The following is from a series of tweets between Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and one of her followers on twitter:
Questioner: the problem is reality and society keep proving and backing a cynical outlook.
Jetsunma: There will always be people with poor qualities, but you can choose like-minded friends who are kind and worthy. I’ve met both kinds, believe me. And, did you know – cynicism is a habit, just like compassion, happiness, good heart, etc. You can learn to run different “tapes” in your mind. I get stalkers, haters, sarcasm, hostility but I don’t take it personally. It speaks to their character, not yours. If the shoe doesn’t fit you don’t have to wear it.
You should see the hate I get thrown at me. But it is gossip and lies, and I pay no attention. On the other hand, so much love, kindness, friendship, and I hang with people who want to leave the world a better place. So the choice of how to be affected is truly yours and mine.
I too have to work on my own perception. Try to see it for what it is. Just empty reaction, hope and fear. We all do. Being honest here. It takes work and willingness to look within. And I try to see through circumstance as though it is a dream. Insubstantial, born and gone at the same time.
Questioner: then your in control sister! And the environment is tamed.
Jetsunma: How sweet! But no. I was cruelly stalked for three years. Three horrible, miserable years. And I block a circle of gossips that continually insult and make fun of me. When I think of them they are a “muse” to write and teach. And to explain poor qualities and the hurt and harm that comes from that crud. So in a way their cruelty is a blessing, and motivation to teach. These people go after others too. They seem to need victims. How can you take people like that seriously?
Questioner: then your so irresistible your stalk-able.
Jetsunma: You are very kind. Actually he is off the streets now, (violent felon) no longer able to harm others. He is not a loving man, I don’t think it was my “charms” that interested him so much as my position and Lineage.
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in response to a question from a student:
There are mixing karmas there. Gossip is straightforward, considered a deep non-virtue resulting in loss of respect, being victimized in the future, having confused or unintelligible speech in future, if about another Dharma practitioner it is a breakage of vows and samaya. Downfall, surely.
If the man or woman allows him/herself to be supported financially and is well and not addled (is competent) they will be weak and impoverished in the future, and that person will have the burden of paying for others as well. Hardship. In Dharma there is no non-virtue in the wife taking the conventional man’s role. But not contributing anything of value to society is a non-virtue. Not giving to charity and such is selfish, and both combine to insure future extreme poverty. Dependency on society’s institutions to survive.
Being pompous is a sign of feeling small and weak and needing to destroy or put down others to make oneself powerful. It is a truly weak person. Rebirth as jealous god realm, or being pathetic with no hope or help is the result. No kindness will come, little love or respect.
Karma is exacting and what I describe as karmic results will be modified by particular arising causes. Such as lack of ethics, excuses to not change, or lack of will to be a better person. Karma will be lighter if person puts in effort but makes little progress. That too is a result from previous causes. Actually cause and result arise interdependently so the result is already born, separated only by the illusion of time.
Whew! Big question. I feel that last bit is a teaching. For all. Now my thumbs are aching so I’m outta here! Love to all!
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”
For Americans, the activity of the lamas can be confusing because sometimes the lamas will engage in wrathful compassion. This has happened to me and I know it has happened to my students as well. Sometimes because of the karma and the love and concern between the student and the teacher, the lama will see in their meditation that some terrible obstacle has arisen in the mind of the student, or in the path of the student, or in the life of the student in some way. Maybe it’s an obstacle to the student’s life. Maybe it’s an obstacle to the student’s path. Maybe it’s simply something like a brick wall where the student will meet up with their habitual tendency and not be able to make much progress. If there is the right kind of karmic relationship, if the causes have been given rise to and the devotion is there and all of the different catalytic necessities are in place, then the lama will often engage in wrathful activity in order to cut this obstacle.
Let’s say, for instance (and this often occurs), that the lama sees that within the student’s mind some negative, nonvirtuous karma has been catalyzed or drawn to the surface, or has begun to ripen. Then the lama will see that this could be dangerous and the lama will be very wrathful. How does that work? Well, first of all, the lama, knowing what the student’s capacity is, will do that skillfully in such a way that eventually, even if not at first, the student will fully understand the lama’s gracious activity; and even though wrathful activity has occurred, the student will remain fully devoted, fully respectful, fully loving and confident in the lama’s kindness.
That pure inner posture is a posture of true devotion, purity, spirituality in every sense of the word. When the lama takes all of your habitual tendencies and all of your issues and smacks you in the head with them, it takes a tremendous amount of vajra courage to continue with love and confidence. If the student is lacking in a certain kind of virtuous karma, or virtuous ripening at that particular time and is also, perhaps, having the ripening of some nonvirtuous karma, that interaction between the lama and student may turn it around, and can turn it around just like that, because of the student’s capacity, even in the face of such a difficult situation, to remain fully devoted, fully confident and fully vulnerable. Vulnerable means opened up and not protected. In order to continue on this path of compassion and wisdom, that determination, that vajra courage, is such a tremendously virtuous inner posture in which to remain, that often this negative tendency or negative event will be cut.
This has definitely happened to me as I described once or twice before, where my own teacher, out of the clear blue sky with no seeming cause, began to be very angry at me and accused me of something that I would never do. It would be the equivalent of my accusing you of murdering babies with chain saws. It was just so far from reality it could never be true. So my teacher began to be really angry at me and scolded me and raged at me to the point where I was shaking in my shoes. I was unbelievably terrified. Then when he felt the obstacle had been cut he just stopped and he said, “O.K., we’re done now. Try not to get mad. See you later.” Sort of like that. Try not to get mad! I was trying not to make my own gravy if you’ll excuse the expression. I was terrified. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I barely shuffled myself out of the room. And then I realized that physically I felt completely different and that something had changed radically. I went to my other teacher who was also here (two of my main teachers were here) and he said “Oh yeah. His Holiness saw an obstacle to your health and he cut it.” Interestingly, from that time forward I felt about 10 years younger, the ultimate face lift. My love and respect and regard for my teacher, and also the courage to really make myself spiritually vulnerable to his care, grew by that situation because I knew in my heart that he had brought me great benefit. That’s the kind of thing that one sees on the path of Vajrayana.
Is it just a coincidence that the one path that can bring about realization in a single lifetime is the one path that focuses upon the Guru as the ultimate object of refuge? No, for it is the astonishing potency of the Guru’s appearance in the world that makes this possible. Devotional yoga becomes everything: the milk, the nectar. There is no other practice. All else is but a part of that.
In Vajrayana, the Guru is the central figure, the supreme object of refuge. We rely on the Guru to ripen our minds, to bring our minds to fruition. But this is difficult for Westerners to accept. We Westerners are taught to be strong, independent individuals. This is all we have ever known. We are brought up to reach for things that are outside us, to collect them—and to be constantly self-concerned. Our generation is the first to swallow pop-psychology unquestioningly, even unconsciously. There are so many new-age ideas and so much misinformation mixed in with what passes for Dharma teaching and spirituality. This is made up by people who have not achieved enlightenment.
True enlightenment cannot be described. It is totally different from new age “aha!” insights. People go from teacher to teacher until they have collected a pocketful of something that they can paste on themselves. They fail to realize how materialistic and “collecting” they have been brought up to be. If you have always been on a merry-go-round, you will not know that you are going around in circles. You will fail to recognize the cultural-intellectual baggage that keeps you from deepening in your practice of Guru Yoga.
At first, this difficulty may appear to be an inherent lack of capacity in students. But when I look more closely, I see that the capacity is there. So, how do we break through? How can we turn our minds so that we form new habitual tendencies? Anything that arises from samsara, like our old habits, results in samsara. We can see this in our entire lives. We are not yet sitting on a lotus in the middle of a lake. How then are we supposed to practice Guru Yoga? What is our relationship with the actual Root Guru? How does this relationship take shape? Human beings, it seems, learn through suffering and through observation. Just as children need to mimic “grown-up-ness,” we need to see what Guru Yoga looks like in someone’s life. I shall try to describe this.
First, if you have the good fortune to meet your Root Guru, and if you make a commitment in your mind, heart, and prayers or to the face of this Guru, you must never—even at the cost of your life—break that commitment. At first, make only commitments that you can work toward and keep. In the context of your Guru Yoga, a perfect preliminary level of commitment to your Teacher would be: “I will do more than I have ever done before, and I will continually deepen my devotion and practice.” Then as you grow on the path, you keep increasing your commitment. Some of my students have made flowery, dramatic commitments to me and then broken them as if they were merely hot air. Without exception, those are students who have become stagnant in their practice.
This is from my heart to your heart. When you make a commitment to your Root Guru, you must understand what you are doing: You are making a commitment to the condensed essence of all the objects of refuge, to all the Lamas, not just the one Lama, to all the Buddhas, to all the Bodhisattvas, to all the meditational Deities, to all the Dakinis, to all the Dharma Protectors. Moreover, you are making that commitment to the very door of liberation itself. Consider once again what the Teacher actually is for you. Remember that sentient beings are wandering helplessly in samsara—afraid, alone, and without hope. It is like being in a burning room with no way out. Nothing in samsara can help you to escape. Only the objects of refuge—all contained in the vessel that is the Root Guru—can provide an exit. The heat keeps increasing, and your body is fragile. The Lama is the way out, the door to liberation. Picture yourself in a burning room. Would you have difficulty concentrating on the door? I doubt it.
But again, if you are a “collecting” materialist, if you keep the greater portion of everything for yourself, for your own happiness, if you remain as the center of the mandala of your life, you cannot walk through that door. The Lama must be at the center of your mandala. Is that schizophrenic? Is it psychotic? Will you go mad? How can someone else be at the center of your spiritual focus?
When you practice Guru Yoga correctly, you are practicing view. You gradually come to understand that upon recognizing the Lama, upon becoming non-dual with the Lama, you recognize your own true nature, your own true face, that which is beyond accepting and rejecting. If the Lama is in the center of the mandala of your practice, you are training yourself to awaken, to exit samsara, to achieve realization for the sake of sentient beings. But if you break the connection with your Root Guru, you cannot accomplish Dharma. No matter what happens, once you have made the offering of body, speech and mind to the spiritual friend who has hooked and established you on the path, to the Root Guru, you must never abandon that commitment. If you do, you are cutting off the very root and source of your accomplishment. After that there is no real accomplishment on the path, no matter what you do. You must always keep your view pure, and therefore the Guru Yoga will be your blessing and your true spiritual wealth. So even if you are on the other side of the planet, the Root Guru should rest upon your heart or above the crown of your head when you say your prayers. Never break that connection, even for a moment.
You should guard your commitment, thinking of yourself as Dorje Phagmo with fangs, as though you had fangs or weapons. Anything that prevents you from relying completely on your Root Guru should be cut away from your heart, cut out of your life. It’s as if you have fangs coming out, and that curved vajra blade in your hand, and you’re swinging at anything that comes near this connection. You’re guarding your own personal treasure, not allowing a single bit of impurity to be near it. Those fangs should always be out.
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Who said that? Vajrayana without a Guru? How do you manage Guru Yoga in Ngondro? Think of unicorns? When Empowerment is given, is it so ordinary that we all just stand up, clap and cheer? So who gives Empowerments and from which Guru and lineage? How does one receive any transmission? Do they all sit in a circle and transmit to each other? Blind leading senseless? How do they mix their minds with the Guru, like milk and water? Oh, right – no Guru, no way to do that. So they’ll just sit around stroking each other’s…egos? Here comes the downfall of Vajrayana in the West. Yesirree, the slide has begun. But not on my watch. And not in my Lineage. Some “pick” a Guru from a book, long dead, because it is easier being a pompous fool than a student. That is just ignorant, and indicates one who does not understand Pure Vajrayana.
To fully transmit teaching you can’t be a book or a fool. Sorry, you do not practice Vajrayana without the Guru. That is not possible, that is a tainted soup of yuk, and then you are the ass it comes out of. Nobody needs that ignorant poop mixed into the Triple Gem!
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Happy Memorial Day, I’m AWOL today, family over. We are having a barbecue and eating inside. Heat warning today and tomorrow. Steamy!
I wanted to show heartfelt gratitude to our service men and women, for our safety. You are our great treasure, and you never fail these United States of America. You give us your lives, your health, blood, every part. Though I hate war, I love and cherish you!
And I wish I could buy you all a beer! Muuuwaah! Hugs.
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Guru Yoga”
We should think in such a way that we know if we practice deeply enough, we will look at Guru Rinpoche and see that innate wakeful state which is the true face.
Guru Rinpoche said before he left, “I will appear as your Root Teacher.” What that means is we should practice considering that the teacher who comes to teach us and gives us blessing, gives us empowerment, gives us commentary teaching, who makes it possible for us to practice the path, is actually an extension of Guru Rinpoche’s activity. The teacher cannot be separated from Guru Rinpoche’s activity, and is Guru Rinpoche’s activity—an extension of miraculous enlightened compassion, enlightened intention.
If we, in our ordinary perception, separate the two and say, ”Oh, Guru Rinpoche is over here, and the Root Teacher’s over there, and I’m over there,” and practice in a superficial way, we won’t get very far. But if we see the whole event as the miraculous intention of the Buddha, as enlightenment itself, if we understand that the path is inseparable from the benefit, inseparable from the nature itself, and if we understand this activity to be this enlightened process, inseparable from the true face, and we practice focused in that way, the blessing cannot be counted. It is incredibly profound. It’s an entirely different process, really, than the kinds of ordinary activity that we always engage in. We’re always working hard at something,,but that’s not the point. The point is to see the face, to know the nature. The point is to be awake.
If one uses the thoughts that I have just described, contemplating in the way that I have described, practicing Guru Yoga as I have described it, one dispels the delusion that comes from the fixation on self-nature and phenomenal existence as being inherently real and solid. By dispelling fixation, one can know the nature that can only really be described as “suchness,” that which is beyond.
So, I hope that you will take this into your heart and begin to practice. Perhaps you can begin to practice the Seven Line Prayer and Vajra Guru Mantra. But most especially, I really hope that you will think in the way that I’ve described: understanding what is ordinary and what is not ordinary; understanding what is of the world; understanding what is part of the process of fixation and what is a direct display of the Mind of Enlightenment. Thinking on these things and practicing accordingly, one can have great results.
Today is hot and so humid! Barnsville is in the DC area. Get used to sweat, friends. It rained all spring and now we sweat it back. Tomorrow a severe heatwave. I wanna go with my pack to the beach. Or a lake. I really like cool weather (even cold) best. I’ll have fun as the planet warms. May have to head north. Alaska? A cold refuge. Freezer?
All funny talk except that the planet is warming. And soon we’ll all sweat. The wild critters suffer most when “Mama-Earth” shifts. The wild ones have ancient habits coded in their DNA. That is hard to change. Humans have changed so fast we cannot catch our collective breath. We don’t even feel so connected to the earth anymore.
I love nature. More than I can say. I wish I could live in space. Wind. Water. Fire. And in the land of Tara. Too bad this is Barnesville. Of course, the Land of Tara is a Pureland. And cool places will sustain us longer. And we must take care of the wild creatures. We must do much better by the land, water, air, and fire places and keep them sacred. Maybe then, we will live. Do all you can, beloveds…
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Guru Yoga”
What makes Guru Rinpoche’s teaching, his path, different from others, different from other activities that we could do in our lives? Well, if we want to attain wisdom, why don’t we just go get a card in the library? Why don’t we just read everything there is to read? Why don’t we just go through every book in the world? Would we become wise then? Not necessarily, even from an ordinary point of view, because we would not have done anything about dispelling the fixation on phenomenal existence. We would not have done anything about dispelling the fixation on self-nature as being inherently real. We would do nothing about the delusion within our mindstreams. We would simply have accumulated information. I know lots of people that are smart, but not too wise from a Buddhist point of view. That is because the things that you can read from the library, the things that you can do in the world, arise from ordinary circumstances. They are compiled, or made up, of ordinary things. They can be collected. They are things in phenomenal existence.
What comes from Guru Rinpoche does not come from an ordinary place. What we receive from Guru Rinpoche in terms of teaching and blessing actually arises from the state of enlightenment. It therefore has an extraordinary source. And you always get apple trees from apple seeds. If what he offers arises from the mind of enlightenment, then it will result in enlightenment. It will bring about enlightenment. It has the capacity to do so.
There’s no way you can get that blessing other than through extraordinary means. You can’t pay money to get it. You can’t pay someone else to help you get it. You can’t take a pill to get it. You can’t eat the right foods to get it. You can’t work for 40 hours a week for so many years in order to get it. You can’t collect it. And so we practice Guru Yoga in order to increase our faith and our certainty and our confidence in order to receive the blessing that actually arises from enlightenment.
If we understand the nature of the Guru, if we understand the nature of Guru Rinpoche as being these profound things that I have described in brief, then we can understand that by practicing Guru Yoga, one can achieve extraordinary result that can be had through no other means. But in order to do so, one has to meditate and really concentrate on what that blessing is, how it arises, and what it comes from. One has to see the reality of Guru Rinpoche as being something more than superficial phenomenal appearance. One has to understand in a more deep and profound way.
So the blessing we receive from Guru Yoga then depends on us. How much time are we actually going to put into this consideration? And how are we going to view it? Are we going to continue to view Guru Rinpoche as somebody out there somewhere separate from ourselves who did something that affects us now? That’s a very limited, very superficial, very ordinary view and it won’t get us very far. We have to think about the nature of the Lama. We have to think that this phenomenal appearance of the Lama in physical existence is due to the miraculous extraordinary compassion that comes from a fully enlightened mind, that is inseparable from a fully enlightened mind. And we must understand that nature as being totally and completely realized, totally awake. We must understand it as being completely revealed in display form, emptiness and luminosity, emptiness and compassion. When we look at the Lama, when we see Guru Rinpoche, this is what we should understand.
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Hello, all in Twitterverse. I’ve been gone all day to meetings and glad to be back. I don’t like Baltimore much but it was necessary.
I returned to see the haters have come back to torment me, except for the main one, who is now gone. But I must leave it to the law. It is right to go, or they can drag one through the sewer they live in. I won’t be like them. I won’t. I can’t imagine being like that. So selfish when the world is in such awful shape and people are hungry for pure Dharma.
And thankfully most people want the real deal, not a show. So I will continue the best I can, maybe take time away. Certainly for the Palyul summer retreat, to continue my practice and peace of mind. Also this summer I will be training to offer Empowerment. The Tulku, Lama Lobsang will arive soon. He is the one Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche had been arranging since a year before His parinirvana. I have wanted more training, have asked for years, and finally he is coming! His Holiness Penor Rinpoche chose him for his pure qualities, scholarship and complete disinterest in ridiculous politics and games. I love that. I have no interest in them either. Politics has always been part of every religion, sadly. Wars have been the result. If one calls themselves spiritual, they should abandon such ridiculous habitual tendencies and tend to their practice. That is what the Gurus of every Lineage tell us. It was His Eminence Ponlop Rinpoche that said, when my dear Michelle G. asked him how to repair the lies and damage, he said “Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, the purest of Gurus recognized Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. He has said she is a Pure Lama. Therefore go back to her and repair Samaya!” He would not teach her. He sent her back. What merit she must have! How pure Ponlop must be! Amazing!
Anyone can see the Sun again, it never leaves. It is we who are dishonest and turn our faces away.
