Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Test

February 12, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Dharma of Technology by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

You should come to respect the root of Dharma, which is bodhicitta or compassion, as the most profound teaching at whatever level you are practicing. You should come to understand that if you accomplish only that, then you have a right to wear your robes and you have a right to call yourself a Buddhist. But it is by far the most difficult of all of the vows. You have to think about compassion like this.

If you can pass this test, then you have accomplished Dharma, even if you don’t know how to do a single mudra or ring a bell, even if you don’t have any arms or legs to do it. Here is the test. Ask yourself, “If Lord Buddha Amitabha came to me right now, giving me an opportunity and saying, ‘I’m going to make you a deal. You could take on all the suffering of all the six realms, every bit of suffering that every sentient being carries, meaning that you have to take on and absorb all the causes of their suffering – hatred, greed and ignorance, desire. I can give you that, and you could take all of that onto yourself and absorb it completely so that you will suffer endlessly in the most extreme, horrible way until time has run out and in doing that there would be no more suffering in the six realms.’” Would you do it?

When you hear me say this, you are going to say yes. You get carried away with emotions. But if Lord Buddha Amitabha really appeared to you, red and sitting on his lotus, and he really said that to you and he showed you the condensed suffering of all the six realms and you knew that the six realms of cyclic existence appear to be like an endless ocean, and have been going on for uncountable eons, then if you had to accept all that suffering onto yourself, knowing that your mind had to change from the nice thing that you think it is now into a monster filled with hatred, greed and ignorance from all the six realms, but in doing that all of the six realms would be emptied, would you do it? If you were shown this horrible poison of suffering, this cauldron, this endless sea of suffering and Lord Buddha said to you, “Eat it for their sake and become for an uncountable amount of eons a horrible thing suffering in agony for their sake.” Would you do it? Would you open your mouth and start eating? More than that, would you be happy about it? Would you be able to do that?

You should try it sometime. You should test yourself in that way by really thinking that it is possible. Would you take on every bit of the suffering? Would you become so grossly misshapen and ugly because of the grossness of all of that suffering? Would you become so unrecognizable to what you are now? Would you be willing to do that, knowing that as a result there would be nothing in the six realms of cyclic existence except for you? There would be nothing. There would be no more suffering. The karma of all of those minds, uncountable minds would be purified so that they were free of desire, free of all karma. Would you bite the big one?

If you think that you would do that, then you know less about yourself than you think. But to accomplish Dharma you have to get to that point where you would gladly, joyfully, willingly start to eat an ocean of suffering for their sake.

Taras Babies Animal Welfare

February 10, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The Guru in Vajrayana

February 9, 2011February 9, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

In Buddhism there are many levels of study and practice. And I speak, here, generally; in a way digestible to a general audience without much specific training in Buddhism.

For instance, in Vajrayana alone there are many levels. Preliminary, Ngondro, is like boot camp where gross defilements are pacified. Intermediate practice, mostly (but not all) consists of generating the Meditational Deity in order to develop enlightened qualities. Next is Dzogchen which also has many levels and leads to direct experience, leads to awakening (if one practices well with diligence.) And even with all this one still has the responsibility of purifying the five main poisons.

As I said, there are three main levels amongst the many methods the Buddha taught. Some during his life, others came with the great Guru Padmasambava and later the tertons he passed his treasures to. And there are many great realized masters that followed the great Guru. The other main levels are Theravaden, and Mahayana.

In Theravaden the main focus is on the Vinaya precepts, the rules by which the ordained community abide by. Even lay people have precepts to fulfill. The main focus is purification.

Then there is Mahayana, where the Bodhisattva Vow is the main vow. It does not abandon the Vinaya, but builds on it and in so doing changes focus. In strict Vinaya a monk must never touch a woman. In Mahayana the focus is Bodhisattva Vow (compassion) and here is an example:

A monk sees a woman lying by the road injured and in great distress. A Mahayana monk must help her out of compassion, and to do so he must touch her. His duty is to help.

Next Vajrayana, the seat of Dzogchen and pure view goes even further and not only includes Mahayana’s great Compassion, but also includes Vinaya, while developing in a deeper and quite profound Way. In Vajrayana the main focus, is the Lama (Guru) as representing the Three Precious Jewels, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Lama is the main focus and we rely on the enlightened intention and wisdom and pure qualities of the teacher to give direct indication and mind to mind transmission. This is so to the degree that if the Lama, say, acts wrathfully toward the student, the student must never let anger and rage enter their minds. Why? Because it is the Guru Yoga discipline that ripens the mind, and opens the door to Liberation. The student mixes their mind with the Guru’s mind like milk with water. With faith, a blessed transference occurs. And devotion becomes a method like none other, especially in these degenerate times. Vajrayana is considered the one method to deliver realization in one life. This is accomplished through the accomplishment of one’s root Guru and faith.

Once I had a disciple with profound Guru devotion. She went to New York retreat to study with great Palyul Tulkus, she was simple in her practice, yet very diligent. When she passed I performed the Phowa and there were signs. Her body was kept for one week because she offered her skin to others. After a week she was brought to the funeral home to be cremated. First she was dressed in all her sacred robes, then flowers and incense offered for her pure life of loving service. The workers there said, and the four nuns I sent, were amazed that even before Ani was adorned her body was fragrant and fresh. Even though she had open wounds in her skin. Her complexion was pink, fresh and luminous.

His Holiness Karma Kuchen saw the pictures and declared this a miraculous event and she had accomplished this precious human rebirth. EH MA HO! This was a result of her practice and devotion. Her name was the Venerable Ani Thupten Palchen. And now, she is free! May she return quickly for the sake of all sentient beings! EH MA HO!

I am also reminded of how pleased His Holiness Karma Kuchen was, saying this was proof that westerners could attain in this life!

OM BENZAR SATO HUNG!

Stop the Madness

February 8, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In order to pacify the karma of our mind, we need to employ the methods of Dharma. These methods consist of generating oneself in a pure form, free of attachment and desire, meditating on the nature of emptiness, contemplating the nature of emptiness, engaging in compassionate and pure activity in order to pacify the karma of our minds. We engage in all of these things. These are the means by which eventually, over a period of time, the karma of our mind will change. It will change. How quickly it changes is up to you. No one can predict that. It really depends on you. It depends on how diligently and deeply you practice, how clear you are about what you want, how deep you can allow your understanding to go, and how much you put into it. There is no law or force outside of you that pushes you to have progress at a certain level or in a certain way. It is purely up to you.

The experience that we have, however, and the habitual tendencies we have are so strong, that even hearing this is a little bit like riding a Ferris wheel. When you ride to the top of a Ferris wheel you can look down at the whole world. You can see the horizon, you can see the lights, you can see the buildings and you can see people, and you go, “Oh, it looks like that, does it?” Then the Ferris wheel comes down and you get off and you’re on that ground level. You are in it, walking the streets. You forget that there is a horizon. You forget that there are millions and millions of sentient beings per square block. You don’t have any view so we continue with that habitual compulsive tendency to act and react in the ways that we do.

These teachings sound disturbing and they should be disturbing for people that have no access to dharma. Within that circular, compulsive, experiential procedure there is no end to it. One cannot do something that will end the phenomena because the more you do the more you interact between self and other. The more you interact between self and other, the more that you try to accomplish, the more effortful your efforts are, the more engaged you are in cause and effect relationship. The more cause and effect relationships you engage in, the more karma continues, the more exaggeration continues. The process does nothing but give birth to itself. There’s no end to it.

For those who have the opportunity to practice the path that is brought about, not through ordinary means of cause and effect, not through using ordinary techniques of manipulating phenomena and increasing exaggeration, but rather by using techniques that are birthed from primordial wisdom and that bring about the pacification and the end of cause and effect relationships, you should thank Buddha because there is an end to suffering. Having seen the impenetrability of this tight constant delusion, having seen how it simply gives birth to itself and does more and more and more, having understood this, you should look at the path that comes from the primordial wisdom state and that offers the necessary technology to bring about the end of cause and effect relationships, and feel tremendously relieved. It is like you have been sifting through garbage for many lifetimes, and suddenly you have come upon a precious jewel. Suddenly you have found the wish-fulfilling jewel. With that you should develop some sense of determination.

That determination can be a very illusory thing. I’m talking about really understanding for yourself, not just hearing my words, but taking the time to contemplate and understand how useless it is to combat this thing you’re in with the ways that you do. To really contemplate on how useless your actions are to end something that can’t be ended. To really contemplate in such a way that you look at the way you’re manipulating phenomena and see that it’s nothing. You might as well do nothing. In fact, you’re getting yourself in deeper and deeper.

Contemplate that in such a way that you become armed with a foundational view or foundational understanding that says to you that this stuff is stupid. It’s not only stupid, it’s deadly, it’s horrible and there’s no way out of it. To be involved in cyclic existence is horrible beyond belief. Be determined to examine the nature of your mind. Watch yourself as you engage in it, and from that point, use these techniques to begin to pacify the causes of the experience that you’re having, which is karma.

That determination is the kind of determination that doesn’t make you practice a little bit more for a few days and then waste away again. It’s the kind of determination, for instance, as a monk or a nun that would make you say, “Look at these robes, I will never abandon them. How precious that I have found the supreme vehicle.” Even if men or women came dancing naked through the room and they were all gorgeous, it wouldn’t affect you at all. You wouldn’t need the world to hide itself so that you could maintain your vows. You would have that kind of renunciation. You would understand and even if the most delightful sensual experiences were to present themselves to you, they would be nothing to you. What is it? It’s nothing. It’s garbage. It begets more of the same. You can’t have anything without losing it.

For those of us who are renunciates in different ways, you should have the same experience. You should look at whatever experience you have in your life and know that it can’t dupe you anymore. It’s not that you won’t achieve, it’s not that you won’t have money; it’s not that you won’t have the experiences that people have but it just won’t dupe you anymore. You can get married, you can have money, it doesn’t matter what you do, but it won’t dupe you anymore because you know what it’s about.

Having this sense of renunciation, you develop a kind of unshakeable discipline. It’s not the discipline that means I should do so many mantras per day. This discipline should go even deeper than that. You should be practicing constantly. You should be constantly developing some space in the middle of that hard core perception of self and other. You should be developing some space in the middle of all your reactions. Develop the spaciousness and the relaxation that is based on understanding what’s what, and then develop it through your practice. Please refer back to the teaching on Monday night. I hope that all of you will try to hear that teaching again. The constant revelation in every piece of phenomena is the heart of emptiness. That is its taste.

Me, You and Karma

February 7, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, July 19, 1989

Every single kind of perception that we have, no matter what it is, is based on the false presupposition that self is inherently real. The belief in self as being inherently real, absolutely lays out that other is inherently real. Once that idea of self has been borne and is fixed, you must develop walls of ideation and conceptualization to surround it and maintain it. You must constantly separate other. In order to separate other, you must continue to determine how other and self interact. That’s the basic process. Having done that since time out of mind, you are involved in cause and effect relationships complete with lots of exaggeration. The residue and reality of that is experienced as karma.

Karma is nothing other than cause and effect. That’s all it is. It’s not somebody up there making check marks in a book. It’s simply cause and effect. It’s as simple to understand as a leaf falling from a tree. There are irrefutable laws of cause and effect.

The experience that we have is based on this karma, which has been based on a long-term relationship with cause and effect, which is based on the underlying belief in self-nature as being inherently real. Why then, hearing this, can’t we just stop? Why can’t we just stop reacting? Why can’t we just stop judging things? Why can’t we do this?

We can’t stop because we are no longer in a position where we are truly cognizant of the choice between self-nature being inherently real or not. It is now automatically so. It is now so rigid that survival has become a big deal. You believe that this is what you are. You must continue that continuum that you think is survival because you do not know that there is anything without the continuation of self-nature. It is so far buried, it is such a primal experience, it is so beneath reason, so much deeper than reason, due to the constant building up of cause and effect relationships, of karmic relationships and the constant exaggeration that has occurred since time out of mind, from the first perception that implied self.

Upholding the Dharma by Abandoning Gossip

February 5, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I am still being asked why I won’t comment on His Holiness the Karmapa’s situation given how Palyul and I were dragged through the filth of slander and lies. Given this was done as well to my Guru His Holiness Kyabje Penor Rinpoche, you all know I’m sure, the answer, again, is I hold myself to higher standards. My Guru taught me better. I have no wish to see any Vajrayana Lineage sullied; no wish to harm the Buddha Dharma in any way. The Dharma is far too noble and needed in the world.

Every level, teaching, given to us by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is beyond reproach because it came from the Buddha’s mind and enlightened intention. For an ordinary person to “comment” (which shows the ignorance of their minds) would be slapstick funny if it weren’t so tragic to the Dharma. What intention is that? The intention to feel worthwhile by stepping on Lamas and Buddhism in general? No, not me. This gossip and self cherishing is to be abandoned. Those that want to know what I think will then truck their little behinds somewhere else and ask “that” Lama for opinion. And will shop around until they like what they hear, even if they have to go to the sewers to get it. They will of course find what they want. There will always be ego-maniacs that will prostitute themselves for attention, to make a mark in the world, even if it is fingerprinting with shit on the Dharma.

Not me. I am here to bring truth, purity, view, wisdom and kindness. Not cruelty. Not lies. Not slander. Yes, I feel that I am above it. This kind of darkness brings religious hatred and wars. I will do everything within my rightful authority to prevent this at the cost of my very life. I would never do to another what was done to me and mine. I will never sink so low. I believe in ethics, respect, dignity and character. I would never slime anyone else’s Guru, as I know that the “Words of My Perfect Teacher” are spoken for all. Just as yours may speak perfectly for you, I will not dirty my nature nor stain my pure Lineage or the perfection of my Guru by kicking dirt on someone else. It would only harm others, and I would then be a whore.

None of my students can gossip or they have broken their samaya with me and with Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. Don’t do it. Don’t spoil the pristine quality of the Buddha’s; of Guru Rinpoche’s extraordinary and powerful gift to all beings.

OM BENZAR SATO HUNG!

Care for Your Mother Earth

February 5, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I hope we can all continue to pray for our planet, sorely needed. Earth is not just the dirt we walk, extract and build on. It lives, and is the only home we and other species have. To beat your Mother senseless and then expect her to get up and you’re your dinner- how would that work? Especially as it keeps happening. Eventually the Mother dies, or becomes too sick to function. We cannot allow that; the result is unthinkable. Love and pray for Earth. And go green!

OM MANI PEDME HUNG!

Try Me

February 5, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Try me, try me

If you need a friend

I will be there for you

Till the end, when you need me

Try me, try me

Let me show you

How deep it can be with love

You can count on me

To stay by your side

Through thick and thin

Try me, try me, try me

What you need

Is easy to see

You seem lonely like me

Maybe ready to see

If you need a friend, some love

Oh, won’t you please try me

(Repeats)

Fight Might with Right: Video Teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

December 16, 2011February 4, 2011 by anisonam

Fight Might With Right: Video Teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Building Bridges

February 3, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I would like to mention my students calling me this or that holy title. I am used to Jetsunma, have had that for several lifetimes. But I am not puffed up. And not interested in “moving up.” I am also not looking for approval, or ego “hits.”

I love “love” though. I want to speak as western people do. That is my way and why I was born in Brooklyn and recognized at 38 years old. I’m supposed to be familiar, and western. That is why I am here, to make a bridge. True, many dharma people do think the intellectual approach is the only way. I feel if the essence, the nectar of Dharma, can be explained in any way, it is a great and noble thing. So many, like parrots, can say all kinds of foreign and unnecessary words, but it is like spitting out candy. No value when coming from an ordinary mind.

If one does not feel happy with my way that is ok. I still love you and respect your way. Please allow me that same grace in the name of Bodhicitta, as I will with you. There are many appetites. We can feed them all if we can forget the BS, join hands and leave the world better for having loved and cared for each other and all sentient beings. Shall we try? Can we do this? Accept each other? Yes, we can.