Inspiration day! You have arrived at a destination, finally. Let your self rest and relax. Have a nice meal, and enjoy the fruits of your activity. The I Ching says, “When desire is silenced and the will comes to rest, the world-as-idea becomes manifest.” As you rest, notice that your financial situation blossoms as a direct result of your past efforts. Like a farmer who plants and then harvests a crop, whatever you have planted is now being harvested. The fruit of the prior seed appears. What is your outcome? If you’re satisfied with your results, keep up the good work. If you are not satisfied, change your strategy. It isn’t working. Set new goals for the future. Consider whether you are satisfied with your banking relationship. If not, think of changing. A sudden new friendship or idea is electrifying.
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 in response to a question from a student:
There are mixing karmas there. Gossip is straightforward, considered a deep non-virtue resulting in loss of respect, being victimized in the future, having confused or unintelligible speech in future, if about another Dharma practitioner it is a breakage of vows and samaya. Downfall, surely.
If the man or woman allows him/herself to be supported financially and is well and not addled (is competent) they will be weak and impoverished in the future, and that person will have the burden of paying for others as well. Hardship. In Dharma there is no non-virtue in the wife taking the conventional man’s role. But not contributing anything of value to society is a non-virtue. Not giving to charity and such is selfish, and both combine to insure future extreme poverty. Dependency on society’s institutions to survive.
Being pompous is a sign of feeling small and weak and needing to destroy or put down others to make oneself powerful. It is a truly weak person. Rebirth as jealous god realm, or being pathetic with no hope or help is the result. No kindness will come, little love or respect.
Karma is exacting and what I describe as karmic results will be modified by particular arising causes. Such as lack of ethics, excuses to not change, or lack of will to be a better person. Karma will be lighter if person puts in effort but makes little progress. That too is a result from previous causes. Actually cause and result arise interdependently so the result is already born, separated only by the illusion of time.
Whew! Big question. I feel that last bit is a teaching. For all. Now my thumbs are aching so I’m outta here! Love to all!
Today you are especially responsible for a final push in something you’re doing. Don’t slack off, it’s almost finished. Inspiration comes during the day, and you suddenly see your situation with new eyes. Communication is crucial now: you must answer everyone who contacts you with a phone call or email. Respond immediately to requests for action…sign papers, zip around presenting information to those who need it. Someone special may contact you. Put everything aside to respond to this person. You are learning new things and stretching your mind. As you receive new information, be careful that you separate the news from the bearer of the news. Don Marquis said, “An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe it.” Accept a good idea, irrespective of the source of the idea. Decline a bad idea, irrespective of the source of the idea.
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 an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”
For Americans, the activity of the lamas can be confusing because sometimes the lamas will engage in wrathful compassion. This has happened to me and I know it has happened to my students as well. Sometimes because of the karma and the love and concern between the student and the teacher, the lama will see in their meditation that some terrible obstacle has arisen in the mind of the student, or in the path of the student, or in the life of the student in some way. Maybe it’s an obstacle to the student’s life. Maybe it’s an obstacle to the student’s path. Maybe it’s simply something like a brick wall where the student will meet up with their habitual tendency and not be able to make much progress. If there is the right kind of karmic relationship, if the causes have been given rise to and the devotion is there and all of the different catalytic necessities are in place, then the lama will often engage in wrathful activity in order to cut this obstacle.
Let’s say, for instance (and this often occurs), that the lama sees that within the student’s mind some negative, nonvirtuous karma has been catalyzed or drawn to the surface, or has begun to ripen. Then the lama will see that this could be dangerous and the lama will be very wrathful. How does that work? Well, first of all, the lama, knowing what the student’s capacity is, will do that skillfully in such a way that eventually, even if not at first, the student will fully understand the lama’s gracious activity; and even though wrathful activity has occurred, the student will remain fully devoted, fully respectful, fully loving and confident in the lama’s kindness.
That pure inner posture is a posture of true devotion, purity, spirituality in every sense of the word. When the lama takes all of your habitual tendencies and all of your issues and smacks you in the head with them, it takes a tremendous amount of vajra courage to continue with love and confidence. If the student is lacking in a certain kind of virtuous karma, or virtuous ripening at that particular time and is also, perhaps, having the ripening of some nonvirtuous karma, that interaction between the lama and student may turn it around, and can turn it around just like that, because of the student’s capacity, even in the face of such a difficult situation, to remain fully devoted, fully confident and fully vulnerable. Vulnerable means opened up and not protected. In order to continue on this path of compassion and wisdom, that determination, that vajra courage, is such a tremendously virtuous inner posture in which to remain, that often this negative tendency or negative event will be cut.
This has definitely happened to me as I described once or twice before, where my own teacher, out of the clear blue sky with no seeming cause, began to be very angry at me and accused me of something that I would never do. It would be the equivalent of my accusing you of murdering babies with chain saws. It was just so far from reality it could never be true. So my teacher began to be really angry at me and scolded me and raged at me to the point where I was shaking in my shoes. I was unbelievably terrified. Then when he felt the obstacle had been cut he just stopped and he said, “O.K., we’re done now. Try not to get mad. See you later.” Sort of like that. Try not to get mad! I was trying not to make my own gravy if you’ll excuse the expression. I was terrified. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I barely shuffled myself out of the room. And then I realized that physically I felt completely different and that something had changed radically. I went to my other teacher who was also here (two of my main teachers were here) and he said “Oh yeah. His Holiness saw an obstacle to your health and he cut it.” Interestingly, from that time forward I felt about 10 years younger, the ultimate face lift. My love and respect and regard for my teacher, and also the courage to really make myself spiritually vulnerable to his care, grew by that situation because I knew in my heart that he had brought me great benefit. That’s the kind of thing that one sees on the path of Vajrayana.
Emotions rule today. Pay attention to what is happening on the home front. Someone needs to be consoled, listened to, or comforted. Nurturing words smooth over hurt feelings. Although you’re still in chatterbox mode, use your empathy and compassion today. Hurt feelings or hurt people must be tended to. If you are the hurt person, be open about it. You could make a mistake if you try to be strong when you’re feeling weak. Something undermines your feelings of confidence. Pull in and let it pass. Any sort of disagreement will make you feel worse, so avoid trouble. Walk away. Luckily, you are smart as a whip and if you listen to your mind and not your feelings you’ll do the right thing. Read a book, watch tv. Relax. Good food solves many problems today.
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!
Communication continues unabated. Your need to know is strong. Men, women and children all need to be heard. Talking in a group is like eating pie. Everyone gets an equal slice, everyone gets to speak an equal amount of time. You wouldn’t go somewhere and eat all the food; don’t go somewhere and do all the talking. Often the silent one has the most interesting input. This is an excellent time to learn a new skill, and mental agility is very pronounced. Learn a new language? New computer skills? You have the ability to learn practically anything right now. Use this ability, it doesn’t last long. Be sure to speak in such a way that if what you say appeared on the front page of the newspaper, you’d still have friends. Words go public very quickly in these times. Be diplomatic, no insults. You’ll enjoy travel of all sorts. This is a time to learn and to change. Antoine de Saint-Exupery said “A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”
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!
Is it just a coincidence that the one path that can bring about realization in a single lifetime is the one path that focuses upon the Guru as the ultimate object of refuge? No, for it is the astonishing potency of the Guru’s appearance in the world that makes this possible. Devotional yoga becomes everything: the milk, the nectar. There is no other practice. All else is but a part of that.
In Vajrayana, the Guru is the central figure, the supreme object of refuge. We rely on the Guru to ripen our minds, to bring our minds to fruition. But this is difficult for Westerners to accept. We Westerners are taught to be strong, independent individuals. This is all we have ever known. We are brought up to reach for things that are outside us, to collect them—and to be constantly self-concerned. Our generation is the first to swallow pop-psychology unquestioningly, even unconsciously. There are so many new-age ideas and so much misinformation mixed in with what passes for Dharma teaching and spirituality. This is made up by people who have not achieved enlightenment.
True enlightenment cannot be described. It is totally different from new age “aha!” insights. People go from teacher to teacher until they have collected a pocketful of something that they can paste on themselves. They fail to realize how materialistic and “collecting” they have been brought up to be. If you have always been on a merry-go-round, you will not know that you are going around in circles. You will fail to recognize the cultural-intellectual baggage that keeps you from deepening in your practice of Guru Yoga.
At first, this difficulty may appear to be an inherent lack of capacity in students. But when I look more closely, I see that the capacity is there. So, how do we break through? How can we turn our minds so that we form new habitual tendencies? Anything that arises from samsara, like our old habits, results in samsara. We can see this in our entire lives. We are not yet sitting on a lotus in the middle of a lake. How then are we supposed to practice Guru Yoga? What is our relationship with the actual Root Guru? How does this relationship take shape? Human beings, it seems, learn through suffering and through observation. Just as children need to mimic “grown-up-ness,” we need to see what Guru Yoga looks like in someone’s life. I shall try to describe this.
First, if you have the good fortune to meet your Root Guru, and if you make a commitment in your mind, heart, and prayers or to the face of this Guru, you must never—even at the cost of your life—break that commitment. At first, make only commitments that you can work toward and keep. In the context of your Guru Yoga, a perfect preliminary level of commitment to your Teacher would be: “I will do more than I have ever done before, and I will continually deepen my devotion and practice.” Then as you grow on the path, you keep increasing your commitment. Some of my students have made flowery, dramatic commitments to me and then broken them as if they were merely hot air. Without exception, those are students who have become stagnant in their practice.
This is from my heart to your heart. When you make a commitment to your Root Guru, you must understand what you are doing: You are making a commitment to the condensed essence of all the objects of refuge, to all the Lamas, not just the one Lama, to all the Buddhas, to all the Bodhisattvas, to all the meditational Deities, to all the Dakinis, to all the Dharma Protectors. Moreover, you are making that commitment to the very door of liberation itself. Consider once again what the Teacher actually is for you. Remember that sentient beings are wandering helplessly in samsara—afraid, alone, and without hope. It is like being in a burning room with no way out. Nothing in samsara can help you to escape. Only the objects of refuge—all contained in the vessel that is the Root Guru—can provide an exit. The heat keeps increasing, and your body is fragile. The Lama is the way out, the door to liberation. Picture yourself in a burning room. Would you have difficulty concentrating on the door? I doubt it.
But again, if you are a “collecting” materialist, if you keep the greater portion of everything for yourself, for your own happiness, if you remain as the center of the mandala of your life, you cannot walk through that door. The Lama must be at the center of your mandala. Is that schizophrenic? Is it psychotic? Will you go mad? How can someone else be at the center of your spiritual focus?
When you practice Guru Yoga correctly, you are practicing view. You gradually come to understand that upon recognizing the Lama, upon becoming non-dual with the Lama, you recognize your own true nature, your own true face, that which is beyond accepting and rejecting. If the Lama is in the center of the mandala of your practice, you are training yourself to awaken, to exit samsara, to achieve realization for the sake of sentient beings. But if you break the connection with your Root Guru, you cannot accomplish Dharma. No matter what happens, once you have made the offering of body, speech and mind to the spiritual friend who has hooked and established you on the path, to the Root Guru, you must never abandon that commitment. If you do, you are cutting off the very root and source of your accomplishment. After that there is no real accomplishment on the path, no matter what you do. You must always keep your view pure, and therefore the Guru Yoga will be your blessing and your true spiritual wealth. So even if you are on the other side of the planet, the Root Guru should rest upon your heart or above the crown of your head when you say your prayers. Never break that connection, even for a moment.
You should guard your commitment, thinking of yourself as Dorje Phagmo with fangs, as though you had fangs or weapons. Anything that prevents you from relying completely on your Root Guru should be cut away from your heart, cut out of your life. It’s as if you have fangs coming out, and that curved vajra blade in your hand, and you’re swinging at anything that comes near this connection. You’re guarding your own personal treasure, not allowing a single bit of impurity to be near it. Those fangs should always be out.
Eclipse day! Today begins a month long talkathon! Gemini, the chatterbox of the zodiac, is in high gear. The Messenger of the Gods has news for everyone, so listen up! You’ll feel as though you’re either talking or listening all day long. You might start talking in your sleep! The ideas that appear are excellent, well-grounded and reasonable. Major negotiations and good outcomes are possible on the personal front as well as the world. Realism prevails. Act on your good ideas, and watch yourself succeed. Everyone wants to “tell you all about it”. Listen. You will hear important news. Dale Baughman said “You can never hope to become a skilled conversationalist until you learn how to put your foot tactfully through the television set”. Keep it real.
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:
Who said that? Vajrayana without a Guru? How do you manage Guru Yoga in Ngondro? Think of unicorns? When Empowerment is given, is it so ordinary that we all just stand up, clap and cheer? So who gives Empowerments and from which Guru and lineage? How does one receive any transmission? Do they all sit in a circle and transmit to each other? Blind leading senseless? How do they mix their minds with the Guru, like milk and water? Oh, right – no Guru, no way to do that. So they’ll just sit around stroking each other’s…egos? Here comes the downfall of Vajrayana in the West. Yesirree, the slide has begun. But not on my watch. And not in my Lineage. Some “pick” a Guru from a book, long dead, because it is easier being a pompous fool than a student. That is just ignorant, and indicates one who does not understand Pure Vajrayana.
To fully transmit teaching you can’t be a book or a fool. Sorry, you do not practice Vajrayana without the Guru. That is not possible, that is a tainted soup of yuk, and then you are the ass it comes out of. Nobody needs that ignorant poop mixed into the Triple Gem!
Communication is significant today. You could sign a contract or make an agreement that works out very well. Purchases are excellent. You have a good eye for quality and you will be pleased with things you buy. Emotions are well expressed. This is a nice day to think of things you are grateful for and tell people that you appreciate them. A project that has absorbed you for some time is drawing to a conclusion. For several months you have been pouring energy in one direction. Do your best to keep pushing for one more week. After that your energy, and the situation, will change. Men do an especially good job today, and their ideas are valuable and will have favorable long term results. Listen to the men in your life! Authority figures are doing an excellent, thoughtful job. Support them. Peter Drucker said “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”
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!
