Teachers

Living the Path

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

It’s interesting to realize that when we come to the temple, we’re already interested in Dharma. Why are we interested in Dharma?  There are lots of different reasons. We like the look of it: It’s interesting and exotic. The statues are really cool. The colors are nice. We have a feeling, a concept of what Buddhism looks like. It looks like people who are sitting very straight in those wonderful positions that I wish I could get myself into. And the Buddha’s eyes look out into space. We see ourselves doing this, and we think, “Wow that is so cool!”  We have no idea what’s going on inside, but from the outside we’re looking at this going, “Oh man, that is so cool.”

So when we come to this path, we already have an idea of what it’s supposed to look like, and we play into that. Then we hear the foundational thoughts about Buddhism and the thoughts that turn the mind. Here’s the important part, “Oh, yeah, those are good reasons to do what I wanted to do already, which is to sit there like this, or to be involved in this really exotic thing, or just to be the coolest kid on the block because I read all those Buddhist books.” We all have reasons. We feel a certain affinity to it, whatever it is. I’m making it goofy so that it’s fun, but you can see and adapt what I’m saying to your own personal situation.

This is not the way it is in other cultures. The thoughts that turn the mind have to do with understanding impermanence, understanding cause and effect relationships, understanding that virtuous conduct brings excellent results of happiness and prosperity, non-virtuous conduct brings bad results of either unhappiness or being reborn in lower realms and so forth. Once we come here we think, “These are things to learn, and they are good reasons to stay on this path. So I am going to memorize them.”

But in a society where people grow up seeing children born and their elders die before they are even able to understand the words of these teachings that turn the mind toward Dharma, where their movement through time occurs very naturally—(Nobody has a facelift in Tibet. The wrinkles just pile on, unbelievable amounts of them, because there’s no Estee Lauder. This is why I don’t live there!)—a person approaches Dharma because it does not seem reasonable to walk from birth to death with nothing in your heart, with nothing to work with. It doesn’t seem reasonable that this [movement through time] should be the main weight of your experience; that this is what you should take refuge in.  Why would you do that?  It’s like taking refuge in a car wreck. It’s going to hurt and it’s going to get worse.

But in our society, because we are technologically and intellectually advanced, we are not connected to the rhythms of life.  So when this person who is connected to the rhythms of life, and has seen it even as a child, is told everything is impermanent in their life, this is not a big piece of information. This is not a missing piece of the puzzle.  It simply organizes the thoughts for a person who has been exposed to a more natural environment, and puts words to a conceptual understanding that they already have about life. They can see there is some fun in life, some good in it, but they can also see its faults much more easily than we can in our society.

On the other hand, when we hear those thoughts that turn the mind, we have so much time invested in staying young, keeping it easy, keeping it light, making it pretty, collecting everything we’re supposed to collect, that we really have to keep that information outside of us.  We can’t really let it come into us. For instance, in our society identifying with and understanding the teachings on old age, sickness and death is terrifying, because in our society the loss of youth is the loss of love. We don’t even value the wisdom that is gained in maturity enough to have it even bear mentioning.

But in other cultures, people have gone through these incredible experiences in a very natural way. They have a maturity of wisdom at the end of their life because they have seen themselves age. They have seen the beginning—the promise, the beauty, the joy. They have seen how it matures, and they have seen that you can’t take anything with you.  In our society, that isn’t valued.  In fact, it’s recommended that we think forever young.

Now that I’m maturing I feel, “Why would you want to do that!  Young people don’t think. So to ‘think forever young,’ that’s like ‘military intelligence’!” In my experience of teaching students, I find that this is the single most dominating factor in their own dissatisfaction with their path. Why is that? Again, in our society, we learn a bunch of rules. These rules are connected to our fundamental material attitude, that collector’s attitude. In our society, we feel separated, alienated, isolated. There is a feeling of inner deadness. If you don’t know that inner deadness in yourself, then it’s deader than you think, because you can look in the eyes of anyone you know and you can see there is an inner deadness.

Now if we approach our spiritual life in the same way— by following these rules that are external because the Buddha said they’re out there, without ever viewing them in an intuitive and intimate way—we are going to go dead on our path. The path which is so precious and so unique—that amazing reality that does not arise in samsara but in fact arises from the mind of enlightenment and therefore results in the mind of enlightenment—this precious inimitable thing becomes only one more set of external rules, like a girdle that you have to wear in order to be successful, to be part of our environment.

When the path becomes bigger, which it has to do, it has to be part of your life. It isn’t something you do only twice a week. There are practices that you do every day. There are ethical situations, moral situations that you have to evaluate and look at for yourself. There is a coming to grips, a connecting with, that has to occur every minute of every day. It’s a way of life. It’s not really a church thing. Once the path becomes big like that, you find that it must influence everything about you—from offering your food before you eat it, to closing your altar before you go to bed at night, to doing your daily practice, to thinking about everything that you do and re-evaluating it. Should I kill bugs? Should I actively work towards benefitting others? Where is prejudice in my life? These are some of the issues that you have to re-evaluate.

At some point, if the path is external and you have not come into intimate touch with it, when these things start coming up, they are going to be “stuff” you have to do. They are not going to be the love of your life. They are not going to excite you. Let’s say as part of your path you have to examine one of the Buddha’s teachings, “All sentient beings are equal.” That means you have to get rid of cultural, racial, religious, gender, even species bias.  All sentient beings are equal. What could be a more exciting and dynamic process than that? Wow!! Think about it!  What if you really did it right, if you went inside yourself and found that place where all sentient beings are equal? What if you made it your job to really know that? What if it was something that became so moving and overwhelming that it changed every aspect of your life?  What an exciting and dynamic process! How changed you would be!  How much more luminous, beautiful, noble your life would be from just that one little thought.

But that’s not what we do with the Buddha’s teachings.  We say, “All sentient beings are equal.  Okay, I’ll memorize that.  I guess that means I can’t kill anything. I guess that means that I really have to try to consider all things as equal. I guess it means I’m supposed to think that cockroaches and human beings are fundamentally equal in their nature.  I really don’t think that way, but it means that I have to remember that as being one of the rules.” Rules that are outside, that you don’t take responsibility for, that you don’t connect with, are deadening. They will kill you. They are bad. Rules that you take in as pieces of information, explore deeply and know for yourself, are empowering. They give you a sense of living for the first time.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Missing Link

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying a Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

What is the missing link?  What causes us to shunt ourselves off in that direction and create a scenario whereby we either don’t relate deeply to our path or it cannot nourish us, or we find ourselves feeling dead inside? How does that happen? One of the things that you have to remember—and it’s really important to think about—is that it is more and more prevalent in modern society to not see some of the natural currents of life. This is particularly true in our country with our level of technology and all the civilizing factors that have come together to make us what we are.

For instance, here we are so technologically advanced and removed from certain natural occurrences that we rarely have the opportunity to see the beginning of life carried all the way through to the end of life. Unless we ourselves have had a baby and daddy went into the birth-giving room and mommy had a mirror—unless we do that—birth to us is a mystery. We do not see what birth looks like. We have pictures of it. We may have seen a movie, but the direct sensual experience of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling, we have not experienced. Even those of us who are parents are somehow absent from this experience because many people do not have a real direct experience of their own birth-giving. They go to sleep during it or they’re drugged or something like that.

Neither do we have an experience of dying. When we die, we will have that experience; but until then, it’s hidden from us. We have no way to prepare ourselves for the reality of death in our society. We have no way to understand what is gained and what is lost during a life.  Watching someone die is an interesting experience because you can see that everything material is left behind. You have a sense, once that consciousness has left the body, has moved on, that there is a really distinct difference between what the body is like at the door of death—even if it was unconscious—and what it’s like after consciousness has actually left. It’s quite different. Any of us who have seen loved ones immediately after their death will know this. You know that there is nothing in there, unless you’re completely out to lunch, which I also have seen! But you can see that something essential has left and that everything material has been left behind. It’s such an eye-opener, particularly if the person who has died is not very old.  Perhaps they were still at the point in their life where they took a great deal of pride in their body or thought of themselves as being very vital. You might remember different things about the person. You might remember that the person didn’t like their figure, felt that they were too fat. Maybe you know that during the person’s life they obsessed about this. They felt really bad about being fat and they tried to do things about it without success. Then you see that person die. When the consciousness leaves, you realize that everything they struggled with doesn’t matter. Whether that body was fat or skinny, it didn’t go with them.

An understanding of how superficial such a struggle is occurs when you naturally see the rhythms of life and death. Do you see what I’m saying? There is a natural understanding that no one else can teach you. You have to see it yourself.

To understand what we are, it’s also good to see a number of babies being born. Babies are different when they are born. Hospital nurses who care for babies right after they’re born can tell you this for sure.  Babies are not blank slates.  Some babies are very aggressive and very active, and you can tell that they have tiny, little, confrontational personalities already. They’re just that way.  And then other babies are just wide-eyed and open. They’re like little jelly fish. My two sons have always been polar opposites—from the first moment they were born.  A mother who has had more than one child can tell you that’s how it is.

Many of us are completely separated from these natural events, yet they teach us very profound things about how to approach spirituality. Even the story about the Buddha indicates this. At first the Buddha was prevented by his father from seeing the suffering of old age, sickness and death. After having witnessed these sufferings, he found the strength to go on in his path because of compassion, because of the deeply felt recognition that occurred to him on some subtle level.  That’s a metaphor for the problem of our society. What a display Lord Buddha gave us when he showed us that, because on several different levels we are prevented from seeing suffering by our society.

We take dead bodies away and put make-up on them. (Can you believe  that? I want all my make-up on my body before I die. I do not want someone to put it on after I’m dead.  All of you can remember this? That is not the time for a face lift.) On an internal level, because of these subtle messages that we get, we do not come in contact easily with any real internal processes. We avoid them in the same way we are taught to avoid them externally. We’re told, “Don’t go there, it’s not safe. Just don’t go there!”

We are told not to approach things in a really intimate way.  Now in the story about Lord Buddha’s life, when he saw the suffering, it bothered him, hurt him, upset him, scared him and shocked him, and he had to—oh my—go through transformation, that “T” word that scares us so much.  Transformation is related to change, the other word that really scares us.  So, yes, he had to go through all of that, but what was the result?  The result was he became deeply empowered and was able to make some very difficult choices.

He decided not to live an ordinary life in which he was extremely happy. He was a prince with all the blessings. He loved his family. He had a beautiful and devoted wife, and they were very close, very intimate.  He had a beautiful newborn child and was not a distant or absent or unconnected parent. He loved his greater family as well, his father and mother—the king and queen. But for the first time he saw the suffering of old age, sickness and death, and it moved him to his core and enabled him to make choices that are very difficult. He came to the point of deep knowing within himself, that if he wanted to really love his wife and his baby, he had to find the way to liberation for their sake. The phrase “for their sake” became real to him.  It’s not real to us.

 

Spirituality in the West

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying a Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

How does our culture affect our sense of personal practice, our sense of taking refuge?  How does it connect with all of that?  We find ourselves in a difficult situation. We are really limited, and we can’t see where the limitation is coming from. We don’t know how deep we can quest or search, and how profoundly we can make the connection between the external environment, between the ordinary view, and our deepest, most intimate spiritual nature. We feel somewhat limited in knowing how we can make that connection.

Let’s look again at some very important factors.  Think of how we follow religion in our country. For the most part, here in the West, we believe religion is one of the many things that you should have in order to live a moral life.  It’s part of the palette of a moral life, but it may not be the basis of a moral life. This is kind of interesting, isn’t it?  Many of the people who are deeply religious, according to our society’s capacity, have adapted their religion from their upbringing. Somehow they got the message that in order to be part of that big, successful, materialistic picture you have to maintain a certain status quo concerning moral, ethical and spiritual issues. It isn’t your heart.  No, you wouldn’t want that, because that’s that flaky stuff. It’s really hard to have all that you’re supposed to have if this religious thing is so in your heart that it is your heart, that it speaks to you every minute, that all of your decisions are based on what you know to be true spiritually. There’s not much chance that you’re going to be the big accumulator your parents hoped you would be if you go like that. So religion is tamed.  It becomes insipid.  It becomes a thing that we do as part of the whole picture of who we are, but it does not really nourish us in the way that we want it to.  And we end up blaming the religion or the minister or the teacher or the prayers or something. In America, our religious spiritual picture is not empowered. It is not deepened, not in the way that would set us on fire. I don’t mean this in a fanatical way. I mean this in a way where we are never very far from what feels like spiritual truth, from what we know to be good, from what we know to be deep and meaningful. It is very difficult for us to maintain that kind of spirituality in this culture.

We are told, for instance, that in order to be a good person you have to do a certain amount of church-going. That church-going idea is deadly.  It’s really the antithesis of a spiritual path. And I find that here as well. Our Sangha also plays church. Whenever I see one of us do church-going, I don’t know what to do. That church-going thing drives me nuts!  When we come here, on the proper days—Sunday, during retreats and maybe for a midweek class—we think, “Well I’m here.  It’s Sunday and I’m fulfilling my spiritual obligation.”  We have that church expression: We look all spiritual and fulfilled and we say the nice things. Going to church in that way is deadening and disempowering.  It’s a very destructive way to approach our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is something that requires no church. It requires no temple. It is an ongoing, internal, profound experience to which we have to marry. We shouldn’t marry simply because we’ve come of age, which many of us do, but because we are truly wed in our hearts and our minds with a deeper kind of friendship and understanding regarding our spiritual path than we’ve ever known before.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

 

Cultivating Courage on the Path: Advice from His Holiness Penor Rinpoche

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche on Mediation, reprinted here with permission from Palyul Ling International:

The Bodhicitta we can generate right now, however vast, is beneficial. In the future, when one attains Enlightenment, according to the vastness of that Bodhicitta, that many sentient beings can benefit and liberate themselves from the sufferings of Samsara. Right now we cannot really perceive all that fruition, but if we continue to practice, then in the future we will realize it as a direct perception.
Buddha Amitabha, for example, ultimately achieved that kind of result from his generation of Bodhicitta and his accumulation over many countless years of practices of commitments and aspiration prayers. So even as the Amitabha Buddha achieved Enlightenment over a long time based on aspiration prayers and the commitment to benefit all sentient beings, so we as practitioners must constantly apply the practice of the six perfections to benefit all other beings.

The Buddha Amitabha did not just do these aspiration prayers once or twice, or make this kind of commitment just one or two times. It was over many aeons that he practiced these aspirations and commitments, such that whoever hears the Amitabha’s name and does supplication prayers to Amitabha, they will instantly be born in his pure land. If one has single-pointed devotion to Amitabha Buddha and one carries through all of these supplication prayers, then even oneself as an ordinary person with an afflicted mind can be reborn in his pure land. It is all because of Amitabha Buddha’s special aspiration prayers. So although there are countless Buddhafields, the Amitabha Buddha’s pure land is very special because of these reasons.

We all could also achieve that kind of completion when we attain Enlightenment if we continue on the path and carry through our practices, generating Bodhicitta in as vast a way as possible. So we should not lose courage, thinking, “Oh, I cannot do it. I could never attain that kind of Enlightenment.” It is not good to lose one’s courage like that. Think instead that all these past Enlightened Beings, all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, they also attained Enlightenment and ultimate realization by beginning the same as us, standard beings, and if they could attain Enlightenment, we can also attain that same kind of realization.

So today, though there is much that has been taught, if one can just try to keep in one’s mind to have one hundred percent devotion to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and if one will train one’s mind by generating Bodhicitta and carry though the practices, then one can definitely have this kind of fruition. We can all do aspiration prayers, that in the future we can all attain Enlightenment within one mandala through these Great Perfection (“Dzogchen”) meditations. Just as in the past such great Great Perfection (“Dzogchen”) realized masters like Garab Dorje and Shri Singha and so forth attained Enlightenment through these Great Perfection (“Dzogchen”) practices, similarly we can also have that aspiration prayer to attain Enlightenment.

For a short Amitabha Practice by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo click here.

Stupas and the Enlightened Mind

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Stupas

An excerpt from a teaching by H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche at Kunzang Palyul Choling in Sedona, Arizona on May 14, 2003.  Tulku Sang-ngag is a renowned Stupa Builder and Vajrayana master.   In addition to the many stupas he has helped to build and consecrate in the US,  Kunzang Palyul Choling was very fortunate to have Tulku Sang Nang guide the construction of the Amitabha Stupa, to consecrate it, and to teach on the meaning of a stupa to the Sangha.

The enlightened mind of the Buddha

Before offering this Dharma teaching on the meaning of the stupa, I would like first to offer homage to the Three Jewels –  the Supreme and Unsurpassed Guide, the Buddha;  the teachings that the Buddha taught, the Holy Dharma; and  the followers of the teaching, the Sangha.  I offer homage to those three.  And then to the Unsurpassed Guide, my personal teacher, who is the embodiment of all of those three in one single form.  I am offering this teaching on the meaning of a stupa in accord with Jetsunma’s wishes.

That which is known as a stupa is called a “chorten” in Tibetan.  A chorten means a receptacle of offerings.  A stupa actually represents an outward expression of the Buddha’s enlightened body, speech and mind.  First of all, we have the Buddha’s mind.  The Buddha’s mind is such that it is non-composite phenomena.  It has neither shape nor color, but it is all knowing.  It is cognizant and lucid and yet you cannot identify it as being anything whatsoever.  The Buddha’s mind is unelaborated cognizance.

In order to address the predicament that all sentient beings find themselves in, to tame those beings and bring them on the path to enlightenment, the Buddha has manifested in two specific forms in an effortless manner.  In a non-artificial and natural manner, he manifests in two types of bodies.  That state of the pure potentiality of enlightenment, that is the state of being a Buddha, is something, which is beyond any kind of representation.  It is beyond having color or a shape or a size or any kind of form.  That authentic state of enlightenment, which is yet to manifest, is the genuine stupa.  It is the genuine stupa of basic space, “cho kyi ying,” which means the sphere of Dharma, the sphere of pure potential.  That is what is known as the authentic stupa before the onset of manifestation.  It is the potentiality.  It is the actual state of enlightenment that we are talking about before it is actually manifest.

The state of basic space, the Dharmadhatu, manifests a display of appearances, which are spontaneously present, complete, and perfect.  Because that basic space is an unhindered display of dynamic energy, a variety of stupas manifest in the four directions in order to benefit beings.

The state of the Buddha’s mind is such that it has the 32 qualities of enlightenment.  They are the ten powers and the ten states of fearlessness and so on.  Those 32 qualities of the enlightened mind of the Buddha manifest outwardly as the 32 characteristics of a physical stupa.  They are actually a physical representation of those internal qualities of the Buddha’s mind.

What is “Refuge?” from a commentary by Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche

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The following is an excerpt from Great Perfection Buddha in the Palm of the Hand a commentary by Gyaltrul Rinpoche:

The reason for taking refuge is based on the awareness of the precious human rebirth, on the awareness that, having attained the precious human rebirth, to waste it will be just like returning empty-handed from a land of precious jewels. Keeping that in mind, you must recognize that you need some kind of guide, some kind of help, someone or something that will teach you, show you, how to make use of your precious opportunity. This someone or something is the three jewels of refuge.

As I have mentioned, one should not take refuge in or rely upon the external form, the body of the lama or the actual presence of the Buddha. If that were important, then we would all be in trouble because the Buddha is long gone now and the lama will also pass. Even though the Buddha and all the great teachers of the past are no longer in this world, there are still buddhists. Buddhism lives on because refuge isn’t taken in the body, the form, of a teacher; it’s taken in the qualities that are actualized in that particular embodiment.

The enlightened body has specific attributes, indicated by specific physical characteristics. You must learn what those attributes are. There are many different teachings on the subject of the enlightened body.  For example, the fact that a buddha or a deity has one face symbolizes the dharmakaya, the great bindhu that is the one nature of reality, or truth. Two arms symbolize method and wisdom in non-dual union. When you take refuge in the sangha you take refuge in the qualities the sangha represents, not the bodies of the sangha members. When you take refuge in the dharma you aren’t taking refuge in the paper and ink, in the pages that the dharma is written on; you’re taking refuge in what the words express, in the quality and essence of the teaching. Whatever your dharma practice may  be, on whatever level, it is in the meaning of the dharma that you take refuge.

If you intend to study with a spiritual teacher, that teacher should be an embodiment of the qualities of the three jewels of refuge, and you should know what those qualities are. If you take refuge in an ordinary person who lacks a higher level of realization, who, in his ignorance, mixes traditions to create something new — maybe mixing hinduism and buddhism, throwing in a little christianity or taoism, making a little garbage container — then you will find yourself in trouble. It won’t be beneficial to you; it will harm you and everyone else involved. And you shouldn’t become such a teacher, because you won’t be a suitable object of refuge. If you are not a lama, a qualified spiritual teacher, then you are sangha. Since the sangha is one of the three jewels, it is important that you also be clean and pure.

Contemplating the Nature of Suffering

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche called “Meditation”

The samsaric sufferings we experience are the result of non-virtuous actions of the body, speech and mind. For example, if somebody performed a negative action, such as killing, for instance, then the result based on that action, the reaction or its ripening Karma, is for the person’s life to shorten. And in the next lifetime he may be born in the hell realms where he has to suffer the result of the Karma he created. Similarly, if someone thinks that in this lifetime they could obtain material possessions by stealing or robbing, like a rat who steals all kinds of grains, such stealing ultimately ripens its fruit so that in the next lifetime, or maybe in this lifetime, this person may actually not have enough wealth and become very poor. Even the physical body’s negative actions, such as sexual misconduct, have negative results. This can be that within one’s lifetime, or in the next lifetime, one’s family will not be in harmony and will suffer quarrels and fighting. Similarly there are four negativities of speech, which are known as lies, interferences, harsh words and gossip. From these are certain negative results that one experiences, such that whatever one tries to tell, people will not believe. Even when one tries to say something beneficial it will seem like one is trying to harm somebody. Likewise with the three negative mental actions: Greediness, thoughts of harming others and wrong views. Based on these, one will not have success whatever one tries to do in this lifetime or in future lifetimes, one will experience a lot of harm from other beings, one will be unable to remain together with one’s masters, teachers or good friends and so on. These are examples of the ripening of negative actions.

So understanding all these causes and conditions are based on the actions of our body, speech and mind, we should then try to abandon all the ten negative actions and try to train ourselves so that our mindstream flows with the spiritual path. Then one can practice and accumulate all the virtuous activities. The teachings say that if one follows the worldly aspect of the Dharma practice, with good or positive behaviors, that naturally turns into a spiritual path through which one can have peace and happiness. In this way, with our bodies, speech and mind, in whatever conditions of life, it is very important to try to benefit others and have loving kindness toward everybody.

Dedication

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

May all sentient beings be fully satisfied in both relative and ultimate ways. May all who hunger and thirst for pure and deep Dharma be fully satisfied. May all who pray for more have twice as much. May all who crave what belongs to others have twice that, and all causes accompanied by all qualities and activities. May all who suffer in any way be mine to bear. OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA! In the three times, to the three jewels, I dedicate all merit. To Palyul I dedicate. To haters, to the sick, to the poor, to the planet in peril, to animal rescue. Gratitude.

And of course, the Root of all accomplishment…Tsewei Lama Kyabje Third Drubwang His Holiness Pedma Norbu Rinpoche, Padmasambhava Himself as he found me again!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Recycling in Worldly Existence

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche on Meditation, reprinted here with permission from Palyul Ling International:

In this world, as we were born as human beings, we need to have something beneficial that we can do. In general, we have some kind of activity by which to earn our livelihood, just to have something to eat and drink. Of course, not only human beings, but also animals know how to live their lives in this way. As we were born human, we can talk and understand language and meaning. That is the specific characteristic of a human being. So based on that we need to have some ultimate benefit that we can achieve within this lifetime.

Generally speaking, two main activity categories we can engage in: our normal worldly activities and then the Dharma activities. But the majority of the world’s people become very busy with worldly activities rather than following some kind of spiritual practice. These worldly works or activities are based on one’s capabilities and power and skill, and of these there are many different levels – some have more or better and some have less.

However, whatever worldly activities that we complete, whether or not they are good or meaningful, they will only endure for a few months or years. There is not anything within these activities that we can ultimately rely on. For example, from young childhood we pursue educational training, from first grade until graduation. For almost fifteen or twenty years we work very hard and study so that we can get a specific job. Then if through one’s job one becomes more successful, then possibly in twenty or thirty years we consider that we have a better or happier life. And if during all that time, if we have a very pure and sincere mind in all these works, then of course there is some benefit which is known as virtuous action. But there are also those that have the qualifications to do these activities but who have so much ego or arrogance or pride that their works, even if completed, are not really beneficial in this lifetime.

So many human beings consider the benefit for their individual selves as the most important thing. The result is we are all re-cycled over and over in what is called Samsara or the cyclic existence.

We cannot really establish or find out how long we have been drifting about in Samsara or cyclic existence. No one can know for certain how many lives we have taken in this world – one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, perhaps one million lifetimes. We cannot calculate the countless aeons of times we have been reborn in this world, in this Samsara.

Sometimes we were able to fulfill some of our wishes and sometimes we could not. For this life, from the time we have taken birth from our mother’s womb until now, whatever our ages, we have been constantly thinking about our own benefit and how we can be more happy people. All of our education and financial developments are all just for one’s own benefit. There is not anything left out that one has not thought of for one’s own benefit.

However, whatever we do, fulfill or complete in this lifetime is mainly based on our Karma, the action, of what we have done in our many past lifetimes. One cannot complete one’s every wish immediately because of the Law of Karma. Because have never developed their spiritual side, they mainly have deluded minds. So they are not able to understand the causes and conditions based on the Law of Karma. They can only think of what is happening today, and have no idea what is really going on. They don’t have a deeper level of understanding of these spiritual practices and so they don’t understand what is involved in past lifetimes and future lifetimes. It is because of their obscurations or ignorance that they don’t have any clear understanding about the causes and conditions. They really don’t know anything about the Law of Karma.

His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche

All Sentient Beings

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

One of the most important and central thoughts in Buddhist philosophy is the idea of compassion. The Buddha taught that we must cultivate our lives as a vehicle to be of benefit to all sentient beings.  It’s good that you’re a good mother, and it’s good that you’re a good friend, but we can’t limit ourselves to a small, familiar circle. We have to go on and on increasing our compassionate activity, our influence and our determination until we attain a level of kindness or compassion that supersedes what we believe is reasonable. We can’t stop even with our nation. We can’t think that we only want to help Americans. Nor can we stop with our world. We can’t think that we only want to help humans and animals, which are the ones that we can see. We have to think, according to the Buddha, that we wish to be of benefit to all sentient beings.

A sentient being is one who has sensory feeling or the development of that kind of discriminating consciousness. According to the Buddha’s teachings, there are six realms of cyclic existence, and there are sentient beings in all of these realms. The human realm and the animal realm are visible to us. This is living proof that at least some of the Buddha’s teaching is right. We see human beings and we see animals; therefore, we know that they exist. But according to the Buddha’s teaching, there are also non-physical beings and different kinds of beings that must be considered if we are to truly develop the mind of compassion.

Limiting ourselves to an identity such as,”I am a woman,” or “I am a man,” or “I am an American,” or “I am a Russian,” or even “I am a citizen of planet earth,” is not the way of the Buddha. Instead, we should think that on every particle we can see, and all those that we cannot see, and in every inch of space, there are millions and millions of sentient beings. And space goes on forever. If we intend to develop the mind of kindness, it must extend to all sentient beings equal to the limits of space.  Space has no limits and there are limitless beings, seen and unseen.  Therefore, we must extend the mind of compassion to beings far beyond those we can conceive of with our brains. That is an awesome thought. How can we really do that? We think that must be impossible. How can we be directly concerned with somebody we can’t see? How can we really care about something that might be infinitesimally small, like bacteria? Or a sentient being that may be as large as a galaxy? How can we seriously consider we must be kind to all sentient beings in that way?

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