Alyce Zeoli

Who’s the Captain of Your Ship?

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Essence of Devotion”

The reasons for practice of refuge are known if you understand anything about the horror of cyclic existence.  You look outside and see the suffering.  You look at the way you are conducting yourself and the way your life is set up and the cause and effect relationships you’ve got going here, and you realize it’s just dumb, fruitless, pointless.  There is no future in this.  It’s a dead end.  At that point the mind turns.  That turning is the first step of practicing refuge.  What does it turn toward?  What does it actually turn toward?

Again, you’ve just looked out the window and you’ve looked at yourself, and the first realization is something like, “I don’t know what to do now.  I don’t really know what to do.  I know that something is terribly wrong, but I don’t know how to get out of this.  I don’t know how to leave the party.”  There is a piece of you that understands that you must leave the party.  Part of you still wants to be there.  Part of you likes to play.  Part of you likes to dress up.  Part of you likes to be unconscious of the eventuality of your own discomfort—suffering, death, old age, those things—and of the suffering of others.  We want to be kind of barefoot and ignorant.  Part of us wants that sleep, but another part of us, a stronger part of us, a more certain part of us, understands, “…not enough.  It is not enough.  I’m hungry.  They are hungry.  This is stupid.”  Part of us gets that.

That first turning is the first indication, the first movement, that is required in practicing refuge.  We have to stay kind of absorbed in that turning.  That turning should be practiced every day.  These very thoughts, these very leaving the party thoughts, should be practiced every day.  That’s called turning the mind toward Dharma.

Now we have to look for a way out.  How to leave the party?  The clue is, once again, the first thing we’ve noticed—the suffering and the trickiness and the seductiveness of samsaric existence, or the cycle of death and rebirth.  The cycle of death and rebirth must be addressed.  That’s where the suffering is.  How do we get out of that?  We look at the others suffering.  We look at ourselves suffering.  We look at how foolish we can be and we think, “What is the method?”

Ah ha!  That is the answer!  We need a method.  The answer to that is to look toward those who have actually found the way out of cyclic existence.  In other words, if you want to cross an ocean (and we’re talking about the ocean of suffering, the ocean of death and rebirth, the ocean of samsaric existence),,if you want to cross the ocean of suffering, of course you want to look for a boat.  The boat is the method, isn’t it?  The boat is the method.  Well, wouldn’t you look for a boat?  You’re about to cross an ocean.  There are no planes.  We don’t have planes.  You want to look for a boat, right?  You’re not going to try to swim it, are you?  Swimming it is like saying, “I’d like to be spiritual so I’m just going to be spiritual in my own way and I’ll do my own thing because I’m a really cool guy and I know how to do my own thing.” That’s like saying, “Oh great!  I’m going to cross the ocean of suffering.  Here I go!”  Dive in.  How long do you think you’re going to last?  A little while, but not very long.  Not very long, and the problem with that method is that you often don’t even realize when you’re drowning.

So what we need to do is we need to look for a boat.  No, not a boat. We need to look for a ship.  In fact, if you’re like me, you’re practical and you really want to protect your hide.  You do not wish to cross the ocean of suffering in a rowboat, something weak and puny.  Neither do you wish to cross the ocean of suffering in a boat that has not been proven seaworthy—a very important fact, really an important fact.  If I were to cross an ocean I would want to know that the boat I am in has crossed an ocean many times and is in good repair. And it’s pure, just in the way it was when it was originally capable of crossing an ocean.  We want to know that it’s made it back and forth.  This is proven.  We know we can make it.  Also, if you knew that you were crossing an ocean of suffering with, let’s say, the engineer of the boat, or, let’s say, the guy that swabs the decks…  Wouldn’t you be a little nervous?  I’d be real nervous!  I want to cross the ocean of suffering with the most experienced captain, the one who has crossed the ocean of suffering many times successfully, and returned for me.  That’s who I want to cross with.  I want the big ship.  I want the best ship.  I want to know that the captain has crossed.

So in this way we look for the most excellent method, that has proven again and again and again, to produce enlightenment, to produce realization.  Not an imaginary enlightenment or realization but the one with appropriate signs, the signs that are repeatable, reportable and visible.  Such as the signs that our teachers give us at the times of their death, proof of their realization, and even the signs they give us in their activities during the time of their life.  Only enlightened minds can provide enlightened compassionate results.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Commentary on the Bodhisattva Vow: HH Penor Rinpoche – Our Kind Parents

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mother and child

The following is adapted from an oral commentary given by His Holiness in conjunction with a ceremony wherein he bestowed the bodhisattva vow upon a gathering of disciples at Namdroling in Bozeman, Montana, November 1999:

[The second way to adjust one’s intention in order to be in harmony with the special feature of this instruction is through] developing attraction to enlightenment. According to this tradition, what leads one to develop an attraction to enlightenment is the cultivation of love for all beings, which begins by contemplating the suffering of cyclic existence and then cultivating repulsion and weariness [toward that existence].

Think about all living beings that at some time or another, throughout the course of innumerable past lifetimes, have been your own kind father or mother. Consider how a mother will anything for her child–even give her own life, without hesitation. Consider how all living beings have been that kind to you at some time in the past–not just once, but countless times, in countless different circumstances and situations over the course of countless lifetimes since beginningless time. Consider also that to not think carefully about repaying this kindness, and thereby to go through your life without the intention to truly benefit parent sentient beings, and so to actually ignore them, is truly shameless.

Many people in the West may think, “Wait a minute! My parents were not very kind to me. In fact, we are not even close, and I don’t even like them, so why should I feel that I need to repay their kindness now?” If that is what you think, then take a moment to think about how you acquired your body. Is it not due to the kindness of your parents that you have your precious human body? From the time your consciousness entered the union of your father’s seed and your mother’s egg, your mother carried you in her own body. Her body nurtured you as you grew within it. Then with pain and difficulty she gave birth to you. Her kindness did not just stop there: for many years she cared for you and lovingly fed, cleaned, clothed, and wiped you; she provided shelter and cared for you when you were sick, and thus she protected you and looked out for you constantly. If you think you don’t need to repay the kindness of your parents, just remind yourself of those events, which you were the recipient of time and time again.

If that still does not change your attitude, so that you still do not understand the kindness your parents showed you, then think about your body, the gift of your body, which is who you are; your parents gave you that. Because your parents showed you the great kindness of giving you your body, your precious life, here you are. Sure you had the causes for your precious human rebirth, but without parents you wouldn’t have your body. And if you didn’t have your body, you wouldn’t be able to receive these vows.

In our present state of ignorance, we have an inability to recognize that all beings have been our parents in the past, and we certainly don’t know what the particular situations and circumstances of those lifetimes were. Nonetheless, it is certain that we have had countless sentient beings as our parents over and over again in countless past lives. The truth is, at the present time we just do not recognize that.

Imagine you are on the bank of a river with your mother and suddenly she falls in and is being carried away by the rushing water. There you stand on the bank, watching that happen. What would you do? Would you do something to try to save her, such as throw out a rope? Or would your turn your back and walk away rather than risk your own life? Would you be concerned for her, or would your concern be only for yourself? The intention of hearers and solitary realizers can be likened to the later case, while the intention of Mahayana practitioners can be likened to the former. While it is important to develop attraction toward peace, you should never, for any reason, be attracted to the quiescence of the hearers and solitary realizers.

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche Heart Teaching from Palyul Ling

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HH Penor Rinpoche Bumpa

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche offered this teaching prior to doing a Ganachakra Puja for Jetsunma’s long life at New York Palyul Retreat Center in 2005.

Today is the 15th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar.  Jetsunma has some sickness or obstacle, so we are doing this Rigdzin Dupa Ganachakra Puja for her.  Some of Jetsunma’s students here requested this puja.

I met Jetsunma a long time ago.  I examined her for a while, and then recognized her as the incarnation of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab’s sister known as Ahkön Lhamo.  Ahkön Lhamo, the sister of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab lived near the Palyul monastery in a nunnery, which is in front of the monastery, and then in a place called Trong Mar, which means Red Valley.  It is called Red Valley because there were lots of nuns.  Ahkön Lhamo used to give teachings there to the nuns who wore red robes, filling the small valley, so that is why the place is called Trong Mar, the Red Valley.  Since then there has always been a nunnery there.  Even these days there are still about 200 nuns there.

I recognized her and then at KPC a long time back we did an enthronement ceremony.  Before I met her, she was giving the teaching on generating bodhicitta. Just among her disciples, there are 2-3 at all hours of the day and night trying to meditate on bodhicitta.  And she carries on Dharma activity in accordance with the other activities.

Since I named her in that way, there are lots of people in America who are jealous and have all sorts of problems with it.  That kind of jealousy doesn’t harm her; it harms the person who is jealous.  Many people also try to complain and say things to me.  Although people ask me many questions about that, I don’t have to humiliate myself, because I am a Palyul Throneholder, and I have my own rights regarding what I need to recognize.  Of course I cannot tell lies, but what I need to do, I’ll do.

Most of the other Nyingma schools just believe whatever I say, and especially all the Palyul traditions or Palyul monasteries.   Of course they believe me 100%.  There isn’t just one Palyul Monastery.  There are hundreds and thousands, and in all those monasteries there are a hundred monks or a thousand monks, and all of them respect whatever I command.  There is nobody who says, “This is right or this is not.”  But in America because of jealousy, some people say certain things, but there is no meaning.  In general America is a strange country.  Sometimes it is said that, “In your tradition there are mostly male teachers, and there aren’t any female teachers.”  And then Jetsunma is appointed and then again they are jealous and say something else.

Since we are human beings of course it is possible to make mistakes.  There is no one who just sits there like an enlightened Buddha.  Just because one doesn’t understand or makes a little mistake or does something, then you start complaining.

Jetsunma is a good and perfect teacher.  I don’t think she is deceiving anybody.  And among Jetsunma’s students, there are a whole bunch of monks and nuns, and she disciplines them all.  There is nobody else among women in America who could do that.  She is good and special. It is good for everybody to know that she is also one of the Palyul tulkus.  These days she is getting older and she has all sorts of sickness.  So for her longevity of life, we are doing this Ganachakra Puja.

It’s not just Jetsunma.  In America there are many other females and males who are incarnated ones.  But the problem is that the nature of Americans is to have so much pride.  With the recognition, the pride and ego develop so much that in the end it is difficult to benefit. As a practitioner and as a bodhisattva family, then naturally one should be humble and peaceful and loyal to the practice.  Developing pride doesn’t really help anybody.  When it is said that you are good or something special, then their pride or ego develops.  If that happens, then it is more harmful than beneficial.  For those who are noble beings, receiving all these teachings and doing the Dharma practice can benefit other beings.  Otherwise thinking that, “Oh, I’m something very special,” is like having a horn on your head and walking around.  It doesn’t help anything.

Anyhow, today we are doing this Ganachakra Puja for the longevity of her life.  Thank you.

 

How Buddhists Think

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By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called “How Buddhists Think”

Some years ago, His Holiness the Dalai Lama took part in an interfaith discussion at a cathedral in Washington, D.C.  The Episcopalian ministers and Catholic priests repeatedly stressed the sameness at the core of all religions.  His Holiness stood up and said that in some respects we are all the same: we all wish for peace on Earth, we wish for the benefit of beings, we wish for the end of suffering, we wish to attain a level of consciousness in which we are unified with our optimum goal, whatever that might be.  “But,” he said, “between your religion and my religion there are fundamental differences.  And that has to be okay.  There has to be unity in diversity.”

Although I would certainly never speak for the Dalai Lama, I assume that the “fundamental differences” to which he referred have to do with Buddhism’s lack of an external God.  This is generally not understood by Westerners.  The Buddha’s teachings do not advocate the attainment of oneness with a God, with anything external.  Instead, the Buddha teaches the essential sameness of all phenomena, pointing out that in the beginning there was no distinction.  The Buddha tells us that such a distinction exists only in our mind, which is fixated on self-nature as being inherently real.

In truth, our Nature is all-pervasive.  There is no separation.  There is no distinction.  When Realization is achieved, it is a non-specific awareness, a luminosity, an innate wakefulness.  The process of fixation, of contrivance and distinction, is pacified.  That is not the same as attaining oneness with anything external.  The Buddha leads us to pacify the delusion that causes fixation on duality.

There is no optimum state one has to create, no supreme being towards whom to move.  For a Buddhist, the goal is awakening.  It is an awakening to the Nature that cannot be nearer, or stronger, or better than it is now.  It can never be tainted, pushed away, destroyed.  It remains stable and unchanging.  It is simply “Suchness.”

Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Feast

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Tsog - A Spiritual Feast

The banquet is ready
The feast is set
And never will I forget
The taste, the sweetness.

The Bodhichitta, sublime display
Of all the Buddhas. Sweetness
Without measure. Peerless pleasure
The dazzling play of light
And essence.

Oh! For the day still coming
When virtue prevails
The ship to Liberation sails
For you. Come aboard!
Know the Lotus Lord.

In this day, in this time,
Taste the bliss- love sublime awaits.
Where are you? Will you obey
The call within, or turn away?
Will the treasure be yours, today?

Oh, Beloved, will you stay?

By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on October 23, 2009

Limitless Kindness

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

One of the most important and central thoughts in Buddhist philosophy is the idea of compassion. The Buddha taught that we must cultivate our lives as a vehicle to be of benefit to all sentient beings.  It’s good that you’re a good mother, and it’s good that you’re a good friend, but we can’t limit ourselves to a small, familiar circle. We have to go on and on increasing our compassionate activity, our influence and our determination until we attain a level of kindness or compassion that supersedes what we believe is reasonable. We can’t stop even with our nation. We can’t think that we only want to help Americans. Nor can we stop with our world. We can’t think that we only want to help humans and animals, which are the ones that we can see. We have to think, according to the Buddha, that we wish to be of benefit to all sentient beings.

A sentient being is one who has sensory feeling or the development of that kind of discriminating consciousness. According to the Buddha’s teachings, there are six realms of cyclic existence, and there are sentient beings in all of these realms. The human realm and the animal realm are visible to us. This is living proof that at least some of the Buddha’s teaching is right. We see human beings and we see animals; therefore, we know that they exist. But according to the Buddha’s teaching, there are also non-physical beings and different kinds of beings that must be considered if we are to truly develop the mind of compassion.

Limiting ourselves to an identity such as,”I am a woman,” or “I am a man,” or “I am an American,” or “I am a Russian,” or even “I am a citizen of planet earth,” is not the way of the Buddha. Instead, we should think that on every particle we can see, and all those that we cannot see, and in every inch of space, there are millions and millions of sentient beings. And space goes on forever. If we intend to develop the mind of kindness, it must extend to all sentient beings equal to the limits of space.  Space has no limits and there are limitless beings, seen and unseen.  Therefore, we must extend the mind of compassion to beings far beyond those we can conceive of with our brains. That is an awesome thought. How can we really do that? We think that must be impossible. How can we be directly concerned with somebody we can’t see? How can we really care about something that might be infinitesimally small, like bacteria? Or a sentient being that may be as large as a galaxy? How can we seriously consider we must be kind to all sentient beings in that way?

When you develop the mind of compassion, you have to be careful how you develop that mind. If you examine yourself profoundly and honestly – and you have to be willing to be very honest with yourself – you may find that your goal is not really to benefit all sentient beings, but to be a kind person. There are worlds and universes of difference between these two goals. One is selfless: you truly wish to be of benefit to all sentient beings. The other is heading in the right direction, but ultimately it is not selfless because you wish that you could be a kind person. I hope that you can hear the difference between these two ideas. There are worlds of difference between them.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Love Like the Sun

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Most people love with a “hook” at the end, better to love like the sun, radiating in all directions.

Why remain angry and disturbed? Watch a tree and it’s attendant breezes. And know that you are loved!

Why argue with the moon? The moon only reflects it’s Master’s lighr. Better to gaze in peaceful contemplation!

Why grasp at the love of a lover? Better to gaze with wonder at the face of the beloved!

Why fight with one’s friend? Better to sit at the stream and talk of gentle things!

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Buddhism – What’s the Difference?

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Bodhisattvas by Artist Karma Phuntsok
An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhism Differs from Other Religions by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

There are fundamental differences between practicing the Buddha Dharma and practicing other religions.  While it might seem that the right thing to say is that at the bottom of every faith, there is the same truth that we all share, Buddhists don’t quite put it that way.  Buddhists say that no matter what one’s faith is, within each of us is the seed of enlightenment, the Buddha seed.  In that way we are completely, absolutely equal in every measurement.  It means that each one of us, whether human, animal or unseen beings that we cannot see with our physical eyes because they are other dimensional, has the potential for Buddhahood.  Whatever kind of sentient being  – a being with senses, that feels and has consciousness –  in their capacity to reach Buddhahood is exactly the same.  That means that each and every practicing Buddhist should hold every life form in high regard.

Our habitual tendency is to respect people who we are taught to respect.  We respect our teachers and our parents, and our family. And we love the people that we are connected with and so forth, but for the most part we feel somewhat alienated from the rest of the world.  Certainly in America our culture is such that we feel alienated from other cultures.  And so in the Buddha Dharma we begin to break down that kind of divisive separation idea.  We begin to understand that no matter how each person appears, they have exactly the same capacity for realization, for Buddhahood.

And yet in Tibetan Buddhism a teacher sits on a throne.  If we are all equal, why would a teacher sit on a throne, and others sit down below? It has to do with the degree of awakening and the capacity for Bodhicitta – great compassion – having studied it and given rise to it.  And it has to do with one’s past karmic potential and how that has ripened.

For instance, when I first met my guru, he told me, “Oh, you have been reborn as a bodhisattva many many uncountable times.  And so the reason why you know the Dharma without being taught is you have that habit in your mind.  And so now we’ll teach you more, and you’ll know more.”  That was his way of explaining how it is that I am in this position and somebody else might not be.  But the truth of the matter is, even though I appear to be sitting on the throne, and maybe someone else is on death row in a jailhouse, our capacity is exactly equal.  Our level of awakening is not equal, because a person who is awakening, who is giving rise to the great compassion, would not be capable of killing.  They would not have the habit or conceive of it in their mind. It’s not to say that the very same person would not say, “I could just kill my kid today.  She’s driving me nuts!”  or something like that, but that statement is so thin.  It’s utterly meaningless when you realize that there is no habit or propensity for doing harm.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Daily Wishing Prayers

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series
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Having understood that all sentient beings are suffering, and having cultivated in your mind the aspiration of Bodhicitta, you should make fervent wishing prayers, constant wishing prayers.  My teachers have told me that time and again great Bodhisattvas have been born in India and Tibet and their practice was not that extensive.  They were not very educated in their practice; they were very simple people.  But they were known in their previous incarnation for the heart-felt wishing prayers that they made.  Because of the depth to which they desired to benefit beings, and through the force of their prayers alone, they were reborn in a form in which they could benefit a great many beings.  So those prayers are exquisite.

Wishing prayers are important.  They should be done in the morning and they should be done in the evening. They should be done every moment that you can be mindful of them.  Make fervent prayers in your mind and your heart that you will, in this lifetime, benefit many beings and end their suffering.  And that in all future lifetimes you will be reborn in a form in which you can benefit beings so that they might achieve enlightenment and have their suffering ended.  Make prayers to cultivate in yourself that mind of enlightenment and to cultivate in yourself the pure intention to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit beings. That is the aspirational Bodhicitta, or practice of compassion.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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