Mindfulness Workshop | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Recognize What Is Sacred: A Message for Monks and Nuns

March 6, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I want to talk to the monks and nuns about how to keep mindfulness, the awareness of emptiness and bodhicitta as being the true meaning of one’s path, one’s practice: the two eyes. Somehow, we have to embark more deeply on practicing a way to attain pure View. What keeps us from attaining pure View? It’s our constant need to recognize and reaffirm self-nature as being inherently real, and then the rest of it – our desire, our clinging, our egos. And then there’s always the reaction going on. We have to see that. These are the reasons why we are asleep in this narcotic state. As a monk or a nun, we should be constantly striving for a state of deeper recognition, for a better sense of View. How can we do that?

We have all kinds of ideas about how we should relate with one another. We have all kinds of ideas about how we should conduct ourselves, carry ourselves. My suggestion is that we develop some new patterns, some new habitual tendencies so that we can develop something other than that strong sense of I-ness, of ego-clinging. Remember that the point is to recognize what is sacred. That may not coincide with what you think; it may not coincide with what you want; it may not coincide with the way you’re used to doing things. But that’s okay, because the point of practicing Dharma is to change. It’s not to remain the same, right?

Now, all you feminists, calm down. When the Buddha first taught, he taught men, right? Those were the first aspirants. There are all kinds of traditions about nuns sitting in the back and monks sitting in the front, and because we’re all feminists and we’re all girls, we don’t like that very much. But like it or not, the Buddha taught men first, and so the idea is not to worry about what body we’re wearing right now, what ego we’re stuck in right now. In fact, to identify with being ordinary males and females and to think, “Oh, females have to be there and men have to be there,” is to stay stuck in ego. So the reason for women to practice an honoring of monks is not because men are better, but because the Buddha taught men first. They are our eldest practitioners. They held the Lineage all this time and made it possible. It is the ordained male sangha that held the full Lineage of ordination intact through all this time and made it possible for ordination to occur today in its fullness, both genyen and gelong. So that has been held properly by men. So as nuns, we should honor the monks.

The monks, however, should not honor themselves. The monks should honor the women, the nuns, because in pure View, she is the Goddess. She is Tara herself. Her nature is indistinguishable from what is most precious to us, so as a Vajrayana practitioner, women are elevated. She is the Goddess, she is Tara, she is the spiritual consort. She is the one with whom we can practice in such a way as to overcome samsara, so she is extraordinarily elevated.

So the nuns get to lose their egos by honoring the monks as the primary practitioners who, through their generosity, morality and kindness, have kept the vows all this time and have made it possible for us to practice in the way that we are now. That should be something you should think about every time you see a monk, good or bad. Get out of the habit of saying, “Oh, that one’s a good monk, and that one’s a bad monk.” When you see those robes and they’re on a monk, you should feel exactly the same. The same thing applies for the monks. You should not worry about feeling that way about yourself. You’re here. That’s good. So the monks, when they look at women, they should not see a good nun or a bad nun or one that’s dressed one way or one that’s dressed another way. They shouldn’t see that. These women who are holding the robes of the Buddha, who are practicing in that way, are nothing less than Tara incarnate. They are nothing less than the appearance of the Goddess. The only hope any of us have is to practice in spiritual union, whether that’s on a spiritual level or on a physical level, and so when we look at the female principle, she is everything. Every time a monk looks at a woman, particularly a nun, he should see the Goddess. It should be like that, even if it’s a laywoman. You’re not looking at the clothes, remember? See the nature. Behold the Goddess, and in that way, develop the habit of just doing that little bow. Nobody has to see it, men! It’s okay! It could be like one vertebra, you know? Pick a vertebra. I realize what a hard time men have with that – women, too. It’s this battle between the sexes. But that is ordinary phenomena, and we’re trying to get around that, past that, through that.

The point is to carry the View and recognize the nature of one another without holding ourselves in high regard because we are so “fancy.” The point is to carry the View without getting the ‘rah-rah nuns’ or ‘rah-rah monks’ thing going: I’ve heard the nuns say, “You know, the monks never support one another. They’re not being nice to one another. They don’t cook for each other. They don’t make each other’s beds. They don’t do anything for each other.” That’s what I hear from the nuns. And the monks are saying, “You know, the nuns, they’re sloppy. They just run around doing ooh-ooh, ah-ah stuff, all those hugs and squeezes and all that stupid stuff. They’re not very together.” We tend to think like that and we have these ideas. It’s that kind of thing that creates not only dissension in the sangha, but it’s also ordinary view. What do you have to do with that? What is the point of practicing as you do without holding View? There would be no point.

Wandering in a Circus of Appearances

July 12, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

To develop spiritual recognition, you need to recognize that beings that you see living in a material way that seems so fruitless have the very seed of Buddha Enlightenment within them. They are That Nature, but piteously confined; blind, wandering in this deluded world of appearances, simply dancing through reactiveness. Without that spiritual discrimination, there’s no practice.

If we can begin to really push ourselves to give rise to a state of recognition by applying this discrimination and mindfulness, then perhaps we are actually practicing, actually accomplishing something. It is entirely possible to spend one’s whole life calling ourselves a “renunciate,” dressed up like Dharma, walking around with beads, but if we do not require of ourselves that we move further and further into giving rise to a state of recognition, we might as well be entertaining ourselves. The very thing we wish to disengage, that deluded ego, that inherent belief in self-nature, is on center stage. So long as that is happening, we are suffering; we are wandering aimlessly in samsara with no way to understand our Nature: blind, deaf, dumb, unable, mistaking the five primordial wisdoms for our senses. Our senses that tell us if things are hot or cold, big or small, so we can have them. Our senses that tell us if things are far away or close by so we know whether to react with repulsion or attraction. Our senses describe that stuff ‘out there’ so we can determine how we should feel about it. This deluded and continuous reality that we steep ourselves in is not practice, even if you do it with the robes on; even if you do it with your beads in your hands. It is awakening to the state of recognition that is most important.

When we see deluded sentient beings, this is an opportunity. They become to us like gurus. This is an opportunity to practice. Have you seen your parents? Though I’m sure they’re dear to you, they’re not really enlightened people. They’re not like living Buddhas. We’ve watched our parents age and sometimes very painfully – the aging process is not a comfortable process. Your body drops out from under you and starts betraying you. Not only have we watched this process go on, but we’ve watched them suffer so much. We’ve watched them try to attain, one by one, all the goals they were told to obtain and work so hard.

Sentient beings aren’t lazy. Sentient beings are working very hard every day to fulfill their belief systems. Our parents went to work. They might have been the worst parents in the world, but they went to work every day. They worked really hard. Maybe my parents were some of the worst in the world, but I did watch them suffer, suffer, suffer and work, work, work and beat themselves to death. And the grief that they feel when they look at what they’ve been doing and working so hard for, and it amounts to nothing. What happened? Now I’m old, nearly dead. This is not only true with our parents; it’s also true with us. It’s true with all beings. These are not bad people; these are not evil people. The sickness here is ignorance. The sickness here is a state of non-recognition. The sickness here is the narcotic sleep called samsara.

Giving Rise to Recognition

July 7, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Do you want to be powerful like all Americans want to be? Do you really want to be potent? Do you really want to be a Great Being? Well, if you want to do that, then stop seating your ego on the throne. Awaken. Get the fact that you are impotent unless you are able to move into a state of recognition. You are impotent if you do not recognize that all the things you call your life are merely symptoms of the condition of your mindstream. You are impotent if you do not realize that every time we have an opportunity to practice discrimination and lift up the sacred, we have an opportunity to awaken within ourselves; we have an opportunity to practice recognition, and that is power.

The way most of us live is like we’re trying to get through a dark room. It’s pitch black. There’s all kinds of stuff in it: furniture, sinks, bath tubs, all the stuff that they have in rooms. We’re trying to get from the birth door to the death door. We’re going across this room. Now, you have two choices. You can either go through this room and stumble over everything that’s in your way, or you can turn on the light and recognize what’s there, move around it, move over it, your choice. But, that state of recognition requires constant mindfulness: constant mindfulness of that which is sacred, distinguishing that in the world.

I’ve given this again and again and again, and I will never stop because I love this so much. It’s a line from a song that Art Garfunkel had in one of his albums. I think the name of the song is Mary Was An Only Child, and this one line that describes exactly what I’m talking about is perfect, another way in which the Guru speaks. It goes like this:

“And if you watch the stars at night

and you find them shining equally bright,

you might have seen Jesus and not have known what you saw.

Who would notice a gem in a five-and-dime store?”

That five-and-dime store is ordinary perception. To notice the diamond, we have to give rise to recognition and the View. I feel that to practice like that is really a natural empowerment, a natural medicine that helps us give rise to the wisdom that is inherently ours.

Don’t Wait to be Swept Away

November 8, 2011June 28, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The mistake that we make with almost any spiritual practice is waiting for it to affect us. We’re waiting for the “feeling” when Dharma is supposed to sweep us away like a Calgon bath or something, and that’s not the way it’s ever going to happen. You may have wonderful, sweeping experiences, but you’ll do that in your bathtub too. It’s just normal.

The kinds of practices that we are taught to do on the Vajrayana path, such as prostrations, are quite different and unique for us and for our culture. At first, a Westerner feels very strange performing prostrations. We feel goofy and foolish and think, “Wait a minute! I don’t even know if I like her yet. I mean, just because she’s on the big chair…” But that’s exactly why we do the prostrations, because she’s on the big chair. The big chair is there because the big chair is the throne of Dharma. It’s not my throne. It’s not Alyce Zeoli’s throne. It’s not Ahkön Lhamo’s throne. It is the throne of Dharma. When we perform the prostrations that we do, it is actually meant to be a connection between body, speech, and mind. These three are utilized together. The physical is doing something, the speech is doing something, and hopefully the mind is doing something. These three aspects of ourselves performing at the same time makes a sense of connection. It is a ritual that anchors something that is subtle, very spiritual: you can’t taste it, you can’t own it, you can’t pick it up. It anchors it into the physical. When the body performs the prostrations, you literally go into a different space. That event involving body, speech and mind takes you into a different space, if all three are engaged.

There are many mannerisms associated with Dharma, and as Westerners we think, “Well, I don’t get that whole crouching over thing. It just looks like a hunchback to me.” As Westerners, we’re taught to walk straight, almost military-like and prideful. But, actually, it is the constant mindfulness when you are in the presence of the Lama that creates an exchange of some sort. It’s not that you have to be unnatural all the time. If there is an exchange of some sort, simply that subtle tendency of doing that very little bow with mindfulness – and that’s the trick – puts the Lama’s speech in a place where you can hear it more directly. It actually establishes the connection between you and the teacher, almost like a tube or a direct tunnel going between yourself and the teacher. If you were in a room full of people and your Root Guru was talking and other people were talking and you were listening to everybody at the same time and to all in the same way, there would be no blessing there. The reason why there would be no blessing is because the main point of practicing Guru Yoga is to get us past the point of pridefulness and past the point of lack of discrimination that makes us not know whether something is extraordinary or simply ordinary. Eventually, we will come to see the non-duality of the nature of the Lama and one’s own nature. At that point one actually takes refuge in that nature, which is one’s own nature every bit as much as it is the Lama’s nature. Until then, this training is actually mind training, and, once again, Westerners have a hard time with that. We keep trying to slip it off, because we’re naturally uncomfortable with it. It doesn’t look like the rest of our culture, and we truly don’t understand.

We try to take our clues from the Lama, and this is where we all go wrong because some Lamas, like Gyaltrul Rinpoche, are funky, humble guys, and other Lamas come in like they’re your best friend. And then other Lamas come in, and they have a very fine and royal, genteel appearance. There are so many different Lamas. The trick is not to take your clue from the Lama, but to take your clue from the Dharma: from the teachings about the nature of the Lama. Whatever the appearance is, you need to form the habitual tendency and mindfulness of elevating that in preparation for the recognition of and awakening to your own Buddhanature. The reason why we’re asleep, why we’re not able to awaken, as the Buddha is awake, is primarily because the mind is so thickened through the mixture of non-virtue and virtue. It’s literally coarsened to where the loudest thing is what we hear, and the loudest thing is our ego. The loudest voice is our demand, our desire, how we feel, whether our feet hurt or not. That’s the loudest voice. The mind is simply not able to distinguish through the obscuration of being constantly involved in clinging to self-nature as inherently real. So the practice of Guru Yoga is for you, not for the teacher. Actually, I have found it to be very inconvenient. To get across the room when people are trying to prostrate is very difficult. I really do come from Brooklyn, and I really don’t care about that stuff. The only reason why I teach it the way I do, with such a fervent energy, is because I know how it works, and I know the power of that kind of practice.