Compassion

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche
His Holiness Penor Rinpoche

From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Compassion is a deep commitment to bring about the end of suffering. The vow of a Bodhisattva is to return in whatever form necessary, under any conditions, in order to accomplish this. We are told that in one of the Buddha’s previous lives, he was a huge female sea turtle. This turtle saw a shipwreck, and she thought: “The sailors are about to drown. I must help them.” With that compassionate intention, she swam to the sailors and supported them until they reached land. The exhausted turtle then fell into a stupor on the beach. So deep was her sleep that she did not feel the thousands of insects who began to eat away her body. They consumed her to the point that she awoke with intense pain. She started to move away but realized that if she went into the water to wash off the insects, they would all die. Since there were eighty thousand of them and only one of her, she thought: “Their nature is the same as mine, and since there are so many more of them than there are of me, it’s much better to let them live.”

Thus she allowed the insects to consume her. Just before she died, she made a wish: “I pray that when I attain enlightenment, the first ones I teach will be the insects that were eating me and the sailors I helped. May they attain enlightenment quickly after I do.” Later on, the sailors became the Buddha’s first disciples in the Deer Park, while the eighty thousand insects were eighty thousand celestial beings who came to hear His teachings. This story exemplifies the dynamic of equanimity, loving kindness, and compassion.

This precious dynamic occurs when you become convinced that only the end of suffering and the realization of true nature are important. It gives rise to wisdom, stability, and intensity of determination. The turtle understood the fragile nature of the eighty thousand insects: not long after their ample meal, they would need more food. Or, if the turtle had entered the water, they would have lost their good meal and suffered greatly by drowning.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology

Sleep in today.  A moody energy pervades the environment.  An upsetting situation hits close to home, either emotionally or literally.  Reach out for help and you could be rebuffed.  Something causes you and others to require reassurance.  Try not to over-react.  You can buy your way out of the situation: pay a workman to fix something or buy your troubled friend some candy.  Stay home if possible, or spend time with close friends or family.  Eat a big meal.  It’s comfort time. Fyodor Dostoevsky said “Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”

The daily astrology post affects everyone. Because individual charts vary, the circumstances outlined in the post will affect people differently. Some will feel this energy in the personal arena, some in finances, some with children or family, some in work and so forth. There are many departments of life. Look to see where the dynamic affects you!

Loving Kindness

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche
His Holiness Penor Rinpoche

From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

How is it that one’s beloved and one’s enemy become essentially the same? Because their true nature is understood. The Buddha taught that all phenomena, however they arise, have the same taste, the same nature. It is attraction and repulsion that make us experience them the way we do.

Loving kindness is a profound wish for the welfare and happiness of others. We were raised to consider loving kindness a code of behavior to make us a nice person. This is far from the Buddha’s view of love. By realizing that all phenomena have the same nature, the same taste, you understand that all sentient beings are equal. Thus, their happiness has exactly the same weight, the same importance, as your own. It is from this viewpoint that loving kindness is developed.

If your mind is not stable, if there is no awareness of the natural state, if there is no real progress in meditation, you will not be able to actualize loving kindness. Yet without a determined effort to understand loving kindness, you will not make progress in meditation. It is a “Catch-22” situation. You must be determined both to realize the primordial state and to realize loving kindness as a naturally arising result. Only then can both be firm and stable within your mindstream.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology

Men and women are on opposite poles today.  Make any comment and the nearest person of the opposite sex will disagree.  Both sides are right, and both sides are wrong.  The moment you agree with someone, they’ll change sides just for the joy of the debate.  You can’t win, and as soon as you know this you’ll relax and have fun.  You are in the process of re-thinking something.  Your mind has turned inward and is working on a problem.  Don’t press yourself or others for an answer that can’t be given.  Watch your mind searching for more and more information and respect that nothing is definite.  Love is nice and these days the older things are, the better you like them.  Tend to your long term relationships, and don’t let anyone tie you down.  You’ll fly the coop the first opportunity you get.  Oscar Wilde said “I love talking about nothing.  It is the only thing I know anything about.”  It’s that sort of day.

The daily astrology post affects everyone. Because individual charts vary, the circumstances outlined in the post will affect people differently. Some will feel this energy in the personal arena, some in finances, some with children or family, some in work and so forth. There are many departments of life. Look to see where the dynamic affects you!

P’howa: Conscious Living and Dying Part 1: Full Length Video Teaching

The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

Part 1 deals with the overview of samsara and begins describing the 3 lower realms of cyclic existence. In later parts, Jetsunma will go into the other realms and begin describing how to die, and wat happens in the bardo after death.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Incalculable Benefit of Stupas: Excerpt from Lama Zopa

The following is an excerpt from “The Benefits and Practices related to Statues and Stupas” by Lama Zopa Rinpoche 

The conclusion for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike is that the stupa is a way to purify defilements. A holy stupa is a way to benefit sentient beings without words. It will liberate beings from samsara in silence. To have such a holy object existing in a country makes it very rich and very lucky. Many people will come to visit for pleasure as tourists, but it will at the same time make their life meaningful. The most important point is that holy objects help beings to purify their mind and to collect extensive merit so that it is possible for them to easily have realizations of the path. That is the main function of these holy objects – to help us sentient beings have quick realizations of the path to enlightenment by the power of the holy object.

Those who build and work to actualize those holy objects will bring these beings to enlightenment. So anyone who sees it, touches it, remembers it, even dreams of it will have the seed planted for their own enlightenment. As well, prostrating and so on to the stupa helps bring them to enlightenment. By have the Secret Relic mantra within the stupa, any animals, ants, butterflies, etc. that go around the stupa even just once are purified of their negative karma to be born in the hot hells.

Even if we all die, as long as the holy objects that we have created last, our work, our effort [to create holy objects], is still benefitting sentient beings continuously. For all the many hundreds and thousands of years that the stupa will last, every day it will liberate sentient beings in silence…without words…without our talking Dharma to them. You see, just by seeing the stupa, the minds of of sentient beings who come here get purified. So many negative karmas get purified. Even the insects who are killed by machines during the construction – even they will not be reborn in the lower realms. Even those that die during the building process will receive a good rebirth. It is mentioned by a great Indian teacher in a text calledMatasara, or something like that, that even if you make food for the people building the temple, your negative karma will be purified.

Even if the holy object is destroyed, still for days, months, years, hundreds of thousands of years, so many sentient beings continue to receive so much benefit from the positive imprints [they received from having seen that holy object]. These positive imprints cause them to meet the guru, to actualize the path, etc., until they achieve enlightenment. The positive imprints are still working in them. Even if the holy object does not exist anymore, the effect is still working in that being. That person will then help to bring other sentient beings to enlightenment.

 

 

Astrology

Information day!  This is the day to talk things over, get more information and research your topic.  You want to know more!  You are on the information highway all day.  Enrol in classes, renew your driver’s license; talk with everyone you know.  At a certain point you may experience a case of “machine nerves,” the stress that comes from too much time at the computer or gathering information.  You’ll drive too fast and mis-quote people.  Or you’ll forget critical facts, like your name.  It’s a great day to debate everything with everyone.  Just be sure that you remain emotionally unattached to your views.  Stay in your head, enjoy the chat, and don’t take anything seriously.  William Burroughs said “Language is a virus from outer space.”  Talk or listen long enough today and you’ll agree with him.

The daily astrology post affects everyone. Because individual charts vary, the circumstances outlined in the post will affect people differently. Some will feel this energy in the personal arena, some in finances, some with children or family, some in work and so forth. There are many departments of life. Look to see where the dynamic affects you!

Experiencing Bodhicitta: Full Length Video Teaching

The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

 

Bodhicitta is the natural expression of the “ground of being”. You can not lose it, taint it, or otherwise change it. You have oly to unveil it within yourself. Learn how.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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