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The Hungry Ghost Realm

April 4, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Why P’howa?”

The next of the lower realms is the realm of the hungry ghosts. The hungry ghosts actually have a traditional appearance and they are described in this way, but again you must understand that this is us looking with our eyes that are born having to distinguish between subjective and objective. These are the eyes that are born in the realm of duality,. So keep that in mind when their description is given. The description is that of beings that have ver,y very, very tiny mouths—they are said to be about the size of a pin, just a tiny opening—and great big stomachs; and these stomachs are empty. They are not able to take in the amounts of nourishment that they need. This is the picture that we are given. The reality of the realm of the hungry ghost is that they experience extreme need, extreme hunger, beyond what you feel when you have Big Mac attack. Way beyond that! We are talking hunger like you have never felt. It is a different color of hunger entirely. Have you been real, real hungry? Have you never been real, real hungry in your life? I’ve been real, real hungry in my life. I’ve been real, real hungry in my life, and I remember how that felt. I remember being so hungry once that I could feel my blood sugar doing wacko things, and I actually had the feeling of panic. I was that hungry that you feel panicky because your body is just telling you, “I need food now.”

So you imagine that there is that kind of hunger, with that kind of panic and need times more than you can ever imagine. That would be the feeling of a hungry ghost. It is extremely needful. Now you say to yourself, “Please, I worked out my whole life and for me to be reborn with a tiny little mouth and a big, big belly like that, that definitely is not going to happen to me.” So you think that that’s not going to happen. Well, you have to examine yourself from a different and more subtle point of view. Let me ask you if you have ever gone through a period in your life when you were extremely needy. “Oh no, not me.” Right? Extremely needy? For women that happens at least once a month, right? And for men I think it happens about every 48 hours. Now they get needy in a different way, but it’s basically also, “Do you love me?” We have within our mindstream the potential for tremendous neediness and graspiness.

O.K., this is a little bit less painful. Have you known a person in your lifetime that was compulsively, neurotically, unsatisfiably needy? Have you known a person like that? Haven’t you had from that person the feeling that this hole is just too darn big to fill? You feel like you’re throwing it in and throwing it in and throwing it in and trying to love and trying to give them something, and they’re still whining. It never ends; and you spend the rest of your life doing this and nothing happens. The hole never fills up. Well, that is the kind of cause that results in a rebirth as a hungry ghost—a person whose habitual tendency is simply wrapped around self-absorption and what they need. I need, I need, I need. Can you gimme, gimme, gimme? They see every other being in their life as a prop, a prop by which they can achieve satisfaction. They use people as props in order to achieve satisfaction. You know we’ve all gone through periods in our lives when we’ve done that. Haven’t we? Absolutely. We have used other people for our own satisfaction. Absolutely. And for many of us, we made careers out of it. Right? And maybe still, maybe still. We have seen how people can wrap their whole lives around graspiness and neediness; and every time they meet with somebody it’s like you can hear the suction. You can just hear it. You feel like the blood is coming out of your pores. And that’s the kind of person you instinctively stay away from because, literally, you can feel your energy being sucked into them. Haven’t you felt that kind of thing? You can feel the energy being sucked into them,. And it’s true. If you could see it with different eyes, your energy would be sucked into them. That’s true. That kind of cause, that kind of habitual tendency that the person might experience, or if it’s you, you might experience, would result in rebirth as a hungry ghost. Particularly, also, it is the kind of person who is against and has no compatibility with compassion and generosity. The person who is chronically, without hesitation, selfish to the bone.

Now you may think, “Are there really people like that?” Oh ho ho, yes! I’ll tell you , this story briefly. In New York once, I went to give a teaching. I remember walking into the room and thinking “Oh, no,” because, you know, a lama does develop the ability to sort of intuit who we’re talking to. And I remember walking into the room and going, “No-o-o!” because I could see that it was going to be very, very difficult. And sure enough, here we were in New York and I was talking about the most benign… I wasn’t talking about hell realms. I would never be dumb enough to talk about hell realms in New York! You guys want to hear that you have to come to Poolesville! So anyway, I was talking about the most benign and charming—talk about white picket fence!—subject that you could possibly think of. Kindness. Talking about Bodhicitta. I was talking about how, in the most fundamental way, kindness makes one feel. Really, being kind to others makes one feel better. I was talking about how developing the habit of kindness brings this result, just kindness. I was talking about Bodhicitta being consistent with our own nature. I swear to you not one, but on different occasions, three women stood up and argued with me about the validity of kindness. One woman in particular said, “This is ridiculous. Kindness has no place in my life. I mean you have to get what you want! I don’t see the point of what you say. This is whoosh. Tell me something real!” That is literally what happened.

I remember just feeling this compassion for them, for what can the result of that be? What do you think their next experience is going to be like? Do you think they’re going to fall into the lap of mother love? Do you think that kindness is going to be just heaped on them in their next life? I don’t think so. I don’t see how that’s going to happen. So these poor people are up against the wall and they don’t even realize it. And in her haughtiness she defended what was going to make her suffer horribly. So you see there is that kind of thing operating in the minds of sentient beings. There are some people that categorically refuse and reject the idea of kindness and benefitting others. In fact, that is not consistent with all of the world religions. We should take equal responsibility with ourselves as with other sentient beings.

There are even types of teaching that the Buddha has taught that are meant for that kind of person who cannot appreciate compassion, who are not even set up to hear the word compassion. The Hinayana point of view: Yeah, we’re taught to be kind to others, but not in an active way. We’re taught to do no harm. That’s different from saving sentient beings from suffering. So there are sentient beings that have no capacity for kindness or generosity, you see? And so the result of that kind of mental state is to be reborn as a hungry ghost, experiencing only need. Only being able to experience that which comes toward oneself, literally not having the chip, the computer chip, to be able to send out. It would be like a computer that has no printer. Everything happens internally, in a way. Do you see what I’m saying? Nothing goes out. This person is not wired to send out anything, and that comes through having only the habitual tendency of self-absorption and selfishness. The result is life as a hungry ghost. In the hungry ghost realm, it isn’t that there is no food. It is that they are so weak because of the habitual tendency of their mind which has produced this weakness. Their arms and legs are like threads. They cannot get over to where the food is. They cannot get there. The only thing big about them is their stomachs. And even if they could get there, their little mouths would not be able to take in enough.

Plus it is said that even even if they do see some food, they cannot get to the food; and if they somehow manage to get to the food, it then will turn to… Here is a glass of water. I have the karma for this water to refresh me. Water, little bit of lemon, pretty good. If I were a hungry ghost in the hungry ghost realm, even if I were able to make it to that water (and I would feel the need for it very strongly), the water would be like a glass of pus or something, horrible and repulsive, literally, sewage or something horrible and repulsive. It would turn to that before you reached it. And that’s because of the habitual tendency of our mind. How different from sewage is the need to only satisfy oneself and not care at all for the condition of other sentient beings? To take from others and never give. How different is that from sewage? You see?

Looking Beyond the Self

April 1, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In order to practice effectively, we have to give rise to the great Bodhicitta. We have to see the needs of sentient beings—what their situation is, what their condition is. For that reason I’m going to talk, first of all, about the six realms of cyclic existence. These are the different types of reality that one may experience during the bardo or passage of living. We are beginning then with the passage, or bardo, of living. Bardo is not actually a time period. You can’t say that bardo is a period from Thursday to Thursday, or from the 24th to the 3rd of the month. Bardo is not a marking time or a markable time. It is perceived that way because of our delusion. We will see the bardo of the passage through our lives as being, oh, let’s say 75 years. We can see this as a passage. From the point of realization, this is a movement, a display, a passage, a color. It is something other than the way we experience it. We experience it as the date that we were born and the date that we die, and time in between. But, in fact, what we are actually experiencing is not a length of time, but rather we are experiencing the bardo, or passage, of living.

According to the teachings on the bardo or passage, of living, we’re not the only ones here. What a big surprise! Now everybody is thinking “Oh great! She’s going to tell us about flying saucers!” I wish. I wish! I’m still waiting for them to come pick me up. I don’t know if any of that stuff is true. I’m definitely into Star Trek and I hope to heck it’s true. It seems logical to me that it’s true, there being so many planets out there, but I don’t know that for sure. What we’re going to talk about today is the honest-to-goodness. This is what the Buddha has taught us about the realms of cyclic existence.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, the amount of those sentient beings who can achieve rebirth as a human being is so small that it would be like the amount of particles of dust on our thumbnail, compared to those sentient beings that are not human beings. That would be comparable to the particles of dust on the earth. Are you perceiving the vast amount of difference? So we have to think of ourselves as the smallest group really. There are other sentient beings who are revolving in cyclic existence. But in what way? This is what we want to know. There are so many of them! What are their sufferings? What are their conditions? How can we help them? Should we consider them? What are they to us? These are the thoughts that will help us to understand our condition and the condition of sentient beings.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, there are actually 3,000 myriads of universes. Three thousand myriads of universes. That is a way of saying uncountable reality. Uncountable, unmentionable, unthinkable display, so much display as to be inconceivable to the kind of mind that we have that likes to count beings, or likes to count numbers. There are that many wandering in cyclic existence. And according to the Buddha, there are basically six realms of cyclic existence. I will talk about these six realms of cyclic existence briefly so that each one of us can understand the condition of cyclic existence and the results of our own actions, because none of these beings in cyclic existence have ended up where they are, including us, through anything other than by the results of our own action. You are here listening to Dharma teaching because somewhere in the past you have been exemplary, exemplary. Oh naturally the room gets quiet! They want to hear about this! Don’t you love it! Every time. This is so predictable.

All right, let me tell you how wonderful you are. In order to have received the teachings that may ultimately result in your liberation in one lifetime… I mean, you talk about grains of dust on a thumbnail. That would be equal to grains of dust on the head of a pin! That is how rare this opportunity is. You must have done some extraordinary things in your past in order to be able to hear this teaching. You must have been kind to sentient beings. You must have helped other sentient beings or supported them as they sought truth, just as you are being supported in your search for truth. You must have been helpful. You must have been seeking. You must have been looking for a better way. You must have had some devotion. You must have had some faith, and more. It would take extraordinary kindness, extraordinary virtue, to come to this point.

Now within this point, there are some people in this room, and you can see that they are sleepy. They can’t listen very well, and they sort of miss most things. Well, why is that? That is not because of what they had for breakfast, really, unless of course you had a candy bar for breakfast in which case, go back to sleep! It is not because of their hearing. It is not because they speak a different language. It is not because of any of the things that you might think are contributing factors. If the person is too dulled out to be able to hear the teaching, it is because while they have the extraordinary merit and virtue to be able to hear the teaching, they don’t have quite enough to be able to absorb it deeply. It’s a little bit like if you could imagine a bug crawling on the arm of a great lama, or crawling on the arm of the Buddha. I mean, that’s a pretty good position to be in! If you’re a bug, that’s where you want to be! Crawling on the arm of the Buddha. Certainly if I were a bug, that’s where I would want to be. In the Buddha’s armpit or, you know, someplace safe. But still, the Buddha could be giving the most extraordinary teachings. The bug won’t hear it. The bug won’t accept it and the bug certainly won’t like it. The bug just wants to be the bug on the Buddha’s arm. It doesn’t even know it’s on the Buddha’s arm, really. It just wants to be comfortable. You see? So you may wish to be comfortable. You may wish to take a nap. You may think about the things that you’re used to thinking about. You may wish to keep the same exact attitude that you’ve always had, so this way you don’t have to change. Even though that all seems very logical to you, actually that’s because you don’t quite have enough merit to absorb the teachings deeply. Everything is due to cause and effect.

Removing the Blinders

March 31, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Why P’howa?”

One thing that happens as we are turning the mind toward Dharma is we literally begin to examine the condition of cyclic existence, We come to understand that we are not the only ones that are wandering in cyclic existence. All sentient beings that we see of all types, not only counting those that are human but also animal sentient beings and sentient beings that live in other realms, these too are wandering aimlessly and are suffering. So we begin to develop a sense of empathy through examination.

Now some people might think “Gee, what a downer! Why would you want to examine the suffering of others? Better to close one’s eyes and think happy thoughts.” There is a time and place for closing one’s eyes and thinking happy thoughts. There is a time for joy and a time for happiness. And the kind of joy and happiness that is healthful and that increases our ability to attain liberation and to have happiness is the kind of joy that is not the same as suppression of information. It is the kind of joy that is not the same as closing one’s eyes and being blind to cause and effect relationships. It is an all-pervasive natural kind of joy that is in harmony with our true nature, and is the very display of our nature. That joy promotes health and well-being, promotes longevity; and it is born of moral and ethical and compassionate conduct.

The kind of joy that we are giving ourselves when we try to fake it, literally fake it through our lives, ignoring all the bad news and just playing the way children play in the sandbox, picking and choosing what we want to think about and what we want to see, that is a joy that is an artificial recipe. It is a joy that exists in the same world with suppression, ignorance and lack of information. That joy is not healthy for us because it does not promote longevity, it does not promote happiness. It is literally like this: Let’s say we were to take all the chairs that are in this room and distribute them throughout the room in a haphazard way and then pile in a few more pieces of furniture, and wait til it’s pitch-black midnight. Turn off all the lights, close all the curtains until it’s absolutely pitch dark in this room. Then try to negotiate going through this room. Would you like to negotiate going through this room, just trying to feel your way through with all of its furniture upturned and barricaded and brought up in your way and that sort of thing? Would you like to go through the room, getting from this door to that door? And let’s imagine that door is the ultimate door, the one we need to get out of. We must get out of that door for whatever reason. Would you like to go from this door to that door with the lights off or with the lights on?

I don’t know about you, but I’m a sensible, practical kind of girl and if I have to make a journey, I want to know the facts. I want to go with the lights on. I want to turn the lights on so that I can walk around the furniture, go under it, step over it, do whatever it takes to negotiate this scary passage through samsara. It makes no sense to close the eyes and not take in information and pretend, suppress the facts in order to go from one place to another, because you will surely fail. You will surely hurt yourself and have a very painful journey in the process.

So for this reason we must examine cyclic existence. We must examine the condition of sentient beings, and we must examine our own condition in order to truly turn our minds toward Dharma. Once we have seen the faults of cyclic existence and seen the good results of understanding, of growing in understanding, and the joyfulness of virtuous and moral and ethical conduct and compassion, we will develop the habit of wanting to know, of opening the mind, of having the mind be very much like a bowl, a very pure thing in which nectar can be poured. We will crave information. We will crave practice. We will literally crave turning on the light so that we can understand. If we do not crave now, if we wish to remain in ignorance and darkness because it is easier or because we like being drunk, it is simply because it is our habit to do so and that does not excuse us from the need to change.

Develop a new habit. You can see that that young person who partied down and worshipped the porcelain god every weekend morning, literally is watching their well-being go down. We on the outside can see that that needs to change, but that person, in the flux of their own ignorance, cannot see that that needs to change. So I am pointing these things out to you so that you can make new and acceptable decisions in your lifetime so that you can actually turn your mind toward Dharma.

Cultivating Compassion

March 30, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Why P’howa?”

It is not foreign to our nature, and it is also not separate from the goal that we wish to achieve by practicing in this way, for us to give rise to the great Bodhicitta, or the great compassion. The way that that is done on the Buddhist path is to consider that our own goals and the goals of sentient beings are indistinguishable, that they are nondual. That is to say that our goal to practice in order to achieve liberation, is inseparable from the goal of sentient beings. They also have the goal of practicing in order to achieve liberation. Not all of them know it, in the same way that some of you don’t know it either. You may think you know it, or you may know that you don’t know it, but many of you are still at the party, not growing out of the party, not grown up and looking back and saying “Oh, that won’t do me much good.”

You remember that situation that you found yourself in as you were growing up? When you were a young person you had a few knockdown drag out parties, didn’t you? I mean the kind where, at some point in your life, you probably got drunk. Nobody makes a sound, like “Drunk? What is that?” At some point in your life you probably were out of control, just party down, not thinking straight, doing things that were compulsive and obsessive and not appropriate and not healthy for you, not good for your well-being—unthinking, deluded things. This is something that we have all experienced, but particularly in the case of when we were younger, we would party hearty. And if you think about it, if any of you have done that, and I’m sure that one or two of you have, you may remember that once you’ve partied hearty, there was a period of regret afterwards, and that was primarily the next day. Of course the, how shall I say, the cure for that is, of course, prostrations to the porcelain god; and with all of that, one comes to understand that one is literally destroying oneself, that there is no hope for happiness from doing that to oneself. After doing that repeatedly, we tend to grow up after a while. We tend to be unwilling to put ourselves through that kind of stuff again.

So that happens to us spiritually too. We go through the same compulsive obsessive behavior with no good result. And at some point, either through our own good fortune, through our own gathering together of merit which causes literally a kind of smarts arising in the mind, or through the instruction of our teacher, we can begin to realize that what we are doing makes no sense. It simply makes no sense. It is destructive. It is painful, and it is not pleasant. So that is the stage in which we find ourselves turning our mind towards Dharma.

What we have to realize in order to give rise to the compassion, to the great Bodhicitta, is that this is true of all of us, not just you. If you have come to this realization, that it’s time to turn the mind towards Dharma, then what of those who have not yet come to that realization? They are still putting themselves through that. They are still acting in a destructive way that disintegrates their spiritual strength. They are acting in such a way that literally brings them suffering. What of them? Perhaps you have heard the good word, but what of them? Who will help them? And so we develop a sense of compassion.

This Very Moment

January 24, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

To begin to develop Aspirational Bodhicitta is to understand the faults of cyclic existence, to understand the cessation of cyclic existence, to understand something of the nature of awakening or at least to understand that that is the cessation of suffering; and then to begin to develop from these foundational thoughts a caring and concern for all parent sentient beings. Aspirational Bodhicitta can take the form of just thinking as you ordinarily think. In the same way that you think of what will I have for dinner tonight, or in the same way that you think of what you would like to wear, or the ordinary things that we think of that concern ourselves. in that same ordinary way, without any kind of high-falutin’ dogma, you can begin now to develop a sense of the need and plight of sentient beings. And you can begin to speak what is in your heart, because it is in there somewhere in the natural state—the hope that all sentient beings will be free of suffering.

Each of you has a seed potential of that hope. You could not approach a truly spiritual path; you could not approach the Buddha’s teaching. You would have no karma to hear anything of the Buddha’s teaching if you did not have the hope that all sentient beings would be free of suffering. Because in order to be involved in these auspicious conditions, in order to hear the Buddha’s teaching, in order to have the opportunity to practice and the inclination to do so, in order to even begin the idea of moving onto a path that leads to supreme enlightenment, you must have accumulated an enormous amount of virtuous karma in the past and to accumulate an enormous amount of virtuous karma, there had to be kindness. So you should not be afraid thinking that you have no compassion.

Some people tell me they have no compassion. That is completely erroneous. That is impossible. But you must begin to dust off that jewel. You must begin to consider these foundational teachings, and to begin in whatever way you are comfortable with, to amplify and systematically develop Bodhichitta, the Aspirational Bodhicitta. You can begin to make wishing prayers for other sentient beings. One of the reasons why we built the Stupa that we built outside was to have a place here in this area that would have the fortunate quality of being able to enhance our prayers. Because of the cosmology of the Stupa—the way in which it is built, the empowerment that goes into actually consecrating it, and the wonderful relics that are present in it—because of the blessings of the prayer, the blessings of the mantra, because of all of these things, the Stupa actually has the ability, with faith, to amplify our prayers. We are taught to circumambulate in a clockwise direction making wishing prayers for all sentient beings. You can begin to do that. You can begin to make wishing prayers on your own, at any time. You can just think wishing prayers as you walk about. You can begin right now to developAspirational Bodhicitta in the same way that you develop muscle. You have the muscle fiber. You only need to strengthen it through use. That discipline is essential.

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bodhicitta”

Letting Go of Judgment

January 6, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

We should begin to think of these teachings that the Buddha has given us in such a way that we awaken within ourselves a real caring for the well-being of sentient beings. If you saw a tiny rabbit caught in a trap, and its leg was bleeding and bruised, I know that you would open the trap and let the rabbit be free. If you saw a child that was really hungry, hopefully you would be not in the circumstance where you would make all kinds of judgments about that hunger, such as, if you looked at a bum who was drinking alcohol or something like that where your discursive mind got in the way. But if you just looked at a child, just a child, a helpless child, who was hungry; if you had food on your plate, I know that you would give some to that child. In this way, you should think of other sentient beings and begin to, through utilizing that kind of thought, understand their plight. It is most necessary to understand their plight, and through that begin to polish away the dirt and the filth that covers that precious jewel which is our inherent nature.

We should take a hold of ourselves in such a way that we do not feel separate from Bodhicitta as though it were a thing that we have to get, but instead begin to develop the understanding that ultimately it is the awakened state. Because of supreme awakening, we will understand fully the faults of cyclic existence. We will understand absolutely the awakening that is the cessation of all suffering and be naturally and completely motivated to bring about the end of suffering for all sentient beings, because at the same time, we will understand that the self that we cling to, the one that causes us to think only of selfish concern, this self is also illusory.

Having realized that, there is literally nothing to do other than to emanate in a form or to engage in miraculous activity that brings about the liberation of all sentient beings. So this activity is not something we do when we get kind. It isn’t something that we collect as though it were wisdom. It is the natural state of awakening.

Polishing the Diamond

January 2, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I have been aware that people in our age and people who are awakening to spirituality and meditation and these different philosophies have been exposed to the idea that we have lived only just a few times, whereas the Buddha teaches us that is not true. The Buddha teaches us that we have lived, we have revolved in cyclic existence over countless aeons. An aeon alone is a very long time. And countless aeons, that kind of terminology is inconceivable to us. In order to have revolved since beginningless time, in countless aeons of cyclic existence, we had to have parents every time unless we were born in a realm in which parents were not the way of birth. But whether we were animals or humans or some other form that we don’t recognize at this time, whether we were born in the form or formless realms, there is a great potential for all sentient beings to have been our parents endlessly. And the way in which to understand the kindness of all sentient beings, the way in which to understand their kindness to us so that we can begin to build Aspirational Bodhicitta, is to understand that at this moment we’re here. We are hearing the Buddha’s teaching and we are experiencing comfortable circumstances in which to practice. We have no defects of mind or body that would prevent us from practicing the Buddha’s teaching. We are capable and we are able and we have the leisure to accomplish practice. We have very auspicious circumstances.

To have come to this point, we must think of the kindness of all of the situations that have brought us to this point. We shouldn’t think that our parents had any capability to prevent us from coming to this point, because they haven’t prevented us from coming to this point. So we shouldn’t think of their cruelty. We should think of their kindness because somehow, having birthed us, they have given us this precious opportunity to accomplish enlightenment. This is true for all of the circumstances that we have ever experienced, all of the births that we have ever experienced. Having come to this point, we should be thankful and grateful and happy, filled with joy realizing that this auspicious moment has occurred at last. And like finding a precious jewel while sifting through garbage, here we are and we have found the Dharma.

So having experienced this joy, we can begin to understand that all sentient beings have been our kind mothers and fathers, and that we owe them a great debt. We can remember once again that cyclic existence is just that, it is cyclic and endless, and that they are struggling night and day working very hard to make themselves happy and have no way to do it. We should think again and again that they are lost. Although they have given us birth in such a way that we can accomplish Dharma, and that all of these many parents who have birthed us over these many lives in order to help us to create the causes by which we might meet with this perfect Dharma, that even while they have participated in that, they themselves have not done it. It reminds me of a form of animal that I read about. It’s actually an insect called the midge. It conceives its young within itself and the young, as they begin to grow, actually eat the inside of the mother; and consume the mother. By the time they are ready to come out, the mother is dead, and they simply break out of her body as though it were an egg. We should think of that, and we should think that perhaps all sentient beings have done that for us. If they remain in a condition of suffering and we have now found the perfect path by which to alleviate their suffering, then perhaps it’s time to begin to develop the kindness that will liberate them from their unbearable suffering and their continued involvement in cyclic existence.

So when we hear about this Aspirational Bodhicitta, we become confused as to how to think of it. Time and time again students have said to me, “What practice will help me develop Bodhicitta? Isn’t it true that once I begin to practice, I will develop Bodhicitta?” or, “How can I best develop Bodhicitta?” They talk about Bodhicitta or compassion as though it were something separate from themselves because we think of all phenomena, both internal and external, as separate from ourselves. That is part of the basic delusion of believing in self-nature as being inherently real. It seems to come with the package. Yet, we need to take a hold of ourselves and begin to understand that Aspirational Bodhicitta is potentially the way we are. It is not a reality separate from ourselves. It is not a mystery that we should approach in a linear way, perhaps in the way that we used to think of spiritual mastery. It used to be that, before we studied the Buddha’s teachings, we began to think of spiritual mastery as accumulating this wisdom and that wisdom and this wisdom and that wisdom and this wisdom and suddenly, you would become a great master. And that’s it. Now you’re a master. Well that isn’t really how the Buddha considers realization. The Buddha considers that you cannot collect wisdoms or knowledges and that they in a sum total will create mastery. The Buddha considers that true wisdom is the realization of the emptiness of all phenomena and the emptiness of self-nature, the illusory nature of phenomena, the illusory nature of self. This is the true wisdom, and it is not something that you can collect or gather.

In the same way, when Bodhicitta is fully realized, it is none other than the Primordial Wisdom state. It is none other than supreme awakening. Bodhicitta then, ultimately, when it is fully realized, is our own nature, and we should not treat it as though it were something separate from ourselves. We should not treat it as though it were a thing that we could collect by doing this practice or that practice. Instead, we should take a hold of ourselves and begin to uncover the diamond of Bodhichitta, the jewel of Bodhicitta. We should begin to uncover it by polishing away the delusion that occurs through the selfish concerns which are born of a lack of understanding of what awakening truly is.

The Problem With Desire

November 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from an exchange of tweets between Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and one of her followers:

Follower: “How can one beat desire?”

Jetsunma: “Study cause and result, and especially compassion for all. The desire is for everything and it keeps us suffering like a revolving door. No control over any result, bad.”

Follower: “So with desire there can’t be fulfillment?”

Jetsunma: “Exactly. An itch that cannot be scratched. Always returns. And by nature cannot be satisfied. Everything begins and ends.”

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The Practice That Results in Enlightenment

November 8, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The Practice that Results in Enlightenment

The kind of practice that we are talking about – that results in supreme enlightenment – is the continuous, natural, graceful effort – a happy, blissful, joyful continuous effort.

So we should always then be in the posture of the teachings. That means that you literally walk around with your heart like a bowl, your mind like a bowl and you are in the posture of a constant wish:

“Please Lord Guru

Change me into whatever form is necessary.

Change my mind – Change my heart – Purify my karma.

Please Lord Guru

The only thing that I request that you do is to not let me remain the same.

Please Lord Guru

Constantly pour the nectar of your Dharma into me.

Lord Guru,

Do not abandon me in samsara.

Do not leave me in the condition that I am now.

Change me utterly and completely to where I do not recognize

myself as an ordinary samsaric being any longer.

Think of the Guru like a mother bird. Constantly remain in the posture of beseeching the Guru for teachings.

The thing that you have been terrified of – the thing that you have guarded yourself against – is the very thing that you should be requesting constantly is that you should be transformed and changed according to the wishes of the Guru.

Do not let me be separate from your teachings even for a moment.

Have courage.

— Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

The Wish to Benefit Others

October 31, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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.