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.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
