Take Control of Your Life JNT 007 | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Opportunity and Responsibility

March 22, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

When we go to another country and we see they are poor, maybe they have no prayer, we shouldn’t think, “Oh, I’m high and you’re low. Therefore I will teach you.” We should think like this: Lord Buddha has taught me that you are the same as me. You are Buddha but you have forgotten. Let’s remember together. This is the way. Let’s wake up together.

I promise you I will not abandon samsara so long as there is one student with one connection, however small, and difficult to return for. But I also promise you that you must do your part. You must practice Dharma every day. You must awaken to the true nature of your mind. You must create the space in your life to awaken. This is the way of happiness; this is the way of benefit. And this is what our perfect teacher has taught us.

I’m telling you these things in American words, in American ways, because I’m speaking to you. Therefore, I’m offering you the opportunity and the responsibility of hearing. So please listen and please practice, And please accept the entire banquet, not just the crumbs under the table, not just the dessert—as though you can take the dessert and not the rest of the banquet. Don’t fool yourself. Practice. Practice. Practice. Change your mind. You are here to be changed. You are here to be changed. Dharma is meant to change our ordinary minds.

In Asian cultures, that’s an accepted idea, but here we resist. And so I beg you to reconsider your habitual tendencies and to go within and to practice self-honesty. You will have to look at your unfortunate qualities. But when you look at them, don’t look at them like “I’m bad. I hate myself. I hate somebody else. I hate something.” Just look at them and say, “Oh, that’s that habit again. I see that habit. Yuck.” Remember the kids rolling over in their beds. You want to roll over in your bed, but you’re saying, “You know, that’s my habit. I think I’ll go check around and see if there’s anything wrong. Just go check around.” In other words, you’re growing a new habit.

Expect to change. Expect to be uncomfortable at times. Expect to deal with the issues of individuality and democracy. Because in America we love individuality and democracy. But not here. This is Dharma. And in Dharma, we have to trust our teachers. We have to trust the Three Precious Jewels. We assume that our teacher has crossed the ocean of suffering and can show us the way. Therefore, practice. Don’t be foolish, taking the attitudes and posturing like Dharma but not practicing Dharma. Because what you’re doing is looking at a feast of delicious food but choosing to eat the imitation plastic stuff from K-Mart that little kids play with—little pretend food. That’s what you’re eating.

Instead, practice Dharma. And if you are filled with concern for yourself and your own path, remind yourself that all beings are equal. If you are raising yourself up to Buddhahood, thinking that you can do it without raising others up to Buddhahood, well you’re wrong. It’s foolish because there is no separation. To get lost in your own little Dharma world, in your own little practice, in your own little thing is only more self-absorption. Sure, you’re practicing a little Dharma, but you’re also practicing a lot of self-absorption. And so the way is to benefit others, to reach others, to benefit others, to test your limits. Unfold your wings. Help others to break through and to achieve some virtue, some merit, whether they are Buddhist or not. Be a real practitioner. Let everything you do, everything you think and everything you say be something that contributes. Have respect for others—animals, humans, even those beings that cannot be seen. You can assume that they are there, and you pray for them too.

These are the recommendations that I am making to you. And I’m asking you, practice sincerely. We’ll see each other a lot more if you reach for the enlightenment that is your nature. If you reach for the Three Precious Jewels, they will respond. But you must reach. This is the removal of obstacles between the student and the teacher. You must call out. You must reach.

Honor the Three Precious Jewels. On the inside this temple is clean, but on the outside it’s falling apart. The Stupas were falling apart until we started fixing them. What respect is that? What loving kindness, what care for sentient beings is that? Even His Holiness house is simply falling apart. I’d like to see one of you be a real sucker, a real dope. Out of just pure compassion and devotion, I’d like to see you take a toothbrush and start cleaning that house. What a sap, you’d be telling yourself. Here I am on my knees with a toothbrush, cleaning that house. Who could be stupider than me? That’s what your ordinary mind would be telling you. But on the inside, your heart is going, “Yes, yes. This may look stupid. But I am practicing Dharma.”

The Soothing Balm of Virtue

March 21, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

To cultivate a joyful mind, we should cultivate virtuous habits. We are happiest when we are busy creating merit. We don’t realize this because the words are so dry. We think cocktail. I like that word! Merit? Ugh. Happy Hour? That sounds good! Practice? Ugh. That’s our ordinary thinking that we have to dispel because it’s wrong. It’s wrong. Cocktail means ‘poison’. It means drunk. It means alcoholic. It’s never been good for you and it never will be. It’s an unfortunate addition to your body, when you can do without. Merit, on the other hand… To practice merit and joyfully meritorious behavior, to soothe the mind rather than constantly inflame it with all your manic stuff, and to be a stimulation junky… That’s what we are. Stimulation junkies. It’s like psychological sugar. We can’t get enough of it. “Gimme something! Anything!” That how we are psychologically. And yet the mind is happiest when it’s relaxed, quietly joyful, mellowed out, thinking of the benefit of others, not absorbed in what I don’t have, what I want or what I think I got to get!

It turns out that what the Buddha said is true. The life of meditation and mysticism and loving regard for others—a life of service, a life planned to benefit others, a life in Dharma, Dharma so alive and so much a part of one’s mind that it is moist and sweet from the holy breath of the Dakinis… That is a life of joyfulness.

In a relaxed mind, colors are brighter. Did you know that? People who are locked in to their own personal phenomena, their own personal crazy phenomena, can’t see colors well. They think they can. They look and say, “Oh, I see red, you see red. What’s the difference?” But one red is different than the other. A peaceful mind can smell better. All the senses are purified and more alive, even though, because we are not yet enlightened they may still do the work of duality. Yet slowly slowly, we are training them in our practice. And so the mind becomes more relaxed. The mind becomes actually sensitized to quiet luminous joy—a state of restful luminosity that could be described as the very dance of bliss. This is the relaxed mind, the virtuous mind.

Yet we cultivate these habits that keep us raw and inflamed. I look at the expression on people’s faces. They’re all scrunched up because of all that inflammation, all that horrible feeling. When we suffer we say, “I feel so raw”. No kidding. That self-absorption, that constant selfishness and non-virtue and inflammation… It would be like taking Brillo and just constantly rubbing it on one’s skin.

And yet the joyful virtuous mind actually is more like putting a soothing balm on this same skin and allowing it to heal. This is the reason for happiness. This is the way for happiness. This is the method for happiness. Each and every one of us experiences unhappiness due to our previous non-virtuous habits. When we switch tracks, we begin to pave the way and to move on the journey towards personal happiness, happiness for all beings which is our highest priority, and towards making the world a better place, literally.

The House is On Fire

March 20, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

The Buddha teaches us tenderly and gently, as though we were his own children. There’s a story about a king who had many children. He loved his children dearly, but they were children, you know, children involved with children things, bright shiny play objects and things that make them happy. So the father left the children, hopefully in good care; he had to go off and do something in his kingdom (I think I’m telling the story right, I hope so. Om Benzar Satto Hung. So he goes away for a while and when he comes back to his house, his house is on fire. It’s a big house and his children don’t even realize it. The children are comfortably asleep in their little children beds. The king is outside. He can’t get to his children and he’s hollering, “Come out children. Hurry up. Get out of that burning house now. Quick wake up. Run.” The kids, they’re not used to being in trouble. They’re the king’s children. They’re used to being safe; and they have that habit of being safe in their beds so they’re not worried about anything. They hear somebody shouting, but they just turn over in their covers and go back to sleep.

The king becomes frantic. They’re his children! So he says, “Children come out now or I’ll beat you with a stick! Come out or I’ll go in there and I’ll just beat you with a stick and knock your heads off. So come out right now.” And the kids go, “Oh, that’s dad. You know, he’s not really going to beat us with a stick, because we’re the king’s kids. He’s just saying that, so we’re not too worried about it.” And so the kids get out of their beds and they start playing with their toys. The king is making so much noise, and they’re in the back room and they’re just playing with their little toys, preoccupied, you know, the way we are, and playing with little things. And then the king goes, “Children, I have beautiful toys for you out here. Treasures. Beautiful things. I have a grand elephant for you to ride. I have a whole herd of horses for you to enjoy. I have beautiful umbrellas and shiny jewels and so many objects for you to come and play with.” Naturally, the kids are attracted by that and go running out of the house. At which time the father, being part Italian goes, “Aye!” (That would have been me. That’s not what the father did.) The father embraced his children and said, “Oh I’m sorry I had to lie to you. I’m sorry I had to promise you things. I’m sorry I had to threaten you. But see, your house is burning.”

As Many Paths…

March 16, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

Society will teach you wrongly until it understands your nature. The Buddha is the perfect teacher—the perfect one because he so thoroughly understood our nature. It is said that when a student came to him for the first time, and said, “I would like to become Buddhist,” or “I would like to take teaching with you,” he could see in an instant all the causes and conditions that brought that student to that moment where he faced the Buddha. He could see every cause and condition and could give each and every student the antidote necessary to provide the blessings for enlightenment.

That being the case, we can trust in the Buddha’s teaching. He doesn’t say, “You’re a bag of chemicals. Now you’re breathing. So good, go get a job. Make yourself happy. Have a chicken in your pot, or a pot with some chicken”. I don’t know…” Have a drink on Friday nights.”—whatever it is that makes people happy. He doesn’t say, “Follow in your culture.” He tears the veil apart and he says, “Based on your nature, this is what must be done. Based on your path, this is what must be done.” And there are as many methods in the Buddhadharma as there are sentient beings to follow them.

Peeling Back the Veil

March 15, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

In contemplating our lives and in proceeding mindfully, we begin to understand that the Buddha has peeled away the veil a little bit to show us that we are not only material beings affixed on the time and space grid, that we are not these lumps that are there. The Buddha has peeled back the veil a little bit and shown us that we are spiritual beings. That our very appearance is the display of primordial spiritual essence and that the events and activities in our lives are merely the result of causes that we have definitely created in the past. That we are continually, by our habits and by our thinking and by our activities, by our consciousness, continually creating the causes for the future. This is what the Buddha has taught.

Now in other religions, there are good laws, like don’t kill, don’t steal. All the religions have the same basic laws. But in the Buddha’s path, he teaches us about cause and effect. We are made to understand the relationship between cause and effect. The potency implied in that is that for the first time, we are humans with tools, rather than humans with sticks and stones. It’s as though spiritually we moved into the new age of having actual tools rather than being some sort of homo sapien who just kind of, in an animal way, deals with what life brings the best that it can.

Yes, the Buddha has given us tools. But do we understand how to follow them? And how to use them? And here’s the problem. What we don’t understand is this—and this is not necessarily the fault of each and every individual although we must take responsibility for our own habits and thoughts, it’s the only reasonable and healthy way to move forward: We are born in a culture that does not explain reality. In fact, we are born in a culture that believes in the solidity of form, believes in division and delusion and duality and doesn’t understand cause and effect relationships very much at all. We live in a very externalized culture where yes, we understand that if you steal something, if you get caught, you’ll go to jail or get in trouble with the law. But we also think that if you steal something and don’t get caught, that the stealing didn’t happen. I remember thinking how many times I have met up with students that you can tell they’ve been taught that. You’re ok as long as you don’t get caught. Most of us learn how to manipulate our lives and manipulate our environment so that appearances meet in accord with our society. But we have never been taught what are the real tools for happiness. We have never been taught that. We’ve never been taught that the stealing produces future cause whether or not you get caught in this lifetime.

There are other reasons for stealing. I personally don’t believe the fear of punishment is going to stop too many people who are hungry from stealing some food. If you’re hungry, your mind is different. Or for a person who is so poor that they can’t think of any other way to get by, the fear of punishment won’t stop them. But perhaps, if they lived in a society that taught from birth the fact that if you are poor now, it’s because you have not been generous in the past. If you wish to achieve more prosperity, the best thing to do is to be of benefit to others, because stealing will only make more impoverishment, more poverty. We’re not taught that. We’re only taught to look at the external.

But in a Buddhist society, we are taught that our minds are important. We are taught that we must tame the mind. Within the mind are the five poisons and without being tamed, they will result in unhappiness if they are left to run wild. We have the poisons of ignorance, anger, slothfulness, desire, jealousy. We have them all.

Ignorance in this case doesn’t mean that you didn’t go to school. Ignorance in this case means that you have no wisdom. It means that you do not understand the nature of reality, have not been taught the cause and effect relationships and karmic relationships that provide the future reality nor what creates your present reality. So we are ignorant of how we are, what we are, and how we have come to be here.

So we have these five poisons and never understand that these five poisons are not our nature. They are occlusions in the diamond mind. They are dirt on the pristine window that is consciousness. In their pristine nature, they are the five primordial dakinis; they are the five primordial Buddhas in their nature. They are the qualities of Buddhahood: omniscience, omnipresence, compassion—these kinds of qualities and activities. And so as Buddhists, the veil is brought to the side so that we can look and see cause and effect and the nature of mind.

Right Before Our Eyes

March 12, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

These are important teachings. The Buddha taught us that yes, we will live many times and we will die many times. It’s so important to think of this particular life as one increment in a great long inconceivable span of lifetimes. Lord Buddha taught that we have been born again and again and again in cyclic existence in so many forms and so many times that, literally, every being that we meet must have been our kind mother or father in some past incarnation. So we should think of all beings—including dogs and cats and worms and iguanas and creatures that perhaps we have very little emotional connection with, but even those—if we have the opportunity to meet them or even be stung by one of them, like a bee, that in some past life, some ancient life, we have had definitely some intimate connection with them.

We had another good lesson recently. We watched the death of the woman with brain damage, Terri Schiavo What an amazing karma played out right out in front of us. Amazing karma! If you just step back away from the emotions and look, it’s so easy to see that this is some ancient, profound, terrible karma playing out between these people—the husband, the family and the woman herself. Amazingly, her death was brought about by a deprivation of food, and yet the very cause of this terrible fate of hers was practicing bulimia. So you see a kind of instant karma playing out, and then you see it hooking into this devastating ancient karma with the other people, with the family that she lived with. How amazing! What a study that was!

I found myself this past week, between His Holiness the Pope and this Schiavo woman dying, I found myself fascinated by these two things. Watching everything the Buddha has taught us playing out right in front of us for those of us that could see. My students, my attendants, the people that are close to me say, “Jetsunma, what should they do? Should they feed her or not feed her?” Well, my advice would have been to allow the entire karma to play out, completely unscathed. Let it play out exactly without any kind of interference, exactly the way it would in the world, because this karma between them is so profound. Better that she, in this relatively unconscious condition, can go through this terrible karma and live it down, finish it, end it, rather than to have to come back and finish it, because it perhaps wasn’t finished. So from a wisdom point of view, to watch this karma is a blessing. Because we understand how it is with us, we can get a much deeper understanding; and yet to watch this karma is gut wrenching. It’s heart breaking because we see how samsara is. We see how we can mistakenly think that loving concern is just that—loving concern—when sometimes it’s power. We can see also that sometimes when we feel the most powerful, powerful love, that often its basis is very self-oriented, very selfish. Not meaning to be selfish. We think we’re thinking of the other, and yet it’s really about how we feel.

Examining Death

March 9, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

Before we begin, I would like to mention the passing of Pope John Paul II. Not that I am becoming a Catholic in my old age, but I was baptized a Catholic and I feel a connection with this spiritual leader who has spent, apparently from the time of being a young priest, four hours in prayer every day. I think that that pure intention and that kind of motivation and that kind of spirituality in the world is precious no matter what flavor it comes in. So when we lose somebody like that from the world, there is always a reason for sadness.

It’s amazing that His Holiness was really the first and only religious leader that I know of who died so publicly, not only with so many people watching the windows in St. Peter’s Square, but with cable news and all the news networks also covering this event. What an opportunity really to offer human beings—the opportunity to study death, to remind ourselves of this human condition that we all share together. None of us will avoid death. We may all die differently. Some of us may die a conscious death, hopefully, through practice; others might die an ordinary death. But we will all definitely die, and His Holiness reminded us of that fact. Kind of stuck it under our noses again. In our culture, we like to forget that. Even though we age literally every minute every day, we like to forget that part. We like to forget that death will definitely come.

As Buddhists, that’s an important factor for us; but culturally, as Westerners, we don’t like to think about death. In the West our dead people are carried away very quickly before we even get to notice them practically. Death is covered; it’s sanitized. We even make our dead pretty. This is a corpse, you understand, this is meat. We make them pretty. This is our custom. It’s like we lie to ourselves about death. It’s like we don’t want to face that that person has died, so we have a mortuary beautician come in and fix them up. Interesting way of thinking about death. I mean, just interesting.

His Holiness reminds us of the truth of death. That even those of us who practice, those of us who pray, we are all practicing really and praying for an auspicious rebirth. In his case, he was praying to go to heaven. We are praying for an auspicious rebirth. We are constantly reminded as Buddhists that everything is impermanent—that our lives are impermanent, that our youth is impermanent, that our physical appearance is impermanent, that it’s constantly changing. And while suffering is impermanent, so is happiness. We are reminded of that because we have actually witnessed this life that was so vigorous and so intending to work to its full capacity.

This Pope has traveled to many countries. Even when his health was not good, he would persevere. That was a miraculous thing to allow us to watch, to see how amazing is a life that is dedicated that way. And so we all mourn his passing. I hope that each of us in our own way, however we pray, whatever religion (he was definitely an inclusive Pope), that we should make prayers for him—perhaps a few moments of silence—and celebrate as well the fact that he’s reminded us once again that life and death are really pretty much the same. That one follows the other. And just as we have to prepare for life, we have to prepare for death.

The Path to a Joyful Mind

November 10, 2014 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

On the Vajrayana Path, the teacher will say, “I will beat you to death if you don’t straighten up. I will just take a stick to you.” You know, His Holiness [Penor Rinpoche] is famous for doing that. He once had a Tulku who was dying and this Tulku was someone that His Holiness had a lot of hopes in. Obviously there was some obstacle to his life. What was it? We don’t know. But His Holiness realized the Tulku was dying. So he went in to see the Tulku, and the Tulku must have said something that brought up His Holiness’ awareness of this obstacle. His Holiness took off his mala and starting beating him with his mala, just beating him and beating him. And the next day, the Tulku was completely well.

Sometimes the lamas are wrathful in order to remove obstacles. Sometimes the lamas are so wrathful that they are more wrathful than any parent we’ve ever had and we see that. Or we love the lama so much that the wrathfulness of the lama seems like a big stick and we can hardly bear it. Or the disappointment of our lama seems like a big stick and we can hardly bear that. Then sometimes the lama says, “You are such a special being. You are so intrinsically special, even your karma is special. You are special to me. I love you so much. Come here. Come on.” And the lama says, “I love you.” And the lama says, “I know you.” And the lama says, “I see your heart. Feel that?” And the lama says, “I have great gifts to give you. Dharma is beautiful. It’s a joy to practice. It’s everything the Buddha has offered. I’ll set this immense banquet in front of you and you can eat the food of Dharma. How beautiful.”

Of course the lama neglects to mention that Dharma is difficult, that the path is hard, that the things that we have to face about ourselves are horrible and ugly and the things that we have to change about ourselves are very hard work. It’s very hard to change that ego-cherishing into pure generosity and bodhichitta. It’s so hard. The lama may invite you to have some tea. But if you have real potential, the lama’s going to smack you upside the head and say, “Straighten out, buddy. That’s not the way to practice Dharma.” And that’s the part that we should be grateful for. Not only should we not get mad because that would be a big mistake; but instead we should say, this is the very nectar of the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha has instructed us how to ‘wake-up’ and now we must do the work of waking up. When we practice Dharma, Dharma is something that we practice 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There’s no Sunday in Dharma. We’re just practicing the habits of our culture [having teachings on Sunday] and we know that you work. Otherwise, there’s no Sunday in Dharma. Dharma is every day. We shouldn’t come here to see an altar; there should be an altar in our homes. To come here and practice is wonderful. We welcome you with open hearts and open arms; but this should not be the only place you practice. You should maintain your practice every day.

This is the way to be happy. Because if you create the habit of practicing and doing some Dharma, making prayers and offerings, practicing say, Ngöndro every day, or even just reciting Seven Line Prayer every day, the mind begins to change. It’s less inflamed, less needy, less concerned with what you want, less concerned with bad habits. The mind begins to change in such a way that it’s less inflamed, more relaxed. And a more relaxed and spacious mind is the prescription for a more joyful mind.

Pick Up the Shovel

November 5, 2014 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Take Control of Your Life”

When we create a close relationship with our teacher on the path of Vajrayana—once we have examined the teacher’s qualities and have decided for ourselves that this is indeed the root guru—then we must follow. If the root guru can teach us Buddhism, they have to have something of that same capacity [as the Buddha]. Now maybe the root guru can see what it is that’s brought us here—the suffering that’s brought us here, and the accomplishment. The root guru looks at you and sees you are Buddha, and yet you suffer. So the root guru says, “I wish to teach you how to live, how to practice, so that your suffering ends and so that you can benefit others.” Nowhere else is one taught that way: understanding the true nature, one’s appearance and one’s nature that is empty. Therefore only the Buddha is the appropriate guide.

The Buddha teaches us that everything is about karma. It’s about choices; it’s about cause and effect; it’s about realizing one’s nature and remaining stable in the bliss of emptiness. If we remain stable in that, we are free to examine any part of our lives. And most of all, first and foremost, we should examine our minds.

The Buddha has taught us that first, and most importantly, we should establish our motivation,. And our motivation is based on the first teaching of Lord Buddha—that all beings are equal in their nature. All beings. That they are all suffering and yet what they all have in common is that they all equally wish to be happy. The smallest worm, anything with consciousness in its own way, in its own language, is striving to be happy. Then the Buddha teaches us the pristine message—the message of hope and the one that allows us to practice at last. The Buddha says, “All beings are suffering, but there is an end to suffering, and that end is called enlightenment.”

Beyond that, Lord Buddha says we must examine our minds, our intention. This is profound work; this is deep work. You can’t practice a little Dharma over here and commit a little adultery over here. You can’t practice a little Dharma over here and have someone in your life whom you know doesn’t have a bite to eat and not help them. You can’t practice a little Dharma over here and have no respect for the Sangha or the temple or the teacher. In other words, Dharma’s not like a pretty little high church package. Even though we have bunches of fancy things around here, it isn’t like you walk into a giant temple and go, “Oh, I’m moved emotionally, and it’s Sunday. I did it. I’m a good Buddhist.” No. That’s not Dharma. “I came on Sunday, I sang some songs and I’m impressed with the church. Now I’m going home.” No, that’s not Dharma.

Dharma is different. When we see these objects that are beautiful and magical and we see the brocade and we see the statues, yes, it thrills our hearts and we recognize on some level that something very precious and beautiful is here. But the Buddha didn’t tell us to sit around and think about how things are precious and beautiful in the temple. The Buddha taught us that Dharma isn’t like a beautiful package of golden brocade. Dharma is a knife, and it’s meant to cut. It has a sharp edge, and it’s not always painless. Dharma teaches us that the honest truth is that non-virtuous activity and habitual patterns will only lead us to more unhappiness. That means we have to go in there with a shovel and a pick axe and start changing our minds.