Awakening from Non-recognition | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Voyage to Recognition

May 30, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the teaching called Awakening from Non-recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In this time of intense confusion called Kaliyuga, when our being’s discursive mind and thoughts run rampant and out of control, when even the reality that we are projecting onto our environment becomes progressively more and more decadent—in this day and time Vajrayana has appeared in the world. According to the teachings of Guru Rinpoche, Vajrayana is the best practice for this time, the most potent and most powerful. It relies on a very strong ripening. It relies on the very condition of Kaliyuga, when things become more and more contracted. Yet the obstacle that we face—and here’s where we need to prepare for our lives and for our deaths—is that we do not understand the Guru Yoga. We do not understand why we should practice it or how it might lead to this moment of recognition.

Yes, we want to awaken. We want to move into a state of recognition once we understand what the concept means. But we don’t want to practice Guru Yoga because in our materialistic society we have negative programming concerning some ideas about Guru Yoga. We are brought up in a democratic society, in a materialistic society, and we learn certain rules that we apply wrongly to this situation.

Now I think these rules are good. These rules teach us that we should think for ourselves, that we should be independent. You could not get anyone in this world to agree with that more than me. I am a Brooklyn girl, and I do not believe in following anything blindly. I do believe that to be strictly dogmatic, with no understanding and no ability to determine for oneself what is true and what is right, is completely absurd. I agree with the Buddha’s teaching, plain and simple, although that’s an arrogant thing to say. If I didn’t, what would it matter? But I do. The Buddha taught us that we should determine everything for ourselves, but we apply this wrongly. I am going to talk about how we should apply this process to the practice of Guru Yoga.

In the practice of Guru Yoga, we should think for ourselves, we should be smart people, we should not go brain dead, we should not blindly follow the leader. We should not think that this is simply a translation of another religion where you just do lots of prostrations and act like you’re brain dead around your teacher and go completely limp in your head, saying, “I believe! I believe! Save me, I believe!” In our religion, if you do that, there won’t be much result. So I don’t recommend doing that because in our religion we believe in cause and effect relationships. In order to achieve that state of recognition, one has to apply the causes that will produce that result—in the same way that, if one wants an apple, one has to plant an apple seed that will grow into an apple tree. Until we develop replicators like they have on Star Trek, there’s no other way to get an apple. I have no idea how they’re going to teach Dharma once we have replicators, because we have been taught that the seed always produces the fruit.

In order to accomplish this state of recognition, this precious, awakened state, we have to have practiced, and applied the causes by which the mind is ripened and ready for such a thing. One doesn’t do that by simply being a good little boy or girl or by being a spiritual person meek and mild. It is through practicing, and one such practice is the Guru Yoga. When done correctly, it can lead to this result of recognition. Now the practice of Guru Yoga is not one of submission to another person’s will or acting as though you are a nobody and the teacher is a somebody, or acting as though you’re a kid and the teacher is mama, or simply following things around in some sort of mindless way. But rather, in the appropriate practice of Guru Yoga, there are certain determinations that one must make.

There is a whole long list of ways to understand this, but Americans don’t do well with grocery lists. We don’t remember them. We get bored and we move onto something else, like wondering if we left the oatmeal boiling on the stove this morning. So let’s look at it this way. When we first meet with our teacher and grapple with the idea of practicing Guru Yoga, it is not about some sort of emotional display of dropping to your knees and never having a normal thought in your head again. It’s not like that. It’s not some sort of funny, emotional, weird, dumb thing. Instead, it is a determination for oneself: What is this relationship? What does it provide, as opposed to what other relationships in my life provide?

Different relationships supply as many different things as there are relationships. Some supply sorrow and difficulty. Some supply support and happiness. Some supply nurturing. Some supply financial help. There are relationships where there is a back and forth, giving and receiving, but everything that is given or received—even affection, even human caring—arises from the world, from samsara. You think to yourself, “Well love? I don’t know about love. Love doesn’t.” The kind of love you’re talking about in ordinary human relationships absolutely arises from samsara, even the best parts of it, because a lot of it has to do with chemistry. A lot of it has to do with karmic fitting together. We don’t even understand how animal-like we are. A lot of it has to do with pheromones, all kinds of things that are absolutely worldly, and they come together to create a certain feeling. A feeling is also something that is a worldly experience.

Although our relationship with our teacher may be cloaked or surrounded by experiences that are in relationship to or in accordance with our senses—we will see our teacher, our teacher may hand us something that’s physical, we will have emotional experiences and reactions concerning our teacher—yet there is something different going on.

The teacher provides you with a way to connect with our ultimate teacher, with the Buddha, with Guru Rinpoche, with the entire lineage of lamas—all of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Through the relationship with our teacher, through empowerment, wind transmission (or lüng), and commentary teachings that ripen and direct our minds, we become familiar with the Buddha. Outwardly, that seems to be the physical manifestation of the Buddha as we have heard about the Buddha in history. Inwardly, it is a gradual familiarity with our own nature that is Buddha.

The teacher provides us with the path, the method—not the method to go from one side of the room to the other, not the method to make lasagne, not the method to brew a cup of tea, not anything ordinary that you can learn in the world, but the method that is Dharma practice and the necessary understanding and deepening that goes with it. This method that is Dharma practice is not ordinary because it arises from the mind of the Buddha. Therefore, in the relationship with the teacher there is something happening that is not of the world. It is extraordinary. You can’t get it anywhere else. Particularly in relationship to one’s own root guru there is a nourishment — the recognition that this teacher speaks my language, speaks to me. This teacher enables my inner recognition, matures and ripens my mind so that I can hear, and not just theoretically. That’s the particular relationship that happens between oneself and one’s root guru.

Also, this teacher is the one who hooks us. This is very valuable and potent. Although life will hook us, alcohol will hook us, sex will hook us, food will hook us, TV will hook us, Star Trek will hook us, X-files will hook us, Christmas will hook us, love will hook us, lots of stuff will hook us, these are all things that can be found in the world.

When the teacher hooks us, what is coming into play is recognition of the nature as Buddha, the appearance of the path. This hook is about things that are not ordinary, things that are not of this world. What is the result that the teacher offers, desires for you, tries to communicate to you as being important? That you’ll be a good cook? That you’ll be pretty? That you’ll be healthy? That you’ll be fit? That you’ll be rich? That you’ll be a good artist? That you’ll learn how to use the computer? I wish all those things for you. I hope the Bluebird of Happiness nests in your armpits never to leave again. The teacher wants you to have every temporary happiness, but that isn’t what’s happening here.

What is happening here? The result that is desired, that is implemented by this relationship, is the result of your recognition of awakening. You have to look at this for yourself. You can’t just listen to me and go, “OK, I see what you’re saying.” You have to do it in your head. I can’t get into your head.

All of the rules that you have about ordinary relationships should not apply here anymore because you determine that this is something different. This relationship is not in the ordinary category. It does not arise from the world. It does not necessarily bring the result of worldly gain, although virtuous activity always brings about better things, but that’s not the plan here. As I said, every teacher, every Bodhisattva wishes you to be happy, but the result that we are about together as student and teacher is that of recognition, of awakening. Once you’ve determined that this is a different category, please don’t be a dummy, going on like a beast of burden that simply cannot think things through and cannot change your habitual tendencies. Don’t engage in this relationship within an ordinary context because it simply won’t work, and you won’t receive the blessing.

Ph’owa: Precious Opportunity at Moment of Death

May 26, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

I would like to talk about a practice that we do in order to prepare for the time of death. This practice is called P’howa. In P’howa, we practice clearing the central channel, opening up the psychic apertures that block us, coming into a state of awareness of what the death experience is. In P’howa we practice ejecting or sending the consciousness through the central channel so that at the time of death we can die consciously—that is to say, not simply have the experience of death overtake us the way life has overtaken us, but rather die intelligently, participating in the transference of consciousness from ignorance to bliss.

In the practice of P’howa we are taught that at the time of death when the outer breath ceases, there is a period of time between that and when the inner or more subtle breath ceases. That time varies according to the conditions surrounding the death, the condition of the person’s mind stream, the karma of the person and his or her habitual tendencies. There are many different factors. But when death actually occurs and all of the breath ceases, both the outer breath that is very visible and measurable and the inner subtle psychic wind, at that moment there are three very important events that happen. It’s critical that as Buddhists we understand this, think about this intelligently, prepare for it and make choices.

The first event is the disengagement of the white Bodhicitta or male spiritual essence that we inherit from our fathers. We perceive this to be seminal substance but it is actually the white Bodhicitta in its mystical form. That white Bodhicitta disengages and drops from the top of the head to the heart area of the central channel. When that happens, there is a corresponding vision as we enter into the bardo state called the white vision. That white vision has two aspects and there are two results. We prepare for that in P’howa.

The second event that happens is the disengagement of the red Bodhicitta or female spiritual essence, which is the mother’s contribution. At the time of death that red Bodhicitta disengages and rises up the central channel to the heart. At that time we have the corresponding vision, which is called the red vision. That red vision has two aspects and two results. Again, you will learn about that when we study P’howa.

The event that I want to discuss is the third event, which occurs when these two substances, this red and white Bodhicitta, meet in the central channel. When that happens, there is the clear or black vision. That particular vision is extremely important because, while everything in the bardo depends upon our capability to move from a state of non-recognition into a state of recognition, the most glorious opportune time for this movement into recognition is when the worldly life-bearing constituents dissolve and we are in that state that I’m describing. Every method that we practice in Vajrayana is geared toward providing that kind of recognition both in the waking state and at the time when the red and white Bodhicitta meet.

That state is a very fortuitous state. To the excellent practitioner who understands the point of the path and who has practiced and achieved some accomplishment, that moment is a tremendous opportunity. The excellent practitioner will look forward to that moment more than to any other event in his or her life because that moment holds the strongest potential for recognition. A mediocre practitioner will say, “Well, you know, it sounds good to me, but I don’t know, I’d rather vacation in the Bahamas!” or something like that. The mediocre practitioner will have some fear about it, which will be more or less according to their level of competency, and will question whether or not that state of recognition could possibly occur at that moment. For the non-practitioner, that state is a complete unknown.

Now, why does this moment hold such a tremendous opportunity for the practitioner, and why is it a completely different experience for the non-practitioner? Non-practitioners are basically in the same position in that state as they were in their lives when they lived in an ongoing, confused and deluded state of non-recognition, thinking that I am this thing that is contained right here in this box of flesh and you are out there totally separate from me, and there is no connection. That state of non-recognition is the mind of duality. It is the mind that separates self from other. It is the mind that experiences acceptance or rejection, hope or fear, and hope and fear mixed up at the same time. There are many different ways to determine what our consciousness is like in the state of non-recognition. Simply look at what your mind is doing right now.

If we were awake as the Buddha is awake, we would understand that duality is not even logical. Coming from the perspective of enlightenment, of realization, of awakening, we would understand that is not realistic at all. It cannot be. So this state of non-recognition is the state in which we seemingly remain in a certain solid condition where everything other than our perception of self-nature seems to be projected outward and seems to be happening to us. We think life happens to us. We seem to be both victim and oppressor, and we seem to experience both the result and the condition of both. According to where we are at that particular moment in our lives, we will think ourselves to be either the victim or the oppressor.

Now, according to the Buddha’s teaching, nothing is happening other than the primordial wisdom nature that is the ground-of-being along with its display, which is very much like the relationship between the sun and its rays. The dance, the movement, the display of the primordial wisdom nature is as much a part of that nature as the sun’s rays are a part of the sun. Yet we experience things in an extremely deluded way. Everything seems to be separated, categorized, dualistic, and so we are lost in a state of non-recognition, not able to understand who or what we are or how things actually occur.

In P’howa, when the red and white Bodhicitta come together, the subtle material constituents, which bind us to our experience into this physical reality, into a time and space grid or a sense of continuum, naturally dissipate. When the body is ceasing its activity, that which we have called “I,” which seems to have existed since time out of mind, we do not perceive to disappear into nothing. We perceive that sense of “I” continues and remains, mostly due to ego-clinging and desire, through the idea of self-nature as being inherently real. However, at the time of death, again when this red and white Bodhicitta come together, there is this brief period of time when all of these constituents dissolve. This is almost like the space or pause between an inhalation and exhalation. Unfortunately, our language is a deluded way to communicate this information because it is not made to convey enlightenment. It’s made to convey only delusion. Please forgive me for that. So there is a moment when the constituents dissolve, when there is this pause where nothing new arises. Even though we are still lost in the state of believing in self-nature as being inherently real, some sort of subtle reassembly has not occurred just yet. The constituents have simply dissolved and there is a moment of pause.

Once the constituents disengage, most people (99.9% of sentient beings) who have not had the opportunity, or for whatever reason did not practice to some level of accomplishment, will not be able to recognize that the components that cause us to engage in the automatic projection of our karma and mind streams into external experience have momentarily ceased. To the ordinary practitioner at that time, consciousness simply faints or goes into what is very much like a sleeping state. That is the experience of dying. It seems as though something ends. There is no recognition of the primordial ground of being that is our nature and that is momentarily revealed at that time, revealed just as clearly as it can ever be.

Now here again listen to the language of delusion, “clear as it can ever be.” If we could conceptualize that nature as an “it,” we’d probably be able to see it at that time. But the constituents have dissolved, and we are simply seeing the naked reality, the naked face of the ground-of-being that is our nature. As non-accomplishers, as those who are still not awake, we do not recognize that moment. It appears to us that it is simply over. It is ended. We have had a certain white vision and there is a feeling of moving through a tunnel and all that stuff they write about in books. A lot of it is correct, but they don’t tell you about the part that happens after that, which is the red vision, and then the experience of dying. As we arise from the state of unconsciousness, our habitual tendency to conceive of self-nature as being inherently reasserts itself. When we’re talking of a habitual tendency, we’re not talking about 75 or 80 years, we’re talking about time-out-of-mind, inconceivable time, time that you cannot name, count or measure. So naturally a habitual tendency simply asserts itself. Then we continue to go through the bardo, again projecting consciousness outward, but it’s a very different experience without the rules and regulations associated with physical life.

What happens to accomplished Bodhisattvas or perhaps even to very good practitioners at that precious moment when all of the constituents dissolve? They recognize the clear, uncontrived, natural, conditionless face that is our nature, that state which is literally free of any and all conditions and therefore cannot be described, which is fundamentally complete and yet without beginning or end. That state is free of discrimination, free of any kind of determining factor, free of time and space as we know it, free of anything that we can name as distinction or condition.

At that moment that state is revealed, and for the practitioner, it is as precious, so close as to be beyond your breath, beyond your blood, beyond your marrow as you understand as a physical being. That state, then, when the constituents all dissolve, is suddenly tasted, understood, recognized—recognized in the same way that a child will recognize its mother and the mother will recognize its child. “Recognized” is the only word that really works.

Those of you who have been parents, particularly women I think, have this kind of experience more frequently. It’s not to say that men don’t have this experience, but women who have birthed a child have a mind bend to see something that was inside of them and now it’s outside of them and they know it. There’s this thing that happens. It’s there in the same way that a child begins to move toward its first cognition, the first thing to which it reacts. You can see this in newborn infants. They will start to look for the sound of their mother’s voice and even be comforted by being held close to the mother’s chest because they recognize the mother’s heartbeat.

This deep, intimate recognition doesn’t even touch the recognition that happens to the qualified practitioner or Bodhisattva when the constituents dissolve and they are free to see their true face. That nature that is revealed at that moment, simply because nothing else is going on, is more intimate than the experience that I have just described. Again, those of you who have borne children and know what I am talking about can really relate, and others of you can relate in your own deep, inmost experience, perhaps remembering from your own childhood.

The revelation of that arising is so intimate and so profound. It is that revelation that we look to accomplish, that we try to understand, that’s the game plan here. At the time of death when the constituents dissolve, we wish to arise from the darkness not filled with desire and habitual tendency continuing through the bardo and through samsara like a bee in a jar like we always do. Instead, we wish to arise in the state of recognition that is the same as what the Buddha described when he said “I am awake.” This is a state that brings us to awakening. That is what awake is: that recognition.

So for the excellent practitioner the hope is that at that moment we will recognize that which is not separate. What is the thing that we recognize at that time? It’s not a thing. It’s no thing, nothing. It is no thing, and yet it is that which is the ground essence that is our nature, the ground-of-being. Isn’t “the ground-of-being” a provocative phrase? We’re not talking about some external divine reality that we have to go toward. We’re not going toward the lake, you know. That’s not what we’re doing here. It is the recognition of that nature that is the ground-of-being, that ground-of-being that is our nature. In that state, indistinguishable, one cannot determine the appearance of phenomena or the appearance of self-nature, or the difference between. One cannot see differences. That recognition is of our true state, our true nature, which is that which is free of such distinction.

Bliss Happens

October 24, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

There are so many amazing ways that you can practice. I’ve seen it again and again in the greatest practitioners, but only in the greatest, so we aspire to this. I think about stories I’ve heard about the Tibetan Bodhisattvas. For instance, during the tragedy when Tibet fell, literally 20,000 Tibetans (my teachers among them) tried to cross the Himalayas to get to India to safety, and only 20 arrived. These people endured incredible amounts of death, killing, all kinds of terrible sufferings. And then you think about great Lamas like His Holiness the Dalai Lama and my teachers who have said that instead of hating the Chinese who caused them so much loss and so much suffering, they feel almost worshipful in a sense, recognizing that the Chinese are their gurus. Now how does that happen? Are you thinking, “Well, this is maybe more than I can swallow? You know, if anybody is going to destroy me and my culture, I think I’d rather not like them, thank you very much!”

What has happened here is that these great Bodhisattvas recognize that everything is the mandala of the guru. With faith, everything is the display of the guru. So this tragic event is understood as a wrathful display that gives us the opportunity to cut off ego clinging at the root. Whatever they decided to do with this information, Tibet fell. Those things happened, so you basically have two ways to go with this. You can use this as an excuse to fall deeper and deeper into samsara with hatred and prejudice, or you can use it as a ladder to climb out of samsara through practicing renunciation and the cessation of ego clinging. It’s already happened. Those are the only two choices you have! Now, if we were a good practitioner and broke a leg, we’d say, “This is truly the display of the mandala of the guru. This is the guru’s blessing because now I can’t hop around the way I normally do. I have to sit my butt down and pray.” You can use that opportunity or you can sit that same butt down in front of the TV and watch soap operas all day long and wail and gnash your teeth about it.

In my situation I think like this. Many of you know I came from an alcoholic and abusive home. To me that is my most precious gift, my most precious empowerment. I have received until this date no more precious empowerment than that. It’s not to say I want to do it over again. It was a nightmare. It was horrible. The days of suffering were endless, but I understand what I could not have understood any other way: that samsara is something to be reckoned with, that all sentient beings are suffering, that I wish to see suffering end. I don’t think I could ever have understood this as well if I had not experienced what I experienced. So that has become my empowerment, and I feel that this is the guru’s blessing. Hopefully, I have come to a point in my practice where I can say this without resentment. I feel that I can look to the face of my guru and say, “Thank you for this skillful means that you have offered me so that I will benefit sentient beings. Thank you for this.” Without resentment I can truly say that. In the next breath I’m also likely to say, “Please let’s not do this again by the way, if you don’t mind.” But the recognition is there. So it has become for me an empowerment.

The bottom line message of Guru Yoga isn’t about subservience or about losing power or losing strength. If anything, it’s about recognizing that the ball is in your court. You have and will have the experiences of samsara. What are you going to do about that? Even if you lay down and die, you still have to go through the bardo and then you do it all over again.

You have choices, but they’re not the kind you’d like to have. You’d like to choose to be either here or not be here, choose to be happy or be sad, choose to have one experience or another happen to you. What you can choose is what you do with what happens to you. If you were to enter into the practice of Guru Yoga deeply and be truly empowered by that, this entire life could be an empowerment. We can transform all of the whining and moping and gnashing of teeth that we do into strength.

Often students will come to me and say, “I have this particular problem. This particular problem makes me unusual and unfit. My mind is stuck on it. So let’s make a big deal about my particular problem so that we can talk about it together and then we don’t have to practice. We can just have this particular problem.” Well, my answer to that is great, because if you have that particular problem, when you solve that problem, you’re going to have that particular strength. That’s what you’re going to have. This is golden. This is gravy. So we take this problem and we transform adversity into bliss, and the bliss occurs when we move into a state of recognition. We understand that we are not victims anymore. We understand that this kind of dualistic thinking is unreasonable and unwarranted and pointless, and we begin to understand “I am here. I am that. And the capacity to display this nature is something holy, a gem, a jewel that I possess.”

We learn this within the context of Guru Yoga, through the friendship of our teacher, through recognizing what is not ordinary. But try to remember, if we insist on maintaining the same habitual tendency and interact with that which is holy as though it were ordinary, and are not able to make that bridge or that transformation, it’s like taking a precious jewel—the most precious in the world, in all worlds, that could buy you anything that you want, a wish-fulfilling jewel—and making, as a six-year-old would make, a play pretty out of it.

It’s not that one way of being would make you a bad person and the other not. It’s that one is a terrible tragedy, a terrible waste, a terrible loss, and the other is empowerment. That’s the difference.

As we hold in our mind the intention to awaken as the Buddha is awake, as we hold in our minds the information about the difference between what is ordinary and what is extraordinary, as we begin to move into a state of recognition through the practice of Guru Yoga, this will facilitate every happiness, every result of the path. Gradually, over time, we will prepare for the opportunity of recognition, and it will occur. This is the truth. I would not lie to you. I have no reason to lie to you. These are the Buddha’s teachings. Again you have the opportunity to pit your ordinary process of conceptualization, as it arises from samsaric tendencies and samsaric means, against what the Buddha speaks, which is the truth of your own nature. This the Buddha has taught, “I will appear as your root teacher.” This Guru Rinpoche has taught, again, “I will appear as your root teacher.”

Perhaps this teaching will give you some beginning understanding of how to approach the practice of Guru Yoga. I hope that it is helpful to you, and I hope that it helps you to move across certain stuck places that we as practitioners find ourselves arriving at again and again. Thank you very much.

The Student-Teacher Relationship

October 23, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

This relationship between the student and teacher absolutely depends on the connection between what appears to be two things. On the part of the teacher, the relationship requires the capability to express, display and communicate Dharma, and certainly the intention of Bodhicitta first and foremost. The student’s well-being and realization, recognition, awakening, enlightenment is the goal of the relationship. The teacher’s responsibility is to connect with the student in order to bring about that result and to provide all of the necessary components on the path in order to achieve that result.

What is the student’s responsibility? The student’s responsibility is not to treat this relationship as an ordinary thing, once you have determined that it is not of the world. That would be inappropriate. Have you ever seen children make collages? They take a piece of construction paper and they glue pretty sparkled things on that piece of paper and then they give it to mom. They just make a play-pretty. That’s their artistic endeavor because they can paste and glue. You don’t think students do that with their teacher? The equivalent would be to take a most precious jewel, like the Hope Diamond, exquisitely precious, immeasurable in worldly and monetary terms, put some Elmer’s glue on it and stick it on a piece of paper right next to all the fuzzy things and play-pretties and sparkles and colored macaronis and all the things kids use to make collages, and say “Because I can paste and glue. Because I’m six years old now and I can do this.” That would be the equivalent. You would take that precious jewel and paste it on that piece of paper and just throw it around with the other things you make because you can, because you’re smart, because you’re human, because you’re American. Can you see what I’m saying here?

This precious relationship should not be dealt with in that way. It’s absurd. You cringe when you think of a diamond—that’s worth so much money that it could probably feed all the homeless in our entire country for at least a period of time—used as a play thing, pasted on construction paper with colored macaroni and stuff. It’s exactly the equivalent of practicing Guru Yoga in the way that we practice it.

That precious relationship provides a format in which we practice recognizing. When we are born in samsara we have a certain experience. As a human being we are born of a mother and a father. You can’t get away from that. As far as I know, no one has just appeared somewhere. If you have, please tell me. I want to see that you’re missing a belly button. We pass through the birth canal and we experience the world as infants and then we grow into consciousness. There seems to be this continuum that expresses itself in time. Why does that happen? Well, it’s because we believe self-nature to be inherently real. Self-nature is not the same as the Buddha nature. It has a certain kind of limitation, and the format seems to be that it moves through space. It takes place in space. To take place in space you need to take place in time also. So we have this experience and we take it for granted. That’s simply the way it is.

The Buddha is able to look at you and see everything about you, every single condition that brought you to this present moment. What kind of perception is that? When the Buddha looks at this experience, the Buddha sees in awareness, in the awakened state. In that recognition there is something else. There is an appearance of this nature in a display form, like the sun’s rays coming from the sun. The Buddha understands this nature and does not distinguish between this and that, between empty and full, between high and low, between hot and cold, between solid and non-solid. The Buddha recognizes that face, that nature, that ground-of-being simply in emanation form.

When we meet with our teacher, there is a different relationship, and this is how we have to understand the necessity and power of Guru Yoga. If you have chosen your teacher correctly, the teacher is a Bodhisattva with enough wisdom, enough awareness, and enough accomplishment in meditation so that there is recognition, so that the teacher knows your nature. The teacher recognizes this potential, this seed, and the teacher/student relationship is completely based on that recognition. Even though the teacher may occasionally interface with a student in a way that appears to be ordinary, it’s always about bringing the relationship full circle until the student’s recognition occurs. That is the basis of the relationship. Don’t make it ordinary. It’s not about a warm fuzzy. It’s not about being comfy cozy. It’s not about feeling good. It’s not about whether we both like to ice skate or have the same color skin. It’s not about any of that.

It’s about the appearance and the recognition of that appearance. The student has an incredible opportunity and that is to begin to practice entering into a state of recognition, utilizing the Guru Yoga, utilizing the teacher. Why should we utilize the teacher rather than sit down and chant “Om” and just meditate and see if we can recognize our natural state? Well, because it’s not likely to happen that way, that’s why.

We are ordinary sentient beings lost in samsara. We have been conceptualizing self-nature since time out of mind. We have unbelievably strong habitual tendencies. If you think addiction is strong, as it appears in the world now with drugs and alcohol, it’s nothing compared to the level of addiction to a habitual tendency that we have in our clinging to ego as being inherently real. It doesn’t even come close!

In this relationship we are going to conceive of something different. We are going to determine what is ordinary and what is extraordinary. We are going to go through this whole process we’ve outlined. We determine that this relationship is extraordinary. It arises from the Buddha nature. It results in the Buddha nature. In the middle is the path or the method. This being the case, we begin to understand that if this relationship arises from the Buddha nature and it is the Buddha nature and that is our nature, when we see the teacher, we have at last seen our own face. That precious moment—when that face that is our nature arises in some way that we can recognize—is the beginning of recognition.

Now it seems external. It seems like the teacher is out there. It is the student’s responsibility to practice in such a way that they begin to recognize this appearance as the most precious, holy experience. It’s not like worshiping a statue. It’s not like that. It’s recognition of the nature. What is the nature? It is the Buddha nature, indistinguishable from our own nature, therefore the recognition of our true face.

We talk about how to see our teacher when we meet him or her for the first time during the day. There are practices and beautiful writings—I myself have even written things about this and spoken about this, but it’s not my particular talent. In our heart without pride, with surrender, with beauty, with gentleness, with regard, without rigidity, without ideas, without taking that jewel and putting it on that collage, on that piece of paper, we behold the teacher and we say, “This is my heart, my mind, my breath. All that is precious and holy to me, all that is beautiful in this world.” And we place the teacher in our practice above the crown of our head. Are we stupid people worshiping something else? Are we kind of limp or weird? Are we maybe not American anymore? Try to understand. This is not about a personality cult. This is not about putting one being or body or personality above any other. It’s not like that. This is about recognition. The same pride, confusion and preconceived ideas that cause us to say, “Well, I just don’t know. This person is just an ordinary person and maybe I should just be friendly and try to do some practice and some reading.” That kind of holding oneself back from recognition is the exact same holding oneself back from recognition that is occurring right now to you and causes you to remain suffering in samsara. If you insist upon putting the teacher in the ordinary category, you insist upon putting the nature in an ordinary category. It’s the same problem, the same habit, the same disease.

Your Chance at Recognition

October 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Guru Yoga must be seen not as an end but as a means to an end. Quite frankly, speaking for myself and I’m sure most other teachers, we could care less. I’ve described this many times before. I just hate the whole prostration thing. It takes me forever to get through a room. If one practices in a profound way, these prostrations are an opportunity, and that’s why I allow them to be practiced here in the same way that they are practiced generally in our tradition. Otherwise I wouldn’t, because they bother me, but I allow them because it is an opportunity to make an offering and to move immediately—body, speech and mind—into a posture of recognition. You are speaking, “I take refuge in the Lama. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha.” You are engaging in conduct with your body. You are engaging in intention with your mind. With body, speech and mind you are connecting to recognition, and that’s why I allow it.

The relationship with one’s teacher is utilized as the water of life or some sort of ultimate nectar or ultimate empowerment that provides a way for us to begin to recognize that which is holy arises in the world and that each of us is that. Each one of us should practice like that. To the degree that we hold the teacher above the crown of our head and then take the teacher into our hearts, without finding reasons not to—because those reasons not to are the very reasons we are using to remain lost in samsara—to that degree we learn to recognize. Yes, we know you’re clever enough to find reasons not to recognize the nature. If you need to be clever in the way Americans need to be clever in this day and age, you are already clever, very good, now let’s move on. Let’s see if you can learn recognition.

The relationship with the teacher then becomes this precious opportunity, this precious bridge. We see that the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha and, all three-in-one as the Lama have appeared in the world, and we see that this is not separate from us. So in the beginning we start practicing by contemplating the difference between what is ordinary and what is extraordinary. We begin to move into relationship with the teacher. We begin to practice devotion. We try to practice some pure view, understanding that this is the appearance in the world and that this is holy and we let it be that way. We simply let it be. Then gradually we move into a much deeper practice where we understand everything is the mandala of the guru. In that practice we begin to learn to turn adversity into bliss.

Life on the Merry-Go-Round

October 21, 2016October 20, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

According to the Buddha’s teachings and according to everything that we can surmise from the information we receive as we travel along the path, we as sentient beings, are in a state of non-recognition. When you hear a term like “non-recognition,” it’s hard to really understand what it means. When we think of the word “recognizing,” we think in superficial terms such as “I recognize you” or “you recognize me.” We recognize people with whom we are familiar.

That concept still holds true, but there needs to be a deeper, more able way to understand what non-recognition means. According to Buddhist philosophy, we contain within us the seed that is the Buddha nature. It is not smaller than the Buddha’s nature. It is not bigger than the Buddha’s nature. It is not different from the Buddha’s nature. It is the same. It is that nature inherent within us that is the primordial wisdom state or the natural ground-of-being that is our nature. As we move toward enlightenment, we don’t construct that nature. It doesn’t become complete. It doesn’t become bigger. It simply is what it is, but we move from a state of non-recognition into a state that the Buddha clearly described as being awake. And that’s the only difference.

In our culture we tend to think in a materialistic way even about things that are very subtle, very pure, very profound and very spiritual. We tend to think that perhaps the Buddha or a great Bodhisattva or even one’s teacher has a bigger Buddha nature than we do. Somehow their Buddha nature is bigger and maybe more muscle-bound, more fit or stronger than ours. At the risk of being crude, we wonder if the teacher’s isn’t bigger than ours. According to the Buddha’s teaching, that is not the case. The simple difference is recognition. One Buddha nature is not different from another.

As ordinary sentient beings we are locked in the state of non-recognition, and that non-recognition is so all-pervasive that it becomes invisible. It’s like being born on a merry-go-round. If no one ever stops the merry-go-round and you spend your whole life on the merry-go-round, you will never know that you’re on it. You will never know anything other than that reality. Our condition of non-recognition is very much like that. It has always been this way. We project everything outward onto a screen. We know no other way to be aware. So that is the dilemma of sentient beings. We wish to awaken as the Buddha is awake. We wish to come to understand our true nature, our primordial wisdom nature, which is the ground-of-being, and yet we are locked in a state of non-recognition.