Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Commitment to the Path”

Lord Buddha teaches us that we are wandering in cyclic existence, and that cyclic existence is tricky.  We are taught that cyclic existence is like that room full of furniture, full of obstacles.  You have to get through it, but lots of things are going to happen.  You’re going to go through events; karmic ripenings will take place.  There will be sickness.  There will be old age, and there will be death.  The only way you get out of old age is if you die first.  These are the rules.  That’s how the house works.

So that being the case, the Buddha teaches us, as well, that everything in samsara has a beginning and therefore has an ending.  Literally every time you meet and come together with a loved one, at that moment, you have given rise to the parting from that loved one. These moments, these cause and effect relationships arise interdependently; and although they seem to us to be separated by time, that’s part of our delusion.  Cause and effect arise interdependently.

So when we meet the great love of our life that we have waited for oh these many years, then we are also at that moment entering into the experience of separating, because it will happen.  Should we attain fame, fortune, whatever it is that our society teaches us that we want, then we should understand that the moment we have achieved this very thing, we have also given rise to its end. There is nothing one can accomplish through and within samsara that has any real lasting value other than to cultivate the mind, other than to cultivate the practice.  Only that brings results that are carried forward because it creates a virtuous mind and pure habitual tendencies.  But not one penny of the money we make, not one bit of any relationship, other than memory, will survive death.  We’ll all come together again, but it will all be different.

Lord Buddha teaches us that this is a constant, spinning, spinning, spinning in samsara. While each of us has in common the wish to be happy, we do not understand how to create the causes of happiness.  We think that to have more will make us happy or to be with somebody will make us happy or to be cured of something will make us happy or to change our lives and sail around the world or whatever, that’s going to make us happy.  But we find that ultimately it does not.  You can travel all over the place, sail around the world, have all kinds of relationships, make all kinds of money and you will find that in the heart, you have not attained happiness. We do attain temporary happiness. I feel pretty happy right now. But having lived with yourself for lo these many years, surely you must know by now that this happiness is so, so temporary.  It’s like the dew vanishing on the leaves every morning.  It’s like that.  That easy to lose. And there is no amount of positive thinking that is going to change that.  All you can do is make yourself crazier, crazier, crazier and more neurotic. You know you are suffering.  You know you’re not happy and you’re going, yes, I am.  Everything is fine.

So Lord Buddha teaches us that what we have to do essentially in our path is to turn on the light. Some of the furniture we’re going to have to move, get it out of the way.  That’s called pacifying obstacles, and we do that through practice.  Some of the furniture we’re going to have to climb on top of.  It’s just there and it’s going to have to be something we move beyond.  Some of the furniture we’re going to have to get under, Maybe we could liken that to undoing some of our poisons, like the five poisons that we have within our mind stream.  But whatever it is, things have got to change.

So Dharma is like that.  Dharma provides us a way to turn on the light.  You get the picture.  You see what is in your way and you decide how to deal with it. There are methods for how to deal with it,  but the big thing is eyes opened.  To wish and hope that everything is going to turn out well because, you know, I’m a spiritual person, therefore, da da da, whatever, is just not going to cut it, because you are still whistling in the dark.  You are walking through that room and you’re whistling in the dark.  Buddhism says, “Turn on the light.”

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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

Is the Bodhisattva unafraid?   Heck no!  The Bodhisattva is afraid just like anyone else.  Why not?  Nobody wants to be challenged.  Nobody wants to have difficulty or obstacles.  Nobody wants to suffer.  The Bodhisattva is not less afraid than anyone else. But what is fear in the face of the needs of the many?  What is fear, knowing that what I might collect out of my fearfulness will ultimately lead to my unhappiness and disappointment?

I’ve been practicing the Bodhisattva Path for some time.  I am afraid of everything.  Everything frightens me.  I’m a jellyfish by nature.  But I don’t stop, because it doesn’t make any sense to stop.  Does the Bodhisattva no longer want anything or need anything?  No!  I want and need everything!  Anything you want to give me would be much appreciated!  But I do not concern myself with gathering such things.  I concern myself with the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings.  That’s what I concern myself with.

I’m not a perfect Bodhisattva, but there have been perfect Bodhisattvas. And I can tell you that with the understanding that the Bodhisattva naturally obtains through this kind of conduct: There is a natural kind of internal ease or lightness of being, a kind of quiescence that is a natural byproduct of that lack of emphasis on self-concern and increased emphasis on the well-being of all sentient beings, and the reasonableness of accumulating only those virtuous characteristics which can benefit in all future times.  There is a reasonableness about that and, as we emphasize that reasonable method, and do not emphasize ego-cherishing and ego-clinging, there is a natural lightness of being that occurs that, even while if someone punches us we will be punched and we will roll over, it isn’t so heavy because, as a Bodhisattva, although you may experience phenomenal reality in the same way that others do, there is not the suffering of suffering, which only actually occurs when one is filled with desire, just like the Buddha taught—filled with self-cherishing and ego-clinging, filled with hatred, greed and ignorance. The deep neurosis of acting inappropriately according to what you actually are, the suffering of suffering, comes from that.  It comes from acting like something that is death-oriented, that is contracted, that is separate and limited as opposed to acting as though you understood that you are that primordial wisdom nature, that ground of being, that Buddha nature, that state of innate wakefulness, that quiescent light.  That is the great Bodhicitta that is your nature.

If we could act in accordance with that, that deep neurosis that is characteristic of samsara, that suffering of suffering, could not exist in such a life.  So then, for such a one who practices in that way, all efforts become a benefit to sentient beings, no matter what they appear like.  Ultimately they will result in benefit.  This is the life of the Bodhisattva and this is the practice of the Bodhisattva, and this is what each one of us must attain to because I will tell you, no matter how good you are at sitting in the lotus position or how good you are at looking like a meditator or how many of the rules of meditation you know or how many of the books on spiritual practice you have read and can memorize, if you do not have the Bodhicitta, if you are not alive in love, you have no path.  If you do not consider others before you, you have no path, because the path is love.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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

As children, we are only interested in taking care of ourselves.  We are only interested in getting what we want.  Well, we don’t actually understand taking care of ourselves, because really, if we understood taking care of ourselves, we would mature.  But as children, we just delight in everything and we want everything. It’s gimme this, gimme this, gimme this. I need this new piece of equipment. I need this new piece of clothing.  I need this new gizmo. I have to have this car. And I’m just gathering all of this, you see?  As spiritually mature people, we realize through experience (and it’s experience that teaches us), that after we’ve gathered a few of these things, we still aren’t happy.  We are still neurotic.  In fact, the more we gather to please ourselves without consideration for cause and effect relationships, or without considering whether or not this is of any true value within our lives, we find that we are disappointed and disappointed and disappointed. And it continues, and the level of disappointment never ends.  Every time we try to get something for ourselves that makes us feel better without any thoughts of cause and effect relationships… It’s just the oddest thing.  It’s like we have this little, I don’t know, kind of heartbreak, with this disappointment.  Every time we try to make ourselves happy and it doesn’t work, there’s this part of us, somewhere inside that sighs, “Wow, I really thought that was going to work!  How come that didn’t work?”  And we’re confused and lost.

But as spiritually mature people we begin to learn,, in the same way adults learn, that children’s toys aren’t much fun anymore.  And the spiritually mature people will begin to understand that what we have to do now is to live a life that has more meaning than that.  We have to live a life where we can plot out and plan and understand the results.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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

In the view of the Bodhisattva, we realize that everything in life is impermanent, that nothing we can gather has any meaning other than the collection of virtuous habitual tendencies within our mindstream. Having realized that, one travels a moderate path in which one’s own enlightenment and the enlightenment of others become the same weight, and nondual.

Further, we come to understand that we are one and others are many. Even in this room, let’s say, if I am practicing as a Bodhisattva, I think that yes, my happiness is equal to the happiness of any one of you. But there are so many more of you than there are of me that it only makes sense for me to do what is beneficial for you rather than what is beneficial for me.  This I try my best to live by. As a Bodhisattva, I consider this to be the most precious understanding that I have.  It’s my treasure and my wealth. It’s reasonable and logical that the needs of the many would outweigh the needs of the one.   Because we are the same, and because we all wish to be happy, and because in our nature we are absolutely inseparable and indistinguishable from one another, I find that I cannot be happy without you. So all of the different gatherings and collections that one can make during the course of one’s lifetime have to be understood in that way.  Are they really worth anything?  Or are they the gaudy childlike baubles that we play with until we have a better understanding of what the Buddha has taught.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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

If you create the habit of compassion and generosity, then that habitual tendency will stay with you, and in some future life it will affect your rebirth and your circumstances.  There will be much more joy and happiness.  When one engages truly on the Bodhisattva’s path, one goes beyond that superficial kind of view.  One goes much deeper into the understanding of how to live one’s life. And so one’s morals and ethics and values are developed because of this Bodhisattva ideal.  The Bodhisattva understands these teachings that the Buddha has taught— that all things are impermanent.  The Bodhisattva understands that whatever material gain we can amass during the course of this life can only bring temporary happiness and, ultimately, if that’s all we do, it will bring suffering.  So this is what the Bodhisattva studies and the Bodhisattva comes to the point of realizing that.

Then there is another kind of amazing logic that enters into the mind of the Bodhisattva. It becomes part of our life experience, and becomes the most profound law that we can live by.  And that is this:  Think about this body of ours, this body that we cherish and hold onto. We decorate it, we love it, we keep it safe. We make sure that it’s happy.  We revolve much of our time and our effort around this body and its upkeep.  And then we think about this ego, this ego that is our mind and our consciousness and our awareness of self. But even beyond that, the extended effort to maintain ego is part of the egocentric structure that we call “me.”  We have developed our own habits and patterns over time in order to avoid the chaos of the idea that what we are as egocentric beings might change in any way, shape, manner or form.  We put amazing effort into perpetuating ourselves and our needs, into reacting with either hope or fear towards every other thing, so that we can determine whether we want it or whether we want to move away from it.  That kind of self-cherishing requires us to think of our own well-being and to look at other sentient beings as objects from which we can get what we need, like love, approval, romance, money, power, anything.

The Bodhisattva realizes these kinds of ideas and habits are futile. And this is the reason why:  During the course of our lives we spend much of our time amassing, structuring, creating support for ourselves, for our ego, because we fear annihilation. Once you have the belief in self-nature as being inherently real, that self has to be supported and continued, because the idea is that if self-nature were to dismantle or not be the same, that somehow chaos would result.  We have no knowledge of our true nature as being the primordial Buddha ground of being, no knowledge of that primordial wisdom nature that is our true nature.  We rely on this idea that self-nature must be perpetuated.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The following is an excerpt from “Dakini Teachings: A Collection of Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal”  
“Lady Tsogyal asked the master: How severe is the misdeed of breaking
the master’s command?

The master replied: The misdeeds of the three levels of existence do
not match even a fraction of the evil of breaking the command of your
master. Through this you will take birth in the Unceasing Vajra Hell
and find no liberation.

Lady Tsogyal asked the master: How should we regard the master
possessing the oral instructions from whom we request teachings?

The master replied in verse:
You should know that the master is more important
Than the buddhas of a hundred thousand aeons,
Because all the buddhas of the aeons
Appeared through following masters.
There will never be any buddhas
Who have not followed a master.

The master is the Buddha, the master is the Dharma,
Likewise the master is also the Sangha.
He is the embodiment of all buddhas.
He is the nature of Vajradhara.
He is the root of the Three Jewels.

Keep the command of your vajra master
Without breaking even a fraction of his words.
If you break the command of your vajra master,
You will fall into Unceasing Vajra Hell
From which there will be no chance for liberation.
By serving your master you will receive the blessings.”

Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo speaks about the 24 Hour Prayer Vigil maintained at Kunzang Palyul Choling. KPC has maintained a vigil of continuous, unbroken prayer for peace and the end of suffering since 1985. The vigil remains ongoing.

If you wish to request prayers you can follow this link:

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

If you think about the food that we eat, you think, oh well, once you’ve eaten the food, it’s part of you and it’s nourishing.  You forgot the rest of the story.  Don’t you remember what happens to food after a few hours? Food changes. When you eat big chocolate cake… Or what would you like to eat?  Let’s see, what are we having today?  I would like to have chocolate mousse.  How about that?  So I’m going to eat my chocolate mousse and “yum yum yum” it’s so good. And you think, “Oh this chocolate mousse is really spectacular!  I don’t have to share it with anybody. There’s nobody in the room, and I can eat the whole mousse myself. Well, chocolate mousse!  I can eat the whole chocolate mousse myself and don’t have to share it with anybody.  Nobody is looking, I can even lick that [bowl]., You know, I can really enjoy this and I don’t have to give it away. And once I eat it, it is mine!  No one can demand it back.  Except that, after a few hours it seems to  exit the body.  And before it does, it creates some minor distresses on the way down.  That delicious experience with one’s food, even assuming the food was not chocolate mousse , but something nourishing from which you might receive benefit and energy,  ultimately is impermanent. Even the condition of taking in nourishment is impermanent because, after having taken in nourishment, then even the most delicious food results in waste.  And what is good in the food we use to make energy and the energy is expended.

So everything that we know and understand in our life experience is changing.  You are not the same person that you were seven years ago.  Everything about you has changed.  Literally the cells in your body have changed and been reborn with very few exceptions.  There are some cells in the human body that do not change that quickly, but the majority of cells change every seven years.  Quite remarkable! It’s really interesting to wonder, to ask ourselves, why is it then that we maintain physical scars from when you’re younger?  Isn’t that odd?  I mean, if we constantly create new cells and they are changed every seven years, what’s that [scar] doing there?  I fell on a piece of glass and wire when I was a little girl playing in a vacant lot and cut my arm right there.  Why is that still there?  I was a little girl when it happened.  I’ve changed many times over. It’s because we do not understand impermanence.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Download the Prayer to Be Reborn in Dewachen

Prayer to Be Reborn in Dewachen

With a longing to benefit beings who are sick and dying, Jetsunma created a song called “Prayer to Be Reborn in Dewachen.” This is a traditional prayer to Amitabha, the Buddha of Limitless Light, from the P’howa practice of the Longchen Nyigthig tradition. P’howa is the meditation practice for the time of death, and Amitabha is the deity to be visualized in that meditation.  “Dewachen” refers to the state of consciousness in which one experiences a pure land and the opportunity to accomplish liberation.

Jetsunma said,  “When I listened to this tune, I realized that it was like a mother singing her child to sleep, which really was my motivation when I sang that song.  I know that everyone that I love, I will be parted from someday.  Everyone that I meet will die some day.  I wish there was some way that they could be guided through the bardo individually.  And the best response that I know of is this prayer.”

Any being who listens to this prayer receives a blessing, whether Buddhist or non Buddhist, human or animal.  It is especially soothing for those who are chronically or acutely ill, or who are on the precipice of dying.  You can help beings by making this prayer heard by as many people and as many animals close to their death as possible.  It is available here:  Prayer to Be Reborn in Dewachen

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Guru is Your Diamond”

Should it happen that we cannot meet with the Guru for some reason, or there is some difficult point in one’s path, some difficult moments, some difficult times, maybe even some difficult months or years, still, so long as the Guru remains in the world, we can turn our face towards the Guru and know.  It’s like falling off a horse.  You can always get back on.  But the problem is—and there is a problem with that—if you waste your time with that precious jewel and don’t collect its interest, the jewel somehow becomes more distant, less potent, less present, less precious, less everything.  And we think to ourselves, “Why is the Guru not in my life so much?”  And we tend to think, “Oh, it’s because the Guru’s over here or the Guru’s over there, or the Guru is not speaking right now, or the Guru is this, or the Guru is that.”  And you can think that way if you want to but it won’t help.  We must think, “Now I’ve come to this place.  I have chosen my Guru and I am steadfast.  I have seen the door of liberation.  Yet somehow things are a little mixed up here, I can’t quite get to it.  I don’t feel focused.  I don’t feel like I understand this blessing.  I feel outsourced.  I feel like I’m out to lunch somewhere on the Path here.”  And so we think, “Oh, what is the problem?”

Well, the first thing we have to do is correct our view and think, This is the door to liberation.  It is present in the world.”  Period.  End of story.  “What must I do?  What must I do?” Sometimes it takes traveling to see your Guru.  Sometimes it takes sitting down and doing Guru Yoga like you never did it before.  It can work out a myriad of ways according to one’s karma, according to one’s blessing.  I’ve had it both ways.  I’ve traveled to see my Guru and the blessing was immeasurable and phenomenal.  And then I’ve stayed home and practiced Guru Yoga and with amazing signs. The blessing was amazing and fundamentally life changing.  And one, I saw the Guru’s face; and one, I saw the Guru’s face.

That’s the nature of this blessing.  It doesn’t depend on time and space.  It doesn’t depend on ordinary things at all.  And unless you neglect it, it cannot lose its potency.  We must think, as pertaining to Guru Yoga, that everyday, even while now we sit in comfort and enjoy being together, that everyday, even this day, we should earn the blessing to see the Guru tomorrow.  How will I see the Guru?  Maybe I’ll see the Guru’s picture and it will jump out at me and touch my heart.  Maybe I’ll see Guru Rinpoche’s picture and it will jump out at me and touch my heart.  Or maybe I’ll say The Seven Line Prayer. And wow, that one really…, that one did it.  Or maybe I will do my practice and it feels deep and rewarding like an underground stream that has come suddenly to the surface and has given us something precious to drink.

Guru Yoga can always be depended on to reestablish and continue the blessing.  I promise you, if we call out to the Guru with a full heart, with determination and with fervent regard and recognition, the Guru will respond, whether it’s in the way that you would like which is “Hi I’m here for lunch.” Or whatever.  It may not be that way.  It may be something quite different.  And sometimes it’s not something that feels good right away.

I’ve seen one of my favorite students work herself to death and forget to practice sometimes and then periodically she does things like break her back or, you know, injure herself in some way.  And then she practices and amazing things happen.  I wish she wouldn’t do it that way, but she does.  You know who I’m talking about, out in Sedona.  I have other students that kind of orchestrate separation and return in order for that feeling of return.  But I wish they wouldn’t do that because that feeling of separation often comes with some cause and effect relationship.  Again if it were my diamond, I’d be shining it up all the time. I’d be collecting that interest all the time.

We use Guru Yoga that way to create the causes for continuation on the Path.  The teacher should never be frightening.  The teacher is your friend.  Your friend who will take your hand and walk you, lifetime after lifetime, even when you stumble and you fall.  Something will arise through the devotion that you practice in this lifetime, to protect you even in your next life.  So eventually we come to the place where we see everything as the blessing of the Guru.  Everything.  Sometimes we feel some confusion, and maybe even feel confusion for a long time; but you know that that Guru would not let you down.  You know that.  And so you count on that, even the confusion, to be a blessing.  Eventually because of that devotion, the confusion will clear and the Guru will appear, again like an underground spring coming once again to the surface.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved