The Medicine of Selflessness

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

What is renunciation? Do you have to give up your car? No, I have a car, and I have no plan to give it up. Do you have to give up a nice place to live? No, you don’t have to give up a nice place to live. What then do you have to give up? You have to give up self-absorption. You have to give up selfishness. You have to give up a life filled with non-virtue. That is true renunciation, regardless of the outer form or appearance. You may choose to adopt the outer form of renunciation, which is a time-honored, pure and useful way to utilize these teachings. But you can also adopt it in an inner way. If you have the ability to practice renunciation in an inner and profound way, it is also useful. It also works.

What you renounce is self-absorption, and you begin to live an extraordinary life, one that is involved in Bodhicitta, or compassion. That is the way to understand Bodhicitta in the simplest view, to understand it as compassion. You must live an extraordinary life, and in living an extraordinary life you are actually taking the cure, you are taking the medicine. Not only is it a nice thing to do, not only will you be known worldwide as a nice guy, but you will also be taking the medicine of selflessness. If the sickness is the belief in self-nature and the desire and grasping that come from all the phenomena surrounding the idea of self, then the cure is a selfless life. The cure is compassion, and you are taking the cure.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Astrology

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9/25/2010     Saturday

Avoid important people if possible today, and try not to ask a significant favor.  “No” is in the air.  At the same time, emotional situations thrive, and groups are inspired and spontaneous.  Be inventive today; think of ways to help people in trouble, and remember the less fortunate. Back off somewhat from your immediate goals and watch the news or read the paper. You may have become so involved with your own issues that you forgot to notice what is going on around you in the world.  Stay alert enough to notice someone else who needs help, and give it.  Edward Bulwer-Lytton said ” When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.”

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!

Astrology

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9/24/2010     Friday

Spend today zipping around attending to business or errands.  It’s important to keep busy.  Strong effort, which you are well able to engage in, is most helpful in terms of advancing your agenda today.  If your job is sedentary, spend free time exercising.  Behind the scenes deals can be made that enable you to negotiate a rebuff that is coming in the next day or two.  Beware of tying your ego to a potential partnership, it won’t pan out the way you thought it would.  But stay happy and loving.  Victor Hugo said, “I met a very poor man who was in love.  His hat was old, his coat was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, and the stars through his soul.”

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!

Astrology

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9/23/2010     Thursday

Charge!  Full speed ahead!   You see things in terms of what you want and what you’re getting, and the two don’t meet.  This is an important day for diplomacy.  Don’t insist on your way, and don’t cave in to the other side’s demands.    You are excited about life and what you’re doing, and you could be too brash for the powers that be. Charge politely, is the correct way to express today.  You have enthusiasm and flexibility in your power. If you meet a young person who is full of enthusiasm, be careful not to pop his (her) balloon.  Encourage yourself and others.  If you run into a brick wall, back up and go another way.  It’s that kind 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!

Astrology

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9/22/2010     Wednesday

Be careful to avoid an unhelpful partnership.  Someone wants to join with you in a way that won’t work.  Wait a month and if that door is still beckoning, go ahead, but carefully.  You could be booking a ticket on the Titanic; it sounds like fun but doesn’t turn out the way you thought. This is a relaxing day, good for cleaning up the last pieces of something you’ve been working on.  Write poetry, go swimming or to the movies.  Find a good doctor.  You are about to move into a different mode, do your work while you still feel like working, soon that will change.

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!

Spiritual Technology

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

You are at the beginning. You have arrived at the door to liberation. You are knocking on a door that opens to the end of suffering. You have a tremendous capacity here, and in order to utilize that capacity you have to begin to utilize the technology being offered you. That technology is very simple: you have to soften and turn your mind. Whether you are a Buddhist or not, in order to achieve any realization at all – in fact in order to continue in a steadfast way on a path without being pulled away by the craziness of your own mind – you have to develop stability. That stability has to be based on the softening and gentling of your mind. You have to free it as much as possible from discursive thought, and from the conceptualization associated with the belief in self-nature as being real. You have to free it enough to be able to get some perspective.

Through that stability and deepening we can begin to examine these essential thoughts: that all sentient beings want to be happy, that all beings are suffering, that there is a cessation to suffering, and that the cessation to suffering is called enlightenment.

We should examine these thoughts, because Westerners have a very complicated world. Maybe it is hard to understand that all beings wish to be happy here in the West, because here we listen to the news and we hear about people throwing bombs at each other. We hear about robbery, rape and murder. We think, “Wow, that person raped and murdered; he is a horrible person.” We condemn him immediately and forget the other side of that thought, which is that he is trying to be happy. Can you believe that? Is that not an awesome thought? People who are raping and murdering, people throwing bombs in each other’s windows – how can you believe that these people want to be happy? Yet, it is absolutely the case. All sentient beings want to be happy, but they are drunk with the idea that there is no cause and effect. They are drunk with the idea that they can attain happiness by manipulating their environment in some crazy way. It just doesn’t work.

For instance, a freedom fighter might believe if he destroys a thousand people by throwing a bomb into a building, he might attain some liberty for his people, and through that effort he will be happy. That might be his thinking, but he doesn’t realize he has killed a thousand people, and through his action has created the karma in his mindstream of a thousand deaths that can only be the cause of suffering. He really believes he is doing something good. Even the rapist and murderer – maybe he has an uncontrollable urge that is deep and profound. Where does that urge come from? Why don’t you have it? It is because he has the karma of that urge. Maybe it was caused when many lifetimes ago he threw a bomb in somebody’s window and killed a thousand people, and maybe that is why he has that urge in his mindstream now. So what does he do? He continues to rape and murder. At the moment of doing so, he thinks he will end the suffering of his uncontrollable urge through raping and murdering just once more.

That is how horrible it is, but these people really are trying to be happy. Think about that. Think about how they are suffering uncontrollably, revolving again and again in cyclic existence, helplessly, because of the karma that has infected their minds. They are helpless in the midst of the cause and effect that they have created — simply helpless. Even in these horrible cases it is true, all sentient beings are trying to be happy. On the other side of this law, which the Buddha declared, is that not understanding how to create happiness, they constantly create the causes of suffering through non-virtue.

These are things you absolutely must remember. You have to allow them to deepen your mind. They have to become as instinctive and natural to you as breathing. If you understand the infallibility of cause and effect to such a profound extent that it begins to change the compulsion you have to create non-virtue and therefore the causes of unhappiness, then you are a practitioner. You are practicing a technology that will lead you to realization. Whether you consider yourself a Buddhist or not, you are practicing a valid technology, a spiritual technology.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Astrology

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9/21/2010     Tuesday

Get up early if possible, and enjoy a wonderful experience.  You’re imaginative and creative, and you can make someone else happy to boot. Listen carefully in conversations to be sure you have understood what the other party means.  A miscommunication can occur, which, if persisted in can cause problems. Ask for clarification, Make changes, and everything works.  David McCord said, “Life is the garment we continually alter but which never seems to fit, and we must make our adjustments as we go.” Avoid thinking you are too experienced to misunderstand when someone else tells you something.

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!

A Few Words on Reincarnation

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

Now, from my point of view, if you don’t believe in reincarnation you have no access to the technology of Buddhism. You have to accept the idea you have lived before, and that some of the results you see ripening in your life now are ripening due to causes created in a time you do not know. And that some of the causes you are creating now – because you are creating causes constantly – will ripen in a time you cannot see. If you don’t accept that, Buddhist or not Buddhist, you cannot evolve in your mind; you cannot adapt and have the strength to continue. In fact, you cannot have the perspective to practice the antidote to suffering. Everyone who has ever been considered a living Buddha on this earth has taught reincarnation. So maybe you might want to consider it an idea that you could adopt.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Astrology

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9/20/2010     Monday

Dream Day!  You are moved and inspired by events early in the day. Spend time with old friends or groups.  You could invent something. Machines and electronic devices are beneficial today.  Someone holds out a helping hand, and it’s a good day to remember the old homily “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” You have spent so much time tending to details lately that you could examine a gift for flaws.  Re-adjust your thinking and be a gracious receiver.  Beware of a tendency to go against the tide today, it won’t work out. Stay in the center of the group.

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!

Astrology

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9/19/2010     Sunday

Success, happy friend day. Time spent in groups or with friends passes happily.  You could be asked to join a group or become an officer of a group you’re a part of.  This pleases you.  Your romance is also going well.  A bit of a balancing act is in order today.  Demands on your time keep you on your toes.  Organize, schedule your time, and follow your timetable.  Mark Twain said, “Always do right.  This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.” The more diligent you are today, the happier you will be.

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!

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