we experience in this lifetime has a beginning so there will be an end to every experience.

Now fortunately we use that information when we’re really in tough shape. Because in tough shape, you know it’s not going to be permanent. Nothing is permanent. So we are taught that we are living in this kind of drunken, conditioned, narcotic state where we are wandering through experience not knowing why experience is coming to us. How has this happened to me? Why is this happening to me? It’s always in our minds, because we can only see the content of this lifetime. We do not understand and appreciate that the reason this is happening to us now is that we have previously created the causes. Cause and effect arise interdependently, so there is no other way for anything to happen to us. So we realize that everything that is happening to us now is kind of a flow of dreamlike, narcotic, dualistic perception that appears outwardly pointed at us. It appears that it is happening to us because of the nature of our delusion, because of the nature of our ignorance—that we are wandering through this experience. From time to time you get the feeling that gosh, you’d like to wake up. Wouldn’t it be great to just wake up? You can’t. You’re just wandering through this. And so, Lord Buddha uses the teaching of impermanence to help us recognize that, because we as sentient beings like to hang onto false stability.

I feel really good because I’m sitting on a chair that is very solid. It’s very solid, because I am pretty high off the ground here. If I were to fall down this far, I’d probably hurt myself, so I feel pretty good about the solidity of this chair. And it’s a great analogy, because really in my mind, the solidity of this chair has more to do with my lineage than it has to do with the wood. I’m really kind of interested in physics and stuff like that. If I didn’t become who I am and I didn’t follow my secondary occupation of being a Motown backup singer, which I wanted to be, I think I would have been a scientist, because I like to study a little bit about physics, What I realize about physics is that this chair has more space in it than it has wood. It’s a bunch of atoms and stuff (I don’t remember their names),all strung together. They are empty things; they are spacious things. They are not solid things. I am really sitting on a bunch of space right now.. What keeps it together is the karma of the situation. What keeps it together is our capacity for perception.

Astrology for 10/14/2016

October 14, 2016 by Norma

10/14/2016 Friday by Norma

An early interaction with a close person is excellent today. Keep this in mind as time passes and avoid the temptation to throw out pre-scheduled activities and set a new course. It won’t work. Independent initiative is compelling, risky and unproductive today. Keep an eye out for a lone wolf, someone at loose ends with nothing to do, and be compassionate. Invite a singleton to join your group and change someone’s life. George M. Adams said, “Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul.” This is an excellent day for serious thinking, steady learning and broadening your view and understanding of life. Careful thought works better than impulsive
action and brings better results. Love is grand and diplomacy is excellent today.

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

Wishing Prayers

October 13, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Compassion is the Only Lasting Antidote to Suffering

In Vajrayana Buddhism (literally the Diamond Vehicle), which is the form of Buddhism preserved in Tibet and Mongolia and the one followed in my temple, one of the foundational teachings is the understanding and practice of compassion. I personally find that a religious philosophy based on selfless compassion is deeply satisfying, and I believe that it strikes a chord with many Americans.

However, although there are many people who embrace the idea of compassion as love and a deep caring for others, they do not realize that to actualize the mind of Great Awakening requires a deliberate and disciplined path. Human beings are not born with great compassion automatically realized. Thus, the Diamond Path can be described as a technology for spiritual development.

From the Buddhist point of view, there are primarily two ways to approach compassion: aspirational compassion and practical compassion. When one begins to practice on the Diamond Path, one begins straightaway to make wishing prayers, cultivating the idea of being of benefit to beings who are revolving helplessly through cycles of existence. This is aspirational compassion.

Every practice in which we engage, every teaching we hear, every empowerment we receive, every prayer we chant, can all be dedicated to the liberation of all beings from all forms of suffering. Thus, aspirational compassion is practiced in the beginning by many repetitions of wishing prayers. These prayers are meant to benefit beings through developing the sincere desire to utilize all one’s activities — from the mundane to the sublime — as a means of eliminating the causes of suffering in all its forms. One prays for the cessation of war, poverty, sickness, death and rebirth, loneliness, hatred, greed and ignorance. One adopts a posture of pure intention based on the idea that every portion of this life, as well as future incarnations yet to come, might somehow be useful to sentient beings.

As an example of this type of wishing prayer, I will paraphrase a famous practice:

If there is a need for nourishment, let me return as food. If there is a need for shade, let me be a tree. If there is a need for shelter, let me be a house. If there is a need to cross over, let me be a bridge. If there is sickness, may I manifest as the doctor, the medicine and the nurse who restore health. May I be land for those requiring it, a lamp for those in darkness, a home for the homeless, and a servant to the world.

While this may sound very kind and loving, the intention here goes far deeper than the apparent words because one must strive to be of benefit not only to fulfill the immediate needs of beings, but also to bring future benefit. Providing things such as food, housing, and medicine bring about benefit, of course, and this type of kindness is profoundly virtuous. We should all strive to meet the needs of others in just these ways. Yet, from a Buddhist perspective, being able to practice only this type of compassion does not bring ultimate benefit. For instance, if it were possible to feed an entire nation or perhaps even the world and completely eliminate hunger and hopelessness, we still would not be solving the root of the problem.

According to the Buddha, there is no condition or circumstance without a cause. Just as the fruit does not manifest without first appearing on a tree, which came from a seed, neither does any circumstance, good or bad, in which we find ourselves manifest without a cause. These causes may not be found in this life only, but may come from previous lifetimes.

It is not possible for people to be born randomly into difficult circumstance or to suddenly experience the onset of tremendous suffering and upheaval. These events are always the result of a tapestry of cause-and-effect relationships (karma) woven around the delusion involving the definition and maintenance of an ego. Thus, to solve the immediate needs of beings may bring some relief, but it does not guarantee that they will not experience great difficulty in the future, because it does not break the continuum of cause and effect that ripens unexpectedly and constantly. This continuum originates from the belief in an ego self and the desire that results from that belief. It is through the pacification of desire that one can begin to transform one’s karma. When the delusion of ego begins to dissolve, karma also begins to dissolve. But if the mindstream is not purified of the karma of suffering, the potential for suffering remains.

Astrology for 10/13/2016

October 13, 2016 by Norma

10/13/2016 Thursday by Norma

Obstructing a forward-moving object is risky today, so do not block anything that is in motion. Step aside for best results. No jumping in front of a speeding train, no stepping in front of a runner on a mission and no interrupting a speaker mid-speech. Smile, nod and make way. It is possible to step back into a disturbing situation that previously held you in thrall but fear not, it only has the power you give it. Is a depressed or ill person near you? Help out but don’t absorb the energy. Byrd Baguette said, “Always keep in mind that what others tell you is only the tip of the iceberg.” What’s good today? A moving force that is unstoppable, sensitive people who explain things, partnership, steady healing and investments.

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

Understanding Death and Rebirth

October 12, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Commitment to the Path”:

The Buddha wants us to understand that the only thing that has lasting value, that is actually truly and really good for us, that will lead us to the door of liberation, that will lead us into spiritual reality, are the Three Precious Jewels— the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. And in Vajrayana the Lama is the condensed essence of all those three.

We are taught that everything is impermanent and nothing can be trusted, because nothing goes with you when you die. There is only one thing that you can gather and accumulate that has any value and that is virtuous habitual tendencies, the dissolution of the poisons. One’s karmic propensities and habitual tendencies are the only thing that leave with us when we die, continue with us in the bardo and return with us and form our next life. It is this package of habitual tendencies and karmic material that actually experiences death and rebirth. The Buddha teaches that it isn’t even the fact that you reincarnate. The Buddha teaches us that we experience rebirth and death. There is a difference. What is experiencing that birth and death is this package of habitual tendencies and karmic propensities. And that is how the experience happens. But you, in your nature, are the primordial wisdom Buddha. You cannot die and be reborn. But if you are dead to that reality, asleep to that reality, you only experience death and rebirth.

If we really take the Buddha’s teachings on impermanence and carry them to a deeper level, we begin to understand this. The Buddha teaches us that due to delusion we experience rebirth, death and rebirth. That which you are does not reincarnate. It’s like saying that what we are experiencing are the waves on top of an ocean. You can’t keep anything still there—it’s all wavy. But the truth of our nature, the meaning of the path, is the sanctity and solidity of the ocean floor that never changes. That is why the Buddha teaches us about impermanence. Not to scare us, not to make us unhappy. To tell somebody a thing is a certain way doesn’t make them any unhappier if it is that way. It makes them able to cope, to deal, to decide.