An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series
The Buddha says that all sentient beings are suffering and that enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. But we forget that enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. As a Buddhist you say, “Oh, yes, I’ve learned that. I practice the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind. Enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. I have that memorized.” Oh, really? I must ask you then, why do you still practice the technology of suffering? Because until you achieve supreme realization, you are still practicing the technology of suffering. You realize this, and yet you continually create the circumstances that make you suffer. Here is why we do that: we have forgotten the other infallible law, the law of the certainty of cause and effect.
We have a problem. We are locked in to our own limited perspectives. We are in finite bodies, therefore our minds perceive in a finite way, a way that is natural for a finite reality to be perceived. Within this context, we can see that certain cause and effect relationships are absolutely unchangeable, that they always happen, that they can’t be messed with. We can see that if we pick something up and then drop it, it will fall.
Now, you may say that cause and effect doesn’t always work. There is magic, there is prayer, there are miracles. Okay then, pick something up, anything, and drop it, and stop it from falling. Let me see you do it. Who can do it? If you can do it, then I am going to buy your story and the class is over. Until we can figure out how to do that, it is certain if something is dropped, it will fall. It is also certain if you stick your hand in fire for long enough, your flesh will burn. It is certain if you never eat you will starve. It is certain if you catch a disease you will be sick. These things we understand.
It is also certain that everybody gets old. But the strange thing about us is, while we are still young enough to have a little twinkle in our eye, we will continue to convince ourselves that we will never get old. What we do is unbelievable. I have done it myself, so I know. Each year we buy something new, a little wrinkle remover, a little under-eye cover-up, and each year we still convince ourselves that nothing has changed. Then eventually, none of that stuff works. Then we have two choices: we can either face the facts or consider surgery. Whatever we do, we are putting off the inevitable.
© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
