Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Even though we are old and dying we must reach beyond ourselves and serve others. If we do not do that, no future life will be worthwhile. Please wake up. There is no self. Only the Bodhicitta.

JAL

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

The subject today will be Bodhicitta, or compassion. From the traditional point of view, it is considered that Bodhicitta is divided into two basic categories. There is the aspirational Bodhicitta and the practical Bodhicitta. The aspirational Bodhichitta is the first relationship with Bodhicitta or compassion. In this sense, you can use the word Bodhicitta and compassion interchangeably. The aspirational level is the first relationship with Bodhichitta that each of us would approach, and this is a very important step. This step is the beginning of the cultivation of a stability of compassion within the mindstream. The practice of aspirational Bodhicitta begins with very small baby steps. It is absolutely dependent on understanding some of the Buddha’s basic teachings in order to do it effectively, in order to approach it effectively. One of the reasons why this is so necessary is that the Buddha teaches us of the faults of cyclic existence. The Buddha teaches us, as well, that suffering ceases when we achieve enlightenment. The Buddha teaches us of the cause of our suffering. He teaches us that suffering is caused by desire. And we come to understand suffering in a completely different way than we do just as ordinary sentient beings. 

Upon hearing the Buddha’s teaching, we might view suffering differently. Before we heard the Buddha’s teaching, we might think it possible to solve suffering through manipulating circumstances in ordinary human ways. We might think that a poor person is suffering because they have no money. We might look at the superficial angle of suffering. Looking at that suffering from a superficial angle, we actually can only develop a very superficial understanding of it. Ultimately we will have very little understanding of the nature of suffering at all, and therefore, will be incompetent to prevent more suffering or the continuation of suffering. To look at suffering from the ordinary superficial sense, we might consider that a poor person suffers because they have no money, or a sick person suffers because they have no health. And this would seem perfectly logical. Everything in our environment points out that this is the case. We would think that whatever we are lacking, that thing is the cause of our suffering; and whatever we have that we don’t want, that thing is the cause of our suffering. But according to the Buddha, this is really symptomatic. These things that we witness are symptomatic, and they do not necessarily lead us to understand the deeper cause of suffering. So we must turn to the enlightened teaching of the Buddha, of one who has crossed all of the barriers of suffering and has experienced the cessation of suffering in order to determine what the real cause of suffering is.

According to the Buddha, the things that we suffer from, such as poverty or sickness, or old age, sickness and death in the human realm, or all of the different sufferings that are potential and possible within the six realms of cyclic existence, in fact, are only symptomatic of a deeper underlying suffering, That suffering is actually the belief in self-nature as being inherently real. The suffering of the belief in self-nature being inherently real, or the delusion of the belief in self-nature as being inherently real actually leads to the suffering of desire. Because the tricky thing about belief in self-nature as being inherently real is that once you decide you have a self, you have to maintain it. Once you have the view that the self is here and it’s very real, then you have to constantly redefine and clarify the meaning of self by defining the distinction between self and other, And then all phenomena appears to be separate. Even one’s own feelings appear to be separate. All things that are present in the world appear to be separate and they are filled with the sense of distinction. Whenever something registers on the five senses, whether it be an altar, or whether it be something like food, or whether it be another person, whenever that thing arises in the mind, we determine whether we like it or don’t like it. There is an automatic attraction or repulsion phenomena that occurs. If you will examine yourself, you will see that this is true. It simply is not possible for you to see something or to have something come to your awareness without having the immediate, almost knee-jerk reaction of deciding if you are attracted to it or repulsed by it; or there is some aspect of that within your mind. It may play out a little bit differently; but if you examine it, you will see that the root of it is attraction and repulsion. All things play on the senses in that way.

The thinking then of the separation, or the erroneous perception of the duality between self and other, becomes more and more profound. It actually progresses and it builds on itself. It becomes more exaggerated. Each time that you react with attraction or repulsion toward anything, there is a karma, or a cause and effect relationship, that is begun at that time. This cause and effect relationship then continues to create more cause and more effect. And there is an almost continual building of these instances, one on top of the other; and they are endless. There is no way for this to stop. It occurs in a cycle. And it occurs in such a way that while cause and effect are being experienced, more cause and effect continue. While one is dealing with the effect of previous causes, one is beginning new causes because of the reaction to the effect of previous cause. And it continues to be so that it seems to be unbreakable and unshakeable.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo all rights reserved

An excerpt from a teaching called Intimacy with the Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

When we think of the path, we think of something that is external, separate from us, something in front of us that we have to move towards or attain.  A different understanding of the path might be that the path is something that actually engages with what you might call three faces.  But these three faces are very much like us.  You could say that each one of us has at least three faces.  Each one of has the face of anger or discontentment, the face of joy, and the face of balance or contentment.  There are many different faces that we have.

The path also has faces and when we truly study them we can understand what the nature of the path actually is.  You could say that the path exists as part of a three-part system and if you were to think of the path itself in a true and more profound way than we normally think, you would understand that there is no way to tell where the path begins and where the path ends.  We would understand that comprising what we call the path are three faces which are (1), the ground or basis from which the path arises, (2) the path or movement itself, the display of that source or fundamental nature from which the path arises, and (3) the fruit, which is the direct result of that fundamental nature as well as the direct result of the activity of that fundamental nature.

These three things, the ground, the path and the fruit or result cannot be separated in any way, shape, manner or form.  The moment that we begin to separate these three aspects, we have lost touch with what the path actually is.  We have lost touch with an intuitive understanding of how to practice the path, and we experience a great deal of delusion concerning the path when we separate ourselves from the understanding of the threefold face of the path:  the basis or ground; the movement or path itself; and the result of the path.

Without this understanding, anything that we do becomes a path.  Any activity that we engage in becomes a method.  That method connects something with something or it wouldn’t be a method.  But on the path of Buddha Dharma we have to remain connected with the ground, the method, and the result.  These three have to be considered as threefold.

How is it that we can use this understanding to determine the validity of the path and to remove from ourselves the tendency toward delusion? First of all there is the teaching on the relationship of the seed and the fruit.  There is that kind of good old-fashioned, common-sense wisdom that if you really want to have an apple tree in your orchard, you’ve got to plant an apple seed, that if you wanted an apple tree in your orchard and were to plant cabbages, it simply would not work.  You would have cabbages, not apples.  If you wished for some apples and you were to plant asparagus, that’s not going to turn out really well for you unless you really determine that asparagus is your thing.  I know it sounds like I’m being silly and belaboring this point.  The moment we get it, I’m going to stop nagging about it, because as yet we haven’t got this one and it’s really, really important.

The Buddha Dharma is not a path or a method that arises in any common or ordinary way in the world.  In other words, someone didn’t get born at some time and simply compose a path.  A team of experts or technicians didn’t get together and engineer a path.  NASA didn’t design this one.  This path was not a dream or a vision that someone had about twenty years ago that remains unproven or insubstantial.

The path of Buddha Dharma as we know it only arises when the condition of the Buddha nature appears.  It arises from the mind of enlightenment – the Buddha nature.  Lord Buddha did not begin to teach the path, although he had attained varying degrees of what you might call cosmic consciousness or something like that, before he actually attained supreme enlightenment.  He had various degrees of consciousness that he could communicate and various qualities that he could teach to others—teachings on compassion, Bodhicitta, practicing meditation—but in fact he did not teach until he awakened into the primordial nature that was his true nature, Buddhahood.  And then at that time he was able to display the path or method to the world.

The path or method actually came forth from his realization.  It did not come forth even one millisecond before his realization.  Once he achieved that precious awakening, he was able to bring the path to the world.  During the course of Lord Buddha’s life he discovered that there were many different displays of consciousness, many different levels of attainment and attunement that one could accomplish and he did accomplish many of these before that ultimate moment.  But it was that ultimate awakening that he presented to the world as the Buddha Dharma.

The seed of the method that we practice is enlightenment, the Buddha nature itself.  It is not the human nature.  If it were the human nature he would have taught before that precious awakening and that would have been something from the human capacity.  But it was not until supreme realization that he began to teach the method and he taught only that method which leads to supreme enlightenment.  So the seed and the method are completely married and not separable.

© copyright Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo All rights reserved.

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Guru Yoga must be seen not as an end but as a means to an end. Quite frankly, speaking for myself and I’m sure most other teachers, we could care less. I’ve described this many times before. I just hate the whole prostration thing. It takes me forever to get through a room. If one practices in a profound way, these prostrations are an opportunity, and that’s why I allow them to be practiced here in the same way that they are practiced generally in our tradition. Otherwise I wouldn’t, because they bother me, but I allow them because it is an opportunity to make an offering and to move immediately—body, speech and mind—into a posture of recognition. You are speaking, “I take refuge in the Lama. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha.” You are engaging in conduct with your body. You are engaging in intention with your mind. With body, speech and mind you are connecting to recognition, and that’s why I allow it.

The relationship with one’s teacher is utilized as the water of life or some sort of ultimate nectar or ultimate empowerment that provides a way for us to begin to recognize that which is holy arises in the world and that each of us is that. Each one of us should practice like that. To the degree that we hold the teacher above the crown of our head and then take the teacher into our hearts, without finding reasons not to—because those reasons not to are the very reasons we are using to remain lost in samsara—to that degree we learn to recognize. Yes, we know you’re clever enough to find reasons not to recognize the nature. If you need to be clever in the way Americans need to be clever in this day and age, you are already clever, very good, now let’s move on. Let’s see if you can learn recognition.

The relationship with the teacher then becomes this precious opportunity, this precious bridge. We see that the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha and, all three-in-one as the Lama have appeared in the world, and we see that this is not separate from us. So in the beginning we start practicing by contemplating the difference between what is ordinary and what is extraordinary. We begin to move into relationship with the teacher. We begin to practice devotion. We try to practice some pure view, understanding that this is the appearance in the world and that this is holy and we let it be that way. We simply let it be. Then gradually we move into a much deeper practice where we understand everything is the mandala of the guru. In that practice we begin to learn to turn adversity into bliss.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

According to the Buddha’s teachings and according to everything that we can surmise from the information we receive as we travel along the path, we as sentient beings, are in a state of non-recognition. When you hear a term like “non-recognition,” it’s hard to really understand what it means. When we think of the word “recognizing,” we think in superficial terms such as “I recognize you” or “you recognize me.” We recognize people with whom we are familiar.

That concept still holds true, but there needs to be a deeper, more able way to understand what non-recognition means. According to Buddhist philosophy, we contain within us the seed that is the Buddha nature. It is not smaller than the Buddha’s nature. It is not bigger than the Buddha’s nature. It is not different from the Buddha’s nature. It is the same. It is that nature inherent within us that is the primordial wisdom state or the natural ground-of-being that is our nature. As we move toward enlightenment, we don’t construct that nature. It doesn’t become complete. It doesn’t become bigger. It simply is what it is, but we move from a state of non-recognition into a state that the Buddha clearly described as being awake. And that’s the only difference.

In our culture we tend to think in a materialistic way even about things that are very subtle, very pure, very profound and very spiritual. We tend to think that perhaps the Buddha or a great Bodhisattva or even one’s teacher has a bigger Buddha nature than we do. Somehow their Buddha nature is bigger and maybe more muscle-bound, more fit or stronger than ours. At the risk of being crude, we wonder if the teacher’s isn’t bigger than ours. According to the Buddha’s teaching, that is not the case. The simple difference is recognition. One Buddha nature is not different from another.

As ordinary sentient beings we are locked in the state of non-recognition, and that non-recognition is so all-pervasive that it becomes invisible. It’s like being born on a merry-go-round. If no one ever stops the merry-go-round and you spend your whole life on the merry-go-round, you will never know that you’re on it. You will never know anything other than that reality. Our condition of non-recognition is very much like that. It has always been this way. We project everything outward onto a screen. We know no other way to be aware. So that is the dilemma of sentient beings. We wish to awaken as the Buddha is awake. We wish to come to understand our true nature, our primordial wisdom nature, which is the ground-of-being, and yet we are locked in a state of non-recognition.

© 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.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

This is the story of a really good man in a bad world.

An excerpt from a the teaching, When the Teacher Calls, by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In Buddhist tradition and particularly in Vajrayana Buddhism, there is a kind of practice called devotional practice. One of its most meaningful and foundational aspects is developing a relationship of pure devotion with one’s lama or teacher. In Vajrayana, the teacher is considered to be the door to liberation because even though the Buddha was once on the earth and even though the Buddha’s teachings are written in books, it is just about impossible to enter onto the Path without the blessings of the teacher. The lama, who is necessary for empowerment, transmission and teaching, is considered to be the blessing that is inherent in the Path.

In the Vajrayana tradition there is a devotional aspect to every practice that is done,from the most preliminary to the most superior practice, and it is considered to be the means by which blessing is actually transmitted. In the Nam Chö Ngöndro, the preliminary practice accomplished at this temple, there is a beautiful song of invoking the lama’s blessing called “Calling the Lama from Afar.” It has haunting melody, and it is done from one’s heart in order to soften the ego and make the mind like a bowl ready to receive any blessing.

This type of practice functions like a cultivator. Think of planting a field of grain.  One has to plow the field and work the soil so that it’s capable of receiving the seed.  Otherwise, if the soil were not ready, when seed was thrown out it would just bounce, as on a hard surface. Likewise, devotional practice is considered to make one ready. Its benefit is immeasurable. Without it there is no possibility of the blessing being fully received.

Devotional yoga is meant to benefit the student. The teacher is not “pleased” by devotional yoga. Rather, the teacher is pleased by movement and the softening, the gentling and the change that occurs within the student.  In the  same way as the student calls the lama from afar in traditional practice by putting one’s heart in a position of surrender, we may talk about what the lama experiences when the lama calls the student from afar and the student responds to that call.

When a student calls the teacher, with his or her mind and heart like a bowl, many things are happening. First, there is fantastic auspicious karma ripening. In order for a student even to make that step, he or she must have accumulated a tremendous amount of merit or virtue in the past. A nonvirtuous mind cannot call the teacher with devotion.

When the student calls the lama, it’s because the student has realized certain things. First of all, they have looked around and have seen that cyclic existence or ordinary life is flawed or faulted. Sometimes it’s older students who, in some ways, are able to do this more readily because they’ve seen their lives pass, and they have looked around and said, “What have I done? I’ve worked so hard my entire life, and what have I really accomplished? What am I going to take with me?”

At any rate, the student that is prepared to call the teacher has been awakened, stimulated, has understood that much time has passed and that very little can be really accounted for. There has been some fun. It’s been up and down. We’ve all experienced getting older; we’ve all experienced sickness, and we will certainly experience death. At some point we look at all of this and ask ourselves, “Isn’t there something more? There must be something!”  We begin to think in this way, and then we see someone who can give us a path, not just thoughts about the path, not just ideas that are popular in the New Age, but a technology that is succinct and exacting, a method that has shown itself to give repeatable results. When students see this they become hopeful and joyous. Suddenly they’re excited, and they begin to want to come in closer to this experience. It’s a beautiful, precious moment, but that moment can only happen due to the virtue of the student’s previous practice.

Eventually students will come to the point, due to the virtue of their practice, where they will do anything because they know their time is short. They know that they’ve tried everything and nothing has worked. Nothing has produced permanent happiness, so they are looking at the door to liberation, and in part, that is how the teacher is considered. They want to walk through that door.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offers a simple meditation technique for developing single pointed focus. She describes how it can benefit anyone who applies it, even those who are ill or who have mental instability.

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.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved