A sacred space for everyone
The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
The habit of making everything external is the opposite of the path to enlightenment which is an internal event. How do we bridge this gap?
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
If you get through today, without confronting authority or telling someone off, consider yourself the lucky one. Stay away from the boss and authority figures, you’ll be seen as an upstart. It’s a great day to begin a revolution, but it will come to a bad end, so please refrain. The boss (authority, government) is stronger. What is excellent is the exchange of ideas, the broadening of thinking that is happening. You are becoming more intelligent, philosophical and thoughtful. The ability to see the big picture is critical today. Use it, and don’t drive too fast. Caution is the watchword of the day. Franklin D. Roosevelt said “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”
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!
The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
Jetsunma gives an overview of the Buddha’s path emphasizing your power to actualize the mind of enlightenment, which is not separate from you.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
Wouldn’t you think it impossible—in a country so permeated with eternalism, with the traditional western teaching that the self exists after death—for many people to act as if they believed that it doesn’t really matter what they do? Yet these opposing beliefs coexist in our culture. It is somehow possible for us to believe in eternalism and at the same time to be full-fledged, card-carrying materialists. Let us examine how this has come about.
Very early in life, we learn about rules. Getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar means trouble. Also, our parents hide their feelings and teach us to repress ours. We see them break laws sometimes, clear-cut ones. If we ask our parents why they just ran a red light, they may jokingly say, “It was only pink.” We also see them do things they told us not to do. (“Do as I say, not as I do,” they seem to be teaching us.) We soon realize that there are some things we can sweep under the carpet of our conscience.
We also learn about cause and effect. We know that if we cross a busy street without looking both ways, we may get hit by a car. Fire burns. Immediate, obvious consequences we understand. What we neglect, what we do not really comprehend, is that results can take a long time to unfold. Early in childhood, we were told not to feel anger, yet we could sense it in adults. How do you feel a certain way and yet not feel that way? We learned the real message: if you can see it, it counts; if you can’t, it somehow doesn’t. It’s okay to get mad and to hate if you don’t do it too obviously. Taking an ax to people or beating them up is wrong; but somehow you can get away with being angry at them. We learn that it’s okay to do subtle or secret things.
Being subtle is not a problem. And there may be nothing wrong with hiding feelings. The real problem is that we fail to understand that hatred and anger will produce results simply because they exist in our mindstreams. Even though hidden or subtle, these feelings create an undeniable cause-and-effect relationship. People in Buddhist or Hindu countries deeply believe in karma. Whether or not you get caught makes no difference. They know there is absolutely no way a person can get away with anything. They are taught from birth that if you don’t pay in this life, some day you will. This is so profoundly ingrained that they have a totally different perspective: health, appearance, prosperity, surroundings, family, the ability to be successful in our lives—all these are seen as results of previous actions.
We, however, are convinced that our experiences happen to us. If someone is angry at us, we can find the causes, can’t we? The person was in a bad mood. Well, if we’re honest, we might remember that we said something to him last week, and now he’s getting back at us. Anyway, we can always find something. But what we are experiencing is not what it seems. It is a picture, a display, an emanation of our own mind-stream continuum. And if we are experiencing it, we had something to do with sowing the seed, which is now ripening. That is what the Buddha teaches.
This is true of every event, such as people treating you badly, or even an experience like hunger. My stomach is empty. I need food. But this experience and all the circumstances surrounding it are the ripening of previously created karma. We can’t see at that subtle level because we have no sense of our true nature. We cannot see the continuum. We can see pieces of it, glimpses maybe; but the continuum is invisible. So we persist in our habit of inventing explanations.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
Go to the beach, a movie or a concert today. Visit a sick friend or relative. Tender feelings drive you; you are easily swayed by suffering and you want to help. Remake a decision, recommit to a cause, and you will be happy. An edgy irritability is in the air, so don’t challenge others. Apologize promptly if someone complains and you’ll head off trouble. Of course, you don’t want to. You, and others, are in the mood to lecture and debate. You want to tell people how they should feel and what they should believe. Don’t bother. Instead, enjoy your good reputation and good friends. Epictetus said “Seek not good from without; seek it within yourselves or you will never find 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!
Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo preparing a feast for Occupy DC:
I’m now starting to make giant pans of roasted root vegetables to be brought to #OccupyDC, to be delivered for their supper. Also trays of meat loaf, yummy stuff!
We will take it for tomorrow’s supper. And we still need tarps, sleeping bags, blankets, gloves.
OK, the root vegetables are roasting now! However, we bought way too manyvegetables. Huge pots all used up! What to do with the rest? Have carrots, potatoes with eyes already removed, onions, and celery. So, does anyone want to make a dish For #OccupyDC?
Now we are finishing the veggie pile and I’m making the base for Italian style soup. Three women cooking together. I love it!
Now the gigantic pot of soup is done. It smells awesome. I need to set up armed guards…
What a lovely evening, it is beautiful to cook for others who don’t often eat well. The eyes, the smiles, the little sighs. Gifts. It has been a great pleasure. Tomorrow night, a feast at #OccupyDC! Come on if you are hungry or cold. We will fill tummys and hearts! #OWS
The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
For us in the west the most important part of Dharma practice is within your heart. Practicing the foundational thoughts that turn the mind will help you keep that alive.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
You have heard that hatred is a primary cause for suffering, so you may say: “First, I want to be free of hatred.” Don’t you often say that? But hatred remains. Why? Because you will willingly let go only of the things that obviously cause suffering. For instance, you will not be involved in wars. Yet this is no great credit to you. Oh, it is some indication that you are progressing on your path, but butterflies don’t wish to go to war either—and they don’t even have the potential to know the Nature of Mind.
Where is this hatred that you wish to be rid of? It resides deep within some subconscious levels of your mind. It also hides. Though you decide to rid yourself of hatred, you compulsively want to hold something back for your own. Hatred you want to be rid of, but you also want to hold on to a particular prejudice against someone or something. You want to maintain an active set of opinions about the qualities and personalities of others. You want to be the one who is right. You want to be the favorite—but this, of course, can only happen if others are not. On the conscious level you pledge your life to be without hatred, but still you have not overcome your dependency on the data given to you by the five senses. You give with one hand and hold back with the other.
The five perceptions are born of desire; this results in all karmic suffering. Your job is to renounce your participation in this process to the very depth of your capacity and then take refuge in the five celestial perceptions, the components of the Buddha in the world, the five pathways to liberation. If you run from the facts of your existence, you will miss your opportunity. You must decide from the depth of your being that you truly wish to be free of hatred in all its forms. Make every conscious effort, realizing that that will not be enough. For instance, it is not enough to think positively: that only makes your hatred more subliminal. Instead, take absolute refuge in the Buddha’s teaching. Make fervent wishing prayers to be free of hatred. Make many different offerings that this might be accomplished, wishing sincerely to be free of pride and the demons of the five senses. Then practice and live the Buddha’s teaching.
There is no suffering you cannot be free of. You hold in your hands a precious wish-fulfilling jewel, a magic carpet, celestial food. You need not be imprisoned within the demonic confines of your five senses when at last you have dedicated yourself to realizing the nature of the five goddesses. The degree to which you have devotion will determine the speed of your victory.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
Tender feelings are present today. It’s best to keep them hidden and only express them in private. Relationships are tricky. Some folks will joke and tactlessly hurt feelings, and others will criticize everything and hurt feelings. Be aware of the role you are playing in this. This is the worst possible day to tell someone how you “really feel.” If the dilemma already happened, carefully explain what you meant if you’ve done the wounding. FaithBaldwinsaid “Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.” Make alterations today. Once this is over get back to work, which is still the best game in town these days.
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!
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Haha! Someone made my day today. I’ve been described as a rigid, Lineage-loving, “tow the line” Buddhist, and I couldn’t be more delighted! These same folks used to say I wasn’t real Palyul, or a real Buddhist, that my throne and crown were faked, and I was never really enthroned. Even with the video, papers, real throne and real crown and real cape. It is a riot!
I guess it shows if someone wants to hate, they will find a way and a reason. This is why lies and slander are so hurtful. It is mostly not true, and there is an agenda of hate or envy. Both are strong non-virtues, and mean spirited. The lesson here is hypocrisy and cowardice. It is so easy to judge and prey on another behind a computer, a wall of safety, maybe far away. Haters deliver lies, have few ethics and no compassion.
But they probably wouldn’t do it without the computer. If we look into each other’s eyes and hearts we see human suffering. Look deeper, we see ourselves. Some people have a lot of feelings around failure, having not contributed much. That is changeable. We can still do good works. There is no reason to play the failure tape over repeatedly in our thinking until it rots into hate. Just don’t compare yourself with anyone – period, end of story. And it looks pathetic if you do that and then flip into announcing your “realization” or that there is no true Enlightenment other than your own “take” on it, or your squirrely thinking will make the grade, somehow.
Just get out there and benefit sentient beings. They are real, and are crying. Feed the poor, love, heal, animal rescue, care for homeless, it is all here for you to do. So get out there. After you wash the feet and warm the tummies and offer comfort, you aren’t dead yet. The disenfranchised need you…us.
I will offer a grand Christmas this year: dinner, care, and a tiny gift for all. Then I’m broke. And happy! Come out with us! #OccupyLOVE #OWS
Be real. Be real. Then no one can call you anything but necessary. Because you (we) have seen their eyes, and there is the truth. They are us. We are them. And no Bodhisattva can be free or happy until we care for, and love them. Our brothers, our sisters, all. This is the way, and the secret. Love. Yes, love. Until you are empty. Then you have attained your potential.
#OccupyDC #OWS #PEACE÷Occupation #PALYUL
© Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo