Mindfulness Workshop | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Reactiveness Is The Enemy

January 28, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

How does one practice the recognition of the empty nature of all phenomena? One of the ways that we can do that is by pacifying reactiveness through a deeper understanding and discrimination. Reactiveness is an inner enemy. In a very profound way, it’s probably your worst enemy. It is the seat, the throne, the source of all suffering. It is really our reaction to samsara and the resulting activity that that brings our suffering; that is our suffering. Like the Buddha said, our suffering is all based on our clinging to self-nature as being inherently real and the desire that arises from that. This reactiveness is truly the enemy. I can’t say that often enough.

Since time out of mind we have believed in self-nature as being inherently real. Since that first idea of self-nature as being inherently real, we have spent every moment from that point on securing ourselves, establishing ourselves, making ourselves safe and defining – most of all defining – ourselves. In order to define myself, I have to see you as separate. All of the ideas we have that come from that are truly samsaric in nature, even, as a practitioner, the idea that I should walk around looking very noble and very holy and very renounced. Even that idea, although it may seem to be about practicing on the path, is actually about the samsaric clinging to self-nature as inherently real.

So this discrimination that we practice has to antidote that very thing. How are we going to antidote that very thing? That’s not so easy. Reactiveness, if you think about it, is a perception about self-nature being real, the perception of other, and the reaction is based on hope, fear or neutrality. As a human being, if I see you, I hope that you will make me happy. I hope that you will make me safe. Or, if I see you, maybe I fear that you’re going to be prettier than me or richer than me, or I fear that you’re going to be unkind to me or that you’re a danger to me. Neutrality comes after you go through both hope and fear and you’ve decided it’s pretty well balanced, so you’re neutral about this. Neutrality is not wisdom. When we have that kind of a reactive mentality, it is such a knee-jerk reaction that it is automatic. There is never a thought that says, “Oh boy, now I’m going to react to this.” When somebody walks in the room, you don’t think, “Now, watch me react.” When something happens to you, you don’t think, “Watch this.” I have the image of these old-time paddleballs with an elastic string and a ball on the end, you know? The only thing that you can do with it is bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, you know, like that? Our minds are like that. We are like that, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. The thing that’s happening is that we perceive ourselves as being real and solid; we perceive stuff as being “out there,” and the only thing it can do is hit us, and the only thing we can do is bounce at it, and it’s bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, because we cannot have a second where we don’t reinforce the idea that self-nature is inherently real. Maybe we would disappear. So bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! That’s what we have to do, and it has to be constant or maybe time won’t pass or things won’t be solid.

To apply the antidote to that, we are told to sit and practice and do the visualization. That is an antidote. The reason why it’s an antidote is because you’re not reacting to something that affects self-nature, but you are engaging in a visualization, giving rise to a deeper awareness of what your nature actually is. So it’s a great antidote for that. But if you really look at the phenomenon of bam-bam-bam and what it’s based on, you can see that there is no spaciousness between the idea of self-nature as being inherently real and BAM, the reaction. There’s no space. The mind can’t NOT snap back. Do you understand why I’m saying that?

To apply the antidote, you can’t just decide consciously not to react. That would only make you neurotic. That is the nature of the beast as we are now. You cannot pretend that you’re not reacting. You’d look holy, I guess, but it would make you a little weird. The way to practice is to try to get a little bit of space somewhere in the equation; to try to take a breath, give it a moment. How can you do that? I just said you can’t control that, so how are you supposed to do that? The way to do that is to begin to recognize the nature of the phenomena that you’re experiencing. When you go through this mental stuff and your mind is so tight and you’re bam-bam-bamming and you’re in that deeply reactive mode, you have the power to do this. Animals can’t do this, other kinds of beings can’t do this, but humans can do this. This is what’s unique about us. We can stand back, and we can say, “Oh yeah, that’s just like me. I do that.” Just that stepping back to observe phenomena without going crashing into it headlong in total ignorance and drunkenness and denial is an incredible practice. To be an observer just for a moment, to watch the equation – self-nature is inherently real, therefore…to watch the reactiveness, to watch the play that goes on there, begins to create some space in the mind. This is an incredible practice, and it should be done at times when you’re not deeply reactive.

To practice like that, you have to start very simply, when the mind is relatively quiet. Watch yourself looking at a tree. Watch how, when you look at the tree, the tree is only relevant if it makes you feel good. Otherwise, what do you care about trees? You couldn’t care less. But the tree is beautiful. It affects us. It’s very healing, pretty in the spring, shady in the summer, fruitful in the fall. Instead of being king or queen baby on your own little stage, perhaps you can observe yourself looking at a tree and watching how the tree is relevant as to how it affects you. Watch what happens when you watch the tree. When you look at the tree, just kind of watch that whole equation right then. At first, maybe it’ll happen too fast and you won’t be able to see it, but if you persist, you will get a wedge in there. Watch your mind.

Mindfulness Brings Awakening

January 26, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

For all students, when they see the sacred, whether it’s a text or a holy image, it is an opportunity to practice and it’s an opportunity for recognition. It’s an opportunity to practice the View – to get that coarseness and dullness out of our minds.

As practitioners, we should never, even for a moment, point our feet at a sacred image. You might think, “Ah, that’s for another culture,” but no, it’s not. There is a thing that happens in your mind when you’re kicking back and you’ve got your feet up and you’re pointing it at something holy. The mind goes to sleep. Inwardly, subtly, you simply go to sleep. Believe me when I tell you, you leave yourself wide open for real negativity to come out at that very time, because there was an opportunity for recognition, and there was a choice of non-recognition. That puts more weight in the shit pile, not the Dharma pile. See, we have two piles – shit and Dharma. Those are the choices. Just trying to be real clear about this.

When we practice this non-recognition, we are going deeper and deeper into suffering. The mind becomes more inflamed, thicker, looser as in sloppy. In actuality, in some ways it’s much tighter. The mind is very reactive. When we practice viewing the sacred and taking that little moment to practice the humility of lifting up that sacred image in our minds and really recognizing that, at that moment the mind is not concentrating on ego-clinging; it is not concentrating on desire; it is not concentrating on how you feel or what you want or what you don’t have; it is not concentrating on what you have to do next to make yourself happy. It is practicing something different, and every opportunity to recognize the sacred in one’s life is a good one, particularly when you’re walking around not visibly practicing. So, we never point our feet at a sacred object or at the Lama.

I remember for a long time I had a problem with my leg. It was very swollen, and I had a hard time. I had to keep it elevated, for a couple of years actually. Now it’s a lot better, but it used to be that I had to, even in puja, taking empowerment from my teachers, put my foot up, and it was the worst time in my life. There were times I wished that I could cut my damn leg off. I felt that strongly about it. I’d just look down at that leg and think, “What the hell use are you, sitting there like that?” So I really felt very bad about that. What I would do is cover my leg with a blanket so no one could see it, and I was prayed that somehow that made it go away. That was something I had to deal with, and I didn’t like that at all. It felt wrong to me. However, for the most part we are healthy, and we are able to practice in such a way that we do not point our feet at any sacred object. This teaches us not to be slovenly in our minds, not to be forgetful, not to be mindless, but rather to be more mindful, and that is an antidote to suffering of all kinds.

Furthermore, Dharma texts should never be treated like regular texts. They should always be lifted up. They should never be on the floor. They should never be under you. Dharma is always held up because it is the path that the Buddha has given us. Not doing so brings a lot of obstacles because of the state of non-recognition, which is the root of the suffering. It’s the root of the problem. You don’t think that you’re disrespecting the Dharma. Let’s say I have a Dharma book over here and I’m in a really tight seat and somehow I just kind of lean over like that with my elbows on top of the Dharma book – not good. The Dharma book doesn’t care. And it’s not about what a good girl you are, or what a good boy you are. Nobody cares about that either. It is that non-recognition, that dullness, that sleeping state that is the problem. Every opportunity that we have that is taken to establish recognition is fruitful and very beneficial to us. Try to remember that you’re not doing anyone a favor if you practice this way. This is for you. This is about you. The book doesn’t need it, the teacher doesn’t need it, the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas, don’t need it; but you need it. It is your opportunity to practice recognition.

We are very careful about how we treat the books. When you finish reading a regular book, you just close it without thinking. That thickness of mind, that non-recognition should never happen with a Dharma book. When you close a Dharma book, do it mindfully. Even if you don’t do it physically, such as touching it to the top of your head, at least in some way internally, you should be doing something like that. Put it above the top of the head in some symbolic way in your own mind so that you’re gentle with it and mindful. Think, “These precious pages, what would we do if we didn’t have the Prayer to the Three Bodies of the Lama? What would we do if we didn’t have the Orgyen prayer? What would we do if we didn’t have the Seven-line Prayer?” We wouldn’t do anything because we wouldn’t have any practices. So this is so precious to us, and this mindfulness really is important. It really makes a difference.

Likewise, when you have an altar, whether it’s at the temple or at home, it should always be clean and free of dust. The bowls should always be clean, with no nasty ring around them because you didn’t wipe them. The offerings should be made every day. Of course, in opening one’s altar, automatically one is making offerings. That has to be done mindfully, and if you don’t have a regulation type altar yet, if you just have an image of the Buddha and offer one flower, a few grains of rice, a cup of water, something like that every day, that mindfulness brings an awakening to the sacred. Once again, it’s not for the picture; it’s for us. Conversely, not doing that, not having a sacred image, not having a way to establish the sacredness of any given day, hour, moment, life, produces obstacles. It can produce tremendous obstacles because, once again, we are floundering around, and maybe even willingly so, in a state of non-recognition. These things are very important.

Samsara – Living in a Material World

January 17, 2018January 17, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

In practicing bodhicitta in a mindful and discriminating way, one has to understand first of all the faults of samsaric existence. One has to understand the basic logic if it. If we are giving rise to the aspiration to be of benefit to beings, it only makes sense if we understand why and what the connecting factors are. Otherwise it is just acting.

One of the greatest obstacles I’ve seen, is the current pop religion culture that says, “Everything is perfect; the world is perfect.” So many people are into the idea of seeking happiness that on some level they must realize that there is suffering, because they’re trying to cover up that suffering. They’re trying to affirm it away by saying that suffering doesn’t exist. They tell themselves everything is light and love and suffering doesn’t exist and that’s wonderful, and so the world is a great place. We don’t have to practice compassion, because everything is already blessed and very holy. The world is perfect. Can you hear the superficiality in that? What you need to hear next is what’s really going on in the world because if you’re in that mind state, you haven’t been watching, you haven’t seen.

There is such an extraordinary amount of suffering in all the realms of cyclic existence. In this world alone, just look at the human condition: the extraordinary, unconscionable suffering. How can you look at these people marching out of Kosovo and think that’s perfect? How can you watch children and innocent civilians being torn up, with no understanding as to how this could have happened to them? They are modern people like us. How can you look at that and say everything is love and light; that everything is perfect?

If you’ve had the good fortune of knowing one person throughout the course of your life, think of all the different ages and stages they’ve gone through. Watch what it’s like to be a child and to go through all the struggles that children go through? It’s tough being a child. They don’t really understand what’s happening to them. They don’t really understand why it is when certain things happen, other things happen. It’s tough being a child. That little brain is forming. It doesn’t work in its entirety yet. And then watch that person grow up to be a teenager. It’s tough being a teenager. It’s awful being a teenager. I remember being a teenager. I don’t think there are words for that! You have all these feelings and your body is all grown up and your head is still childish and nothing works. And then you grow up, and suddenly you’re supposed to be an adult. You don’t feel any different, though, than you did when you were a teenager or a child. You still feel like you don’t understand diddly-squat, and yet suddenly, because you have a child maybe, you’re supposed to be an adult. You think, “Wow, I’ve waited all my life to be an adult. This is great. Now I can vote. I can drink.” Yeah, you can also get up early every morning and go to work. You can also work every single day. You can also have very little fun.

Do you remember what it was like when you were just trying to build your life? There’s an obsession with that. You think, “Ooh, I’ve just got to do this. If I don’t do this, I’ll never be happy.” All that reactive delusion kind of beats you up. Then, when you get to the point of maturity and you realize that not all the things you thought really mattered actually matter, there’s a little spaciousness. Maybe you have a pause that lets you know that maybe now it’s time to relax a little bit about getting all these material things lined up; maybe now it’s time to stop and smell the roses and then even beyond that, plan for your maturity. Maybe you think, “I should think about my death. I should think about how to take care of my children.” So you get this glorious moment of thinking, “Yeah, okay. I’m pretty stable now. I’ve got a car, got a house, got some kids, so things are okay.” You have about five minutes of that before everything you have goes south, and I mean the body. This thing that we put so much energy into shining up and growing up and waiting until it is matured, and then everything you have from the waist up is now from the waist down.

As Buddhists we are required to study these images of a young woman or a young man, middle-aged or mature and then older, and then see that this is the same person. Understanding what that’s all about is the key. For us to not wander through life with everything happening to us unexpectedly. That’s the most amazing thing about us. Everyone around us gets old; everyone we see gets old; we’ve got old people everywhere, but it’s always a surprise when it happens to us. How can we possibly go through life in any meaningful way when it constantly surprises us? Instead, what we need to do is to really study the conditions that we are involved with and do so truthfully and honestly.

In the practice of bodhicitta, the first things that we can understand are the faults of cyclic existence. Cyclic existence is impossible. It’s ridiculous. It’s not only flawed and faulted, it’s a real pain in the neck. The amazing thing about cyclic existence is that no matter what you do in the material realm, in the realm of experiences, if it arises from samsara and is within the realm of samsara, it’s all going to come to nothing because anything that you accumulate, build, or create, you lose when you die. You won’t be able to take that with you.

The saddest thing and the thing that we have compassion about and try to become mindful about, is watching someone who is no different from us, wanting to be happy just like we do; spend all of their time pulling stuff together, accumulating or not accumulating, setting up their little gigs, their little power things, all their little personality dramas. We watch people that are so entrenched and lost in that, and generally, before we’ve had any training, we’d think that was normal. But having had training, we think, “Oh, maybe that’s not so good. Maybe that’s not the way to go.” We might judge that person as being superficial. We might have a lot of judgment about that person. But in order to be truly discriminating and mindful and to actually benefit our practice, we should be saying, “Yes, that’s what it’s like here. That is the fault of cyclic existence,” and feel compassion for them.

Creating mindfulness in the arena of practicing bodhicitta is like that. We have to constantly caution ourselves not to simply go down the road in the way that we ordinarily do, but instead, to be in a state of recognition and awareness. When we see ourselves act in a superficial manner, just going through the motions of life thinking, “Oh, I’ve got to have this money or this power or this fame or this fortune or this car or this family or this whatever” — instead of judging these terrible faults in ourselves or in each other, simply say, “This is the fault of cyclic existence.” Rather than saying that person is superficial or that person is lost or that person is damned, we ought to say, “What a fabulous opportunity to study the faults of cyclic existence.” You should look at that person, and say, “Oh, I’m so sorry, because that’s how it is here. What can I do to help? How can I benefit sentient beings so that it is no longer the case?” It increases your bodhicitta practice rather than taking it down by judging others. To say, “They’re so material; they’re just about money” or, “I’m just about money, I’m just about material things.” is not beneficial because you are not contributing to mindfulness; you are contributing to judgment. Can you see the difference? You are not contributing to a state of recognition. You’re only recognizing appearances. Big deal! Dogs can do that! Do something dogs can’t do.

Take Yourself to Task

January 16, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

Most of us were trained from early childhood that you’re wrong when you get caught. A lot of times when our parents schooled us and disciplined us, they didn’t really relate to any profound level regarding the development of our consciousness. Very few parents walked up to their children and said, “You know, you’re not developing good inner qualities.” Mostly we were told, “You didn’t wash the dishes!” So we learned that it is the visible things that really count, and it’s when we get caught that life really takes a downward turn. That’s what we’re told, and that’s what we really understand to this day. It’s very hard for us to make that leap from thinking with this get-away-with-it mentality, with this as-long-as-you-hide-it-it’s-OK mentality, into a deeper level of practice where you require of yourself that you do more than look ‘as if.’ That’s a step that only you can take.

My personal experience has been that when we take that kind of step and become inwardly responsible for giving rise to a state of recognition, then at that point our path becomes potent, empowered, and deeper than we thought possible. But then you could say that about any avenue of life. So as long as we’re faking it in any avenue of life, so long as we’re simply trying to hold the image that we think is appropriate, we are missing a lot. So why wouldn’t it apply to Dharma activity also? It is particularly important where the state of awakening, as opposed to being in this narcotic, samsaric mind state is at stake. How much more so, then, in Dharma practice is it to be aware of one’s own mind state and to take oneself to task? If you find that you’re just fulfilling the form of the practice and you’re just acting as if you have reverence, or acting as if you can have some kind of spiritual discrimination or recognition, only you can say to yourself, “W-w-w-wait a minute, go back and do that again.” Only you can sit there doing Seven-line Prayer, and realize you don’t even remember what you’re doing. Things are coming out of your mouth you don’t even know and the mind is all askew and you don’t know where you are and if you didn’t have the beads, you really couldn’t count, you’re so far gone. So when that happens, do you stop, pull yourself together again, and focus? Maybe you even lose a few of the Seven-line Prayers on your little bead thing, and go back and say, “Wait a minute, I think I’ve been gone for about 10 minutes. Only you can do that. I know it sounds silly; it sounds like much ado about nothing, but that is the power that you have. Don’t take it lightly. The potency that we have on our path comes from that kind of mindfulness, that kind of discrimination.

Developing the Heart of Practice

January 15, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

In practicing mindfulness within the context of guru devotion, one elevates the object of devotion. One elevates that appearance which is in accordance with the Buddha’s miraculous and compassionate intention, as being different than ordinary phenomena. What we are trying to do is overcome the condition of non-recognition. In this condition of non-recognition or dullness, where our mind becomes very flat-line, the mind is actually filled with so many defilements of non-recognition that the mind becomes disabled. The consciousness becomes unable to discriminate what is extraordinary from what is ordinary. We literally are not able to see that which arises from the Buddha nature and are not able to discriminate between that and what is ordinary appearance. So we practice Guru Yoga for the purpose of being able to make that kind of discrimination.

When we hold an object of refuge in reverence, we should not bring it into the realm of the ordinary. In order to bring it into the realm of the ordinary, you have to think the way you ordinarily do. You would basically be saying, “Okay, now, this is me, the student, acting like that in front of the object of reverence, of refuge. This is me acting like that. I put myself in that posture because that’s what I’m supposed to do as a good Buddhist.” Having the opportunity to discriminate, to give rise to a state of recognition or awakeness, yet remaining in the realm of the ordinary is simply throwing away the opportunity. We’re bringing it into the realm of ordinary context. We’re saying, “This is here and that’s there.” and we’re practicing the sense of division, the sense of duality, while not truly making any kind of distinction. In that particular kind of thinking, you, the ego, you, the self, are still the star on that stage. You are bowing. You are in a posture of being reverent. Don’t you look good! That kind of attitude is different from what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is a true, honest, delusion-free recognition of that which is extraordinary. So the practice has to go accordingly, and only you can know. Only you really can measure the subtleties of your own mind and your own perception to see honestly and truly how this is going.

To go through one’s career as a Buddhist and practice in such a way that we only look as if we are holding up what is precious, practicing only the posture and the demeanor of reverence without really having the inner discrimination and mindfulness, has very little result. In fact, you can have a negative result, because still and all, this solid self-nature, this ego that we cling to, is the star on the stage. When you are practicing refuge and doing all the right movements without the inner discrimination, what you’re really doing is performing. We’re onstage, and that means that the ego, or the idea of a solid self-nature, is held in much higher regard and we are much more deeply aware of that than the object of refuge.

Therefore, we have to be careful and mindful. Here is where we have to practice true discrimination. If I were to treat a Dharma book in a certain way, for instance, saying, “Oh, now everybody’s watching me because I’m up high on the throne, so, when I put my Dharma book over there, I’d better do it very gracefully.” Well, it might look like I was being mindful, but it wasn’t true mindfulness because, in thinking like that, the ego is the star. In thinking, “Oh, I’d better do this just right. I’d better follow the rules, better be a good girl,” without any inner recognition that these are the Buddha’s teachings, without any inner recognition that what comes from this Dharma book is not the same as what comes from a dime store novel, there is no discrimination. Only you can be responsible for that kind of inner recognition. In a way, that is the great strength, as well as the great difficulty, of practice.

The great strength of practice is that you have the jewel in your hand. Use it or not, you have the jewel in your hand. You can determine the depth of your practice. You can practice as deeply as you wish. We should be aware that only we could practice in such a way as to actually deepen in our level of understanding, or our level of wisdom. Only we can practice in such a way as to give rise to recognition, but we have to stop just going through the motions. It is so important to really develop the heart of practice. But your inner posture can really only be sensed by yourself, and perhaps maybe the intuition of your teacher. Only you know what’s going on. That’s the pitfall also.

Offering Oneself

October 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

In our Ngöndro practice we find the practice of offering oneself, the practice of generosity. It’s called the practice of Chöd. Chöd can very easily be practiced constantly. The practice of Chöd is based on eliminating ego-clinging through transforming oneself into that which is beneficial to all sentient beings and offering oneself. In Chöd there is actually a visualization where you see all your different elements separated into piles: skin and bones and muscles and fat and eyeballs and stuff like that. All of that stuff is put into little piles and you cook it all up and you offer it up to the Buddhas. And you’re thinking, “That’s kind of an interesting little practice there, isn’t it? Whoa, dude!” But just remember that this is meant to antidote our ego-clinging because as we walk through our lives, we are all about ‘what can you do for me, and what do I want?’ Remember, as we’re walking through our lives as ordinary sentient beings, our mantra is “Gimme gimme gimme, I want I want I want I want.” So this kind of practice is meant to antidote that.

The very habit that we have of assuming self-nature to be inherently real and reacting with hope/fear, want/not-want to our environment and the things in it constantly perpetuates itself! So, we are taught instead that, wanting to make oneself useful in some way, wanting to be of benefit and awakening compassion, one way to practice that is by offering the self, offering self-nature, and transforming it into something that is useful to sentient beings.

So how can we do that as we’re walking around? Try to remember that we’re practicing Recognition. Here’s a great way to think about it. Have you heard about the guy who recently had a cadaver’s hand sewn onto his arm, and it’s working? Now those of you that have heard about that, what did you think about that? You probably said, “Ugh!” I mean, it sounds amazing in one way, doesn’t it, that somebody who didn’t have a hand now has a hand, but it’s not his hand. So when we think about it, that’s kind of gnarly, right? Just think about it: you know what your hand looks like. You’ve seen it your whole life. It changes, but it’s your beloved hand. It’s so recognizable. It has a certain shape, and it feels a certain way. Well, now suppose you had an unmatched set, and one of them was not your hand. Think how you’d feel. This kind of clinging is so automatic that until we hear something like that, we don’t even know we do it. It is the very basis for our recognizing one another and ourselves as selves.

We grow attached to the shape of our face, the shape of our head. Even if we don’t like the shape of our face and the shape of our head, we grow attached to it because it is us, (we think), and so it constantly perpetuates that idea of self-nature being inherently real. It constantly perpetuates that ego-clinging. Our bodies are, for us, something that we have to protect. Even if you think that you’re very brave and not afraid of being hurt, or not afraid of even losing your life, I say to you, baloney! I’ll start chopping, and you tell me when to stop. We protect our bodies. If anything scary comes around us, we react, “Aaaggh!” And if we can’t protect ourselves any other way, we protect our head because that’s the part that keeps us going — we think. So we have this automatic clinging. Any sense of recognition of oneself as self is a clinging kind of phenomenon.

To antidote that, we practice Chöd, separating all the parts. When you’re done separating all the parts, you can ask yourself, “Well, what part am I? The skin or the bones or the fat or the muscle or the brains or the tongue or the eyeballs? Which part am I?” Of course, we begin to learn that that question is not answerable because ‘I,’ or self-nature, is simply a concept. It’s simply a concept.

How can we practice this as we walk around through our lives? Well, one way to do that is to develop the habit of when it is you notice yourself…do you notice yourself? You notice yourself constantly! It’s all you notice. We notice our hands; we notice the position that we’re in; we constantly move to be in a different position, don’t we? We think, “Do I want my hand like this or like that?” We are constantly doing that. It’s a constant phenomenon.

Suppose we were to develop the habit of considering the hand. “Well, this one matches that one. I like that.” But what if we were to consider our hands in a different way? Instead of thinking, “This hand is mine and it looks like this,” think, “How can this hand be of benefit to sentient beings? What use is this hand?” Consider it. You can develop a sense of Recognition of the true nature of our body parts. You can think to yourself, “Do you know what I like best about me? I really like my eyes.” I like your eyes too, but I like my eyes, and so when I think about that, I think, “Oh, you know, wherever I go, I have these eyes, and they can see. That’s really cool. And other people can see me.” And I can work those eyes, can’t I? And that’s really something. All we know is that our sight, our eyes, are part of us: that is us. We cling to that. Suppose we were able to understand our eyes in a different way. Supposing when we think of our eyes and how wonderful the capacity to see is, or how amazing it is that we can express ourselves with our eyes, we can offer that entire scenario, that entire experience, to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas for the benefit of sentient beings. Your relationship to your own body parts, your own eyes, for instance, your own hand, becomes different. Rather than thinking, “These are my brown eyes and I have great brown eyes,” or “This is my right hand and it’s a great hand” — rather than thinking like that as an extension of our ego, we can develop the habit of offering the whole phenomenon of sight, the whole relationship to our different body parts, by evaluating how it is that these eyes can benefit sentient beings, and how it is that we can offer them.

Meeting His Holiness for the First Time

June 7, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

When I first met His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, he came to where I was in Kensington, Maryland, and wanted to stay at our house. I had only met one Tibetan in my whole life. I had no idea what a Tibetan lama even was. I had no idea what to do with a Tibetan lama. Where do you put them? What do they eat? I wasn’t being silly, I just didn’t know. So I thought, “Well, we’ll have a barbecue!” I didn’t know what to do.

I remember it, and I think about the way I was then. Of course, it was natural, but there was His Holiness sitting on a bench! I remember plopping down right next to him and asking casually, “So, what do you think of the barbecue?” If I did that now, my head would explode! Thankfully, some spiritual discrimination has been developed since then!

During that visit, His Holiness said he wanted to talk to all of my students. He wanted to ask all of my students, “What does she teach you? What do you know about this, that and the other thing? What do you think about compassion? What does she tell you to do? How does she tell you to practice?” He questioned all my students, and I hadn’t even talked to him alone yet. I didn’t know that you were even supposed to ask Tibetan lamas questions. I just didn’t know.

I saw that when he was interviewing my students, they also had the opportunity to ask him these great questions, and he gave them these really cool answers, about karma and how things are and why things were, and I thought, “I’d like a chance. Give me the opportunity.” I asked His Holiness if I could come and talk with him, and he agreed. So I went in and I talked to him and I said, “Rinpoche, when I first saw you, I knew that you were purity itself; that there is nothing more pure than you. So based on that, I’m asking you, at a certain age it just came to me to start teaching like that — teaching about emptiness, teaching about compassion, teaching about benefiting others, but I wasn’t taught this. Until you, I didn’t have a teacher in this lifetime. How can this be? Have I done something wrong?”

I told him I felt like there were two justifications for me to teach before I had met my teacher. One of them was that when these practices, like the natural kind of Chöd that I was doing, came to my mind, and I did them, they worked. I could feel the renunciation that was happening. I could feel it. That was one determining factor. I could feel that when I spent a large percentage of my time trying to be of benefit to others, I could feel that it worked. I could feel that it made me happy. So I began to practice like that, and I felt that I was authorized to teach others because I practiced it and I could see that it worked.

The other thing was that I looked around — ever since I was a child I could see that there’s nothing but suffering here, that suffering is all-pervasive, and even when it’s temporarily alleviated by some kind of temporary happiness, it’s all-pervasive and it returns, and the suffering is primarily spiritual. I told His Holiness, that being the case, I felt I couldn’t wait. I felt that if I knew something, anything, that would help, I’d better do it. I asked him how these things have just come in my mind: this practice of generosity, this meditation on emptiness, this Chöd, where does it come from? And by what authority am I passing this out? How is this happening, and why doesn’t it happen to everybody? And he said to me, “You were a bodhisattva in so many past lifetimes and you accomplished your practice — and he spoke of mindfulness and awakening and stuff like that — you accomplished your practice to the degree that it is mixed like milk with water into your mindstream. You are not separate from that. In every future lifetime, when you appear, you will remember the teachings. You’ll remember them because you practiced them so mindfully.”

Do you hear what that tells you? I’m not different from you. I use deodorant. I stink when I sweat. I am not different from you. That tells you that, according to His Holiness, a Living Buddha, this practice of mindfulness is so potent, so perfect, that if you really invest all that you have into it in an honest and deliberate and profoundly deep way. You can take it with you! To think that that is the one treasure, the only treasure we can take with us when we die. You can’t take your car, you can’t take your TV, and you can’t take your boyfriend or girlfriend, husband, wife, or kid. Even if you and your whole family die together, you can’t take them with you. It doesn’t work that way. But that profound Recognition, that habit, the constant making of that habit of Recognition and mindfulness, that you can take with you.

Daily Offerings

June 6, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

I’d like to talk about mindfulness in practice of making offerings. As you know, when you do your preliminary practice of Ngondro, at some point you accumulate 100,000 repetitions of mandala offerings. That’s a fairly elaborate practice where you sit down and you work with the mandala set and you make the mounds and you have a very extensive visualization. So is that where your offering practice stops? Do you make your offerings to the deities and then walk away from your practice and not be involved in your practice anymore? No, of course not.

In order to practice truly and more deeply, what we have to do is remain mindful of the practice constantly. Remember that we are trying to antidote ego clinging. We’re trying to antidote the belief in self-nature as being inherently real. We are trying to antidote the desire, the hope and the fear that results from that identification of self-nature as being inherently real and other as being separate. Remember that this is the point of what we’re doing. So if we were to practice accumulating mandala offerings, or make offerings at a temple and then have that practice end and no longer be a part of our lives, we wouldn’t be applying that antidote very well — at least not as well as we might.

How would it be possible for us to avoid this ego clinging? How would it be possible to avoid simply reinforcing samsara’s unfortunate message when we go around and simply enjoy ourselves? Remember that it is a worthy thing to notice, when you perceive something like a house or a tree or a flower, how automatic your reaction and response to that is. How is this flower going to affect me? This flower, this tree, how is it going to be meaningful if it doesn’t affect me? That is its meaning: it affects me. That is how we think. The practice that I’m suggesting is something that you can do without ever sitting down and meditating, so for those of you that have no time, this is a great practice.

When we’re doing anything, no matter what it is, we see appearances. Images come to us. They are sometimes very favorable, sometimes very beautiful, sometimes wonderful, and we enjoy them, and sometimes not. When we enjoy them, we enjoy them by clinging, by taking that experience, in a sense, and holding onto it, grabbing it. We’re grasping that experience. That tree is only relevant because I see it. Out of sight, out of mind. When the tree is out of my sight, it no longer exists. We think like that. My suggestion is that rather than just doing your practice when you’re sitting down, why not be mindful constantly? When you see the appearance of any phenomenon, when you see any kind of beautiful thing — like for instance when you look outside and you see how lovely it is out there, how gorgeous it is, the trees and the flowers and the sweetness of the air — how can you not let that beauty simply reinforce our clinging to ego, that clinging to identity?

One way to do that is to develop an automatic habit, and again, those habits start small and end up big. We start at the beginning, and we simply increase. Develop the habit of offering everything that you see. You think, “Huh? How can I offer it if it’s not mine?” Well, that’s not the point. Whether it’s yours or not, your senses will grab it as yours. You will react to it, you will respond to it, you will judge it, and so it becomes, in a way, your thing. You collect it. When you see something, you collect it, and you hold onto it. The experience is what you take away. Maybe we can’t take away the tree, but that doesn’t mean anything because we’ve taken away our experience of the tree. It has become ours, and it reinforces that delusion of self and other. Instead of doing that, isn’t it possible upon seeing something beautiful, upon taking a walk, having a good feeling, accomplishing something wonderful, seeing beautiful things, having meaningful relationships with other people, any kind of pleasure that is part of your life, that it can be offered? It can be thought of in a different way.

For instance, if I were to walk down the street and see a field of flowers, but didn’t know about any of these teachings of the Dharma, then maybe I might pick some of the flowers think that’s a meaningful experience because I feel good about it; I’m really happy with that. The only reason these flowers have become meaningful is because they’ve affected me in a certain way, and it continues the delusion. Having heard about Dharma, we have another option. When we see and enjoy a whole field of flowers, we can visualize in a very simple way, making it an offering to all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Instead of that automatic clinging to this image and trying to take it with us, trying to make it part of us, there can be an instant habit that we form of offering this to all the Buddhas. “This field of flowers is so wonderful. I love it so much.”

If we work on it, instead of clinging to it in some subtle way, our automatic habit can be to offer it to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Take any good taste, for instance, a good flavor in your mouth; a lot of times when we have a pleasurable experience like good food or good taste you may have noticed that ultimately it’s not so good. The food turns into…well, you know what it turns into, doo-doo. The experience does us no good because when we were tasting it, we were clinging to it. That’s mine. You see? I’m tasting it. It’s in my taste buds. It’s that relationship between my taste buds and that food that’s really important: we’re stuck in that delusion. We’re stuck in that dream.

Suppose we were able, instead, to develop the habit that when we eat something we are practicing as well by automatically offering the flavor and the taste of that to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas? Then you’re not grabbing onto it, you’re not making it your experience. Offering it, you’re not reinforcing that dynamic of self and other, but rather when you taste, you’re just simply offering it. You can learn to do it very quickly. When you first start, it’s a little bit cumbersome because you take a bite of food, and you say, “Okay, I offer this to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas.” You take another bite of food, saying, “I offer this to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas.” At first, it may seem a little dry and uncomfortable, but there’s an inner posture that can be developed that’s an automatic response, as automatic as deciding whether or not you like that taste. As the taste hits you, the experience of that can be just offering it to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas. It can be so immediate that no words are required. At that point, you’ve developed the habit of making this constant, constant, constant offering.

As parents, when we bond with our children and hold our children and have that wonderful, pleasurable experience of cuddling our kids and feeling wonderful, as ordinary human beings we think, “Oh, this is my child. This is the extension of my ego. I made that. I made an egg, and look what happened.” So we have very great pride about that, and our family becomes an extension of our ego, an extension of what we call ourselves. What if were able to offer that as well? As we hold our beloved children, as we feel that feeling, rather than putting another star in our own crown and thinking, “Oh, yeah, this is my kid and I’m holding her now” – what if we could offer that feeling? What if we could even offer the connection, the incredible, powerful connection between mother and child? That, too, can be offered to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas. When you offer something to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, it’s not as though it disappears. It’s not as though the feeling disappears once you offer that feeling of loving your child to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, and suddenly you don’t love your kid anymore. It’s not like that. Anything that we offer, really in some magical way becomes multiplied. It becomes even more than it originally could have been. In not using what we see with our five senses as a way to practice more self-absorption, but instead using what we see with the five senses as a way to accomplish some kind of Recognition, this is a very powerful practice and a very excellent, excellent adornment for the sit-down practice that we do.

Purifying One’s Intention

June 2, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

Another aspect of our Ngöndro practice is purification, the prayers to Vajrasattva. How would it be if we were to sit for maybe an hour and practice the purification and confession of Vajrasattva and accumulate the mantra and then just put our books aside and consider it’s over? That’s it. I confessed. I said all the prayers, the short ones and the long ones, short confession, long confession. Remember, if you practice like that, you never have to revisit it again. It’s a lazy, cop-out way to practice.

Instead, we should think, “I’m deeply involved in the practice of purification and confession which does not stop at the end of my practice.” There are so many ways to practice that kind of purification: by being mindful, by making offerings in the way that I’ve described, by moving into a state of better recognition about what is precious and what is ordinary, and ultimately moving into the state of Recognition of the nature of all phenomena. Automatically one is constantly purifying the senses, constantly purifying one’s intention, which is the very thing that needs purifying even more than everything else. If we practice in that way as we’re walking around, it complements any confessional prayers that we make.

In most of the confessional prayers, if you really read the meaning and content of the prayers, there is talk about broken samaya in the confessional prayers. Nobody really knows what that means. Does that mean you didn’t do your mantra today? Well, maybe on one level it means that, but on a deeper level, it is referring to the state of non-recognition. So in everything that we do, if we continually make offerings, as we continually give rise to a deeper Recognition, then the five senses are being purified constantly. The habit that I’m suggesting you develop will antidote the automatic reaction that is so natural for us, so habitual. Remember, we can insert this way of thinking or this way of practicing because we are human.

I really like animals, but one thing I’ve noticed about animals, even if they are trainable and very smart, they cannot change or alter the way they perceive their environment. They can’t do that. The dog can’t say, “Wait a minute, before I lift that leg, let’s think about the nature of that fire hydrant.” The dog is not capable of this. You are. That is one of the great blessings of being a human being, and yet the habits that we tend to cultivate are the habits that you don’t even need to be a human being to do: that habit of automatically reacting, not taking oneself in hand, not creating any kind of space or a moment where we can Recognize the nature of reality, not making any offerings. We tend to just automatically move through life like an automaton, like a robot.

However, being human, we can develop a little bit of space in our minds to antidote that constant clinging and reactivity, and yet we’re all about collecting things. Well, you know, crows collect things. We’re all about having relationships. Well, even animals can bond for life. We’re all about having children. Well, dogs and cats do that, too. Isn’t it wonderful that here in Dharma practice, if we choose to, if we practice sincerely, we can do that which only humans can do? How amazing!

Developing Spiritual Discrimination

May 28, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

One of the things that is very unique about the Buddhadharma is that it is not a “Sunday-go-to-meeting” religion. It’s not the kind of religion where you go on Sunday and Christmas and Easter, or whatever your particular holiday happens to be, and the rest of the year you’re just where you are. Buddhism is different in that it is a path. In a way, it is a nonreligious religion. You have to think of it as a path that one walks consistently, faithfully, and deeply. There is relatively little benefit from practicing Dharma in a superficial way. Learning one or two mantras and walking around saying some prayers but not really training the mind in a deep and profound sense of the View will be a lot less effective. Also, our tendency is to become dry, and not remain moist on the path. The heart dries up. If there is no profound investment in establishing the View and establishing mindfulness, the result will be greatly weakened, greatly crippled.

Mindfulness is one of those subjects that one can take to the depths of one’s practice and its many aspects display themselves in different kinds of practice. Before I talk about the first aspect of mindfulness, let me address some difficulties we have as Westerners, particularly. Because of the very nature of our culture, there are so many different things to do, and we are inundated with philosophies and religions, both old and new. We are inundated with different kinds of experiences that people call “spiritual.” The reason I’m so mindful of this is because I lived in Sedona, Arizona, and Sedona is known for that. People mistake any kind of experience that feels deep as a “spiritual” experience, not able to discriminate between something that feels spiritual and something that is an actual commitment and movement on one’s path. There really is a difference between a mantra and a backrub! There really is a difference between the various experiences that people have that they call spiritual and an actual path that one practices consistently with the intention of benefiting beings. This lack of spiritual discrimination is the greatest problem that we have in the West. You can see how it is symbolically, even to go the grocery store. If you send your child to the grocery store to buy bread, you’ll have to specify what kind of bread, what brand of bread, because on the shelf are a million different kinds of bread. Other cultures might be a little bit different than that, especially third world cultures. There, when you go to buy bread, you buy the bread they have, and that’s pretty much it. Bread is bread. In the same way, their faith is their faith. It’s not something that one tastes and tries and then tries something else. That discrimination is sort of built into the culture. We don’t have that, so our need to practice discrimination is much stronger. We have a tremendous need for that.

Discrimination is best practiced through changing one’s habitual tendency. On the path of Buddhadharma, if you really step back from it and look at the different categories of practice, you’ll notice that, basically, the Buddhadharma is about applying the actual, exact antidote to the subtle and gross forms of suffering that we endure. The Buddha has taught us that we suffer mostly from desire and that suffering is ongoing and that it is all-pervasive. But we also notice that that desire takes many forms, so there are practices in the Buddhadharma that are meant to specifically pacify pride and ego and that ego-clinging self-cherishing. There are practices in the Dharma that are meant to apply the exact antidote to a lack of generosity, to selfishness and greediness and just wanting, wanting, wanting — that kind of suffering. There are practices in the Buddhadharma that are meant to help us shake ourselves out of the kind of slothful mental attitude that so many of us have which is a kind of sleepwalking that we do through the days and years of our lives. This is actually a quality of mind and in Buddhism it’s labeled ignorance. Ignorance is not lack of education in Buddhism; it’s lack of wisdom. For that reactive or slothful mind, where the mind doesn’t stop and evaluate and use its energy to determine whatever direction it’s going in, in the Buddhadharma there are antidotes to that as well.

In fact, when you study the Buddhadharma, you really have to think about the Buddha as being like a doctor and samsara as being like the sickness and the Dharma as the nurse that feeds the medicine to you all the time. So in this spiritual discrimination, it isn’t a theoretical, vague idea. This ideal of mindfulness, of discrimination, actually needs to be practiced in a very exacting way, for the very reason that we are in a culture that goes in exactly the opposite direction. We are in a culture that does not teach discrimination, really, in any form, particularly about spiritual issues.

How can we practice spiritual discrimination? How can we formulate that by which we can begin to grow the ability to distinguish? How can we learn to discriminate between what is truly of the mind of the Buddhas and what is ordinary and simply arising from the phenomena of samsara? What is the method by which we can actually establish the View? In the Buddhadharma, we are always looking to apply an exact antidote. You have to think about samsara as being like a poison and that there is an exact formula that is the antidote to that poison. In trying to develop discrimination and mindfulness, it is best to hold ourselves to a kind of ritual or task that is evident and visible. One of the strongest antidotes to being stuck on the idea of self-nature as being inherently real, (which is really quite different from enlightenment) and for lack of spiritual discrimination – not being able to tell, in a spiritual sense, the difference between a diamond and a piece of cut glass — is called Guru Yoga.

Guru Yoga on the Vajrayana path is extraordinarily important. It is not important because the Guru needs it nor because it’s even pleasant or fun for the Guru. It is not for any ridiculous or stupid reason like that. The reason that we practice Guru Yoga is because our minds, when they are samsaric and therefore fully engaged in the cycle of birth and death, are a little bit deadened, sort of flat-line. Just the energy or pulse of engaging in a relationship between oneself, which appears separate, and other, constantly creates a feedback loop that makes for a kind of dullness and stupor. This non-recognition of phenomena as actually being a display of our own mindstreams keeps the mind deadened to the View. In that state, it is so like us to take a spiritual minister or presenter of some kind and, because they have tremendous charisma and slick words, because they have a real routine going, we would put them in high regard and think, “Oh, this must be the Word of God,” or “This must be the Word of Spirit.” There is the inability to discriminate between that and a very deep practitioner, a silent bodhisattva (one who has not been publicly recognized). If a silent bodhisattva were to walk into the room, we wouldn’t sense that. We wouldn’t know what that was because there’s no display, no show. One of the methods that we use is this throne on which I sit, and it is not because I like it. Actually, it’s kind of uncomfortable. This throne is not here because it’s pretty, and it’s not here for any superficial reason. The Lama sits higher in order to indicate to the student the difference between this speech and the speech we hear every day. So in your mind, in the student’s mind, the throne is high, and it’s a reminder for you. This is a clear indication that in our lives we need some kind of ritual or some kind of visible habitual pattern that we engage in, in order to develop true spiritual discrimination.