Teachers | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Foundation of Faith

October 14, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The Buddha teaches that we never really know for sure when death will occur. Maybe a great bodhisattva or a great lama with some wisdom can predict a day. That often happens, but that is a different story. We’re talking about sentient beings in samsara. You think, well, I’m pretty healthy and I’ve had a checkup and I’m OK. But you know, you can get hit by a car. You can get hit by a truck. You can fall out of a plane. There are all kinds of ways to go. So none of us really knows when that time will come. Will it happen then that we disappear from this earth having had this jewel in our hands and it’s just gone? Then we’re no longer on this precious continent. We’re back in poverty and we have nothing. So we contemplate on this to make us aware that we need, want and find precious every blessing that we can get our hands on, and that we need, want and really care about our practice. Because it is this and this alone that provides the stable foundation that we can build a strong house of faith upon.

There is one other thing that the Buddha teaches us that is hard to understand, and this one is the toughest, the very, very toughest. It’s even tougher than you’re going to die someday. It’s the teaching about impermanence. Just when you think it is safe to go in the water, there’s another shark. Isn’t it the truth? You know, after a while you get a little punchy with samsara, sort of twitchy. After you get to be a certain age, you realize that there have been times that you have been blissfully happy, I mean, like really turned on. Up. But where are you now? This thing never lasts. You get so punchy that you get to the point where when you start to go up and you start to feel really happy and you start to think, “I’m handling things here. Everything is looking good,” that you are looking over your shoulder. You know the rest is right behind you and there is no sense getting too excited about too much of anything because it is all temporary. Of course, you have to live a while to understand that, until it beats you over the head. But we do get it eventually.

The Buddha teaches us that nothing is permanent. What comes together must go apart. What goes up must go down. Everything that has a beginning has an ending. And everything that we experience in this lifetime has a beginning so there will be an end to every experience.

Now fortunately we use that information when we’re really in tough shape. Because in tough shape, you know it’s not going to be permanent. Nothing is permanent. So we are taught that we are living in this kind of drunken, conditioned, narcotic state where we are wandering through experience not knowing why experience is coming to us. How has this happened to me? Why is this happening to me? It’s always in our minds, because we can only see the content of this lifetime. We do not understand and appreciate that the reason this is happening to us now is that we have previously created the causes. Cause and effect arise interdependently, so there is no other way for anything to happen to us. So we realize that everything that is happening to us now is kind of a flow of dreamlike, narcotic, dualistic perception that appears outwardly pointed at us. It appears that it is happening to us because of the nature of our delusion, because of the nature of our ignorance—that we are wandering through this experience. From time to time you get the feeling that gosh, you’d like to wake up. Wouldn’t it be great to just wake up? You can’t. You’re just wandering through this. And so, Lord Buddha uses the teaching of impermanence to help us recognize that, because we as sentient beings like to hang onto false stability.

I feel really good because I’m sitting on a chair that is very solid. It’s very solid, because I am pretty high off the ground here. If I were to fall down this far, I’d probably hurt myself, so I feel pretty good about the solidity of this chair. And it’s a great analogy, because really in my mind, the solidity of this chair has more to do with my lineage than it has to do with the wood. I’m really kind of interested in physics and stuff like that. If I didn’t become who I am and I didn’t follow my secondary occupation of being a Motown backup singer, which I wanted to be, I think I would have been a scientist, because I like to study a little bit about physics, What I realize about physics is that this chair has more space in it than it has wood. It’s a bunch of atoms and stuff (I don’t remember their names),all strung together. They are empty things; they are spacious things. They are not solid things. I am really sitting on a bunch of space right now.. What keeps it together is the karma of the situation. What keeps it together is our capacity for perception.

Wishing Prayers

October 13, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Compassion is the Only Lasting Antidote to Suffering

In Vajrayana Buddhism (literally the Diamond Vehicle), which is the form of Buddhism preserved in Tibet and Mongolia and the one followed in my temple, one of the foundational teachings is the understanding and practice of compassion. I personally find that a religious philosophy based on selfless compassion is deeply satisfying, and I believe that it strikes a chord with many Americans.

However, although there are many people who embrace the idea of compassion as love and a deep caring for others, they do not realize that to actualize the mind of Great Awakening requires a deliberate and disciplined path. Human beings are not born with great compassion automatically realized. Thus, the Diamond Path can be described as a technology for spiritual development.

From the Buddhist point of view, there are primarily two ways to approach compassion: aspirational compassion and practical compassion. When one begins to practice on the Diamond Path, one begins straightaway to make wishing prayers, cultivating the idea of being of benefit to beings who are revolving helplessly through cycles of existence. This is aspirational compassion.

Every practice in which we engage, every teaching we hear, every empowerment we receive, every prayer we chant, can all be dedicated to the liberation of all beings from all forms of suffering. Thus, aspirational compassion is practiced in the beginning by many repetitions of wishing prayers. These prayers are meant to benefit beings through developing the sincere desire to utilize all one’s activities — from the mundane to the sublime — as a means of eliminating the causes of suffering in all its forms. One prays for the cessation of war, poverty, sickness, death and rebirth, loneliness, hatred, greed and ignorance. One adopts a posture of pure intention based on the idea that every portion of this life, as well as future incarnations yet to come, might somehow be useful to sentient beings.

As an example of this type of wishing prayer, I will paraphrase a famous practice:

If there is a need for nourishment, let me return as food. If there is a need for shade, let me be a tree. If there is a need for shelter, let me be a house. If there is a need to cross over, let me be a bridge. If there is sickness, may I manifest as the doctor, the medicine and the nurse who restore health. May I be land for those requiring it, a lamp for those in darkness, a home for the homeless, and a servant to the world.

While this may sound very kind and loving, the intention here goes far deeper than the apparent words because one must strive to be of benefit not only to fulfill the immediate needs of beings, but also to bring future benefit. Providing things such as food, housing, and medicine bring about benefit, of course, and this type of kindness is profoundly virtuous. We should all strive to meet the needs of others in just these ways. Yet, from a Buddhist perspective, being able to practice only this type of compassion does not bring ultimate benefit. For instance, if it were possible to feed an entire nation or perhaps even the world and completely eliminate hunger and hopelessness, we still would not be solving the root of the problem.

According to the Buddha, there is no condition or circumstance without a cause. Just as the fruit does not manifest without first appearing on a tree, which came from a seed, neither does any circumstance, good or bad, in which we find ourselves manifest without a cause. These causes may not be found in this life only, but may come from previous lifetimes.

It is not possible for people to be born randomly into difficult circumstance or to suddenly experience the onset of tremendous suffering and upheaval. These events are always the result of a tapestry of cause-and-effect relationships (karma) woven around the delusion involving the definition and maintenance of an ego. Thus, to solve the immediate needs of beings may bring some relief, but it does not guarantee that they will not experience great difficulty in the future, because it does not break the continuum of cause and effect that ripens unexpectedly and constantly. This continuum originates from the belief in an ego self and the desire that results from that belief. It is through the pacification of desire that one can begin to transform one’s karma. When the delusion of ego begins to dissolve, karma also begins to dissolve. But if the mindstream is not purified of the karma of suffering, the potential for suffering remains.

Understanding Death and Rebirth

October 12, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The Buddha wants us to understand that the only thing that has lasting value, that is actually truly and really good for us, that will lead us to the door of liberation, that will lead us into spiritual reality, are the Three Precious Jewels— the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. And in Vajrayana the Lama is the condensed essence of all those three.

We are taught that everything is impermanent and nothing can be trusted, because nothing goes with you when you die. There is only one thing that you can gather and accumulate that has any value and that is virtuous habitual tendencies, the dissolution of the poisons. One’s karmic propensities and habitual tendencies are the only thing that leave with us when we die, continue with us in the bardo and return with us and form our next life. It is this package of habitual tendencies and karmic material that actually experiences death and rebirth. The Buddha teaches that it isn’t even the fact that you reincarnate. The Buddha teaches us that we experience rebirth and death. There is a difference. What is experiencing that birth and death is this package of habitual tendencies and karmic propensities. And that is how the experience happens. But you, in your nature, are the primordial wisdom Buddha. You cannot die and be reborn. But if you are dead to that reality, asleep to that reality, you only experience death and rebirth.

If we really take the Buddha’s teachings on impermanence and carry them to a deeper level, we begin to understand this. The Buddha teaches us that due to delusion we experience rebirth, death and rebirth. That which you are does not reincarnate. It’s like saying that what we are experiencing are the waves on top of an ocean. You can’t keep anything still there—it’s all wavy. But the truth of our nature, the meaning of the path, is the sanctity and solidity of the ocean floor that never changes. That is why the Buddha teaches us about impermanence. Not to scare us, not to make us unhappy. To tell somebody a thing is a certain way doesn’t make them any unhappier if it is that way. It makes them able to cope, to deal, to decide.

The Ultimate Technology

October 11, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Compassion is the Only Lasting Antidote to Suffering

We were raised to believe that reality can be manipulated. Our libraries are filled with books of great American success stories. These tend to be about material successes. But the spiritual aspirant must ask: Will this success last? Even if it lasts for an entire life, will it survive death? If we had the power to bring peace to the world, to disarm nations and maintain order and harmony, would that peace last beyond our lifetime? Many leaders have exhausted their lives forging great nations and empires only to have them destroyed shortly after their deaths.

To provide beings with the ultimate benefit of freedom from all suffering, one must apply the ultimate technology. The aspiration to be of benefit to beings, the cultivation of pure intention, the continued observance of human kindness, the making of wishing prayers, and constantly hoping from the core of one’s mind and heart to be of lasting benefit to others, are practices to develop compassion. Yet at some point the ultimate step must be taken. This begins with the realization that temporary happiness is not enough, that feeding and clothing people, along with other acts of kindness, are not enough. These things cannot undo the certainty of death, which puts people beyond our reach. How can we follow them into future incarnations to ensure their safety?

There is only one way to cease the ripening of the seeds of suffering: enlightenment, which dissolves the belief in ego, pacifies all cause-and-effect relationships or karma, and reveals one’s true primordial nature. The Diamond Path utilizes many techniques to purify the five senses and the mindstream itself. When these practices are engaged in, not only for one’s own benefit but also to purify the karma and suffering of others, the practical aspect of the Awakening Mind — practical compassion — is engaged. This is “practical” because it is the technology to completely rid oneself and others of the causes for suffering. Buddhists view this type of compassion as the act of ultimate kindness.

While ordinary kindness is a valid undertaking and should be part of the activity of every spiritual aspirant, one must address the question of ultimate benefit, of eliminating suffering at its roots.

We should take to heart what the great Indian Buddhist Shantideva wrote a thousand years ago. “May I act as the mighty earth or like the free and open skies to support and provide the space whereby I and all others may grow. Until every being afflicted by pain has reached to nirvana’s shores, may I serve only as a condition that encourages progress and joy.”

It’s Your Mindstream

October 10, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called How Buddhists Think

Certain aspects of the Buddha’s teachings are foundational to the way Buddhists think. My purpose here is not to render any teachings in a complete form but rather to discuss why Buddhists think the way they do. My hope is that you will take the responsibility of keeping these ideas in your minds and that they will have the effect of shaping the way you think. The best way you can use these teachings is to allow them to permeate your thoughts, reminding yourself of them continually. This will take some effort on your part. The result will be changes in your view of things––and in the decisions you make.

You must understand that any problems you have in being able to embrace your practice are caused by the karma of your mindstream. The obstacles to your practice are really a reflection of very old habitual tendencies. You have developed them, and you carry them with you. There is no one to blame––not society, not anyone who keeps you from your practice, not your non-Buddhist parents, not your jobs that take too much time. What we’re really looking at is an externalization of the content of the mindstream.

We must understand that we are looking into a mirror. If we’re too busy to practice, if we’re too materialistic to see the big picture, if repeatedly we stumble over these problems, we need to understand them as reflections of the content of our mindstream.

So what should you do? You should apply the antidote. For some people, this would be jumping onto the Path hog wild, really going for it––even though they may need to slow down a little later. Some people need time to adjust to the pace that is naturally best for them. Others can only take one tiny bite at a time.

You start where you are, and that has to be okay. Therefore I suggest three cardinal rules: 1) Do the best you can. 2) Give yourself a break. 3) Don’t let yourself get away with murder.

These rules are not the Buddha’s teaching; I made them up and take full responsibility for them. They actually work very well. You are where you are. Do what you can do. And watch yourself––because you will try to get away with murder. This is the way you should approach the Path.

To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

Meditation on the Teacher

October 7, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from “Treasury of Precious Qualities: A Commentary on the Root Text of Jigme Lingpa” by Longchen Yeshe Dorje, Kangyur Rinpoche

…the tantra nam mkha’i klong yangs kyi rgyud says:

Meditation on the teacher

Is meditation on the Dharmakaya,

Compared with this, all meditation

On a hundred thousand deities

Is seen as nothing,

Therefore every act

Of wholesome Dharma–

Hearing, teaching

Meditating, and upholding,

Torma offerings and all the rest–

Are but preparations for the guru yoga.

For the teacher is the glorious Buddha

Of past, present, and all future time.

There is No Refuge in Samsara

October 5, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Lord Buddha teaches us about the impermanence of all things so that we can appreciate that fact and so that we are not duped. And folks, we are so duped. Everything in our lives is geared to dupe us by false stability. Watch the commercials. Commercials are fascinating. Someday, for Dharma practitioners, they ought to have the commercials going and knock out the shows because commercials will teach you everything. They will teach you that when you have a new car, you will be safe. They will teach you that if you have air bags, you will be safe. They will teach you that if you have Gap clothes, you will be cool, because groups of people will form around you and start dancing. And that feels really cool. And they’ve told you that if you have, let’s see, if you invest online then you are like the coolest dude in the world and it’s just so cool. You’ll find great stability there. So from commercials, from information, you’re always getting this “There, there little kid. It’s all going to be fine.” And you are left impotent, unable to understand. So Lord Buddha teaches us, don’t find your security in that. All that stuff is impermanent. All of that stuff is as good as truthless; it’s so impermanent, without validity, without stability. Money does not provide stability. Relationships do not provide stability. Things that we do both occupationally and recreationally do not provide stability. Comfort food does not provide stability. None of the things we use provide stability. And this is what the Buddha is trying to say. He’s not trying to break your heart.

When you first wake up to this, it’s kind of sad. It does break your heart a little bit and you find yourself in the position of needing maybe to grieve just a little. It’s like waking up from a dream where everything is promised to you. You wake up and it’s all gone. Nothing was delivered and you have a sense of grief. Have you ever had a dream like that? When something really precious and important came to you and when you woke up it was gone? Maybe a person returned to you or some money came to you or whatever. So that’s how it is.

Lord Buddha is not in the business of breaking our hearts. We have to think of Lord Buddha in this case like a dedicated physician, or like the supreme mother or parent who guides us like a good parent would, through our confusion into clarity and healing. That is what the Buddha is doing when the Buddha speaks about impermanence. The Buddha goes through all kinds of teachings about impermanence. It’s really important to get this, whether you are a beginning student, or whether you have practiced for years. You will go dry in your practice if you do not constantly review these teachings that everything is impermanent, because we are so habituated to find security right here, right now, where this is absolutely none. We even see our bodies as stable. I feel very safe right now because I can look in the mirror and see that I am healthy. What kind of delusion is that? How much have I changed in the last 20 years? Have I gotten healthier? I don’t think so. Nothing about the body is stable, nothing. Nothing about anything that we have built up around ourselves is stable, and yet we find stability thinking that it’s always going to be this way. Even having seen the change from babyhood to childhood to young adulthood to maturity, even having seen that, we still don’t believe. We still try to find safety in false things, temporary things. So Lord Buddha really spends a lot of time on that in order to condition us so that we will have the opportunity to focus and be mindful, and begin to wake up from that narcotic sleep, The Buddha wants us to see the truth, wants us to understand that this is not refuge. Here in samsara there is no refuge.

Why Is This Rebirth Precious?

October 4, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

When we practice the Buddhadharma, one of the first things that we have to do is to examine the faults of cyclic existence. Nobody likes to do that. That is not fun. But what is interesting is you can really tell the more experienced, more sophisticated person. Nobody wants to hear that cyclic existence is faulted and flawed and that it is impermanent and that it is pervaded with suffering. Nobody wants to hear that. But when you talk to somebody who is experienced and sophisticated enough in their own lives to see that: “Sometimes I’ve tried my best and life still goes off the tracks. You know, sometimes I try my best and some dreadful disease will pop up. Sometimes I try my best and somebody else I love will just leave or be sick or die,” There is no way to prevent these things from happening. And if we are old enough and mature enough, we’ve had enough experience to know there is clearly something else in the driver’s seat here besides what “I want.” We’re getting it.

Then, of course, sometimes when students first approach the path, they don’t have that sophistication yet. Maybe they are young or young at heart or young in head. Who knows? But they haven’t had the kind of experience that is actually ultimately a blessing, that will bring them to a kind of sobriety, sort of like recovering alcoholics. They get to a place where it becomes unbearable. You have to stop. You’ve got to grow up. People who have had the experiences that come with ordinary samsaric existence and have seen them, and are not putting on blindfolds, are for the most part ready to hear this information. And if you still have any doubt, pick up a newspaper. Watch TV. It’s all there.

So once we do hear that there are faults in cyclic existence, then it’s our job to begin to examine them. Again, here, also it’s not so comfortable, because we don’t like to think about it. Especially when you have to go every six weeks and have your hair dyed. I mean, you look in the mirror and everything is turning gray and it’s all heading south, and you realize that something is happening that is not changeable. It’s just going to happen. It’s going happen right underneath your head.,and there’s not a thing you can do about it. You can work at it, but it’s going to work on you. Eventually gravity wins. Once you start to realize that, you realize that it doesn’t pay to put everything we have into this basket that is going to abandon us.

So now we come to examine the faults of cyclic existence. Lord Buddha said that one of the things that we should understand about cyclic existence is that what we are in right now is called the “precious human rebirth.” The reason why it is so precious is because it is so rare. We’re sort of locked into a closed circuit TV system, if you can imagine such a thing. We’re only mindful of our own kind of creatures. We can see people. We can see animals. That’s pretty much it— the occasional ghost for those of us who are a little strange—but for the most part that’s it. It’s people and it’s animals. Those are the ones that we can see. Those are vibrationally on our channel, so we can see them. But Lord Buddha teaches us that there are other realms of cyclic existence: There are hell realms, all kinds of hell realms; there are hungry ghost realms; there are animal realms; there are human realms; there are jealous god realms; there are long life god realms. So there are all these different kinds of realms and they are invisible. Even within each realm, while some are totally invisible to us, they are still within the form and formless realms.

The teachings of Lord Buddha about this precious human rebirth are that human beings are the only beings that have the kind of consciousness that can hear this teaching and then go practice and contemplate,. The amount of human beings that are birthed now in samsara are like the amount of grains of sand that would fit on one’s fingernail, while the amount of sentient beings that are wandering in other places in samsara are like the grains of sand on all the earth, all the beaches, every square inch of it. The traditional teaching tells us by using the image that being reborn as a human being is as rare as a turtle surfacing in the ocean and putting its head through a circle, like a floating circle. The chances of that happening are pretty slim, and so that is the way we are made to understand that this is a precious human rebirth. Now why are we supposed to hear that? Well, we’re supposed to hear that so that we don’t waste our time.

Another traditional teaching that we hear is that being reborn as a human who has the capacity and the karma to hear the Dharma is like going to a continent filled with precious jewels. You only have to bend over and pick something up. That’s how easy it is compared to other sentient beings who have not created the connections, not created the causes as yet. And while they have the same capability and same desire to be happy, they will not get to that continent. They will not pick up that jewel. Conversely, the Buddha also teaches that to meet with the Dharma as a human being and to meet with one’s teacher and to meet with the path and not to practice is like the fool who goes to this precious continent, looks at all the beautiful colors and enjoys it and then goes away with nothing, going back into poverty with nothing, nothing precious.

I Choose Enlightenment

October 3, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

People ask: “In your tradition, is Buddha like God?” No, Buddha is not like God. “Is Guru Rinpoche God?” No, Guru Rinpoche is not God. “Well, what do you call God in your tradition?” We don’t call anything God. There are gods, but they are not the goal. Westerners try to find a way around that, saying something like, “All right, then what is the goal?” I tell them, “Enlightenment.” They reply, “Okay, then Enlightenment is God.” No, it’s not. The goal is not anything as personalized and externalized as that. There is no “other.” The moment we are caught up in “self and other,” we have lost the essential Nature. We are fixated, stuck in duality.

This is about Awakening, which is the pacification of such fixation. You must understand the fundamental distinction between Buddhism and Western thinking––whether you are considering beginning the Path or are already a practioner. You must understand this difference, so that you will know what your true objects of refuge are.

The statement “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, and I take refuge in the Sangha” is an essential element throughout your practice of the Buddha’s teaching. What does this statement mean? It means you have looked at the faults of cyclic existence, and you have seen that it produces no real happiness. You have learned that the Buddha said there is a cessation of suffering, this cessation is Enlightenment, and it is also the cessation of desire. So you have decided to go for Enlightenment. That means you have to really understand the faults of cyclic existence––even if these ideas are difficult to swallow. It’s like taking a medicine that tastes bad until you get used to it. It is like that in the beginning.

Having decided to take this medicine, you look at those who deliver it. We look to the Buddha, and this includes all those who have attained Buddhahood, not just the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. We look to the Dharma, which is the revelation or teaching brought forth from the mind of Enlightenment. And we look to the Sangha, the spiritual community to which we belong. It is the Sangha who are responsible for treasuring and propagating the teachings.

In the Vajrayana tradition, we also say, “I take refuge in the Lama,” who is considered representative of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Without the Lamas, you would not hear the Buddha’s teachings. And without the Lamas, there would be no Sangha.

When you say you take refuge in all of these, what you are saying is: “I choose Enlightenment. I choose the cessation of suffering.” You move away from the faults of cyclic existence, and you remain focused on the ultimate goal.

In a deeper sense, however, you must understand that you are ultimately taking refuge in Enlightenment itself. You must understand it as both the Path and the intrinsic Nature. So you are taking refuge in the Nature of your own mind. If you understand this thoroughly, you can never be duped. But you do have to work very diligently and with discipline towards the goal.

The method is very technical, very involved. It isn’t easy because it must cut through aeons of compulsive absorption in self-nature. It must cut like a knife! It must be powerful––and it is powerful. You have to think of Dharma that way. The technology has to be strong––and real. You can’t just talk about it. There is work to be done!

Although it is strong, the technology is very flexible. You need not be afraid. You will not be forced to go any deeper than you want to go. You have the right to practice gently. You will still be accumulating causes for a future incarnation as a human with these auspicious conditions, and then you will be able to practice well and dilligently.

There are people who only do very small, very gentle practice. And that’s fine. There is a large tradition of that in the Buddha Dharma. There are also people who are more deeply involved, though in a mediocre way. They practice an hour or so a day. They do a good job, and they’re faithful, and that’s it. Then there are people who practice many hours each day. They continually try to propagate the Teaching, and they work very hard. So you have a choice. You can determine the level of your involvement.

To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

Enlightenment is Awakening

October 2, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In their Nature, all sentient beings are essentially the Buddha––all humans, all animals, even all the microscopic little beings running around on the tips or our noses. We should regard that Nature as the basis or seed of the Path. The Buddha’s revelation of the Path came directly from his awareness of this Nature. Even though we ourselves are this Nature, we have a fixation on self-nature as inherently real. Any idea we have now, any conceptualization, anything that comes from us, arises from thinking of ourselves as a self.

The Buddha gave the Path after he attained Enlightenment, and it arose from his Enlightened intention, from Enlightenment itself. The Path is considered to be “the method.” All the Dharma teachings you receive, even the commentary teachings I may give, all derive from the Buddha’s teachings, or have as their basis the Buddha’s teachings. They are considered precious because they are the “method” that arises from the mind of Enlightenment.

You can only achieve the result of Enlightenment if the method you use arose from the mind of Enlightenment. And you can be certain that this is the case only if you know that the result has been proven again and again. This is because we ourselves cannot recognize the Buddha Nature––not in ourselves, not in any other being. Not yet. All we have to go on is a proven, result-bringing method.

The basis, or cause, brings forth the method, or Path, which is not separate from the goal, the fruit––which is the Awakening into our inherent primordial wisdom state. These three (the basis, the method, and the goal) are inseperable, indistinguishable one from the other. Therefore, we Buddhists never consider that we are moving towards an external goal. We never make the mistake of those involved in a more Western idea of linear development––thinking that they are building a higher self, or even making a connection to a higher self. And we never make the mistake of thinking that we are becoming great beings, or Masters, as those who are involved with linear thinking may do. From our point of view, we haven’t moved at all. Attaining Enlightenment is not gathering together a bunch of facts, as you might do in college. Nor is it the gathering of a bunch of experiences. We are indeed the total of our experiences, but only in a karmic sense.

Enlightenment is actually the “Awakening” to the naked state––the state that is free of all experience, the state that is pure luminosity. We don’t go anywhere. There is no building, no tearing down. There is nothing of the accumulation we value in our life. We have only pacified our chronic, compulsive fixation on self-nature, the fixation we have had since time out of mind. This constitutes a profound difference between Buddhist philosophy and Western metaphysical or religious thinking.

To download the complete teaching, click hereand scroll down to How Buddhists Think