Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Astrology

February 11, 2011 by Norma

2/11/2011 Friday

Groups and friends are extremely magnetic and compelling. Group activity is powerful, and it can make a real change in the tides of time. You can’t be debated or coerced out of your principles. Join with people who think as you do, there are more of you than you realized. You can come up with an idea that represents a breakthrough that opens a door you didn’t see before. At the same time, beware of a tendency toward escapism, and definitely avoid people who encourage you to engage in dangerous activities that they won’t do. Don’t be a pawn in somebody else’s game. This is a tricky time, and you need to keep your wits about you. Keep your head, hold your ground, and continue to participate in things as they come. Love is still fascinating, and you can have fun with surprising people. Dale Carnegie said, “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” How about you?

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!

Taras Babies Animal Welfare

February 10, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Astrology

February 10, 2011 by Norma

2/10/2011 Thursday

Take a trip on a train or plane. Work on a computer, watch TV, enjoy modern technology. Science is really cracking these days, and if your field involves invention or groups you are moving forward. A question of finances needs to be answered. Ideas must be tied to material realities, and the cash needs to be on hand to pay for things. It’s tempting to say, “It’ll work out” as you sign on the dotted line, but be very careful not to buy something you can’t afford. Someone feels lazy or needs to be cared for at the exact moment that you’re wrapped up in your exciting ideas. Change gears, even though you don’t want to. You can invent something new tomorrow. Charles Darwin said, “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Change today.

The Guru in Vajrayana

February 9, 2011February 9, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

In Buddhism there are many levels of study and practice. And I speak, here, generally; in a way digestible to a general audience without much specific training in Buddhism.

For instance, in Vajrayana alone there are many levels. Preliminary, Ngondro, is like boot camp where gross defilements are pacified. Intermediate practice, mostly (but not all) consists of generating the Meditational Deity in order to develop enlightened qualities. Next is Dzogchen which also has many levels and leads to direct experience, leads to awakening (if one practices well with diligence.) And even with all this one still has the responsibility of purifying the five main poisons.

As I said, there are three main levels amongst the many methods the Buddha taught. Some during his life, others came with the great Guru Padmasambava and later the tertons he passed his treasures to. And there are many great realized masters that followed the great Guru. The other main levels are Theravaden, and Mahayana.

In Theravaden the main focus is on the Vinaya precepts, the rules by which the ordained community abide by. Even lay people have precepts to fulfill. The main focus is purification.

Then there is Mahayana, where the Bodhisattva Vow is the main vow. It does not abandon the Vinaya, but builds on it and in so doing changes focus. In strict Vinaya a monk must never touch a woman. In Mahayana the focus is Bodhisattva Vow (compassion) and here is an example:

A monk sees a woman lying by the road injured and in great distress. A Mahayana monk must help her out of compassion, and to do so he must touch her. His duty is to help.

Next Vajrayana, the seat of Dzogchen and pure view goes even further and not only includes Mahayana’s great Compassion, but also includes Vinaya, while developing in a deeper and quite profound Way. In Vajrayana the main focus, is the Lama (Guru) as representing the Three Precious Jewels, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Lama is the main focus and we rely on the enlightened intention and wisdom and pure qualities of the teacher to give direct indication and mind to mind transmission. This is so to the degree that if the Lama, say, acts wrathfully toward the student, the student must never let anger and rage enter their minds. Why? Because it is the Guru Yoga discipline that ripens the mind, and opens the door to Liberation. The student mixes their mind with the Guru’s mind like milk with water. With faith, a blessed transference occurs. And devotion becomes a method like none other, especially in these degenerate times. Vajrayana is considered the one method to deliver realization in one life. This is accomplished through the accomplishment of one’s root Guru and faith.

Once I had a disciple with profound Guru devotion. She went to New York retreat to study with great Palyul Tulkus, she was simple in her practice, yet very diligent. When she passed I performed the Phowa and there were signs. Her body was kept for one week because she offered her skin to others. After a week she was brought to the funeral home to be cremated. First she was dressed in all her sacred robes, then flowers and incense offered for her pure life of loving service. The workers there said, and the four nuns I sent, were amazed that even before Ani was adorned her body was fragrant and fresh. Even though she had open wounds in her skin. Her complexion was pink, fresh and luminous.

His Holiness Karma Kuchen saw the pictures and declared this a miraculous event and she had accomplished this precious human rebirth. EH MA HO! This was a result of her practice and devotion. Her name was the Venerable Ani Thupten Palchen. And now, she is free! May she return quickly for the sake of all sentient beings! EH MA HO!

I am also reminded of how pleased His Holiness Karma Kuchen was, saying this was proof that westerners could attain in this life!

OM BENZAR SATO HUNG!

Astrology

February 9, 2011 by Norma

2/9/2011 Wednesday

An investment is promising, and money turns up happily, just when you need it. A serious conversation or deal can be made before mid-day. Then be prepared to debate your ideas with people who expect you to explain yourself and who question you on every front. Luckily, you have the answers because you’ve thought things through. You are still in the process of completing a project, and things are going very well. Now that you are succeeding, relax, and don’t feel the need to win on every front. In fact, turn your attention to helping others. Arnold Palmer said, “The road to success is always under construction.” The noblest thing you can do is give someone else a boost. Everyone is trying hard, and yours isn’t the only venture. Also, love is promising, even compelling. You are magnetic.

Stop the Madness

February 8, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In order to pacify the karma of our mind, we need to employ the methods of Dharma. These methods consist of generating oneself in a pure form, free of attachment and desire, meditating on the nature of emptiness, contemplating the nature of emptiness, engaging in compassionate and pure activity in order to pacify the karma of our minds. We engage in all of these things. These are the means by which eventually, over a period of time, the karma of our mind will change. It will change. How quickly it changes is up to you. No one can predict that. It really depends on you. It depends on how diligently and deeply you practice, how clear you are about what you want, how deep you can allow your understanding to go, and how much you put into it. There is no law or force outside of you that pushes you to have progress at a certain level or in a certain way. It is purely up to you.

The experience that we have, however, and the habitual tendencies we have are so strong, that even hearing this is a little bit like riding a Ferris wheel. When you ride to the top of a Ferris wheel you can look down at the whole world. You can see the horizon, you can see the lights, you can see the buildings and you can see people, and you go, “Oh, it looks like that, does it?” Then the Ferris wheel comes down and you get off and you’re on that ground level. You are in it, walking the streets. You forget that there is a horizon. You forget that there are millions and millions of sentient beings per square block. You don’t have any view so we continue with that habitual compulsive tendency to act and react in the ways that we do.

These teachings sound disturbing and they should be disturbing for people that have no access to dharma. Within that circular, compulsive, experiential procedure there is no end to it. One cannot do something that will end the phenomena because the more you do the more you interact between self and other. The more you interact between self and other, the more that you try to accomplish, the more effortful your efforts are, the more engaged you are in cause and effect relationship. The more cause and effect relationships you engage in, the more karma continues, the more exaggeration continues. The process does nothing but give birth to itself. There’s no end to it.

For those who have the opportunity to practice the path that is brought about, not through ordinary means of cause and effect, not through using ordinary techniques of manipulating phenomena and increasing exaggeration, but rather by using techniques that are birthed from primordial wisdom and that bring about the pacification and the end of cause and effect relationships, you should thank Buddha because there is an end to suffering. Having seen the impenetrability of this tight constant delusion, having seen how it simply gives birth to itself and does more and more and more, having understood this, you should look at the path that comes from the primordial wisdom state and that offers the necessary technology to bring about the end of cause and effect relationships, and feel tremendously relieved. It is like you have been sifting through garbage for many lifetimes, and suddenly you have come upon a precious jewel. Suddenly you have found the wish-fulfilling jewel. With that you should develop some sense of determination.

That determination can be a very illusory thing. I’m talking about really understanding for yourself, not just hearing my words, but taking the time to contemplate and understand how useless it is to combat this thing you’re in with the ways that you do. To really contemplate on how useless your actions are to end something that can’t be ended. To really contemplate in such a way that you look at the way you’re manipulating phenomena and see that it’s nothing. You might as well do nothing. In fact, you’re getting yourself in deeper and deeper.

Contemplate that in such a way that you become armed with a foundational view or foundational understanding that says to you that this stuff is stupid. It’s not only stupid, it’s deadly, it’s horrible and there’s no way out of it. To be involved in cyclic existence is horrible beyond belief. Be determined to examine the nature of your mind. Watch yourself as you engage in it, and from that point, use these techniques to begin to pacify the causes of the experience that you’re having, which is karma.

That determination is the kind of determination that doesn’t make you practice a little bit more for a few days and then waste away again. It’s the kind of determination, for instance, as a monk or a nun that would make you say, “Look at these robes, I will never abandon them. How precious that I have found the supreme vehicle.” Even if men or women came dancing naked through the room and they were all gorgeous, it wouldn’t affect you at all. You wouldn’t need the world to hide itself so that you could maintain your vows. You would have that kind of renunciation. You would understand and even if the most delightful sensual experiences were to present themselves to you, they would be nothing to you. What is it? It’s nothing. It’s garbage. It begets more of the same. You can’t have anything without losing it.

For those of us who are renunciates in different ways, you should have the same experience. You should look at whatever experience you have in your life and know that it can’t dupe you anymore. It’s not that you won’t achieve, it’s not that you won’t have money; it’s not that you won’t have the experiences that people have but it just won’t dupe you anymore. You can get married, you can have money, it doesn’t matter what you do, but it won’t dupe you anymore because you know what it’s about.

Having this sense of renunciation, you develop a kind of unshakeable discipline. It’s not the discipline that means I should do so many mantras per day. This discipline should go even deeper than that. You should be practicing constantly. You should be constantly developing some space in the middle of that hard core perception of self and other. You should be developing some space in the middle of all your reactions. Develop the spaciousness and the relaxation that is based on understanding what’s what, and then develop it through your practice. Please refer back to the teaching on Monday night. I hope that all of you will try to hear that teaching again. The constant revelation in every piece of phenomena is the heart of emptiness. That is its taste.

Astrology

February 8, 2011 by Norma

2/8/2011 Tuesday

Now is the day to begin another project. You are energetic and enthusiastic and raring to go! Male and female energies are in harmony, and groups are vigorous and ready for action. Time to think of something new, time to invent something! Time to go forward. Buckminster Fuller said, “I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.” Be willing to engage in something brand new, and others will join you. A dynamic combination of fire (action) and air (thought) is present, urging you toward active thought. These are mental times, so use your mind, and tie action to your thinking. A. N. Whitehead said, “The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.” Have an idea, and take action.

Me, You and Karma

February 7, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, July 19, 1989

Every single kind of perception that we have, no matter what it is, is based on the false presupposition that self is inherently real. The belief in self as being inherently real, absolutely lays out that other is inherently real. Once that idea of self has been borne and is fixed, you must develop walls of ideation and conceptualization to surround it and maintain it. You must constantly separate other. In order to separate other, you must continue to determine how other and self interact. That’s the basic process. Having done that since time out of mind, you are involved in cause and effect relationships complete with lots of exaggeration. The residue and reality of that is experienced as karma.

Karma is nothing other than cause and effect. That’s all it is. It’s not somebody up there making check marks in a book. It’s simply cause and effect. It’s as simple to understand as a leaf falling from a tree. There are irrefutable laws of cause and effect.

The experience that we have is based on this karma, which has been based on a long-term relationship with cause and effect, which is based on the underlying belief in self-nature as being inherently real. Why then, hearing this, can’t we just stop? Why can’t we just stop reacting? Why can’t we just stop judging things? Why can’t we do this?

We can’t stop because we are no longer in a position where we are truly cognizant of the choice between self-nature being inherently real or not. It is now automatically so. It is now so rigid that survival has become a big deal. You believe that this is what you are. You must continue that continuum that you think is survival because you do not know that there is anything without the continuation of self-nature. It is so far buried, it is such a primal experience, it is so beneath reason, so much deeper than reason, due to the constant building up of cause and effect relationships, of karmic relationships and the constant exaggeration that has occurred since time out of mind, from the first perception that implied self.

Astrology

February 7, 2011 by Norma

2/7/2011 Monday

Solid progress is made today, and well thought out plans can hardly fail. Slow and steady wins the race. Something you have been working on for a long time is at last coming to fruition. Your inclination is to run around wildly, to expect to succeed everywhere, now that you are succeeding here. But life goes on. You must still look both ways as you cross the street, still brush your teeth, and still abide by traffic rules. An emotional disappointment can occur, but buck up; it’s transient. You have succeeded. Be at peace. Marcus Aurelius said, “He who lives in harmony with himself, lives in harmony with the universe.”

Thank You for Your Support!

December 16, 2011February 6, 2011 by anisonam

This evening Jetsunma tweeted the following:

“Goodnight sweethearts, sweet dreams. Rumors of my demise on twitter are greatly fabricated as are rumors of my own blog being on its way down.”

The “staff” here at Tibetan Buddhist Altar (TBA) wanted to reassure our audience that readership is up, growing by 10% last month with over 6,500 visits in January alone. Jetsunma is teaching nearly every day live, in real time, on twitter, and we post those teachings here on TBA the same day. We are also working to edit more than 20 years of archived teachings, and offering teachings from other Lineage Lamas. There are “new” teachings offered here daily!

We are grateful for the support of all our readers, and for all the comments and questions. It is Jetsunma’s wish that this blog become a virtual Dharma community where people around the world can be provided with the resources they need, whether they wish to practice Buddhism or are simply seeking practical advice on how to live a happier, more fulfilling life.

Jetsunma is available to all, openly, on twitter, almost every day. She offers her insights, guidance and sense of humor, as well as engages in friendly discussions with people from all walks of life. On January 9th Jetsunma had 3,863 followers, and today she has 4,552, and continues to seek connections with new friends around the world.

Those who do follow her on twitter may be aware that she, like many public figures, also encounters some opposition, but we wanted to share these “stats” to let readers know, as she tweeted, reports of her demise are indeed fabricated.

She took this opportunity to share the following advice:

“This is an opportunity to learn to focus on this point in the time and space grid. I totally recommend living in the particular “probability” your body is floating in. Rest well, wake up shining! Love to you all!”

It is our sincere wish that all these efforts bring some benefit to those that come to share these blessings.