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What is a “Good Death”

July 25, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered during a Phowa retreat:

While there are individual experiences in the bardo of dying, let’s talk about the general ones so that we can prepare. Since we are talking about the six bardos, in general, we want to be very clear on the bardo of the moment of death, and that’s the last subject that we will cover today. It is a very, very important one, because we are all, in our way, preparing for death and we will all definitely experience death.

So, first of all, the bardo of the moment of death. We have talked about the point preceding death. Preceding death there is a period of time during which—and a person may or may not know—one has met with the conditions that will bring about the death. Now for those people who have a disease, a heart disease, or AIDS, or some disease that is degenerative or progressive in some way, the moment that the disease occurred to them was the moment that they entered into another bardo. Although it is still contained within the bardo of living, it is the bardo that preceeds death. What we’re talking about now is the actual bardo of the moment of death. That is when death is marked; it can be seen from the outside, and it actually occurs.

Before I begin I want to make something very clear. We have funny ideas about death. We have some terrible ideas about death. First of all, we’re scared to death of death. That’s the truth. I really didn’t mean to make a pun, it sort of happened that way. But we are scared of death, we are terrified of death, and it’s because we are unprepared. That’s the only reason to be afraid of death. And preparation, as it happens, will dispel the fears of death. I even think that during this week some of your fears of death may be dispelled, because you will be better prepared. But, in truth, until that time, we are terrified of death, and that is the main feeling we have about it. We do not understand death. We think that death is a horrible, sort of killing thing that we have to go through, and that the best way to go through it is unconscious. That’s the kind of idea we have. People often will actually pray, “Let me die in my sleep. Let me die unknowing that I’m going through the death experience.” And there are other people that say, “Let me die quickly.” Well, for my money, I would like to be one of the fortunate ones who know for some period of time before their death that they have caught the cause of their death or that they have the cause of their death. For my money, that’s what I wish would happen to me if I were an ordinary sentient being. If I were in that position where I was caught in samsara—and we all feel that way, we all are—I would wish to have preparation time. I would wish to know beforehand.

Those of us who are aging gradually and staying clear and in good health through the aging process, we are fortunate, because our minds are clear; and yet we can clearly see in the mirror that we are approaching this time. Clearly we are not the same person we were ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago. Clearly that is true. We have pictures to prove it. These people are fortunate. We are fortunate. Because seeing the evidence of death approaching, we have time to prepare. Yes, we have to experience the discomfort of knowing that death is approaching, but it’s like going into the room, turning on the light, and seeing exactly where the stuff is so you can get around it. Remember we used that analogy early today, of walking through a room with all kinds of furniture. You want to do it when the light is on; you want to know how not to stumble. So this is what we are experiencing if we can prepare for our death.

Particularly, think about the tremendous suffering of diseases like AIDS. We talk about the tremendous suffering of something like that; and the biggest and most horrible part of it is that we die younger than we would have died if we did not have the disease. And that’s how we think about it. And yet, a disease like that gives us an opportunity. In a way, it is half of a blessing. In a way, it is the quintessential suffering of cyclic existence, couldn’t be worse. It is, in a nutshell, what cyclic existence actually is when you take away the barbiturate effect that it has on us. Yet, in another way, it is a way to understand —you understand clearly as never before—that death is imminent. There is a way to understand that you could not have had any other way, and it gives us extraordinary time. It gives us an extraordinary clarity of time to be able to practice because we’re motivated. It’s just that clear. We are motivated. We know we have a date to keep. Those of us who don’t know what that date is, we’re a little more vague about this. We don’t want to be bothered, frankly, and so we are at a disadvantage.

Less lucky is the stuff that most people pray for: a quick death. Instantaneous. “Hit me with a truck.” That kind of thing. That’s how people think, “Get it over with. Get me out of here.” And it’s because they don’t understand what death is. They do not understand that once the eyes are closed and the breath has stopped, it sounds like a pun, but basically life goes on in one form or another. One continues to continue. That is the nature of what we are. And so there is no true cessation other than the cessation of breath. To die a quick death may save a little bit of discomfort for the unprepared, but it gives us no time for preparation. Even the dissolution of the elements occurs in an untimely and hurried way so that we cannot cope with them well. So do not pray for an instant death.

Neither should you pray to die in your sleep, because it is too confusing. You are already in the sleeping bardo. The sleeping bardo has a heavier level of delusion in a way than the waking bardo, because you literally are not slowed down by the time it takes physicality to process itself. For instance, if I want to walk from here to that door it’s going to take me a certain amount of time and effort because of the physicality of the situation; but in the dream, I’m there, I’m out, I’m gone. I can go anywhere. So in a way there is even more delusion there. You do not want to die in the middle of the dream state unless your practice is so good that you would recognize the bardo even in the dream state; and that can only be hoped for if you are the kind of person who has complete control and direction over your dreams. Always. And that ain’t you. So instead, pray for a time of knowing and a time of preparation. Pray for the leisure to prepare for your death. That is the appropriate and best prayer.

Hells?

December 11, 2018July 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

According to the Buddha’s teaching, there are six realms of cyclic existence, and I will begin with what is called the lowest of the realms. Now generally, when Westerners hear about the different realms, oh, we love the high realms. Those are our favorites. But the lower realms scare us a bit. Westerners don’t want to hear about the lower realms, because they are associated with something archaic that their mothers told them, or that their old preachers told them sometime in the past. Every world religion has a story about a result that will occur if one engages in a lifelong non-virtue, or even in temporary periods of non-virtue, every single world religion that has the kind of strength to have lasted through fads and trends and teachers that say they have it, and then they drop dead just like everybody else and there is no good result. Every world religion has a teaching about this result from non-virtuous behavior so for those of you that are uncomfortable about this, I’m sorry. Here’s what you need to do. Get out of it. Get out of cyclic existence. That’s the point. That’s why we’re having this teaching. If you don’t like the idea of the result of your non-virtue, don’t commit it. If you don’t like the idea of sinking to a lower realm or experiencing any of those lower realms, create the causes for not sinking to a lower realm. First let’s learn about the realms.

Again, we’re walking through a room with the lights turned on. You want the lights on so that you can get around it. The difference with the Buddha’s teaching is that we are taught a method to avoid this [experiencing a lower realm]. We are taught a method to purify the causes. There is method. There is long-term method that is geared for a certain result, like the ability to turn the light on.

Of the six realms, the realm that we will speak of first is the rebirth in the hell realm. There are many sentient beings that are now, even as we speak, revolving helplessly in the hell realms. I guess the Christian idea of hell is a place under the earth where things are burning. That is not the idea that we have here. The hell realms are varied. They are varied in their condition. There are, in fact, extremely hot hell realms and there are Dharma texts in our bookstore [that tell about them]. I don’t feel the need to go into that at any great length at this time because that isn’t technically what we are about at this time; I’m going into this in a condensed form, but there are the hot hell realms, and the hot hell realms are all results that are associated with the cause of hatred, extreme hatred, the kind of virulent hatred and attitudinal hatred that many people allow to remain in their mind.

A perfect example of that kind of hatred would be the Ku Klux Klan kind of mentality you see, or the Hitler kind of mentality, the kind of mentality in which hatred simply pours out of the pores. There is such a strong habitual tendency of hatred that simply is unconditional negative hatred instead of unconditional positive regard. It is habitual. It is constant. It is simply an outpouring of hatred. This is associated with the cause of truly torturing and hurting others. There have been many throughout time who have tortured and mutilated the bodies and lives of others in a horrible way that we, living middle America lives, really can’t imagine except through what we’ve read. There are, of course, other certain heinous sins that also result in the rebirth in the most difficult of the hells. Those heinous things are the murdering or killing of one’s mother and father, the murdering or killing or harming of one’s Guru, the murdering or killing or harming or drawing blood of a Bodhisattva. That is not to say that if you were taking a blood sample for the health of the Bodhisattva, … Well, people would not exactly be standing in line for that job would they! No, but that would not be intentional harm, like really harming a Bodhisattva, someone who could bring enlightenment to others. Harming or taking that one out of the world is considered to be a heinous crime because it actually literally changes the future of the world. It changes the world in a negative way. It prevents the world from moving forward in its evolution, in its continuum.

For extraordinary non-virtue, for those really extraordinary sins, there are the hell realms consisting of the extremely hot hell realms and the extremely cold hell realms. Characteristic of both the hot and cold hell realms is that there is no respite from the suffering. There is no respite from the suffering. Literally, when one takes rebirth in the cold realms, one will be reborn in inconceivable cold with no protective clothing. What will happen to oneself will be the experience of what we think would happen to ourselves if we were to be suddenly now naked in an extremely cold realm. That is to say, the skin would freeze, crack open. Things would happen strangely to our bodies and you would think that that would be the end of it. But in these very cold hell realms, until the non-virtuous karma is exhausted, one continues to reappear even after death from cold has occurred, and that is the same with the hot realms. Continuously apparent, there is no respite.

There are other forms. There are the individual hells; and I can tell you for a fact that I know, through my own perception, that this is true. I have seen this sort of thing and this is the kind of thing that people mistake as being ghosts. Often you go to a house and at a certain time of night you will hear footsteps or you’ll hear a door creaking or you’ll hear chains rattling, whatever it is that people hear, that sort of thing. Probably what has happened there, although not exclusively, but probably what has happened there is that there is a sentient being stuck in an individual hell realm. This is the hell realm that is individual to the person’s experience, whatever their expected experience is. It’s according to the content of the mindstream, their consciousness, their habitual tendency. Write that word down somewhere in your notes, or remember it—habitual tendency. That will come up again and again during the course of your practice as a Buddhist. Due to the force of their habitual tendency, they will remain and this kind of hell realm is the result of again, extreme non-virtue, but it is also a non-virtue that is mixed with ignorance and a determination to remain ignorant.

Think about that, because you have done this. Think about this now. The determination to remain ignorant is the one where you make a decision to go away from pursuing wisdom and pursuing your method, your path. And you just go, “It’s too hard. I don’t like this. It’s not easy for me, I don’t want it. Hard. And I’m just a little kid and I have to play some more.” When you do that, you are actually turning your mind away from Dharma and you are committing a very strong non-virtue. The other one is, “I don’t have to learn that. I know enough to get by. I’ll just read…, Who was that one that wrote about death and dying? A non-Buddhist. They wrote that you see a tunnel and you see a white light. Do you remember who that is? I’ll just read Ross’ book and I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll read it, if I have time, but I really like to read other books better.” And this kind of thing. You have this kind of idea.

Sometimes, I’ll see a person in class with ‘attitude’ written all over their heads, and have no idea why they’re here. Why did they come? I don’t know, but they have attitude written all over their head; and the attitude is actually like putting yourself in chains because you are absolutely setting up that you are not going to have a positive rebirth, that you can sit in the presence of what could possibly be your own root guru, or at least a guru, a teacher, and just simply turn your mind away. Literally, what you would be doing there is to make your mind like a bowl filled with poison so that the milk that pours in there is tainted, and then you are responsible for tainting the milk within your own mind. So that kind of thing is the kind of thing that leads to rebirth in the individual hells. That kind of ignorance. That is an ignorant move to make. It is born of ignorance.

The individual hells are very strange, very unusual. I can describe a couple that I know of personally. One good example would be of an individual who perceives themselves to be stuck in the opening and closing of the door. Of course this is all relative and it is all a deluded perception. This is the kind of person that perhaps would remain stagnant within the course of their lives, locked themselves in, did not grow, wouldn’t grow, would not challenge themselves to go the extra mile and be kind towards others, remained extremely self-absorbed. They literally shut their eyes during the course of life. Again, that sounds pretty mild in terms of a sin. You could commit worse sins, but we are talking about sins against one’s own nature and those are important. Those are very important. So this person would be stuck in the opening and closing of the door and would experience the door being closed on them and would experience the door being opened again. They would experience it as though their bodies were literally stuck in that, again and again.

I have also seen sentient beings that are literally stuck walking up and down a hall. That’s it, walking up and down a hall. They are stuck calling, calling, calling for someone. Literally they go through bardo—and this will make sense for those of you that have taken the teachings. They will go through the bardo state: They will go through the experience of the white Bodhicitta, the experience of the red Bodhicitta. They will go through the experience of the appearance of the Dharmadhatu that is experienced as blackness. They will go through the re-awakening of the perception of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. They will go through the reawakening of the perception of the wrathful deities. Then they will enter into the bardo of becoming, and in the bardo of becoming they will immediately experience rebirth. It will be very disconcerting because suddenly they will be walking up and down a hall, trying to reach the others that they were so attached to. Those of you that have very strong attachments on a human level, try to imagine what this would feel like. They will continually try to reach out for the others and they will sort of see them, but sort of not see them because they are not really there. Try to imagine seeking the safety of a loved one, and it changes all the time. You don’t understand. That’s the kind of experience of someone in an individual bardo. They experience walking up and down the hall, literally, almost seeing safety and then feeling all of the feelings that would go with doing that endlessly. So that is the kind of experience that one might experience if one were to engage in a non-virtuous life and not practice Dharma. And it happens.

Now what we’re talking about today, once again, is the antidote. The purpose of talking about the disease is so that we can explore the antidote. The antidote should not be taken without an understanding of the disease. These kinds of life forms will also be registered. From our point of view they will seem like repetitive ghosts doing the same kinds of things again and again and again.

There are many different kinds of hell. There are hells of entrapment. There are hells of destruction in which one is literally cut up and then reassembled and all kinds of things, and they go according to the level of non-virtue that one has committed. Compared to the amount of sentient beings that are now physical as humans, the amount of sentient beings locked in those hells is inconceivably more. We cannot understand how many more beings are locked there than are now approaching awakening on the physical human level listening to Dharma. We cannot imagine how many of those there are.

Sometimes as one finishes the karma that has brought them to a lower hell realm, they will then go on to a higher hell realm which is less uncomfortable. What we are talking about is a playing out the grosser and heavier non-virtue and then cleaning up the more subtle and more lightweight non-virtue. One may graduate from one experience in the hells to another.

You may think, “Well this is inconceivable to me. I can’t understand that. Being stuck in a doorjamb? No way. Hell no! Frozen? No. Hell no! Frozen, burned up? Come on, that stuff doesn’t sound realistic to me. I can’t believe in that.” Well, let me ask you if you’ve ever had a nightmare? Who has had a nightmare? Will you raise your hand if you have ever in your life had a nightmare. Just pretty much everybody. That means that your mind has the capacity to manufacture a hell. So for you to say that there is no such thing and you will never end up there, after you’ve had a nightmare, it goes to show that you’re not thinking. Because if you can manufacture a nightmare, that is not different from manufacturing a hell realm. It is the same thing. The seed, the content, the potential is within the mindstream and it is due to non-virtue. That’s what it is.

So you know that that’s possible. You have been there in a very small way. When you have a nightmare you literally are, in a subtle way, reborn from the bardo of dreaming into this bardo of experience, which is also part of the bardo of dreaming. You are kind of reborn from one subtle element, one subtle level, to another. And this is the very same thing that happens in a much grosser and denser level for that person who is unprepared for death, which fortunately is not going to be you. Right? Good.

The Point: Pith Teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

July 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

“Calling the Tsewei Lama from afar” does not mean asking for gifts and wishes fulfilled. It’s about devotion and faith. I mostly get requests for favors. Of course I will try to fulfill anyone’s wish. But Buddhists should also practice and learn so they can help themselves. That’s the point, as there may not always be a Lama to call on.

Daily Offerings

June 6, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Wisdom

May 29, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Compassion, Love, & Wisdom by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

We are going to talk about something that is very core to the Buddha’s teaching and that you will hear about again and again as you continue to practice on the Buddha’s path. This subject is compassion. It is about love and the primordial wisdom state or true nature, and how these things relate and come together in a meaningful way. We think wisdom is a thing that can be accumulated in the same way that we accumulate clothing or jewelry or cars, and we think that the way to accomplish wisdom is to keep on learning more and more. We think wisdom is a series of facts or items that we can learn and list. But wisdom is something quite different in Buddhist philosophy.

Wisdom is less like something that you can accumulate; it is more like the realization of what is pure and natural, what underlies the phenomena that we create and the conceptual proliferation that is the mindstream we experience. Wisdom is the realization of the emptiness of self-nature and the emptiness of all phenomena. Thus the popular idea that we as Westerners have of accumulating wisdom is incorrect, according to the Buddha’s view. We tend to think we will continue in a progressive way, always increasing our knowledge, always increasing our wisdom and always increasing our ability. According to the Buddha that is not correct. In fact the opposite is actually true.

In a sense you could say that true wisdom is the less and less you know if you think of knowing as based on some concept or idea. The less ideation that one experiences the closer one is to the primordial wisdom state, the closer one is to the relaxation of one’s mind. That is wisdom. We think we will necessarily become wiser as we grow older, or that we will necessarily become more knowledgeable as we gain more education. That is not necessarily the case according to the Buddha. The things we accumulate as we grow older aren’t wisdom at all, they are ideas. They are conclusions; they are conceptualizations, such as the idea that as you grew older you learned to be more optimistic. Whatever your idea is, whether it is concrete or abstract, so long as it is conceptualization, so long as it is ideation, so long as it is experienced as a concept that one forms and seems to contain itself, it is not the traditional view of wisdom. That is considered knowledge and knowledge is something you can learn. Even on the Buddha’s path there is tremendous value in accomplishing the scholastic knowing of the Buddha’s teaching. That kind of knowledge is important and it is one of the components of wisdom, especially if that knowledge is used to accomplish the realization of the primordial wisdom state. For example, let’s say you learn all of the philosophy of the Buddha’s path and then you learn the technology, learn how to accomplish sadhana practice and how to do puja. You learn how to practice Tsalung and you go on to all of the most profound teachings that Vajrayana Buddhism has to offer. If you learn all about those different things and you are very skilled at them, and you go on to practice them, then the knowledge that you gained becomes part of the process of gaining wisdom or of realizing the natural state. You use the skills you have accumulated through gaining knowledge in order to accomplish wisdom. The difference is necessary to understand.

On the Mahayana path the accumulation of knowledge and the realization of the primordial wisdom state, or the realization of the natural state, are components that are interdependent. It is unlikely that you will simply be able to sit down knowing nothing about meditation and accomplish the realization of the primordial wisdom state. It is essential to get from the teacher what is necessary – the skills. It is necessary to get from the Buddha the milk, the nurturing of his direction and his teaching so that we can accomplish the Dharma. But true wisdom is understood not as something that one can collect, but as the realization of the natural state. That is the goal of the Buddha’s teaching.

The Eight Auspicious Symbols

May 6, 2016 by Holly

The Eight Auspicious Symbols represent the Eight Qualities of the Buddha. Here is a brief explanation of how each quality is symbolized.

Excellent Lotus Flower:

The purity of the Buddha’s mind

Golden Wheel of the Dharma

The Buddha’s unending activity of training beings in the path of liberation

Great Victory Banner

The Buddha having conquered all negativity and limitations

Inexhaustible Treasure Vase

The inconceivable blessing of the Buddha’s presence

Precious Parasol/Umbrella

The universal respect, which beings feel for the Buddha

Precious Right-turning Conch

The all-pervading call of the Buddha’s teachings

Two Goldfish

The Buddha’s eyes and, therefore, his perfect wisdom and also a symbol of royalty

Glorious Knot

The tremendous love and compassion of the Buddha and the never-ending continuity of the teachings, also longevity, the eternal nature of things and the interrelatedness of wisdom and compassion

Ten Virtues and Ten Non-Virtues

April 8, 2016 by Holly

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

“From attachment, hatred and delusion, non-virtuous karma is generated. All suffering arises from non-virtuous karma.”

Ten Non-Virtues

Killing
Stealing
Sexual Misconduct
Lying
Harsh words
Slander
Gossip
Coveting
Cruelty
Wrong View

Ten Virtues

Renounce killing; protect the lives of others
Renounce taking what is not given
Practice generosity
Give up sexual misconduct; practice discipline
Tell the truth
Abandon harsh words; speak pleasantly
Give up sowing discord; reconcile disputes
Put an end to useless chatter and recite prayers
Renounce covetousness; rejoice in the good fortune of others
Give up wishing harm to others; cultivate the desire to help them
Put an end to wrong views; establish in yourself the true authentic view

Ten Virtuous Activities

Composition
Offering
Generosity
Attentiveness
Recitation
Memorization
Teaching
Praying
Contemplation
Meditation

Meditation Instruction: Tonglen

March 21, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I would like to show you one more technique that you can use. This is a very common technique. It’s a sending and receiving, but with a slight variation.

The first time that I met His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, this was the first thing he told me to do. His Holiness asked me, “Do you wish there to be no more suffering?”

“Of course! Of course, this is my only wish.”

Then he said, “As a Bodhisattva, will you take on the suffering of others, if you have the opportunity?”

I said, “Of course!”

And then he said, “Do you think if you do, that it will harm you?”

I said, “No, of course not. How can love harm somebody? That’s ridiculous!”

And he said, “Well, I’ll tell you, when you have faith in the Three Precious Jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and you align yourself with the great purpose of the Bodhisattvas, then you have nothing to fear.” And he said, “In that case, let me teach you how to practice.” He said, “Every breath that you take, every moment that you walk around, your breath is a cycle of OM, AH, HUNG.”

OM. We take in the suffering, no matter what it is, of all sentient beings, no matter who they are. We breathe it in. OM.

AH —is the space between the inhale and the exhale. AH is an immediate meditation on non-duality with the Three Precious Jewels, an immediate meditation on the nature as it is—inseparable, indivisible, free of concept. So there’s that meditation. AH.

And then, HUNG. Breathe out all of the virtue and merit that you and all practitioners have accomplished in the past, in the present and in the future. (This is like a spiritual credit card deal. You get to borrow on what you hope you’re going to do later).

So it’s OM, I take in the suffering of all sentient beings. I’m not separate. AH, I rely on the Three Precious Jewels. I am inseparable from the Three Precious Jewels. I rely on the strength of the Three Precious Jewels. And I am that. HUNG, I offer all of my virtue and merit, all the good I have ever accomplished in the past, present, and future, for the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings, every breath.

To walk past poor people, different colored people, people of different religions, and breathe in their suffering, breathe it in, really breathe it in. Hold your place, hold the line. Hold your place as a representative of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas on this earth with confidence, vajra courage. Then breathe out to them all of the virtue and merit that you have accomplished in the three times. Every breath of your life. It’s very, very hard to do at first because you get a little obsessive. OM-AH-HUNG, OM-AH-HUNG. People that have practiced watching the breath realize that once you start watching the breath, the breath starts acting weird. But little by little, you practice and you get through that. It becomes a very natural, sincere and very deep intention. Freely, I take on. Spontaneously, I abide naturally. Freely, I offer what I have. In a way, you become like a circle, inseparable from all that is, inseparable from others. You have the sense, eventually, of breathing for them, of inhaling and exhaling for them, of carrying them, of being completely inseparable from them. In that meditation, you find yourself just singing, ‘I love you.’. Is it okay for a Buddhist to say something, oh I don’t know, gushy? Yes it is. Because although the Buddha used different words, like compassion, in the west we are more familiar with the word ‘love.’ And so, to hold ‘all that is’ within you and from that place of mystical awareness, instead of painting a picture, ‘I love you,’or an affirmation, ‘I love you,’ to know from the depth of your being, ’I love you,’ it will change your life. And it will change our community if we begin to practice in that way.

Here we are asking for recognition. Not just saying the words. Not just doing the practice. But recognition. This is a different step. If we are going to be potent in our spiritual lives, and if Buddhism is going to be a potent force in this world, that’s where it has to start. And the great thing about spiritual practice is that there is no time better to start it than right this minute. I’d like to invite you to participate in that.

Now you know my everlasting practice. This is what I do all the time, because my teacher told me to, and I wish to repay his kindness. So I’m doing that all the time. I also find that when I meditate in a mystical way, and experience, accept and awaken to the inseparability and non-duality of all that lives—the sameness, the equality of all that lives—I’m always inspired, because there’s nothing else but to offer all that I have—my feet, my legs, my torso, my arms, my neck, my head, everything—for the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings. This is how to be moved by your practice, to be deep in your practice. This is why you’re wearing the robes, because you are ministers. It’s hard for us to understand because of the cultural change, but you are ministers. Make circumambulation around the Stupa. Pray to Guru Rinpoche as sincerely as you can that this pact that you have made is sealed. Pray that you will accomplish this. Pray that you will be a spiritual voice in a world that is longing to hear such a voice.

Inescapable Cause and Effect: The Importance of Buddhist Teaching

March 20, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Inescapable Cause and Effect”

Each of us has really difficult karma, tremendous obstacles, and each of us also has the karma for tremendous bliss. We cannot ripen them all in one lifetime. However, when one leaves this lifetime it is up for grabs what ripens in the next incarnation; and there are many factors that are a catalyst for the ripening in the next incarnation. Some of them are the condition under which you die; the thoughts that are in your mind as you die; the mind state that you have as you die; the ability to be able to negotiate the consciousness after the death state; the ability to remain aware, to not faint, to remain aware and with it during the after-death state, which almost no one has. The desire that you have experienced in this lifetime will act as a catalyst to ripen the events for the next lifetime. Everything that you have done in this lifetime will act as a catalyst to ripen the events for the next lifetime and in all future lifetimes. So according to the Buddha’s teachings, it is not necessarily a linear progression in that it is not possible to account for all the ripening karma in the course of one lifetime, and even in the course of the next lifetime and the next lifetime.

So you can actually be reborn under any circumstances. This is one of the main faults of cyclic existence. Even though we have a circumstance here that seems relatively bearable in that we are not very hungry, we are not very ugly, we are not very sick, and we are okay, still we will experience death in order to take rebirth at another time. Not knowing what the conditions of that rebirth will be can be considered an unbearable circumstance. I want to know where I am going. I find it unbearable to think that I wouldn’t know where my next incarnation would be: To not have the option to prepare for the next incarnation; to not be able to know that I would not be reborn in some other life form that is offensive to me or that is ugly to me or is not at all pleasing to me; or to be reborn as a human being where I would experience intense suffering. These things I find not bearable. So if we understand that cyclic existence is structured in that way, or seems to occur in that way, we might find that even the idea that we might take rebirth becomes something that we can use as a motivation to practice.

The thing about cyclic existence is that it is unpredictable. You must know this by now; and this should give you a clue as to how we hide these things from ourselves. But I know that you know this by now because all of you have had experiences, I have certainly, where, , things will be going along just fine in a way that looks like everything is under control and it looks as though you have what you need. You have the relationships that you need, the money that you need; you are doing okay. It looks like things are progressing nicely. And then suddenly something will hit you right out of the blue, whether it is a terrible mood or whether it is a circumstance or whether it is a death, somebody that you know, or a loss of some kind, some experience that will seem as though it came from nowhere. And if only this hadn’t happened everything would be just fine. We have at least a million of, ‘Oh, if this only hadn’t happened,’ in our lives and we don’t see where they come from. And so cyclic existence is extremely unpredictable and there are always things that can ripen in an instant way and bring about change that is unbearable to us.

Another fault of cyclic existence is that there is nothing in cyclic existence that brings about the end of cyclic existence. That is hard to understand. And if you examine it yourself, you will find that you think that if you just keep playing along with it eventually it will work itself out. We think that if we just kind of live through our lives it will just sort of guide its way through or naturally flow in such a way that we will reach a threshold of wisdom, and suddenly all of our problems will be solved. This is Western thought. This is what we are brought up to believe. We are taught, however, by the Buddha, who has experienced both cyclic existence and also the awakening called supreme enlightenment, that this is not true. There is nothing inherent in cyclic existence that will bring about its end. Cyclic existence is simply that, cyclic.

In cyclic existence there are the root causes such as the belief in self nature as being inherently real and the clinging to ego that bring the perception of self and other and the constant compulsion to reinforce the perception of self and other, that bring about desire. And desire is the root cause of all suffering. But from those root causes are begun the next level of root causes which are hatred, greed and ignorance. And hatred, greed and ignorance, we constantly experience to some degree or another. We constantly need to reinforce ourselves by putting down someone else or experiencing a negative feeling toward someone else. We need to judge something in some way in order to understand our own nature. We constantly have the experience of not realizing the profound nature of enlightenment or the nature of primordial wisdom, and that we call ignorance. We constantly experience greed and we constantly need to define ourselves by what we have. We constantly need that and from these points come the other forms that continue cause and effect relationships, continually experiencing one cause begetting an effect, begetting another cause and begetting an effect. We experience that constantly and consistently. According to the Buddha’s teaching, whenever we experience a moment of hatred or whenever we experience a moment of anger…. Anger. Who among you has not experienced anger? How many times a day? According to the Buddha’s teaching, even when we experience even a moment of anger it has within it the potential for worlds of karmic interaction.

One cause continually creates, always and always. There is never any exception. Cause will create effect. There is no cause that does not create effect; and effect will actually act as another cause. If someone, for instance, strikes you, that must have a cause. You may not know what the cause for that is, but it didn’t just happen. It has a cause. And if you get angry when that person strikes you, then that continues and that is an effect from the striking, but it is also another cause and it will begin new circumstances. This relationship of cause and effect constantly perpetuating itself is called interdependent origination. It is such an interdependence it is almost like the weaving of a fabric; and cyclic existence is actually made of this fabric that is woven together, a constant cause and effect. There is no circumstance within cyclic existence that brings about the end of cyclic existence.

The exception to that—it isn’t really an exception—is that within cyclic existence one can begin to strive to purify the mind. One can begin to strive to practice in such a way that one’s own pure nature is realized. One can begin, very importantly, to accomplish compassionate activity to purify the mind through kindness, to begin to experience loving kindness and compassion. And through that, cause and effect will happen so that one can meet a pure path; and a pure path is the means by which one can exit cyclic existence. There is nothing within cyclic existence itself that will naturally begin the end of cyclic existence, that will actually bring about the end of cyclic existence. But in fact one can actually begin to purify the mind in such a way that you can meet with a pure path. And the pure path is actually considered an emanation, the miraculous intention of the Buddha, or the mind of enlightenment. It intersects with cyclic existence in such a way that one can practice this pure path, and having practiced this pure path can thereby exit cyclic existence and accomplish enlightenment.

The Foundation of Compassion

February 2, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

You have to understand the faults of cyclic existence in order to practice the ultimate bodhicitta. One must truly come to understand and be able to make the commitment that there is a cessation to suffering, but it is not found in revolving endlessly in cyclic existence. It is found in achieving enlightenment. In the state of enlightenment, having abandoned the faults of cyclic existence, the hatred, greed and ignorance and all of those qualities that produce the suffering of cyclic existence, one has effectively ended their involvement with cyclic existence and can come back by choice as a returner in order to be of benefit to others. This is the ultimate bodhicitta, the ultimate kindness.

I think about my teachers and I cannot believe their kindness. . For instance, when I was recognized as a reincarnate lama,people asked me how I felt about my own recognition.

I said to them, “There are days when I’m not too thrilled with it. To tell you the truth, I wish it could have some other way. It is not what it is cracked up to be.” When I think about my recognition, I think about one thing that amazes me. I think about my guru. How in the world did he pull the strings to make it happen? I had never heard of him before. He comes from the other side of the world, from India, into my living room and recognizes me. How did he find me? How did he do that? What kind of compassion would make that possible?

The story that I hear is that when he was a little boy and a young lama engaging in certain practices in the temple in Tibet, he actually said prayers that he could find this incarnation because he witnessed one of the relics from the predecessor of this incarnation. Just due to that prayer because he has such enlightenment, this amazing thing happened. How could I have met him? How could that have happened? It’s a miracle. I think about the kindness of such an effort as that. I think of this incredible kindness to be of such a mind that can do something in such an effortless way and have it benefit sentient beings. What practice he must have engaged in! How pure that mind must be! How amazing that he would go through the trouble—ultimate compassion, incredible, ultimate compassion. Unbelievable. He is the only one that could have done that, and he didn’t fault on that responsibility. He did that. That is what I think about that recognition: It is proof of his kindness. Only with the mind of enlightenment can we affect cyclic existence in such a way as to produce enlightenment for others. That is the kind of kindness that I wish to emulate. I wish to throw myself into that. I hope that you do. I hope that you can see the value of that.

This doesn’t mean that you have to wear robes or hole yourself up in a cave somewhere. You practice as you can, the best way that you can. Just give it your best shot. But in order to make your decision you must first understand the faults of cyclic existence. You must understand how cyclic existence develops. And you must understand what the end of suffering actually is and the meaning of ultimate bodhicitta. It means the end of all of it. It means the end of all the cause and effect relationships that create this phenomena.