Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Any time you talk badly about someone you actually shorten your life force. Or at the least you endanger your ability to draw trusting friends and the ability to be well-spoken in future times. And no one will believe you.

I don’t like gossip – it does no good and tastes like poison. And it comes back.

Question from Twitter Follower: “What is the distinction between gossip and recounting your experiences with others?”

Jetsunma’s response: Intention is the difference. Tell stories, I do. Usually we know when we are being mean-spirited.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved

An excerpt from a teaching called Dharma and the Western Mind by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Having taught Westerners I can see that the ones that last on this path, the ones that change and gentle and deepen in their practice are the ones that are motivated by this intensity of loving.  The ones that will do almost anything to end suffering, these are the ones that make it.  These are the ones that I have hopes for.

It is a Buddhist tradition that we should pray for the ones who have hopes of us because we have many karmic connections. Each one of us have karmic connections, it’s just like a giant web of connections, and some day each one of us will attain supreme enlightenment just as Lord Buddha did.  Surely we will, because our nature is the same as his.  We are the same and we will some day become awakened to that nature.  And on that day, those with whom we have connections, those who have hopes of us, will rejoice because at last they have a chance.  You should think right now there are those who are waiting for you, whose future it is, whose karma it is that when you achieve supreme realization they will depend on you as your disciples and you will be their teacher. You will be the one by which the door to liberation is opened for them.

Some day you will be reborn as a teacher that opens the door of Dharma, or makes the path available and you will be the cause of the end of their suffering.  You should think about them every day.  You should pray for those who have hopes of you.  It is a very important thing to think about and in teaching Westerners I find that they must remember this.

Even if all of the concepts associated with the Buddha Dharma are difficult, even if the idea of devotion is difficult, even if the idea of doing prostrations is difficult because we are unfamiliar with these things, we can do anything in order to benefit beings.  We can accustom ourselves to any idea in order to benefit beings.  Once your mind has been gentled and softened by that kind of loving you can begin to understand that the most important thing is to eliminate suffering.  You can understand also that the idea of doing what is unfamiliar to you – repetition of mantra, practice of different kinds, meditation of different kinds, sitting for a very long time, doing prostrations, developing a relationship with the guru, these things, that are not common in our Western society, become acceptable because we can see that they bear fruit and gentle our minds.  They increase our capacity for loving and they bring us closer to enlightenment.  Then we can do it.

©Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Eightfold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Right speech is the first principal of ethical conduct on the Eightfold Path.  And on the Eightfold Path is really based on ethical conduct.  It’s one of the things that I like best about Buddhism.  It isn’t based on a pie-in-the-sky idea. You have to work it.  People who are recovering alcoholics will recognize that saying about the 12-step program, “It works if you work it.”  Right?  And the Eightfold Path is exactly like that.  If you don’t work it, you’re going to go back to the narcotic of samsara.  But if you do work it, you have strength and bones that you never had before.  There is a similarity.  I’ve often drawn that connection between the Buddha dharma and the way that self-honesty is required, and the 12-step program, especially in that we are all addicts.  We are addicted to our emotions.  We are addicted to our delusions.  We are addicted to our visions.  We are addicted to our dreams. We are all addicts. And we are just so drunk with the narcotic of samsara that it is hard to pay attention, and see what is the root of all this.  We are trying to become awake so that we can see all of that, and right speech is one of the guidelines to the moral discipline of ethics.

We don’t realize that you have to do right to be right. That is certainly true on the path of Buddha dharma.  The importance of speech in the Buddha dharma is central and obvious.  For one thing you can cause harm with speech, and you should never do that.  Right speech would be speaking well, speaking nobly, speaking higher, and not speaking against anyone or speaking harshly or cruelly, or gossiping.

Gossiping is a terrible ethical non-virtue or perversion of Buddhist ethics.  And I must say it’s rampant in most religious communities and in ours too.  It’s rampant.  It’s not what the Buddha taught and it should not be that way.  We should uphold one another with speech, rather than to tear one another down.  Words can break or save lives.  Think about that.  Words can make enemies or friends. Start war or create peace.  All by words.  And you can review history to see that that’s true.

To keep away from false speech, one especially should never tell deliberate lies or speak deceitfully.  Some people are storytellers, and tend to be expansive in their speech.  I’ve been known to do that myself.  When you tell a story, you expand it a little bit.  You polish it up.  Make it a little more interesting.  Throw in a few hand gestures. That’s not deceitful necessarily unless you are making yourself higher.  Then that would be deceitful.  If you said, “I had this experience in meditation.  It was so big.  You’ve never had anything like it.”  (And therefore, I’m big)  That would be wrong speech.  That would be unethical.  What we really want to do is avoid telling different lies, especially those that bring us power, acknowledgement, or approval, because then we know that we are lying to someone, which is unethical, in order to bring ourselves up above them which is not right either.  It ruins our right intention.

That would be called false speech and it is to be avoided.  We must also abstain from slanderous speech, and should not use words maliciously against others.  That’s gossip.  We do it all the time.  We should be very very careful with that, because one thing I’ve noticed about gossip and slander is that it comes right back to you, even in this very life.   But if we develop the habit of slanderous speech, lifetime after lifetime, what happiness can come from that?  We will be born into lifetimes where no matter what we do people will not think well of us.  We will be causing more suffering to others and ourselves.  To use words maliciously against others undermines the whole basis of the path, which is this right intention and this right view, and this consideration of the truth of the Four Noble Truths.

When we consider all of this together, we understand that malicious speech is not just a no no.  It’s a killer. We should abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others. We can see what the ethics of that would be.  Like if I were to say to you, “Gee, you look kind of ugly today.”  What is the point of that?  Why would I need to do that?  Even if it were true, why would I do that?  Well, first of all I have shown that I have not accomplished right view.  Right there I have shown you my buttocks.  So, obviously this is not the right way to go.

We want to cultivate right intention, so we want to keep away from unethical speech that hurts or offends others.  We want to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth.  Positively phrased, it means tell the truth, speak friendly, warmly and gently, and talk when you’ve got something to say.  Brilliant!  Only a Buddha could have thought of this.  Actually it was “talk only when necessary.” I had to have a little fun there.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching called “Essence of Devotion”

When embarking on the path, we look for the most excellent method.  We look for that method that gives excellent results every time.  That method would be Dharma.  Dharma has brought about enlightenment in generation after generation of students and teachers alike.  Students have become teachers who have returned to benefit beings, just as I hope you are hoping to do.

Now, we not only need that, but we need an excellent captain, and that captain should be considered none other than the Buddha and his emanations in the world.  The Buddha is the one who has successfully crossed the ocean of suffering and has, without a doubt, achieved enlightenment.  If you read the life of the Buddha there is no doubt that he has achieved enlightenment.  The results of his life—having brought enlightenment to so many others for 2,500 years­—can only have arisen from the mind of enlightenment.  So we want the proper ship.  We want the proper captain. We also need the proper navigator because it’s considered that, while the Buddha is the supreme captain of our ship, it is his spirit, his mind, his nature which is present in the navigator who does the driving and keeps us afloat. And that is our teacher.

So that is the situation that we want to hook up to.  That’s how to leave the party, another analogy that we can use. I love to teach in analogies because it’s much easier and simpler for us.  We can understand parties.  We can understand foolishness.  We can understand suffering.  We can understand ships and water and the urge not to drown, but sometimes it’s hard to understand Dharma. So I like to learn and I like to express in analogies. One good analogy for understanding our present situation as we embark on the great task of practicing refuge and Bodhicitta is that when we look around and we read the paper and we see our own eventual age and death and all the sufferings that come with it, as well as the sufferings of others, we consider that the two of them are unbearable and they are inseparable.  I am suffering, you are suffering.  It’s all one package.  You come to realize that it’s like you’re in a burning room.  You know, the room just burning, burning, burning, burning, on fire, and at that point you look around and you realize that there is one door, one opening, not even a window.  One door as an exit from that room, and that door is wide open.  How much love and regard will you have for that door, while being in that burning room?  Well, we’re so funny, we’re so kind of asleep at the wheel, at least in the first part of our spiritual path. Maybe we don’t even have much realization but, when in our own experience the room really begins to get hot and we begin to see the singeing of our own hairs and really relate to the burning of our own flesh. we begin to see, really see, what the situation is due to our own experience. And we will someday.  We will.  If not now, then someday.  Then at that time we look at that door with such love and regard. In fact, we don’t even think about how much we love and regard the door.  We are so into the door that we are out of the door as soon as possible.  We love the door.  The door is our hope.

It’s like that when we approach the path.  As we begin to practice turning the mind towards Dharma, we begin to practice seeing what is in this ocean of suffering, what we are surrounded with.  Then at that point, we begin to take in our own real experience and how kind of silly it is when we try to keep on top of our suffering when, in fact, we are suffering and it is foolish to be in denial about that.  At that point our minds soften. They gentle and they turn.  And suddenly we get smart in a way we were never smart before.  Suddenly we’re on Red Alert.  Something is different and we begin to regard that door, not as just a shape in a room, but as something that is more meaningful to us than anything else.  The path is that door.  Our teachers who give us the path are that door.  The method is that door.  That is our opportunity to exit samsara.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

 

The following prayer is from the Nam Cho Ngondro, The Great Perfection Buddha in the Palm of Hand

MA NAM KHA DANG NYAM PA’I SEM CHEN THAM CHED

I pray that all motherly sentient beings, countless as space,

LAMA SANGYE CHÖ KYI KU LA SÖL WA DEB SO

May realize the Guru’s Dharmakaya Buddha Body.

MA NAM KHA DANG NYAM PA’I SEM CHEN THAM CHED

I pray that all motherly sentient beings, countless as space,

LAMA DE CHEN LONG CHÖD DZOG PA’I KU LA SÖL

WA DEB SO

May realize the Guru’s Great Bliss Sambhogakaya Body.

MA NAM KHA DANG NYAM PA’I SEM CHEN THAM CHED

I pray that all motherly sentient beings, countless as space,

LAMA THUG JE TRUL PA’I KU LA SÖL WA DEB SO

May realize the Guru’s Great Bliss Nirmanakaya Body

MA NAM KHA DANG NYAM PA’I SEM CHEN THAM CHED

I pray that all motherly sentient beings, countless as space,

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Hate is a poison no one should drink. Or give to anyone else. If you have it unrepaired it will ruin your life. No one should tolerate hate in their minds or activities. It is the basis of war and crime. It is the downfall of nations and lives. It is a terrible cause with a terrible result. It is death and sorrow. No one benefits.

It is so common we think it is natural and normal. It is in fact not even reasonable as we are of the same nature, field of being. So hate ripples out to all. Everyone gets hurt.

For instance, now, in modern music there is so much name calling, self preening, body part naming, (everyone is a ho, a c— a d—: sick!) We are no longer actually listening to music, we are listening to hate. We trash our minds with low life reading and writing. We could be so much better- do so much more. We don’t even try. We think it stylish to be trashy. We don’t even place any value on wholesome cognition. If we did, personal issues could be used to study the path and develop enlightened qualities. Too bad – because we can all awaken to Buddhahood. We are that.

May whatever merit I have ever gathered and all I and my students have ever done as well, be dedicated to the liberation and salvation of all!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

I’d like to talk about mindfulness in practice of making offerings.  As you know, when you do your preliminary practice of Ngondro, at some point you accumulate 100,000 repetitions of mandala offerings.  That’s a fairly elaborate practice where you sit down and you work with the mandala set and you make the mounds and you have a very extensive visualization.  So is that where your offering practice stops?  Do you make your offerings to the deities and then walk away from your practice and not be involved in your practice anymore?  No, of course not.

In order to practice truly and more deeply, what we have to do is remain mindful of the practice constantly.  Remember that we are trying to antidote ego clinging.  We’re trying to antidote the belief in self-nature as being inherently real.  We are trying to antidote the desire, the hope and the fear that results from that identification of self-nature as being inherently real and other as being separate.  Remember that this is the point of what we’re doing.  So if we were to practice accumulating mandala offerings, or make offerings at a temple and then have that practice end and no longer be a part of our lives, we wouldn’t be applying that antidote very well — at least not as well as we might.

How would it be possible for us to avoid this ego clinging?  How would it be possible to avoid simply reinforcing samsara’s unfortunate message when we go around and simply enjoy ourselves?  Remember that it is a worthy thing to notice, when you perceive something like a house or a tree or a flower, how automatic your reaction and response to that is.   How is this flower going to affect me?  This flower, this tree, how is it going to be meaningful if it doesn’t affect me?  That is its meaning: it affects me.  That is how we think.  The practice that I’m suggesting is something that you can do without ever sitting down and meditating, so for those of you that have no time, this is a great practice.

When we’re doing anything, no matter what it is, we see appearances.  Images come to us.  They are sometimes very favorable, sometimes very beautiful, sometimes wonderful, and we enjoy them, and sometimes not.  When we enjoy them, we enjoy them by clinging, by taking that experience, in a sense, and holding onto it, grabbing it.  We’re grasping that experience.  That tree is only relevant because I see it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  When the tree is out of my sight, it no longer exists.  We think like that.  My suggestion is that rather than just doing your practice when you’re sitting down, why not be mindful constantly? When you see the appearance of any phenomenon, when you see any kind of beautiful thing — like for instance when you look outside and you see how lovely it is out there, how gorgeous it is, the trees and the flowers and the sweetness of the air — how can you not let that beauty simply reinforce our clinging to ego, that clinging to identity?

One way to do that is to develop an automatic habit, and again, those habits start small and end up big.  We start at the beginning, and we simply increase.  Develop the habit of offering everything that you see. You think, “Huh?  How can I offer it if it’s not mine?”  Well, that’s not the point.  Whether it’s yours or not, your senses will grab it as yours.  You will react to it, you will respond to it, you will judge it, and so it becomes, in a way, your thing.  You collect it.  When you see something, you collect it, and you hold onto it.  The experience is what you take away.  Maybe we can’t take away the tree, but that doesn’t mean anything because we’ve taken away our experience of the tree.  It has become ours, and it reinforces that delusion of self and other.  Instead of doing that, isn’t it possible upon seeing something beautiful, upon taking a walk, having a good feeling, accomplishing something wonderful, seeing beautiful things, having meaningful relationships with other people, any kind of pleasure that is part of your life, that it can be offered?  It can be thought of in a different way.

For instance, if I were to walk down the street and see a field of flowers, but didn’t know about any of these teachings of the Dharma, then maybe I might pick some of the flowers think that’s a meaningful experience because I feel good about it; I’m really happy with that.  The only reason these flowers have become meaningful is because they’ve affected me in a certain way, and it continues the delusion.  Having heard about Dharma, we have another option.  When we see and enjoy a whole field of flowers, we can visualize in a very simple way, making it an offering to all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.  Instead of that automatic clinging to this image and trying to take it with us, trying to make it part of us, there can be an instant habit that we form of offering this to all the Buddhas.  “This field of flowers is so wonderful.  I love it so much.”

If we work on it, instead of clinging to it in some subtle way, our automatic habit can be to offer it to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.  Take any good taste, for instance, a good flavor in your mouth; a lot of times when we have a pleasurable experience like good food or good taste you may have noticed that ultimately it’s not so good.  The food turns into…well, you know what it turns into, doo-doo. The experience does us no good because when we were tasting it, we were clinging to it.  That’s mine.  You see?  I’m tasting it.  It’s in my taste buds.  It’s that relationship between my taste buds and that food that’s really important: we’re stuck in that delusion.  We’re stuck in that dream.

Suppose we were able, instead, to develop the habit that when we eat something we are practicing as well by automatically offering the flavor and the taste of that to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas?  Then you’re not grabbing onto it, you’re not making it your experience.  Offering it, you’re not reinforcing that dynamic of self and other, but rather when you taste, you’re just simply offering it.  You can learn to do it very quickly.  When you first start, it’s a little bit cumbersome because you take a bite of food, and you say, “Okay, I offer this to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas.”  You take another bite of food, saying, “I offer this to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas.”  At first, it may seem a little dry and uncomfortable, but there’s an inner posture that can be developed that’s an automatic response, as automatic as deciding whether or not you like that taste.  As the taste hits you, the experience of that can be just offering it to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas.  It can be so immediate that no words are required.  At that point, you’ve developed the habit of making this constant, constant, constant offering.

As parents, when we bond with our children and hold our children and have that wonderful, pleasurable experience of cuddling our kids and feeling wonderful, as ordinary human beings we think, “Oh, this is my child.  This is the extension of my ego.  I made that.  I made an egg, and look what happened.”  So we have very great pride about that, and our family becomes an extension of our ego, an extension of what we call ourselves.  What if were able to offer that as well?  As we hold our beloved children, as we feel that feeling, rather than putting another star in our own crown and thinking, “Oh, yeah, this is my kid and I’m holding her now” – what if we could offer that feeling? What if we could even offer the connection, the incredible, powerful connection between mother and child?  That, too, can be offered to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas.   When you offer something to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, it’s not as though it disappears.  It’s not as though the feeling disappears once you offer that feeling of loving your child to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, and suddenly you don’t love your kid anymore.  It’s not like that.  Anything that we offer, really in some magical way becomes multiplied.  It becomes even more than it originally could have been.  In not using what we see with our five senses as a way to practice more self-absorption, but instead using what we see with the five senses as a way to accomplish some kind of Recognition, this is a very powerful practice and a very excellent, excellent adornment for the sit-down practice that we do.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

The following prayer is from “The Great Perfection: Buddha in the Palm of the Hand”

PAL DEN TSA WA’I LAMA RINPOCHE

Glorious, precious root guru,

DAG GI NYING GA PEMA’I ZE’U DRU LA

Upon the pollen heart of the lotus in my heart,

DREL WA MED PA TAG PAR ZHUG NE KYANG

Without ever separating, always remaining,

KA DRIN CHEN PO’I GO NE JE ZUNG NE

Hold me fast with your great kindness.

KU SUNG THUG KYI NGÖ DRUB TSAL DU SÖL

Pray, bestow the spiritual attainments of body, speech and mind.

PAL DEN LAMA’I NAM PAR THAR PA LA

Towards the way of life and activities of the glorious guru

KED CHIG TSAM YANG LOG TA MI KYE ZHING

May incorrect view never arise, not even for an instant.

CHI DZED CHÖ SU THONG WA’I MÖ GÜ KYI

With fervent regard, may I view all (the guru’s) actions as Dharma activity.

LAMA’I CHIN LAB SEM LA JUG PAR SHOG

May the guru’s blessings enter my mind!

KYE ZHING KYE WA DAG NI THAM CHED DU

In this and in all of my future lifetimes

RIG ZANG LO SEL NGA GYAL MED PA DANG

May I be born of excellent parents, with a clear mind,

free from pride,

NYING JE CHE ZHING LAMA LA GÜ DEN

Possessing great compassion and respectfully relying

upon the guru.

PAL DEN LAMA’I DAM TSHIG LA NE SHOG

May my samaya with the glorious guru always remain firm!

KYE WA KÜN TU YANG DAG LAMA DANG

In all lifetimes, may I never be separated from a perfectly

pure guru.

DREL MED CHÖ KYI PAL LA LONG CHÖD CHING

Utilizing the glorious Dharma to its utmost,

SA DANG LAM GYI YÖN TEN RAB DZOG NE

And by excellently perfecting all pure qualities on the stages

and paths,

DORJE CHANG GI GO PHANG NYUR THOB SHOG

May I swiftly achieve the state of Vajradharahood!