Teachers

Experience the “Lotus” of Dharma

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From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

The thing about Dharma is how expansive it can be; and is. So many different levels, almost like a wedding cake. To trivialize one in favor of another only indicates one’s propensity toward grasping and clinging. Ego must identify itself by its “containers” of concepts and often the “structure” of Dharma is understood much better than the nectar or essence of it.

Dharma is more like a lotus. Many petals and secret, fragrant parts, the root is in the mud of samsara. Yet the nature of every atom and molecule are Buddha rising from primordial clarity. The Lotus is pure, beautiful, and fragrant; it can be understood in many ways. Many compute the facts of the image. Some feel the soft insinuation of the image. Others will want and taste the fragrance. Feel the essence of it. Touch. Hold. Meld.

We are a community of Buddhists who cannot allow each other to be one of those lotus petals while letting one be pristine, another rusted; one shiny and new, and another nearly gone. But if we could…imagine the fragrance, the mystery, the color, the goodness, the texture and perfume the Buddha Dharma could be in the West! We could all have our different little rules but the perfume of Bodhicitta, compassion, the very display of loving kindness on all levels…we can bond into a great worldwide Dharma community if we looked out for each other. Displayed the beauty, connected, not argued.

We are taught by our Lamas that all phenomena even at the most subtle levels occur on outer, inner, and secret levels. Even in traditional empowerments and pujas it is so – those three levels.

So, will we argue about the grossest outer forms? Or give rise to Bodhicitta without which no one can awaken. Will we cling to form, or will we drink deeply of the nectar that Lord Buddha and later Padmasambhava brought?

The question is like asking if you wanna go out to chow down at a restaurant? Or humbly, gratefully, at the table of the Buddhas, their daughters, and their sons?

As for me and mine, we pray and intend to feast on love.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

True Refuge

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The Buddha is the Master who reveals the true Refuge, and the Sangha is like a true friend on the path to Enlightenment. The actual refuge is the Dharma, because it is the Dharma that will free us and pacify suffering. The absence of or freedom from delusion is cessation. If we do not apply the antidote to our faults and delusions they continue to arise. But after the remedy, if the delusion is totally uprooted, it will never rise again. That state, free from delusion and the stains of the mind is a cessation. Bottom line- anything we wish to abandon like suffering and its causes, can be eliminated by applying the opposite forces. The final cessation is called Nirvana, or Liberation.

The Buddhas, fully enlightened ones are inconceivable, as is the Dharma, their teaching. The Sangha is also inconceivable so if you develop inconceivable faith there is no doubt the result will be inconceivable. It is said in our scriptures that if the benefit of sincerely taking refuge in the Three Jewels could be measured in relative, physical terms, the entire Universe would not be able to contain its value just as a great ocean cannot be measured in a tea cup.

Having learned the value and benefit we should rejoice in the opportunity to make offerings to and take Refuge in the Three Precious Jewels of Liberation. Here in this way we will be able to alleviate the influences of our negative actions as well as karmic obstructions. All these can and will be eliminated, and we all will be counted as sublime beings, which will surely please the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and our own kind Gurus and Lineage Masters!

It is this we should focus on, not the ego or our pridefulness for results. The consequences of karma are definite. Negative actions bring suffering, always. And positive actions bring happiness and freedom, always even a small action can bring a large consequence; so mindfulness is required. And the ability to examine ourselves honestly is essential to all spiritual progress!

To all spiritual progress!

OM MANI PEDME HUNG!

OM AH MI DEWA HRI!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Pure Form – Deity Generation

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We are involved in Vajrayana.  We go much further in our practice than this thinking about nature and this going around in circles and this logic and this theory and this philosophy.  We go further than that.  We actually engage in practices in which one generates oneself as a pure consciousness form, which is the deity or the particular Buddha that you generate yourself as when you do your practice.

Let’s say that you generate yourself as Chenrezig.  Chenrezig is a pure consciousness form.  He displays and demonstrates all the pure qualities and activities associated with the deity.  The emphasis associated with Chenrezig is indicated by his posture, his color and the things that he’s holding in his hands.  In generating ourselves as this pure deity form, we have in our hearts the seed syllable surrounded by the mantra.  The seed syllable, the mantra and the deity all emerge spontaneously out of shunyata, or the void.

We do this in Vajrayana to indicate something that is a very important aspect of this teaching and of our practice.  First, it is important to understand the philosophy and the logic associated with the Buddha’s teaching because [then] one can knock down the dependency on the perception that defines self and other.  One can break up a good deal of the rigidity associated with the automatic involvement in these extensions and exaggerations of perception.  One can break up the experience of perception itself through meditating and contemplating on the illusory quality of self-nature.  One can meditate on emptiness and try to find self in every object in the world and, perhaps when one is finished, one can lay down the game in a sense.  After doing all this, one would have attained a certain degree of awareness of emptiness and also an awareness of the emptiness of self-nature, and an awareness of the emptiness of the nature of phenomena. Then one’s mind could become stable in that it would not be so automatically involved in the processes that are functions of the assumption of self.  Yet, is that the same as supreme realization?  Is that as far as it goes?  Do you break down things, and after you’ve broken them down, sort of sit there with them?

Perhaps we can come to understand that, in Vajrayana, we are given something else, and that something else is very hard to describe.  It is recommended that we do the above process, but it’s also recommended that we meditate on shunyata.  It’s recommended that from that meditation on shunyata we arise spontaneously as this pure form.  What is a pure form?   A pure form is actually a form that is an illusory image of a self, an entity, which is based on the assumption of emptiness.  It is not based on the assumption of self.  You are based on the assumption of self.  Everything about you is based on the assumption of self.  All your karma is based on the assumption of self. Everything you see, everything you feel is based on the assumption of self.  But this pure deity form arises from shunyata and arises as the seed syllable, as the mantra and as the form itself, bearing all the pure qualities, all the pure attributes and all the pure activities of an illusory, gossamer-thin form that arises based on the assumption of emptiness.

So we do not stop with the assumption of emptiness or with breaking up the ordinary view and perceptions; but rather, we, in generating ourselves as the deity, have an even more profound experience of emptiness.  Because the deity arises from the voidness, shunyata, you should meditate on emptiness before you generate yourself as the deity.  The seed syllable that is the first birth is the condensation of the body, speech and mind of such a pure form. It is based on the assumption of emptiness. It has in it all the qualities that arise spontaneously from that awakened state, condensed into the seed syllable.  The mantra is the same, having all the activities and qualities that arise spontaneously from this empty state, from shunyata.  So from that, we are led to believe that one should not stop merely at breaking things down so that the game no longer computes, but that there is a more profound state. There is a more profound awareness that allows for miraculous birth.  It allows for a miraculous birth in order to bring about miraculous activity, in order to demonstrate miraculous qualities such as compassion, which is completely consistent with emptiness, the same as emptiness, united with emptiness, inseparable from emptiness.  Through this practice, through this miraculous birth, we actually purify our perception. Not through breaking down the game alone, but through actually utilizing these condensed manifestations of emptiness, one’s perception is purified to realize the illusory quality of all phenomena, to realize the union, the sameness of formless and form, to realize the spontaneity of experience and to realize also the infallibility of pure view.

You should then practice every single practice that you do, and examine for yourself and contemplate and meditate as you have been instructed, with the understanding that in every generation, in every accumulation of any kind, you should try to realize the profound, incredible opportunity, if you will, to go beyond that into the astonishing pure view and to realize for yourself that the generation of the deity is the same as emptiness.The deity arises from emptiness, it indicates the assumption of emptiness and that you also arise from emptiness.  Yet the mistake that you make is the assumption of self.  Every compulsion comes from that.  Every perception comes from that.  Every experience that you have and all experiences that you have had are artificial constructions that come from that.  Every piece of your lives, your experience, your consciousness, even the senses, if you think this way, cannot be trusted, because they are based on a false assumption.

This is why you have the opportunity to generate yourself as the deity and to practice this profound method.  It is so you can view the sameness, the suchness, the purity, the pristine luminosity that is the nature of all phenomena, as well as of the self.  It is so you can view the indistinguishability between the two based on the assumption of emptiness.

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Perception”

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Hidden Right in Front of You

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In this excerpt from a teaching called Bodhicitta, Jetsunma speaks to her students about her recognition by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche.

The person who is practicing needs to be able to distinguish between a diamond and a rhinestone. You have to know the miraculous really exists and you have to have faith in it.  Sentient beings are helpless if they’re lost in cyclic existence; they can’t make any breakthroughs.  They can’t really break out by themselves.  Somehow they have to receive a direct mind empowerment from someone that has made certain progress. One way that you can do that in the Vajrayana system is to take wangs and another way that you can do that is to have a kind of mind-to-mind relationship with your teacher.  There is a transmission that goes on, but you have to have faith for that to happen.

His Holiness said, “I could sit there and hit you with the bumpa all day long until you are flat on your head.  If you don’t have faith in the teacher, you don’t have faith in the wang, if you don’t know what’s happening, you can’t work with the wang. Your head could be flat, but nothing is going to happen.”  He said you have to have to faith.

Realizing that, he and I began to talk about that, and after a while it became necessary for the recognition [editor’s note:  Refers to Jetsunma’s recognition].  What does the recognition mean?  I don’t know.  It means nothing has changed.  What’s changed?  Michael, my husband, said he had an interesting kind of perception.  He’s married.  All of a sudden he’s married to a tulku. And I said, “All of a sudden you are married to a tulku?  What were you married to before, a bran muffin?  Dear friend, you were always married to a tulku.”  And he said, “I think about how we used to be together before,” and I said, “We’re still doing it.  I get better that now you know it?”  I don’t mean to be crass.  But you have to understand what is going on here.  In one way, nothing has changed.  The event, the real thing between us hasn’t changed.  If I was your friend before, I’m your friend now, you see?  If I was your teacher before, I’m your teacher now.  If I was the biggest pain in the neck in your life, I’m still that now.  That hasn’t changed. But now you have taken off the blinders.

What the recognition means is that you have a handle or a way to take off your blinders and to have real faith.  That’s what has got to happen.  This path doesn’t work without faith. It’s awful that I have to teach this to you. Somebody else should teach this to you, like a Khenpo.   But this is Kaliyuga and this is the West and we’re in it together so you are just going to have to put up with it.

You have to realize that all this time the miraculous has been right in front of you and it’s part of your life.  You weren’t able to realize before what an opportunity you had, but now you can realize that.  It doesn’t mean that now there is a big change in your life because your teacher has been recognized as a tulku.  You might think, “That means now I have to drop everything and do three prostrations first time I see her.”  Well, OK, that’s what they do.  That’s customary.  That’s good Guru Yoga.  But it’s not about what you do with your arms and legs.  It’s good that you practice that because it helps you to remember.  It’s not that, “Now I have to give her a cup that’s covered all the time.”  These are the stupid things that people are fearful about – forgetting to give me the right kind of cup. You think that’s what it is all about.  Or you think, “What if I walk into the room first and she walks behind me and I didn’t see her?”  Do you know how many times that’s happened me?  In India, I didn’t even know which ones were the tulkus and which ones weren’t, because I hadn’t learned them all yet.  You don’t always look where you are going. I didn’t care.   I was just right in there.

You make mistakes like that.  That’s not what it’s all about.  You shouldn’t be fearful like that.  You shouldn’t be.  The relationship hasn’t changed in that way.   The love is still there.  Everything is still the same.  Now you get to realize that the miraculous activity of Guru Rinpoche is happening in your life, that you have this precious opportunity and that this is a really good time to take advantage of it.

You have the opportunity. To paraphrase, Guru Rinpoche said, “Maybe you won’t see my body, but I will come as your teachers.” When Guru Rinpoche says something like that, I believe it out of hand.  When I see my teachers, I know that Guru Rinpoche is with me.  That same miraculous activity is right with you.  The stuff that saves is right there. What has changed is that now you have to realize and you have to practice Guru Yoga with such faith.  That’s what your job is.  All the great teachers have said it is so, therefore I believe it.  Not only that, but I’ve seen it.  That’s what it means.  I haven’t changed from a caterpillar to a butterfly.   I’m exactly the same as I was before.  Have you noticed that?

What has changed is that you have now a way to take some blinders off and you can realize for the first time that who you thought was your best friend, is still your best friend, but in a different way.  You thought you had to cling to some kind of humanity – a best friend, a sister, and comrade, somebody you could go drinking with.  That’s what you thought you had to have.  But that was only temporary.  It was a masquerade.  You still have your best friend.  But now you find out your best friend is the Three Precious Jewels and it’s always been that way, except that you didn’t know it before.  Now you know it.  So the only thing that has changed is you.  You get to take your blinders off.

You get to see that in your life right now is spontaneous, miraculous activity and that this is your time, this is your time and you can do it. Nothing’s changed except now you get to practice properly.  What’s there in front of you has always been there in front of you.  I didn’t become a tulku a month ago.  That’s the stupidest thing you ever heard of it, isn’t it?

Try to practice Guru Yoga properly.  Realize that right now, miraculous activity is in your life.  The reality of non-dual mind is in your life, and it’s your best friend.  It’s right in front of you.  The whole visualization of Kuntuzangpo and Kuntuzangmo and what it means, it’s not just a visualization.  It’s the truth.     It’s really there. You have this.  We have His Holiness and we have Gyatrul Rinpoche, and you have your root teacher.  That means it’s for real.   It’s the truth. It’s right there with you.

Sometimes I look at His Holiness and I think, “My gosh, what do I need with a visualization.  I’ve got you.”  It’s there, it’s right in front of me.  It’s nothing that I made up.  And it’s the same for you.   Now you know it.   That’s the only difference.  Don’t be scared.  You try to get it right; sure you should try to get it right.  I try to get it right.  But just try to realize that right now you have every reason and cause and expectation to deepen properly.  You have everything you need if you just do it.  What are you so distracted about?   Just do what you have to do and do it now before it’s too late.

They say a door can’t chase people around the room, but I swear, I remember chasing a lot of people around the room.  This may be the time you get that opportunity, so you better walk through the door really soon into deeper practice.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Where There Is Love

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From a series of tweets from Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, December 2009

I’ve recently had the great joy of seeing Dharma students return after time away. I rejoice and welcome you home with open arms and heart!

No bridge is burned, no river damned, no journey wasted, no song unsung where there is LOVE.

No obstacles, no taint, no bitterness, no blame, no darkness where there is faith.

No sorrow, no crime, no endings, no loss, no grief, no separation when one is awake.

No fear, no hate, no confusion, no winning, no losing, no past, no future, no contrivance where there is Wisdom.

No going, no coming, no abandonment, no holding, no resentment, no attachment, no loss with Bodhicitta.

©  Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

The Four Thoughts

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From a series of tweets by @jalpalyul on December 2, 2010

Homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas! Gathering all virtue and merit from the three times, this I offer in a beautifully arranged Mandala; a splendid array of jewels, nectar, medicines, and song. Please allow me to speak in such a way as to bring benefit to all beings!

This precious human rebirth is extremely difficult to obtain. Whoever is born, must die, and all things are impermanent. If one is determined in virtuous Dharma, this is the cause for becoming Buddha – awake! When negativity is produced, it will cause endless wandering in the six realms of samsara.

Grasping, needy, lusting spirits will wander in the realm of hungry ghosts. Hate and anger cause a hellish rebirth and great suffering from heat, cold, violence, etc. Humans suffer from old age sickness and death. Those who love war and pride themselves in power, and bullying will wander in the realm of jealous gods. They suffer endless warring! Devas also suffer continually from pride and so forth. How sad!

These produce the states of non-freedom. Birth in these aforementioned realms, or with incorrect view, in a dark aeon; or in an incapacitated state, these are the essence of non-freedom! These are some faults of cyclic existence.

Birth in a land where Dharma is taught correctly and with all faculties complete, without reversed karma, with correct view and with great faith in the Three Precious Jewels, these are the endowments,which I possess.

Birth during the presence of the Buddha, and the Buddha’s teaching (Dharma), the presence of the doctrine, and pure followers, and in the presence of those who lovingly care for others from their hearts, these are the circumstantial endowments.

If one’s moral discipline is broken, even with these precious endowments, and material wealth as well, one will fall to lower realms. This is why it is so essential to use one’s life to create merit, as well as good qualities, and the purification of the five senses and perception (skandas). We must try to take this opportunity to be sure we may remain stable on the path and produce good result.

I am 61 and for me the urgency or this life is quite evident! May I and my students practice well and purely and be reborn in the realms of accomplishment! May we benefit all beings equally and always respect the Dharma just as it is.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Right Livelihood

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An excerpt from a teaching called the Eightfold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Right livelihood is in the ethical conduct section of the Eightfold Path, and it means that one should earn one’s living in a righteous way. Wealth should be gained legally, and peacefully.  It sounds pretty simple, but it’s not so simple in today’s world, because you really have to look at what you do.  Lets say you own a liquor franchise.  You might want to think about selling that business and going into the Tofutti business.  You know? If you think about it, many people suffer due to what your product is.  Maybe you’re making lots of money at your liquor establishment, but then you see the poor people stumble back and forth on your street, and you have just got to ask yourself, are you doing the right thing? Upon contemplating right livelihood, one will come to understand that this is not correct.  This is not a good way to make one’s money.  Sell the franchise, and go into Dunkin Donuts or something, they make a decent coffee.  Something even better would be something that benefits sentient beings like a health food or some other product.  Right livelihood is like that.

The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings that one should avoid for this reason.  Dealing in weapons.  They hurt.  Dealing in living beings, which includes the slave trade, prostitution, and raising animals for slaughter.  That is wrong livelihood.  It is wrong to the core of the path.  No one should ever enslave another being.  No one should ever raise beings to die.  This is what the Buddha has taught, and to the degree that we go against that and harm sentient beings in this way, we ourselves will be harmed, if not in this lifetime, then in the next lifetime.  I tell you, folks.  What goes around comes around.

More wrong livelihood that should be avoided is working in meat production and butchery, as well as selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs.   Furthermore, any other occupation that would violate the principals of right speech and right action should be avoided, so again there’s that blend.  Right speech, right action, they are both in that ethical category.

Ethics are so important and they are really not taught in many religions.  And in fact if you go right to Vajrayana, you may even miss these teachings.  But ethics are the foundation, the underpinning of the path.  You cannot go into highfalutin practice without good ethics.  Your whole house will fall apart.  It will be like a house of cards. We start here in the world, here in the mirror, looking at ourselves. Taking account before we go onto the fancy stuff.  You must examine your own methodologies, and to make sure that you have established good ethics and right view.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Lead Your Mind to A Pristine Point

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From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (@jalpalyul)

Our minds have been under the influence of delusion since the beginning of time. The function of concentration is to gain control of our minds.  Having gained control of the mind we can then steer it in a virtuous direction. Without mind training this is not possible. Without training the mind will continue to be like “monkey mind” that drags one around in an unstable way.  This is very detrimental to one’s path. Because of that we have indulged in negative actions.  These actions lead to unwanted suffering. Therefore if we wish to succeed on the path we must learn to transform and gain control of our minds.

Like a donkey, the mind must be led in a virtuous direction and used as method as one would ride a horse. One cannot allow the mind simply to wander.  The mind’s habit is to wander wherever, and acts like a monkey, distracted and hyper, enjoying shiny things!  When you make real progress, you should be able to place the mind at a pristine point easily and well. Until one attains that point, it is necessary to progress step-by-step.  One must build a house with stable walls by building a perfect stable foundation. This is the way pure Lamas do, and we, of course must follow!

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Who Needs Refuge?

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Faults of Cyclic Existence”

How is the understanding of compassion a clarifying thought as well as a motivating thought?  How is it a clarifying thought?  Now here is where the profound connection with refuge comes into play.  Not only does the compassion motivate us to take refuge, but it makes us think it through very clearly.   If we utilize it, it does.

When we enter onto the path of the Buddhadharma, we take refuge in the outer refuge of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, the inner refuge of lama, yidam, khandro, and the secret refuge of the channels, winds and fluids.  When we actually enter into this refuge, which for our purposes now are the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, Triple Gem refuge, we must define why it must be arranged the way it is.  Why is it organized the way it is?  For instance, if it’s true that all sentient beings are suffering but they wish to be happy and they are mostly suffering due to desire and the confusion about issues concerning desire, if that’s what the Buddha said, then why don’t we just kind of sit down and have a therapeutic session of insight so that we can isolate for ourselves what it is that we actually want.And maybe then we can go and get it.  If all sentient beings are really suffering and we’re really unhappy and we’re trying to be happy, why don’t we just have an insight of some kind and go for it!? Why don’t we do that?  Well, because you’ve done that before.  You’ve done that before.  You do it all the time to greater or lesser degree, according to your capacity and your habitual tendency.  In fact, we do that all of the time.  We feel a need.  We feel desire.  We feel something.  Something is moving that locomotive down the track.  What is it?  So we sit down and we try to center ourselves or we get busy and allow thoughts to come up.  Each one of us has a characteristic way to deal with things.  Maybe we’ll do a little journaling, we’ll do a little art, we’ll do a little music, we’ll do a little whatever, take a walk and try to center ourselves, and figure out what’s going on.  Well, we’ll come up with something.  You always come up with something

Now we’re going to figure out, “Oh ,  if I don’t get with the great love of my life pretty soon…, That’s what it is, I know that’s what it is.”  So now you’re on to the next adventure. Or you may ask yourself,“What is it that’s troubling me?  What is it that’s troubling me?” And you sit down and you’re reaching inside and using all this psychological technique and you’re going, “Oh it’s my mother!!!  My mother didn’t love me!!”  Each of these are valid. I’m not saying that these are not issues in your life.  I’m not saying that these are not valid things to think about, but I am saying that there is some confusion there in that you are looking at the superficial causes for discomfort, but not the deeper ones.

If we were to look more deeply,, we would discover that the underlying cause of all suffering is desire, and that we’re real, real, real confused about this whole issue.  So we examine the path and examine the teachings a little bit further. And we find that the Buddha has taught us that samsara is actually made up of the things that potentially make us suffer.  That is to say that the first step or connection with samsara, that is the wheel of death and rebirth, is based on the idea, the first gossamer thin assumption or idea, of self-nature as being inherently real.  Why does that happen?  That happens because it can. End of subject.  It’s one of the potentials in the great ground of primordial nature which contains within it all potentials.  So this has happened.  We have considered ourselves separate.

In order to consider one’s self as self nature separate, other has to be external.  In order for other to be external, it has to be determined.  In order for it to be determined, we have to react toward it.  There has to be a reaction  toward it with acceptance or rejection.  You cannot see something without registering acceptance or rejection, or the combination of the two, which is neutrality.  Neutrality is not lack of reaction.  It is a combination of reactions.  So we cannot experience anything as outside ourselves without some sort of reaction. And once that has happened, we react toward everything with hope and fear.

So everything in samsara is then built from that original structure of the idea of self nature being inherently real and at this point one’s self is determined, and other becomes external.  We split into subjective-objective reality.  Everything in samsara, every kind of perception with the senses, anything that we take in with our eyes, our ears, our tongues, anything that senses, comes from, at the root, that original construct, that original assumption of self-nature as being inherently real.  So everything in samsara is built of that.  That is to say that nothing that we experience now, nothing that we have ever experienced, is separate from the realm of desire.  So literally, everything within samsara is potentially cause for more suffering.

 Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

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