Western Chod | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Be Your Own Best Friend

December 31, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chöd”

Understanding what is in front of you is like, I’ve used this analogy before, it’s like walking through a dark room. Let’s say that the life span that you have can be symbolized by a room. It’s dark because you don’t know what it’s going to be like. So let’s say the room is perfectly pitch dark. All the shades are drawn. It’s dark outside. No moon. Lights are off. We’re talking dark. And it’s like that because no one can predict the future. We have no idea what our lives are going to be like. But you have to walk through that room.

So you have a choice there. You can either do what we’re used to doing which is, eyes closed, you don’t turn on the light. You just take it the way it is and, like a fool, just walk through the room. Now unfortunately in that room, there’s a sofa, there’s a couch, there’s a table, lots of tables, there’s stuff on the floor. It’s like any other room. It’s furnished. Just like your life. It’s furnished. So you’re going to walk through that room what, with the light off? With your eyes closed? Guess what’s going to happen. Try it in your room. Try it in your house. Just walk around a while with all the lights off and your eyes closed. You are going to hurt yourself. You’re going to fall down.

There’s another choice, and this is the choice that Buddhism offers to you, or that this kind of practice specifically offers you—examining the faults of cyclic existence and examining what is the more noble way.This kind of practice offers you another alternative and that is turning on the light. Having seen the faults of cyclic existence that’s like you’re walking through this room, yes, but you know where the couch is. You can walk around the couch. You know where the chair is. You can walk around the chair. You know where the table is. You can walk around the table. Something on the floor. You can step over that. So while it may not be our natural tendency to look at life in that way, it behooves us to have that kind of courage because ultimately it would be like walking through your life really seeing what it is, being able to avoid the obstacles, taking advantage of what is there to take advantage of, and not hurting yourself.

It isn’t like you’re sentencing yourself to several months of the worst practice you’ve ever experienced. In a way, for the first time, maybe for the only time, you’re being your own best friend. You’re really looking, really seeing, not copping out. And because of that you will be more competent to move through your life than you might have been otherwise. And not only that, you’ve given rise to the great Bodhicitta, the great compassion, and you have understood that while you are alive in this world, you cannot accept, you cannot bear the suffering of sentient beings. You see that it becomes somehow disgusting and unacceptable to you, that your two feet, that your self could be here in this world, and sentient beings are suffering. That’s why, in the practice, we give rise to renunciation, true renunciation. We totally give up the self for the purpose of benefitting sentient beings. Practice like that will produce that excellent result.

According to my teachers, this is a combination of preliminary practice called Ngöndro, which is where we see the faults of cyclic existence and give rise to the Bodhicitta, and it’s also the practice of Chöd. There’s no reason why any of you can’t begin to practice like that right now, immediately, tomorrow, today. That practice can be done deeply as I have just given instruction, but it can also be done in more casual way, as you’re walking around. Examine everything you see, and even if you are not a Buddhist, that’s fine with me. Even if you’re not planning on being a Buddhist but you’re interested in these words and you have some connection with them, great. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice in this way, because when I practiced in this way, I wasn’t. But it is the same ethics, the same morality and the same beauty that I have later come to find in my religion, Buddhism. So I offer this to you as a gift and I really hope that you take it with you wherever you go, and that, for my friend, it will bring you back safely, and that for all of you, you will have the most excellent result practicing in that way.

Practicing Deeply

December 25, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

Westerners, in particular, have this habit. I think it may be somewhat unique to us because our experience is so multiple. We could go into the spiritual supermarket and buy ten different kinds of baloney. That’s the truth. We can go anywhere and get anything. We have so much to look at, so much that we can have, that oftentimes when we’re given a practice and the teacher says to us,. “Turn to page such and such. Read this practice and visualize like this. Then you say the mantra. Then you do the closing prayers. Do some dedication.” Done. The practice is done. On Wednesday I make out my shopping list, and it’s with that kind of fervent regard, unfortunately, that westerners tend to practice, like we’re writing out laundry lists. We need this. We gotta have this. We’re going for this. Let’s do it. It’s very much by rote.

I felt that my good fortune was that this practice had to be brought up from the very depth of me. I had to feel it or it wouldn’t work, and so that was my task. To the depth of my being I had to find a way to renounce. I had to face the part of me that was attached and addicted to whatever parts or things about my life that I had that feeling for. I had to face the ramifications if I didn’t accomplish this practice. That meant we all get to die and everything just goes on the way it is. That seemed to me unbearable being as there is so much suffering in the world.

It’s as though I had to reach down in the depth of my gut and pull this up everyday. It was so hard and so rewarding at the same time. I have to say there are very few practices that I do at this time that match the intensity and the depth and the regard and the beauty that I felt at that time. In some ways it was so natural and so innocent and so total, because I couldn’t stop and go on to the next thing until I had really really accomplished the previous phase. That was the important thing. Unfortunately, we don’t practice, we don’t think like that at this time. That was my practice every single day.

Over the years that practice has made my life much easier. In a way it was kind of like putting money in the bank for the future. My teachers have instructed me that that practice is called chöd . There is no text to go with it so you couldn’t say it was the practice of chöd as it is written in the text. It has been called by my teachers the essence or essential nectar of chöd. So I have been given permission to continue to practice that way and also to teach others to practice in that way. My experience has been that it has made my life a lot easier.

Motherhood

December 17, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

Somewhere in this process I had my second son. I remember picking him up. Here he is a newborn baby, and I am looking into his face. Those of you who have had children, you know what that is like. You look into that face and you can see your genes! I don’t know how that is, but you can. You can see that this child has your blood in him. There is just this connection. Plus there is something visible, like you recognize those feet. There they are again, or something like that. You have the sense of that. So I remember holding this newborn baby, having this connection with this child. I breast feed this child. I gave birth to this child. This child, at least in part, looks like me. I love this child so much. There is nothing like that feeling. You can hardly think about anything else.

I am holding this child in my arms, and I am thinking, “I will never let you suffer. I will never let you suffer. I will never let you get cold. I will never let you get hungry. Wherever you go, even if you have to go off by yourself, I will watch you and I will follow you. I will make sure that nothing happens to you. And as long as I am alive, you will have food, you will have clothing, you will have a place to live. You will be safe.” Then I realized what I had just said,“As long as I am alive… “ Then I realized that that is no promise at all. What is that? I am lying to my child. Then I thought, ”What if I could somehow provide for my child all the way until the time of his death.” Then I thought, “Yeah, but when my child dies, can I guarantee that that death won’t be a suffering? Can I guarantee that it won’t be a terrible feeling of loss or that it won’t be painful in some way?” No. Can I absolutely assure thatmy child is going to die in a painless way? No. There is nothing that I can do about that. I don’t have that kind of power.

So I thought to myself, ”How disgusting! Here I am holding my newborn baby in my arms and I am making all these promises and I am lying. The first thing I have done for my child is to lie to him. That really made me unhappy. I just couldn’t think what to do. So I used that as a way to practice. I thought to myself, “Therefore, this temporary reality, the human reality, is worth nothing. If there is a way to absolutely embody this primordial wisdom nature, I know this nature is not limited by death. I know this nature is something that is all pervasive. I know it. I don’t know how I know it, but I know it. I think to myself, “If only I could really embody this nature, then somewhere in there is the way to protect my child.

It was being a mother that really taught me how to feel the same way about sentient beings because ultimately I came to understand that if you look at two children side by side because you are the mother of one but not of the other…What is that? These are both my children. How do I say that this one is not my child but this one is? I couldn’t. That doesn’t even make any sense to me.

Going Deeper

December 16, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I thought about my ears in the same way. I would listen to some music, and I really like music so I could become hypnotized by the music; I could become entranced. I could become sort of addicted to music, and maybe that’s all that I think about is music. In my head is always this music. Have you had it happen where you get a song stuck in your head and you think it will drive you out of your mind? That kind of thing. So what if I were really to do that with music and just remain in that “music is so wonderful” state. You might think the benefit of that would be that it could be relaxing. It could be pleasurable. Maybe if I shared the mood music with someone else, it might make them feel temporarily better. But, ultimately if I use my ears to just give myself some kind of narcotic experience like that, what good are they? I am going to stay in samsara and I’m never going to get out. It’s not going to produce any real result.

Ultimately, I came to understand, here in this day and age, that my ears are precious because I can hear the voice of my teacher. I can hear the prayers. I can hear the sound of mantra. So my ears became to me precious; but I’ve also understood that in truth while they may be a beautiful and precious animal, they are a work horse. They should not dominate me. I must dominate them.So I am thinking like that even with the five senses. I learned how to renounce them and how to experience them as something that will lead to ultimate benefit rather than to something that is temporary.

I thought that way about touch as well. Touch can be very seductive. We can live our entire lives wishing nothing but to be in love and to touch our loved ones, to have that wonderful sensual type of experienceMany of us have the kind of lives where we simply go from one of those experiences to another. It can be very seductive. Touch is good. I can comfort my baby. I can sooth someone who is not feeling well. I can make someone that I can touch temporarily happy. But I came to understand that touch has its limitations and that it can be seductive. I came to understand ultimately it is touch that enables me to turn my page. I can tell where the pages are. Touch tells me how to get to the prayer that I want. So I have come to understand that touch is another animal that can be ridden and that can bring about benefit.

In every case, from the different parts of my body to the whole total sense of my identity to all of my senses as I understood them at that time, even to the external circumstances of my life like the clothing that I wore, or the food that I ate, the car that I drove, the house that I lived in, all of these things that I examined, I thought of in the same way as having some temporary benefit, but that ultimately whatever one receives one will also lose. And that these things are very limited.

You might say to yourself, “Well, gee, did you develop a kind of cynicism? Did you just sit around making yourself miserable all day long?” And I have to tell you that, in truth, there are moments when I felt the grief of sentient beings. I recommend doing this, and I don’t recommend letting yourself off easy. It is like exercise. You know that if you don’t put any weight in your hand, but you just keep going like that [pumping your arm], maybe that muscle will get some blood in it. But if you take some weight in your hand and you really think about it, and you really work it, you will develop a very tuned, very strong muscle. So it is like that. I have to tell you that I would spend some days thinking about the suffering of sentient beings and it would not be happy. It would be really sad.

The Eyes

December 15, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I would work as hard as I could on each body part until I felt that I had gotten to some level of result, and then I would continue. For certain aspects of that practice, it really did take a month, a whole month, for just one small thing. Eventually I found that I was able to go through every single part of my visible body.

Then, I was able to think about my five senses—my eyes, my vision. That’s another thing that, really, we are very much attached to. The idea of being without vision, of course, is terrifying. When we really examine what these eyes actually do, we find out that they prevent us from running into trucks or maybe walking into walls, or they help us to read books, and watch TV, We can see our children, we can see our families, we can see our loved ones. We can see beauty, we can see in the mirror. We can see all kind of things…. These eyes are really good, right? I’ve also found when I really examined them that these are the eyes of dualism. That these are the eyes that are literally an extension of dualistic thinking. These are actually the eyes that are meant to see samsara or the cycle of death and rebirth, and only that. That’s all they can show me. They’re not able to see the primordial wisdom nature. They’re able to see that mirror on my pretend altar that was like a symbol of that, but they cannot see deeply. They cannot really see anything. Eventually, I came to understand, for instance, without my eyes I would not be able to read my prayers and I would not be able to read text of any kind. So I’ve come to understand that definitely the eyes, like any of our senses, according to the way humans appear in this realm, make us complete. With all of the senses and faculties complete, I came to find out eventually that we can practice Dharma because of that. So this is a really good thing.

Although they can be used to help an ordinary sentient being practice the practices that bring about the awakening to the primordial wisdom state, still, I would have to say that the ordinary use of these five senses is extremely limited.I cannot directly use my eyes to liberate anyone or terminate the suffering of anybody else right now. Eventually maybe I can if I keep reading the text and really practicing. But, for right now, maybe I could help somebody cross the street if they couldn’t see or if someone got something in their eyes maybe my eyes would work well enough to get it out.

There are pros and cons of the five senses, but ultimately I found out that whatever they are, they are not enough. I found out enough to know that I intend to use them to accomplish practice, that I intend to use them to benefit sentient beings. Ultimately, concerning the five senses, I found them to be more like work horses. They should not dominate me. I should not look at the world and go, “Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow! I want that and I want that and I want that.” Everything is a big feast of desire, you know, and all I think about is gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. You know the old mantra? Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. So if I use them like that then what are these things? They are just round spheres of flesh. They are nothing else. It is just meaningless. The fact is that they would help to hook me in even deeper to samsara if all I see is objects I desire.

Examining Attachment

December 14, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I found, interestingly enough, that as I moved through the different body parts that each one of us are kind of attached to certain parts of us that we identify with more. I don’t need to tell you which ones they are, do I? I found that this assumption of self nature as being inherently real actually eventually leads to this sort of foundational sense of identity. According to our programming and according to our habitual tendency, not only in this lifetime but also in past lifetimes, we have a sense of self; and that self, of course, seems to be contained within the physical form of the body.

Maybe some women or some men, either one,, might really develop a sense of their lower body, for instance their legs and feet, as being very much a part of them. Maybe some women might receive a lot of praise because they have beautiful legs or something. Or maybe some men or women might be track stars, really really into track and really like to run, really like to exercise. So in that sense they would develop a really fine awareness of their legs. If you know someone who has been in sports to that degree or competitive sports, you know that generally in terms of their body and specifically the parts of their body that they are very much involved with, they develop a very keen sense of what that body part is.

For instance, a runner would have a keen sense of the musculature of their legs. A body builder would have a keen sense of what is the bicep, what is the tricep. You know, that kind of thing. They would have a really keen sense of that almost as though the mind and the body were somewhat closer than maybe to people who don’t think like that. So for some of us we may have a really strong sense of our legs.

Then for many of us, we identify very strongly with gender. So when we come to the parts of us that identify us as either male or female, we’re thinking, “Well, maybe I won’t give that up today. As far as I can tell this does me a lot of good. So it may not be the time to give this up just yet.” Of course I am being funny and flip about it. But, in fact, I found that in my own practice it was something of a struggle to give up that which identifies you as a woman or a man. My goodness that’s a big thing to do! That’s scary!

So I asked myself, “Well, okay then we really have to examine what this part of me can actually accomplish.” I don’t think I want to do that for you publicly. But I did honestly and truly go through the whole thing. It does some good and it does some harm. So my experience was that while we cling to that part of our bodies and while it identifies us, it is like anything else. It has its benefits. It has its pluses. It has its responsibilities. But it definitely has its limitations. There is definitely a lot that it can’t do and, in fact, like anything else in samsara, it definitely causes lots of problems as well, which some of you may have noticed.

Then I went further. I found that another part that is very hard to think of as renounced is the head.because most of us feel as though we live in our heads. We feel like that’s really where we are centered. And maybe in some case you might find that the heart is also hard to give up, because we think “Oh, the heart stops beating, I’m dead.” There’s a panic that comes up there. So there are different things that we have to work through at any time, but I found that the best way to proceed through that is slowly, slowly. Always preceding it with meditation on the condition and suffering of sentient beings so that the motivation is there. And really seeing that no matter what, even if you have 10 hearts and 25 genitalia and 16 feet and all the different parts of you, you had them in extraordinary condition and many of them interchangeable in different colors and maybe even one print… Even if you had all of that, still the result is pretty much the same.

So I would meditate on that until I was really secure and certain in that. Then sometimes in my practice I would have to go back and maybe that day I didn’t even make the offering of that body part. Maybe in that day I simply had to remain in contemplation on these issues because I could feel that there was attachment there that needed to be dealt with.

Offering the Body: A Practical Approach

December 12, 2016December 12, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

Then I began to examine parts of my body. I thought to myself, “Well, if this absolute nature is the only thing that makes sense, if this absolute nature is the only thing that seems precious and worthy and noble to me, and everything else that I find in this cycle of death and rebirth seems chancy at best, even when it ends happy, it seems to me that it’s nothing to take safety from.” So I examined like that. What about my body? I take a lot of safety from body. After all, if I didn’t have it, where would I be? So I examined my body, and I tried to examine it piece by piece so that I wouldn’t leave anything out.

I remember that I started with my feet. I thought that it was best to start down and work up. So I started with my feet. I really tried to do this purely, and this is my recommendation: If you want to practice in this way, try to do this as logically and purely and as dispassionately as possible. You won’t be satisfied with your practice if you don’t really cover all the bases. It is really necessary to go deeply into this.

So I thought about my feet. I thought, “Well, what can my feet do? What are they good for?” Well, I like shoes a lot. They can wear shoes. So that’s one good thing that feet can do. I can wear shoes that match my outfit. Isn’t that wonderful? Yeah. So what’s the next thing that feet can do? Feet can walk. So if my baby’s crying and he needs me, I can use these things to walk over and pick him up and help him. This is good. Feet are good. We are getting good now. Feet are good. They have toenails on them. We can paint those. They can match my outfit, too. More good news. So what else… We can roller skate with feet. I am personally addicted to foot massage. So we have that. That’s a good thing. Feet can take me anywhere I can go within reason. Within walking distance, feet can take me. They press the pedals on the car. Feet are good for that also. It sounds silly. I went through everything I could think of that feet were good for.

Then I thought to myself, “Well considering all the sufferings in the world, considering what I have thought about already, what I have contemplated, what is it that feet can’t do?” Well, if my child became very ill, really ill, there’s nothing that my feet can do about that. In a way they could contribute. They could maybe carry him to a doctor, but ultimately they can’t really do anything. Then I thought to myself,”Well, if I saw somebody suffering right in front of me, what could my feet do?” Well, they could contribute again. They could take me to that person, but ultimately my feet don’t solve any problems.

I thought to myself, ”Well, these things are really limited then. I really kind of developed a feeling of “so what” about my feet, like non-attachment, like it didn’t seem to me like I should feel about this part of my body as though I were attached. So I thought to myself, “Well, if these feet are so limited, what would be better? What would be better here instead of my feet?” I thought to myself, “If somehow that absolute nature, if somehow that primordial wisdom nature were here in this place instead of these feet, that would be something. That would be something.”

I would actually meditate on my feet, and I would go from the skin to the muscle to the tissue inside of it, to the bones, down to the very cellular level. And I would think, “This I offer to this absolute nature; and I pray that in exchange somehow the blessing of that nature would be here and that where I am, there would be some comfort in the world.” I used to pray that. And every single day I would pray that with such longing because I took time to meditate on the faults of cyclic existence and the nobility and the blessing of that primordial wisdom nature, and I could see the difference. I was so moved. Here in this world there is nothing of that. There’s only the ordinary stuff. I would pray so hard I felt like this whole thing is on my shoulders. I really took this responsibility for everything. I just prayed so hard that somehow this absolute nature would be here.

I felt like I completely renounced my feet. I looked at my feet and they looked like something else. They became to me very foreign. Suddenly I looked at my feet, and I thought, “I’ve given them up. I don’t own them anymore.” If someone were to say to me, “Would you walk over here to help me?” There’s not even any point of saying yes or no. I’ve already offered my feet. They’re going to do it. So I feel this sense of non-attachment, or the realization that my feet are nothing to cling to.

I would meditate like that until I felt really satisfied that I had given these things up. Sometimes it would take a couple of days. Sometimes it would take a week. Sometimes it would take a month for just one element. And I would go from my feet to my ankles to my legs to my torso to my upper body and my head, as well as different external circumstances of my life. Like, for instance, my car. What good is my car? What can it actually do? Drive. Big deal! What can it actually do to benefit the world? That kind of thing. I thought like that.

I would spend this whole time of preparation simply getting ready for what I didn’t know. I really didn’t have a sense of what the work was going to be, but I knew that this was the truth and that it had to be done this way. I really knew that what I was meditating on was the absolute truth.

So I went through all the different parts of my body. In each case, everyday I would not be satisfied to stop my practice until tears had come to my eyes. Sometimes I would really cry. I would sometimes cry for the condition of other sentient beings, or I would sometimes cry that this primordial nature is so noble and yet none us have awakened to it. It seemed so pitiful to me that we are so close yet so far away to this nobility that is our true nature. Sometimes I would cry about that. Sometimes I would just cry as a kind of offering.

I would offer my feet. “Please accept my feet. Please don’t let this be all there is. Please don’t let this be the whole story. It can’t be where we leave ourselves. It just can’t be like this.” So I was crying, “Please accept these feet as an offering. Please, in exchange, let that absolute nature be here.” I would never be satisfied with my practice until I was actually crying or I felt that I had really understood to the depths of my heart that this was the way it had to be, and that this was a kind of necessary generosity that was performed for the sake of beings.

Contemplating Impermanence

December 12, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I tried to think to myself: So this life, what is it? What could it be like? I thought, “What is the best case scenario.” You know, this whole scene that I have right here? What’s the best way this could work out? I really played with this a little bit. (See “Best Case Scenario”)

I thought about what are the probable scenarios that will actually happen. Then I had to be more realistic and I really looked at my life. I didn’t fall out of love with it or anything. I just really examined it, in as dispassionate a way as I could. I also examined what the potential pitfalls are. I understood that you can eat health food, exercise all the time, sleep 10 hours per day, no matter what, and put yourself in a bubble where there are no chemicals in your environment,.You can do anything you want to, and no matter what, you are still going to experience the same end result and it’s still going to be samsara that we are caught in.

You cannot guarantee that even if you do all those things, the minute you step out into the street a truck’s not going to hit you. You can’t guarantee that. That’s why I understood that even though many things about this life appear stable, in fact they are not stable. So I prepared myself for that kind of understanding in that way. I would do that kind of contemplation everyday.

Best Case Scenario

December 10, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I began to think, “This nature, this is something, this is really something.” So the practice that I engaged in (and this is how I was instructed to do so) was a practice of initially realizing the nature and then examining the cycle of death and rebirth, or what I now understand is called samsara. So I examined the cycle of death and rebirth. And even that term I didn’t have—cycle of death and rebirth. You have to understand I hadn’t heard any of these words before. So I was penning my own words to this idea or concept or reality that I was sensing and the concept that I was thinking about. So I began to think out what is this life that we are living then? This is this absolute nature. What is this life we are living now where we remain kind of blind to this nature? I began to really probe this life and tried to see: What is the best thing this life can give me or give anyone and what’s the worst? I began to examine all the different scenarios associated with ordinary life.

At that time I was living on a beautiful farm in North Carolina and I was 20, so I would have to say that I was a potentially aging hippy girl. I was living on this farm and I had the idea of going to back to the land. I was growing food. I was learning how to grow a garden. At the time I thought that I was so cool with that and so sophisticated. Later I found out that the farmers around us really thought that we were going to starve to death if we were any dumber. But, anyway, we were doing our best, and I learned how to can beans and all that stuff. So I had this wonderful thing going on. I was living at the foot of the mountains. I could walk out on my porch and see the mountains. I had a beautiful little baby boy, beautiful blonde hair. He looked like an angel. I had a wonderful husband and everything was just great.

I thought, okay, first of all, this is my initial demand: I never get old. No aging happens here. In my fantasy, these things weren’t going to happen, and when I am queen, they won’t. So I really thought that I am not going to age. This is the first thing: Nobody ages in this. We don’t age or, at least, I personally find the secret of how to use Este Lauder products perfectly, this secret which I am ever questing. I find the way to use them perfectly and finally she comes out with that new product, the one that I am waiting for, the one that makes everything better.

The same thing with my husband. There’s the male version of Este Lauder. We put it on him and he is great, too. My child does grow up, but, of course, he never ages either. Of course, my child grows up to be president or maybe first a doctor and then president. At his inauguration speech and, as well as when he receives his medical degree, at both of those occasions, he says, “It was my mom that made it possible.” Of course, I still look very young, and, of course, I am much more beautiful than I have ever been in my life.

So far this is working out pretty well, don’t you think? My husband and I never get into that place in marriage where you wake up next to each other and go “Hi”, ummm. We never got to that point. In this fantasy, it was always like those old Breck shampoo commercials. Every time we’d see each other we’d come bounding across the room and jump 10 feet into each other’s arms and land on our feet comfortably. It would all be very elegant. It would be choreographed perfectly, and we would both know our parts. I have a lot of romance in me, you see.

So after that we always had really good food to eat and everything is perfect. We live well—two cars and a chicken in every pot, or whatever, and all this kind of stuff. So everything is perfect. Then I thought to myself, “All this happens. Then what is the end of the story?” Well, the end of the story is just like the end of any other story that you can find in the human realm. No matter what Este Lauder does, we are going to get old because time is going to pass. She had not figured out the chemistry of time yet. So time’s going to pass. The end is going to be the same. We are going to be old. We’re going to, at some point, get sick and then we are going to die. I began to meditate on the fact that whatever comes together in samsara has to separate. That’s just the nature of it; it’s never been otherwise. Whatever is born, dies. Whatever is young, gets old. It’s the nature of it.

I meditated on that constantly. Then I would try all these other different scenarios. I tried to develop five or six best case scenarios and I gave myself total freedom. Well, suppose none of this here in front of me works out but, supposing the ultimate man of every woman’s dream rides up on a white horse and that horse does not do-do in the lawn, which white horses are likely to do. So all of that happens and the whole children thing works out where everybody’s rich and everybody’s happy, everybody’s famous or whatever. Well, in my case, it would be private not famous, but that would be the best case scenario.

With all of them, I thought of what it could be like. Every time I explored it, I found that the end result was always the same. It was always old age, sickness and death. The best ones, even if I had one of those funds where you prepare for your old age and even if it’s just prosperous and wonderful right up until the very end—I’d take up golf and die with a gold club in my hand, or something like that, whatever —it’s still going to end up the same way.

A Better World

December 9, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I hope all of us will remember that, according to Lord Buddha’s teachings, there are many realms of cyclic existence, more than the human realm. There are lower realms of cyclic existence such as the animal realm, and there are non-physical forms of life. The Buddha teaches us that there are many different forms of life. Slowly, slowly in time as you continue to study Dharma you’ll learn exactly about them. For now it is enough to know that there are many forms and that most of them are not capable of engaging in some kind of practice because of the condition of their minds.

We may have very little time and it may be difficult for us Westerners to sit cross-legged very long, and we may make up all these different reasons why we can’t practice but, in fact, we are able to practice. If we apply ourselves and use discipline, we can also practice in such a way as to engage in compassionate care-taking for the other realms of cyclic existence and the other forms of life.

I hope that each and every one of you will think like that and engage in that practice, and remember that our practice and our lives really aren’t just about ourselves. They’re about benefiting sentient beings, all beings, considering them to be completely equal with and non-dual from ourselves. These are the instructions that I am giving the children. I am hoping that gradually throughout the course of their lives they will develop that really supreme, really extraordinary compassionate idea that is so rare and precious like a jewel in this world. I hope that those of you who have children will also raise your children the same way, because that is one way that we have of ensuring that in the future the world will be better than it is now. So, I hope that you will think like that.