Month: January 2017

What Do You Reach For?

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There are three different levels on which you can recognize your Teacher.  One is an extremely poor level, a common, ordinary level.  One is an intermediate level in which you see that the teacher holds the teachings purely and gives the teachings purely and you really admire the Teacher and feel great respect for the Teacher.  That, however, is only an intermediate level of recognition.

The deepest and supreme level of recognition is recognizing the Teacher not as a person, but rather, as a door to liberation, as one’s own nature.  This supreme level recognizes the Teacher as one’s mind, recognizes the Teacher as the miraculous intention of the Buddha, appearing in a manifest way in order to benefit beings.  It recognizes the Teacher as that original longing, the longing to know that nature, to recognize the Teacher as the answer, to recognize the Teacher and primordial wisdom itself in some incarnate form, in the same way that your own relationship to the path becomes not an ordinary thing, but a very profound and mystical thing, a thing of truth, a thing able to bring about awakening.

The relationship with the Teacher is especially difficult for Westerners.  We have lots of training on authority figures, we have lots of training on mothers and fathers, but we have no training on to how to deal with this longing.  The way we have dealt with it in the past has hurt us.  It has brought us a great deal of pain and suffering.  It has made us act in ways that we do not understand.  We are people who had a particular karma and it did not quite fit in with the karma of the society in which we were brought up.  If that were not so, then more of the society in which we were brought up would be able to approach the idea of awakening, would be able to approach the idea of having a Teacher in order to follow a supreme path in order to achieve the great awakening.

So, if we can reprogram ourselves by looking back at that original longing and understanding its depth, understanding the ways in which we compensated and forgiving ourselves and confessing the lack of recognition, we will then be able to establish a relationship with the Teacher, the path, the Buddha and with the meditational deities that we practice.  If we can establish that relationship anew in that way, the quality of the path that we practice will be completely different.  The quality of the experience that we have will be completely different.  We will feel healed, and the need for that healing is very sharp and very strong.

It’s my job to watch over my students.  Some of you spend 75 percent of your energy blaming yourself for the way you are.  Some of you spend a lot of energy trying to act out things that will never bear fruit concerning the Dharma and concerning your Teacher.  Some of you spend 75 percent of your energy trying to pretend that you don’t feel or trying to take issue with one thing or another so you don’t have to feel that longing.

I look at you and I have a sense of how you’re managing that longing.  It’s like you come so far and you’re right here, almost to my heart, and then you turn away.  Some of you stand in the background and look from afar, look hungry, peek out from behind the door, close the door again, stand back there and be hungry for some more.  Then you open the door and do like that.  Each one of you has a particular and peculiar different way that you deal with this, but you are all living with this.

You were born with the longing to awaken.  You were born with a longing to know your own nature, to taste that nature.  You were born with a longing and a homing instinct to find your Teacher.  You were born with a longing to find a pure path and there were no words like that when you grew up.

You compensated by substituting other things and trying to make them the object of your longing.  You made lots of mistakes because of it.  That’s not the point, though.  There is nothing you can do in one lifetime that is as meaningful a miscalculation as simply reaching for that nature and trying to find it in something small.  That is the biggest miscalculation that any of us can make and we do it constantly.  That’s what keeps us revolving endlessly in cyclic existence.

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Longing for the Guru”

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 1/15/2017

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1/15/2017 Sunday by Norma

Putter around doing small projects; fixing, tidying, arranging. Organize things, clear out old clothes for donation, sweep out the dog bed. Avoid annoying people who are grieving, ill or suffering with chirpy “can do” pep talks, you’ll just get in trouble. You must improve something, however, so work on your resume or your mind but leave others alone. (Harder than it sounds today.) Moliere said, “Everyone has a right to his own course of action.” This is a great day to relax, go to the movies, engage in a healing regimen, and spend time with a partner. Avoid anything that stimulates self
pity or reminds you of sad things from the past. Feelings of victimization are a danger today. No wallowing!

Astrology for 1/14/2017

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1/14/2017 Saturday by Norma

Today “That lucky old Sun has nothing to do, but roll around heaven all day,” meaning men and leaders can take a rest, recharge, relax and shine. The Moon (women) have a bit more to do, all favorable: energize your partner, generate a coalition, and make serious progress on a long-term goal, all without breaking a sweat or mussing your hair. High five! Neptune travels with Venus, highlighting sensitivity, healing, and creativity. Follow your hunches today and you won’t go wrong.

Every Experience Is a Blessing

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We’re all sleeping until we reach supreme enlightenment, but most are really sleeping in a very profound way.  In that coma, they are not even able to say, “I want”.  They merely act out, and they act out in different ways.

While we are still asleep and until we achieve supreme realization, the fact that you are here listening to teachings is the evidence to know that you have felt that longing.  You should find it and relate to it purely.  You should encourage it in that it is a dynamo of energy by which to really touch the nature that you are seeking, that the bliss that you want, the union between the student and the teacher.

But you are so ashamed to feel that feeling directly, because you’re so macho, you’re so tough, or you’re so cool or you’re so advanced.  You are so ashamed to feel that feeling that you want to say, “Oh, the longing for the Teacher is only me longing for my own nature”.  Well, yes, it is that, but you should face directly the longing for the teacher on the deepest level.  You should not be ashamed of that.  You were ashamed of it as a child and you were taught not to feel it and this longing created a lot of mistakes for you.  You should not be ashamed of that now.

I have that longing.  I have it, it is the strongest longing, I cannot imagine another longing like it.  I live with that longing constantly.  I use that longing to provide the means by which I can accomplish Dharma, or I can accomplish kindness for all sentient beings.  I realize that the true longing is the longing for the Guru, it’s the longing for my Teacher, for the Guru on all of the different levels, on the apparent level as well as the deepest, most primordial level.  And I realize that I will only find that longing satisfied so long as I try to live the qualities that are my Guru.

So, if I were to turn away from students and say, “Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m tired,” or, “I’m lonely doing this.  I don’t want to do this anymore.”  If I were to do that, I would never find my Guru.  I would never be with my Guru, because those are the qualities of my Guru.  My Guru never leaves me.  He cannot turn his face from me.  And so, that being the case, if I were to turn my face away from anyone that had hopes of me, it would be hopeless.  I would never find the Guru.  The longing would never be satisfied, because I would have turned my face away.

You must begin to practice in such a way that the face of the Teacher is understood in everything that you do.  No matter what you experience, whether it is loss or whether it is having, whether it is joy or whether it is sadness, whether it is life or it is death, whether it is sickness or health, poverty or wealth, whatever you experience, you should think that everything you experience is a blessing from the root Guru.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 1/13/2017

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1/13/2017 Friday by Norma

Something happens that brings happiness, satisfaction in what you’ve done, the urge to shout a cheer or start a conga line. Go for it! Inspiration is here, the feeling that your time and energy have been well spent and you are on the right track for success. Offer encouragement to everyone you meet,
tell others what they’re doing well: your words can change someone’s life. A solid plan of action appears, one you are well advised to follow. George Eliot said, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” Sports are great, enthusiasm is wonderful, bright lights and cheerful attitudes are excellent, and happiness is in the picture.

Finding Our Way Home

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By the time you have grown and begun to find your path, you have already lost yourself somewhere.  You don’t understand yourself any more.  You have already done things for which you do not forgive yourself.  You have already substituted something else for the longing that you felt.  You have already substituted something else for your Teacher.  In having done that, it is difficult to find your way home.  It is difficult to reach what was originally very pure in your mind.  It is difficult to rebirth what was very pure and tender inside of you.

And now, you can’t just say, “Oh, I found it at last.  The longing is finished.  I found what I’m looking for.  I found my path, but in the meantime, I’ve been promiscuous and I don’t forgive myself or I’ve become tough, or numb or I’ve become materialistic.”

What happens is that because you see what’s in front of you, it’s so precious and it’s just what you’ve been waiting for, instead of being able to just grab it and eat it, what we do, then, is try to deal instead with the numbness or the hardness or the promiscuity or the materialism.  Because we have become used to this feeling of longing, the longing remains, and we are not able to truly be one with the path and with a Teacher.

We’ve forgotten how to satisfy ourselves.  We’ve forgotten how to do anything except blame ourselves and be angry.  We make lots of mistakes, compulsively make mistakes.  We do not follow the path purely and with a full heart.  You have to ask yourself: Is the person who says I’ve got to get my Three Roots practice done today,  is that the same person, who, as a child, was waiting for something, was just hungry for something?  It’s not the same person.  We feel differently now than we did back then and we don’t know how to get back to that original place of purity.  We feel something is amiss when we think we’ve found our path because we feel anger, guilt and we feel dirty.  We feel different, impure.  Then we try to approach the Teacher and the teaching and the path itself in an impure way, because we believe that we are somehow impure.

Having longed for the taste of our own nature for such a long time, now when we look at the Teacher and the teaching, we see it as something altogether different.  We see the Teacher as a human being, and we try to get close to a human being.  Why do we do that?  We do that because we spent our whole lives trying to fit that longing into an acceptable picture, and now we’re trying to do the same thing.

We are afraid to long.  We are afraid to experience the depth of that longing and instead, we try to get close to the person.  We are afraid to experience the bliss of the union between the meditator, the meditating mind and the nature that is meditated on.  The bliss of that union is so strong and we are afraid to experience it. So instead, we long for some kind of union with the person who is our Teacher at this time.  It is even common to feel a strong sexual urging for our Teacher.  It doesn’t matter if the Teacher is the same sex.  Students can have dreams and they will have strong sexual urgings for the Teacher.  If you think of the Teacher as a mother or father figure, or an authority figure, or a therapist that you come to with your ordinary stuff, there will never be satisfaction, because that isn’t the truth.  That is not the nature of the Teacher.  That longing has once again been diverted into a way that you understand.  It becomes a perpetuation of the suffering that you had as a child where the longing was not understood, where it was diverted and where it could not be satisfied.

So, the feeling of longing is mistaken.  The longing is for union, not for sexual behavior.  It is misunderstood. And what generally happens is a feeling of rejection, because the Teacher does not comply with our wishes.  There is a feeling of guilt.  There is a feeling of wondering what’s wrong with you.  There’s a feeling of a lack of acceptance of yourself.  There’s a feeling of a lack of confidence, a feeling that you are somehow impure in your motivation.  The longing sometimes becomes so strong that one is unable to practice.

You want the Teacher to hold you and love you, or you want the Teacher to be with you as a friend.  You are unable to practice because you are so busy watching how your Teacher acts towards you.  Does he or she smile at me?  Does he or she hold my hand when I’m lonely?  Does he or she notice when I’m ailing?  Does he or she come after me when I’ve strayed?  You’re so busy noticing that that you do not practice.  The practice is the caring for you.  The practicing is the coming after you when you have strayed.  The practice is the taking you home into that acceptance and awakening to that nature.  The teachings that you receive are the relationship with the Teacher.  They are the fruits the Teacher brings to you.  If you are longing for union with the Teacher, when the Teacher teaches you from his or her mind, and offers you the essence of what they know, that is the union, far more so than any physical friendship could ever be.  There is nothing more intimate than that.

Yet, we continue to not understand.  We continue to divert the longing, not accept ourselves and blame ourselves.  We continue to create a bad relationship with our Teacher.  If we understood what was happening, we would run to the teacher, run to the path, run to the experience of being on the path and of practicing in order to achieve enlightenment with open arms and with an open heart.  But instead, we are doing these other things that do not accomplish the awakening that we wish.

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Longing for the Guru”

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 1/12/2017

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1/12/2017 Thursday by Norma

A moment occurs today where you actually agree in some way with both sides of a dispute. Hmmm, what to do? Remain silent until it ends. A grand square neatly closes every avenue and you are boxed in. Ok, no problem, relax and wait it out. This is a good day to engage in activities you set aside in the past and to make small plans for the future, ones you can accomplish. Abraham Cowley said, “Hope! Of all the ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure.” This is a poor day to assert your importance and a great day to move ahead quietly. Sensitivity abounds, water is excellent, compassion is everywhere and creativity is highlighted.

Logic and Relative View

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Perception”

The Buddha never really bothered to address cosmological questions.   It is true that in the Vajrayana tradition there is a cosmological history that is given, but to my understanding that history does not teach us how the original assumption came about.  This cosmology speaks of the absolute void, and it says that from the void came movement.  In the way that it is spoken of, one understands that the void is the totality of form and formless as one. They are the same. They must both be contained in the void because form came from the void.  Emptiness and fullness are the same taste, the same essence, and the nature is pregnant with all potential.  In the state that is called the void there is non-distinction. Form and formless are not distinguishable from one another; they are the same. They are the same taste.

However, we do not perceive form and formless to be the same. Neither do we experience the clear luminous nature that is our own true nature and is also the nature of all phenomena.  Why don’t we experience that?

We don’t experience that because we are involved in consciousness. We are involved in taste; we are involved in feeling; we are involved in subtle and gross perception. And this process, this entire process of elaboration and exaggeration that extends from every single perception that we have, is so elaborate it extends, seemingly, forever.  We are so involved and so tremendously tripped up by and so compelled to compute instantly, because consciousness deals with relativity and specific perception and specific computation. We are compelled to be involved in that. We do not, then, perceive the true nature.

When you compute in the way that I have described, as quickly and as compulsively as you do, while you are utilizing these experiences which are a function of the assumption of self, there is no space to perceive that nature.The nature hasn’t gone away, nor has the void disappeared. The void isn’t something that used to be back there in time out of mind and now it’s not here anymore because everything developed.  This is how we think, isn’t it?  We think in terms of relativity.  That space, that emptiness, that voidness is the same. It remains.  It is steadfast.  It is unchanging. It is as close as it has ever been and as far as it can ever be. Close because voidness is the nature.  Far away because we cannot see it, not even for an instant, due to the functions which are based on an assumption of self-nature.

What conclusions can we draw from this?  Perhaps we can think that there is a tremendous amount of intelligence and logic in the Buddha’s teaching when he taught that the relative view, the relative world view, does, in fact, exist.  You, in fact, exist. The world exists.  Relative view exists.  Yet, the nature that is your nature, that is the nature of all phenomena, that is the nature of the world, that is the same nature of both form and formless, that nature is the true nature.  One cannot say that because you perceive yourself to be real and your experiences to be real that one can then deny the truth of your primordial wisdom nature, the nature that is really you.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 1/11/2017

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1/11/2017 Wednesday by Norma

Stay inside, far from the maddening crowd, and this will be a wonderful day. Imaginative projects are successful, compassionate activities bear fruit and love is fabulous. Go out, challenge the powers that be, and you’re courting trouble. Your choice! Overdoing is the challenge of the day: it isn’t
enough to engage in one activity, you want to sign up for ten, and herein lies the problem. Isak Dineson said, “When you have a task..if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.” Political and philosophical speech abounds today, but everything changes tomorrow when a diversion occurs. What’s good ? Medical interventions, compassionate activity, putting the right amount of effort into something that matters to you, and happiness.

Astrology for 1/10/2017

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1/10/2017 Tuesday by Norma

Avoid the tendency to say “Just one more thing” today, you have said enough. Another word will receive a response you won’t want to hear. Instead, busy yourself with catch-up jobs you’ve put aside for lack of time. Reorganize the stack of papers on your desk, write thank you notes for Christmas gifts, make some New Year’s Resolutions. Small is beautiful today; you’ll really enjoy gazing at the knick-knacks you dusted or the new set of pens you organized by color. Hafiz said, “Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole world.” Today can be a very inspiring day, if you relax and let it be.

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