A sacred space for everyone
The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
For us in the west the most important part of Dharma practice is within your heart. Practicing the foundational thoughts that turn the mind will help you keep that alive.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
You have heard that hatred is a primary cause for suffering, so you may say: “First, I want to be free of hatred.” Don’t you often say that? But hatred remains. Why? Because you will willingly let go only of the things that obviously cause suffering. For instance, you will not be involved in wars. Yet this is no great credit to you. Oh, it is some indication that you are progressing on your path, but butterflies don’t wish to go to war either—and they don’t even have the potential to know the Nature of Mind.
Where is this hatred that you wish to be rid of? It resides deep within some subconscious levels of your mind. It also hides. Though you decide to rid yourself of hatred, you compulsively want to hold something back for your own. Hatred you want to be rid of, but you also want to hold on to a particular prejudice against someone or something. You want to maintain an active set of opinions about the qualities and personalities of others. You want to be the one who is right. You want to be the favorite—but this, of course, can only happen if others are not. On the conscious level you pledge your life to be without hatred, but still you have not overcome your dependency on the data given to you by the five senses. You give with one hand and hold back with the other.
The five perceptions are born of desire; this results in all karmic suffering. Your job is to renounce your participation in this process to the very depth of your capacity and then take refuge in the five celestial perceptions, the components of the Buddha in the world, the five pathways to liberation. If you run from the facts of your existence, you will miss your opportunity. You must decide from the depth of your being that you truly wish to be free of hatred in all its forms. Make every conscious effort, realizing that that will not be enough. For instance, it is not enough to think positively: that only makes your hatred more subliminal. Instead, take absolute refuge in the Buddha’s teaching. Make fervent wishing prayers to be free of hatred. Make many different offerings that this might be accomplished, wishing sincerely to be free of pride and the demons of the five senses. Then practice and live the Buddha’s teaching.
There is no suffering you cannot be free of. You hold in your hands a precious wish-fulfilling jewel, a magic carpet, celestial food. You need not be imprisoned within the demonic confines of your five senses when at last you have dedicated yourself to realizing the nature of the five goddesses. The degree to which you have devotion will determine the speed of your victory.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Haha! Someone made my day today. I’ve been described as a rigid, Lineage-loving, “tow the line” Buddhist, and I couldn’t be more delighted! These same folks used to say I wasn’t real Palyul, or a real Buddhist, that my throne and crown were faked, and I was never really enthroned. Even with the video, papers, real throne and real crown and real cape. It is a riot!
I guess it shows if someone wants to hate, they will find a way and a reason. This is why lies and slander are so hurtful. It is mostly not true, and there is an agenda of hate or envy. Both are strong non-virtues, and mean spirited. The lesson here is hypocrisy and cowardice. It is so easy to judge and prey on another behind a computer, a wall of safety, maybe far away. Haters deliver lies, have few ethics and no compassion.
But they probably wouldn’t do it without the computer. If we look into each other’s eyes and hearts we see human suffering. Look deeper, we see ourselves. Some people have a lot of feelings around failure, having not contributed much. That is changeable. We can still do good works. There is no reason to play the failure tape over repeatedly in our thinking until it rots into hate. Just don’t compare yourself with anyone – period, end of story. And it looks pathetic if you do that and then flip into announcing your “realization” or that there is no true Enlightenment other than your own “take” on it, or your squirrely thinking will make the grade, somehow.
Just get out there and benefit sentient beings. They are real, and are crying. Feed the poor, love, heal, animal rescue, care for homeless, it is all here for you to do. So get out there. After you wash the feet and warm the tummies and offer comfort, you aren’t dead yet. The disenfranchised need you…us.
I will offer a grand Christmas this year: dinner, care, and a tiny gift for all. Then I’m broke. And happy! Come out with us! #OccupyLOVE #OWS
Be real. Be real. Then no one can call you anything but necessary. Because you (we) have seen their eyes, and there is the truth. They are us. We are them. And no Bodhisattva can be free or happy until we care for, and love them. Our brothers, our sisters, all. This is the way, and the secret. Love. Yes, love. Until you are empty. Then you have attained your potential.
#OccupyDC #OWS #PEACE÷Occupation #PALYUL
© Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo
The following is a full length video teaching called “Keeping Heart Samaya” offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
Ending the Guru Yoga retreat, Jetsunma talks of the responsibilities on the part of the student and the teacher to continue the connection between them.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
“The origin of suffering is desire,” To illustrate this point, Jetsunma holds up her Blackberry. Even something that is a gift or designed to make our lives easier can be a burden if there is attachment or desire.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered in Sedona, Arizona:
Jetsunma talks about Guru Yoga, and the ground, path and fruit.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered in Sedona, Arizona:
This workshop introduces us to the world of emptiness, which is fullness, and all the paradox that implies
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered in Sedona, Arizona:
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
The Buddha taught us to treasure those we do not know—even our worst enemies—as much as our most beloved relatives and friends. We should value them equally. “Is that really possible?” you may wonder. Not only is it possible; it is necessary. Boundless equanimity is the basis of compassion and of a truly deepened, stable practice.
If you carefully examine why you value a loved one more than someone you have never met, or more than your enemy, you will uncover a whole mother lode of information and awareness required to understand the Buddha’s teaching. You will realize the extent to which you are motivated by desire. This can make you uncomfortable: sincere self-examination requires tremendous courage. I believe that the Buddha’s teaching is best understood and practiced if you are fearless in examining your motivation. This alone can be a great guru. You can learn much about your desire for approval, for recognition.
If you look closely at how you have felt about yourself throughout your life, you will see that you have played a kind of mirror game since birth. Children develop their sense of self by seeing its reflection in the eyes and minds of others. Through our perception of them, children learn about their appearance, qualities, and tendencies. This process continues even now: you modify your self-image as you watch your reflection in others.
Your belief in the reality of self-nature seeks its own continuation. That, of course, is the bottom line of survival instinct. Once we have developed the view that self-nature is inherently real, we see “other” as inherently real—all phenomena as inherently real. This perception seems essential to prevent chaos, to maintain stability.
But the Buddha teaches that we are empty of self nature. Our true reality is the primordial-wisdom state. The experience of self and other is merely a series of conceptualizations. Watch your mind as you meet a person for the first time. The determinations you make in order to distinguish that person from yourself or someone else are all tainted by attraction and repulsion. This is true even of the thought processes that occur when you are not looking at anything, when your eyes are closed, and when you are resting or in a relaxed state.
With attraction and repulsion, there is always wanting or not wanting; there is always grasping or pushing away. When attraction arises in the mindstream, repulsion will also occur to the same degree. Though you may not be aware of the repulsion at that moment, the seed is there which will cause it to be experienced at some future time. Once a cause-and-effect relationship is begun, it always fulfills itself—unless it is purified. That is why equanimity is essential to your meditation or practice. In order to attain equanimity, one must realize the emptiness or sameness or suchness which is the underlying reality of all perceived phenomena. The way to stabilize the mind is not through suppression. The goal is not to train your EKG to become a straight line. Realization is not a “flat-line” mentality. You are not supposed to act out your idea of peacefulness. You know how it’s done: not too blissful, just un-focus the eyes a little, a pseudo-Mona Lisa routine. We tend to think that the way to attain stability is to adopt a pose or posture, like a child putting on his daddy’s clothes.
The Buddha teaches that the primordial-wisdom state is the ground from which phenomena spontaneously arise. We experience them either purely, as spontaneous, natural movements of that Nature, or impurely, as delusions of self and other. The primordial wisdom state is clear; it has the quality of innate wakefulness; it is neither dead nor cold. Yet the moment you try to describe it, saying: “Well, it’s like this” or “It looks like this” or “It’s light” or “It’s love” or even “It’s innate wakefulness,” whatever words you use, the moment you describe it, you lose it. You lose it because you wrap concepts and terminology around it, making it a contrived, unnatural experience. But by gradually eliminating desire from the mindstream, you begin to practice equanimity. You begin to experience the natural state in meditation.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Where did the United States of America go? I mean the one that I loved. The one that stood for something? The “don’t tread on me” place. The America that had services for poor, sick, hungry, homeless. The America that always gave more than others. The one with less hate.
Yeah, that America. It is still there on the map. But where is the land I love? And the people where did the middle class go? Our homes?
Dear sweet America, I miss you. I love you. And will do all I can to help you rise again! Please #OccupyEARTH #OccupyDC #OccupyUSA