November, 2016 | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Astrology for 11/20/2016

November 20, 2016 by Norma

11/20/2016 Sunday by Norma

Dress up today and present your ideas to whoever will listen. Something happens that generates a surge of well-deserved pride in those who have worked long and hard to achieve results. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe said, “Talents are best nurtured in solitude, but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.” Don’t forget that the best work is still being done behind the scenes, in private, no matter what you hear. What’s good today? Acknowledgment of achievements, respect for results, and the love of your closest companions.

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

Approaching the Path

November 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara Su2-18”

When one actually enters onto the path and begins to practice Dharma, one begins with teachings associated with Ngundro or Preliminary Practice. Normally what happens first is one receives teachings that cause one to turn the mind toward Dharma. My experience has been that for westerners that teaching needs to be deep. It needs to be extensive. It needs to be profound. It needs to be logical, meaningful. It needs to make sense. It needs not to rely on simply blind faith. There needs to be true understanding in order for the new student to actually take hold and actually hook in. That’s been my experience.

My experience has been that sometimes a student, through whatever circumstances, is introduced to Dharma at a more advanced level, by taking some empowerment or something, but they have no understanding of what they’re taking. They finally find out that now they have a practice commitment and they have no idea what that means! That sort of thing can be really terrifying and frightening for a new practitioner. And furthermore, since there is no understanding, it’s almost like trying to make something O.K. on the surface that in fact on a deeper level is not yet O.K. or is not yet suitable or acceptable.

So I’d like to spend some time talking about how one would actually begin to practice on the path, not necessarily the hows and wherefores, because that will be done in the next period of time, both by Khenpo and then after he finishes, I will continue and continue to develop the new practitioners with that kind of understanding. But I would like to actually address some questions that newer practitioners over the years have expressed again and again and again. These questions are interesting because they come sort of loaded with preconceived ideas. You can understand what the preconceived ideas are by hearing the questions.

So let me begin by indicating to you what some of those ideas or some of those questions might be. Here’s something that newer practitioners say all of the time. When they first get introduced to the idea of Dharma, they are normally attracted for whatever reason they are attracted. And it varies with each person. It’s according to their habitual tendency, their karmic propensity, their connection, whatever. Whatever that is, that will indicate how they enter onto the path. For some people it’s the attraction to what seems like something very exotic. For some people it’s the attraction to something that is a living, ongoing experience, spiritually speaking. That is to say, it isn’t like the way perhaps, many of these people practice, let’s say, Christianity which is to go to church once a week, or twice a year, or whatever it happens to be, and then in between not give so much thought to their religion.

Many people who approach Buddhism are interested in something that really travels with you, that is more a part, more distinctly a part of your life, and more a developed philosophy that can be a true guidance in one’s life. And for other people, they are simply connected to the teacher. They see the teacher and they don’t know what this is about, but they feel that connection and they go in that direction. For other people, they’re looking for something, and this looks like a nice thing to check out. There are many different ways that people approach the path, but generally speaking, most people, when they approach anything new, including the path of Dharma, they don’t really approach it with the idea of how hard they want to work at it. You know, when you approach a new job, the idea of a new job, you don’t approach a new job because you know it’s just going to be a real back breaker. I mean, you don’t think, hey I’m really looking forward to the grueling nine to five, that sort of thing! That isn’t what attracts us.

What attracts us is the payoff, the money, or the opportunity to do something exciting. There are things that attract us, but it’s not the hard work.

Astrology for 11/19/2016

November 19, 2016 by Norma

11/19/2016 Saturday by Norma

A speaker’s words are dismissed by others, but as time passes support lines up in favor of the ideas expressed. Are you writing a book or giving a speech today? Wait until the opposition disappears to present your ideas. Dress down and blend into the crowd for best results. Taro Gold said, “Happy people adapt themselves to circumstances as liquids adapt to containers.” Love is on the horizon, and subtle signs are everywhere. This is an excellent day for creativity, for touching up details that need spiffing up, for brightening the environment right where you are. Smile at everyone you see today.

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

The Meaning of Life

November 18, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is quoted from “The Meaning of Life” published in 1991. Jetsunma (listed as Catharine Burroughs) was one of 173 people chosen that year to answer the question, here is her response:

Lord Buddha taught us that we are extremely fortunate to have been reborn as humans, having revolved, cycliclly, through many possible realms of existence. To have this time and opportunity to seek enlightenment is an extraordinarily precious gift. While alive, we are equipped with a unique kind of consciousness that can choose and make decisions about goals and values. We live in a world where there is a need for loving, compassionate activity; and we are capable of choosing to love and to be compassionate. Our minds are also capable of abstract understanding; therefore, we can choose to pierce the veil of mystery and comprehend the underlying nature of the self and the world around us.

The Buddha also taught us that we experience unhappiness and suffering because of desire, which is a result of the selfishness of clinging to ego. We have the ability to discriminate well enough to follow the direction of those supremely enlightened ones who point us toward happiness and the end of suffering and not to follow the many paths that lead to delusion and meaningless forms of gratification. Therefore, the meaning of life is based on the choices we make, the most profound of which is the choice to practice loving-kindness and joyful concern for the welfare of all beings. The choice to live a life of selflessness is the most profoundly beneficial decision we can make because of its ability to transform our minds and hearts and to bring joy to those around us.

Accepting the greater path of selflessness has the most potent ability to bring about changes in the quality of our lives simply because loving has that power. A life dedicated to selfless activity is a life fully empowered and competent to produce happiness. It is a life unencumbered by the concerns of self-cherishing, and is, therefore, illuminated by the limitless brightness of generosity. Such a life is, itself, the ultimate display of meaning.

Astrology for 11/18/2016

November 18, 2016 by Norma

11/18/2016 Friday by Norma

This is a special day for couples and for anyone in a close relationship. A surprise is pacified by maintaining allegiance to what means the most to you. It’s a good time for balance: eyes line up in the same direction, arms reach out equally and legs are the same length. To understand the situation, pay less attention to words and more attention to body language. Crow Indians say, “The eyes of men speak words the tongue cannot pronounce.” Sentiment is high and stories about old times bring tears. The Cancer moon turns emotions toward home and the past. Be prepared to eat plenty of food. Partnership is great, groups are rambunctious and the wisdom of elders has never been more valuable.

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

Poop Soup

November 17, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

So here’s the question. Here’s what we ask ourselves, and it’s a valid question. When you are doing prostrations, or maybe reciting a mantra, and that’s another thing you have to do, at least a 100,000 times on several mantras. Wouldn’t it be just as good rather than sitting there for say, I don’t know, half an hour Om Mani Padme Hung, Om Mani Padme Hung, half an hour? Half an hour is a short time to accumulate, but let’s say, rather than sitting there for half an hour, what if we said one really good Om Ah Hung Benzar Guru Padme Siddhi Hung? What if we said it so good that it’s like the best mantra that anyone has ever said? What if we said it so good that we are completely absorbed? Rather than saying it 100,000 times, per syllable, which is how you spell, well anyway, you’ll learn about that later, what if you said it once, really good? First of all you could pronounce it really perfectly, which nobody in America can do yet, but you know, you can pronounce it really perfectly, and then while you’re pronouncing it, you can remain in complete absorption. Isn’t that one of those kind of funny hand things that you see people doing in the New Age? Where we can do it in complete absorption. Let’s say that we can do it in such total absorption that even if lightning were to strike, we would be immovable, in immovable samadhi reciting that one mantra? Wouldn’t that be better than just saying Om Ah Hung Benzar Guru Padme Siddhi Hung, Om Ah Hung Benzar Guru Padme Siddhi Hung, Om An Hung Benzar Guru Padme Siddhi Hung? Sigh, Om Ah Hung Benzar Guru Padme Siddhi Hung. Wouldn’t that be better than a half an hour of that, don’t you think? That one mantra, that one glorious earthshaking, the earth moves beneath your feet mantra. So that’s the question everybody has. That’s the big question. Why do we have to say these things, the underlying question is WHY 100,000? You know, what fresh hell was concocted for us to make us have to recite this thing 100,000 times? Where is it written?

Well, let me give you some information about that. The reason why we ask questions like that is because of our lack of understanding. We have an idea that if a thing is O.K. on the surface, it’s O.K. We have an idea that if, well, I like to use the analogy, one of my favorite analogies is poop soup. So let’s talk about that a little bit. Poop Soup. What’s the recipe for poop soup. Well, poop soup is like, with poop soup you do pretty much what sentient beings do as they move through time. You collect everything nasty there is through our own habitual tendency. And here’s the part that we don’t understand. Our life didn’t begin 46 years ago, or 20 years, or 70 years ago, or however old we are. Our life didn’t begin at that time, but in fact the Buddha teaches us that we have existed as, with having the idea of self-nature as being inherently real, since time out of mind. And during that time, we have engaged in activity which was samsaric activity, mixed activity, meaning not understanding our nature, not understanding our qualities, not understanding the relationship between cause and effect. We simply engaged in an activity, instinctively and habitually, with very little understanding, and so we have accumulated mixed habitual tendencies, extremely mixed habitual tendencies including the habitual tendency of hatred greed and ignorance. So that’s like cooking up a big pot of poop soup.

Poop soup is basically all of the unclean things in samsara. You collect it all together in one pot and you stir it up real good, ummm, yummy, it’s poop soup so you can understand what the main ingredient is, can’t you? Poop soup, got it? O.K., so you stir it up, the fragrance of cooking fills your house. Wonderful, right? And so the first day you cook up your poop soup it looks like pretty much what it is, boiling poop soup. Right? And the second day you boil it some more because that’s how it is, life moves on. The poop soup is still boiling and the second day it looks pretty much like poop soup. And the third day things are happening. It begins to change. It’s looking sort of colorful now. Fuzzy in places, and colorful and you know, it’s changing. And everyday that you look at it, one day it’s kind of orangey, the next day it’s kind of purplely, it depends. It’s like different fuzzy little things that are growing on it. Poop soup changes every day. It’s just a cornucopia of colorful delight, the fragrance of which continues to fill your house.

Then one day, one day something magic happens. You go to check out your poop soup for the day and you notice that on top of your poop soup there is this wonderful soft furry layer of something pure and white. A white fuzzy something has grown on top of your poop soup. And here’s how we think! We think that now that our poop soup is all white and fuzzy and pure, it’s o.k. Now, the only reason why we think like that is because we don’t understand that in fact we are not superficial creatures. We aren’t that pure white stuff that’s growing on the top. We are deep creatures, meaning to say we didn’t just crawl out from under a rock. We didn’t just appear in space. We didn’t just start 35 years ago, 75 years ago, whatever it happens to be, but since time out of mind we have been making connections, we have been engaging in cause and effect relationships and we’re like that pot of soup. There are many many ingredients inside of us, and it’s a deep pot.

As we live, everything in that pot gets stirred up, from the bottom to the top, from the top to the bottom, from the side to the middle, it’s always getting stirred up. But we think of ourselves in a very superficial way, and what that means is that on the day when we come up somehow magically just because of chance, it’s almost like you know, it’s almost like the slot machines in Los Vegas. One day you’re gonna get three cherries. Well, one day your pot’s gonna look like it’s all white and pure and sweet, kind of like New York City when it snows. But you and I know that underneath there is a whole lot of trouble. Right? That’s true, but instead, how we think is that what’s on top is o.k.

So we have this idea, and actually this is how we think and it’s an unfortunate thing because it does not lead to self-honesty. It does not lead us to a way to actually engage in practice and really benefit ourselves. We think basically, because we think superficially, if you didn’t see me do it, if I didn’t get caught, I didn’t do it. That’s how we think. If you didn’t see me, I didn’t do it. If you didn’t catch me, it didn’t happen. What we are not taking into account is that we are deep creatures, that we have strong habitual tendencies that have, that we have engaged in since time out of mind, that we are extraordinary and complicated, that there are layers and layers and layers and layers of tapestry or fabric or weaving that are part of our nature.

To say one mantra, even if you say it so perfectly, so beautifully, pronounce it so well and do so with complete absorption, could not possibly counteract time out of mind worth of habitual tendencies and inappropriate negative or neurotic activity, which we have engaged in. So reciting one mantra meaningfully, or even reciting a series of them very meaningfully, could not possibly empty the depth, could not possibly purify the depth of that poop soup that we created or that we have lived with for so long.

So what we’re up against here is we are trying, we are using a technology that isn’t meant for a person who has only lived one life. We’re using a technology that really wasn’t designed, was not given to the world to cure a superficial problem. It was not given to us to heal a scratch. The technology of dharma is so extraordinary and so complicated, so deep, so effortful because of what it is supposed to do. What it has to do is a big job. What it has to do is to purify nonvirtuous habitual tendency that we have created and are deeply ingrained since time out of mind.

Astrology for 11/17/2016

November 17, 2016 by Norma

11/17/2016 Thursday by Norma

Food is your best friend and sentimental conversation with down home people brings happiness. Listen as tender issues are discussed: life, death, birth, marriage…the homely matters of life. Do not tell these stories in public, however, or you will undercut your professionalism. Know where you are and play the role appropriate to that environment. An inspiring moment changes things, heals issues and brings cheer to an old problem. Robert Heinlein said, “Don’t ever become a pessimist…a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun-and neither can stop the march of events.” This is a good day to try out new food, to spend time with old friends and to relax with a partner.

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

Discovering Your Personal Ethics – An Exercise

November 16, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Walking the Talk – Ethics by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

We are going to be talking about ethics, our lives and the structure of our lives. I want you to think about this for a minute and really see if you can come up with a correct answer, not the one you think I would want to hear. What I would like you to do is write down the three most important, and most visible ethical principles that you hold dear. Please spend some time thinking about this. What are the things that you try not to let yourself get away with too much? What is really precious to you? Try to be as honest as possible.

Some of you may have ethics that sound like broad, sweeping statements about something. And some of you may have ethics that are very simple and they apply directly to your life, and both of them are correct. We’re not testing your ethics. We are testing your ability to hold to them. Whatever you say is OK.

Write down how you have upheld your ethics in the past week. Write down three answers – one for each of the three ethics. If it was not this week, because the circumstance did not come up, but was two weeks ago, you can write that down.

When you are finished write about sometime in the recent past when you did not hold fully to your ethics or perhaps even held to the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. In other words, when you fudged on your ethics. Write down one for each of the three ethics you have chosen. For those of us that say, “I always keep to these ethics and I never fudge,” my suggestion is to go back and re-examine, because I guarantee, particularly if your mind is that rigid, that you have held to the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. Just look for it. I can assure that it is in there.

Not everyone’s ethical system looks like the next person’s. Of course, there are fundamental ethical structures that we all have to adopt or we cannot live together as a community, as a world or as a society. Yet, many of us have different ethical slants, if you will. Sometimes it depends on the circumstances of our lives. The ethics that a person holds dear, if they were born poor in a third world country might be different than the ethics we were taught to respect here. One is definitely not better than the other; they are simply different. In asking these questions I am not asking you to feel that your ethics ought to be a certain way. Ethics teach us how to live in our world. So they may look different. There are certain fundamental ethics that we should all adopt but what I am asking you to do is to look at your ethics, the ones that you hold dear, the ones that you really wholeheartedly agree with and hold precious. So, they may not look like the next person and that is all right. That does not matter for the purposes of this request.

Once you have written down some particular ethics that are precious and meaningful to you, ask yourself how you came to the conclusion that these are ethics that you want to hold? What did you notice about your life? Be honest with yourself. What made you arrive at these conclusions and when in your life did it happen?

Astrology for 11/16/2016

November 16, 2016 by Norma

11/16/2016 Wednesday by Norma

A mechanical moment is inspiring early in the day. Space travel, computer techno-wizardry, film or audio-visual material, inventions of all sorts are fabulous. What’s also wonderful is the change of focus, the new direction that appears generating hope for the future and relief from current issues. Buckminster Fuller said, “No matter how overwhelming life seems to be, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. Be that person.” Smart thinking is on the rise so put your brain to use! Think about how to solve today’s issues and forget the past for best results. A partnership that was never on stable footing is dissolving and turning into something different. Work is great and financial matters go well.

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

Walking the Talk

November 15, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

kapala relic from Genyenma Ahkon Lhamo — Kapala relic from Genyenma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Walk the Talk – Ethics by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, June 8, 1994

There is a direct relationship between a person’s ethics and their stage of development, spiritually. If a person has a very loose, wobbly and insufficient ethical system, you can count on the fact that they have not trod very far on the spiritual path. I think that is very clear. However, before you make such a judgment it is not a good idea to get into the habit of evaluating people spiritually. Different people have different kinds of ethical responses according to their development. What you want to see is whether the person walks their talk – not necessarily what their ethical system is.

An extreme example might be if a person lived a very simple life and was very poor and the circumstances of their life were very cut and dried, such that when they milked the cow they got the milk. There are many, many cases of great bodhisattvas that, for whatever reason not only manifest as the farmer that milks the cow, but sometimes manifest as the cow. In any case, when you see someone who has developed enough spiritually to have a set of ethics that they simply do not transgress, then you know you have got something to work with there. Or, at least the person has a set of ethics that they try hard not to transgress and they are mindful of that whole situation. That is important. To the degree that a person keeps their commitments, to that degree, you are looking at spiritual advancement, spiritual development or distance on the path.

I gave you the ‘simple person’ extreme example. What about in the case of a lama? The one that comes to my mind immediately is the first Ahkön Lhamo. Generally speaking, the stories specifically about her are about when she would be sitting in her cave doing whatever and people would come to her with some life threatening illness or something like that, and she would beat them with sticks to remove their obstacles.

Now, most people think, particularly if you are a nurse, that if a person comes to you with a life threatening disease, beating them may not be the best thing! Did Ahkön Lhamo not hold to her ethics, whereas the simple person held to their ethics more strongly? Well, of course not. In the case of Ahkön Lhamo, she was removing obstacles to their lives and that was her method. That was simply her method so that in the case of a very advanced bodhisattva or lama, you cannot look at the ethical system – you cannot even understand it, really. They will hold to a different view. It is as though you were looking at the world from a street corner – from the world on a street corner, you can see the street and you can see stoplights and you can see the cars coming from different directions. You can see the buildings going up. But the Lama might be looking from the top of the building, or maybe even up in a helicopter somewhere, looking down, and the lay of the land is quite different. Where the person on the street may think that the big thing they have to do right then is to buy a loaf of bread on the way home, the one who is looking from the helicopter may be seeing that the big thing they have to do right then is stop a tragedy that is about to happen three blocks away and they might forget the bread.

It is a question not necessarily about determining what the ethics are or making a judgment according to that, but rather looking and seeing that whoever you are looking at is able to walk their talk, is actually able to live in such a way as to obviously display that they have a strong ethical system. That is what you want to look at. And in the case of sentient beings, there is often a very huge distance between our ethical systems that we have through even our own simple logic to understand and our performing of the ethics and holding and sticking to them.

For those of us that feel that we have strong ethics and feel that we always hold to them, then I have to say, unless you are a living Buddha, either you are lying to yourself, or you are not deep enough and not sufficient in your search of your own mind, which you should know better than a book by now. I would say to you that you have not searched your mind and your heart, that you have not really observed yourself truly. I would say that you are fundamentally being dishonest and you may not know it. It is not possible for sentient beings to keep closely and truly their commitments easily. It is not that it cannot be done, but it is not easily done. Generally when people do, they hold the commitment up like a shining bauble and they find circumstances that match up easily with their commitment and they are able to fulfill them and say, “See, I’ve done this” and they wear it a bit like jewelry or some sort of gaudy bauble. In that case, you would say that that person is maybe, in a few cases, holding up the letter of the law about their ethical equation, but not the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is much deeper than that. The spirit of the law requires you not only to be happy when your life situations easily match up with your ethics, but rather in every circumstance. When you practice your ethics deeply you look for a way to display your ethics in every circumstance. When that begins to happen, you are also going to look at your ethics and think they are not big enough, because you want to live a bigger life than that and you will be hungrier as you develop; hungry to live a bigger, broader spectrum of spiritual development.