Month: May 2018

Practicing Kindness and the Dharma Warrior: YouTube video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (@jalpalyul)

Our minds have been under the influence of delusion since the beginning of time. The function of concentration is to gain control of our minds. Having gained control of the mind we can then steer it in a virtuous direction. Without mind training this is not possible. Without training the mind will continue to be like “monkey mind” that drags one around in an unstable way. This is very detrimental to one’s path. Because of that we have indulged in negative actions. These actions lead to unwanted suffering. Therefore if we wish to succeed on the path we must learn to transform and gain control of our minds.

Like a donkey, the mind must be led in a virtuous direction and used as method as one would ride a horse. One cannot allow the mind simply to wander. The mind’s habit is to wander wherever, and acts like a monkey, distracted and hyper, enjoying shiny things! When you make real progress, you should be able to place the mind at a pristine point easily and well. Until one attains that point, it is necessary to progress step-by-step. One must build a house with stable walls by building a perfect stable foundation. This is the way pure Lamas do, and we, of course must follow!

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Faults of Cyclic Existence”

How is the understanding of compassion a clarifying thought as well as a motivating thought? How is it a clarifying thought? Now here is where the profound connection with refuge comes into play. Not only does the compassion motivate us to take refuge, but it makes us think it through very clearly. If we utilize it, it does.

When we enter onto the path of the Buddhadharma, we take refuge in the outer refuge of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, the inner refuge of lama, yidam, khandro, and the secret refuge of the channels, winds and fluids. When we actually enter into this refuge, which for our purposes now are the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, Triple Gem refuge, we must define why it must be arranged the way it is. Why is it organized the way it is? For instance, if it’s true that all sentient beings are suffering but they wish to be happy and they are mostly suffering due to desire and the confusion about issues concerning desire, if that’s what the Buddha said, then why don’t we just kind of sit down and have a therapeutic session of insight so that we can isolate for ourselves what it is that we actually want.And maybe then we can go and get it. If all sentient beings are really suffering and we’re really unhappy and we’re trying to be happy, why don’t we just have an insight of some kind and go for it!? Why don’t we do that? Well, because you’ve done that before. You’ve done that before. You do it all the time to greater or lesser degree, according to your capacity and your habitual tendency. In fact, we do that all of the time. We feel a need. We feel desire. We feel something. Something is moving that locomotive down the track. What is it? So we sit down and we try to center ourselves or we get busy and allow thoughts to come up. Each one of us has a characteristic way to deal with things. Maybe we’ll do a little journaling, we’ll do a little art, we’ll do a little music, we’ll do a little whatever, take a walk and try to center ourselves, and figure out what’s going on. Well, we’ll come up with something. You always come up with something

Now we’re going to figure out, “Oh , if I don’t get with the great love of my life pretty soon…, That’s what it is, I know that’s what it is.” So now you’re on to the next adventure. Or you may ask yourself,“What is it that’s troubling me? What is it that’s troubling me?” And you sit down and you’re reaching inside and using all this psychological technique and you’re going, “Oh it’s my mother!!! My mother didn’t love me!!” Each of these are valid. I’m not saying that these are not issues in your life. I’m not saying that these are not valid things to think about, but I am saying that there is some confusion there in that you are looking at the superficial causes for discomfort, but not the deeper ones.

If we were to look more deeply,, we would discover that the underlying cause of all suffering is desire, and that we’re real, real, real confused about this whole issue. So we examine the path and examine the teachings a little bit further. And we find that the Buddha has taught us that samsara is actually made up of the things that potentially make us suffer. That is to say that the first step or connection with samsara, that is the wheel of death and rebirth, is based on the idea, the first gossamer thin assumption or idea, of self-nature as being inherently real. Why does that happen? That happens because it can. End of subject. It’s one of the potentials in the great ground of primordial nature which contains within it all potentials. So this has happened. We have considered ourselves separate.

In order to consider one’s self as self nature separate, other has to be external. In order for other to be external, it has to be determined. In order for it to be determined, we have to react toward it. There has to be a reaction toward it with acceptance or rejection. You cannot see something without registering acceptance or rejection, or the combination of the two, which is neutrality. Neutrality is not lack of reaction. It is a combination of reactions. So we cannot experience anything as outside ourselves without some sort of reaction. And once that has happened, we react toward everything with hope and fear.

So everything in samsara is then built from that original structure of the idea of self nature being inherently real and at this point one’s self is determined, and other becomes external. We split into subjective-objective reality. Everything in samsara, every kind of perception with the senses, anything that we take in with our eyes, our ears, our tongues, anything that senses, comes from, at the root, that original construct, that original assumption of self-nature as being inherently real. So everything in samsara is built of that. That is to say that nothing that we experience now, nothing that we have ever experienced, is separate from the realm of desire. So literally, everything within samsara is potentially cause for more suffering.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

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

So, if you are conscious, does that lead you to the assumption that self-nature is real? Yes, it does. Of course it leads you to the assumption that self-nature is real. What are you doing here if you don’t think self-nature is real? I mean, be real. Why are you sitting here listening to this teaching so that you can attain realization in order to benefit beings? The whole thing is built on the assumption of self being real. I mean, you go to work every day. Would you go to work if self wasn’t real? It doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? Would you go through what you go through if self wasn’t real?

So, self is real. Where we get into trouble is when we try to find self. If you go through the process that I have described, and if you really do it diligently, if you follow that process and follow it faithfully, you will become extremely confused because then you will not know who is being confused. It will be clear to you, very clear to you, that self is not to be found.

Well, what do you do with this, I mean, really? What you’re supposed to do with this is meditate because if you try to do this with your brain, first of all, you’ll be crazy within a week. It simply won’t work. You can come to some conclusions. One thing about the Buddha’s teaching is that the philosophy is extremely appealing to the intellect. A lot of what the Buddha taught was made for very intellectual people. It was made to be sifted through and reasoned out intellectually. The Buddha’s instructions were that we should not practice anything that’s not reasonable to us and intelligent, so you must reason it out for yourself. There are even some arguments that are used about reincarnation. One can sum it up by saying that to have only one lifetime that continues into infinity is about as logical as postulating a stick with one end. It’s not logical. It does not seem as though it could be possible, or it does not seem as though it could be realistic.

So when it comes to this kind of philosophy that we’ve been learning about, one should really think on these things. Let’s say that we contemplate a little bit on this, and we come up with the dilemma that our experience is very real. I am having an experience, there’s no denying it and yet, when I come to find self, I cannot find it.

So, we might, because we’re Westerners, and because this is a habitual tendency of Westerners, and also because we are confused and deluded and sentient beings, we might want to get into this meaty kind of inner dialogue with ourselves. We might want to say to ourselves, “If I can’t find self and yet I am clearly feeling and touching and tasting and smelling and I clearly am conscious, what is happening here?”

Now if I listen to the Buddha’s teachings, and I say to myself, “Well, the Buddha teaches us that this is all a function of the assumption that self is real. Everything that I perceive seems extremely real to me, and yet it is a function, just like my fingers are a function of my body. In that same regard and with that same directness, these experiences that I’m having are actually the extensions of perception that I’m having, and the perceptions themselves are actually a function of the assumption of self. Yet, I can’t find the self, and the Buddha said, in fact, my nature is empty of self.” We might get into the trap of trying to figure out who made the assumption.

Don’t you love that question? You would love to hear the answer. What if I told you that if you paid me two hundred dollars apiece I would tell you the answer to that question. You might do it! But actually, the Buddha did not teach, really, the answer to that question. The Buddha recommended that we don’t waste our time concentrating on our ability to compute and understand some occurrence that, perhaps or perhaps not, happened in time out of mind. He recommended that we do not waste our time with philosophical questions. And the reason why we should not waste our time with such philosophical questions is that they do not lead to enlightenment, or in fact, to growth of any kind.

To have these questions answered and to be satisfied with them, one plays with them in the intellect. One uses them as toys. They’re interesting baubles to juggle. Every moment that you juggle these interesting baubles, you increase your awareness of consciousness, you increase the awareness of intellect, you deepen the self-cherishing, the clinging to self-nature as being inherently real.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved

A video of the Compassionate Activities of His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche with permission from Pathgate Institute of Buddhist Studies, and special thanks to Lama Dondrup Dorje