Bodhicitta | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Blessings of the Guru

July 28, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from Palyul Ling Retreat Center in upstate New York:

From the three syllables in the Lama Guru’s three places white, red, and blue light rays emerge.

OM…the white ray from Guru’s head to the disciple’s head, blessing one’s body.

AH…The red ray from the Lama Guru’s throat blesses and purifies the disciple’s speech.

Then HUNG….the blue ray from the Guru Lama’s heart pours forth to mix with the disciple’s heart.

The precious Tantric Initiations are just so! In this way blessings and ripening are conferred from Guru to student directly, like milk from mother to child. May the precious Guru remain and the Lineage and transmissions remain unbroken for countless aeons, and may all without exception be Liberated from suffering!

May Palyul remain the perfect source of refuge and stainless Dharma activity in the world!

Blessings from Palyul Retreat Center

July 22, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I just finished my afternoon practice and all is well. I am enjoying this time (‘cept the heat) and it feels healing. My mind is clarifying. Again, I feel stronger. The disturbance of the last three plus years is dissipating like smoke in the sky, and I’m grateful for the blessing and rest.

The Palyul family here looks happy with the practice and Dharma activity. People who are busy with Dharma generally are relaxed and joyful. This place is so precious, one of the many gifts given to us by Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, as we need retreat to deepen.

In ordinary life we become comfortable and complacent, forgetting that we must continually make progress until full awakening, until Buddahood. We must not become dull or self-satisfied, forgetting the Tsawei Lama, and puffing up with pride. Constant practice helps. A good practitioner is always the humblest of all, never bragging about themselves, just simply and quietly attending to the Liberation and Salvation of all sentient beings. That, after all is the point, of course as samsara is filled with suffering. That is why we dedicate all merit to others, and never do harm.

Sometimes a Lama gives a wrathful display, and that is to cut through obstacles. This is a blessing. Or to protect others from some sort of downfall. But it is always done in compassion and in the spirit of Bodhicitta. To be of benefit.

Tomorrow is Vajrasattva Empowerment, and Sunday is Nyingthik Yumka, which I hope to attend. What excellent good fortune! I have not seen the students here for some time, and those I have seen are continually increasing their good qualities. How wonderful to see this testament to Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche’s amazing work. His footprint in this world is peerless, really. We should never forget, always enthroning the precious Guru on the Lotus Throne within our hearts. Now we have here His Holiness Karma Kuchen Rinpoche, carrying on our Tsawei Lama’s good works. We are the most fortunate of beings! May His life be long and free of any obstacles until all beings are liberated! EMAHO!

Where Does Desire Come From?

July 11, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Where does desire come from? It comes from the belief that self-nature is real. According to the Buddha, if you believe that you are a self, if you believe in self-nature as being real, as being truly existent, then there has to be desire, because in order to be a self or to have a self, you have to define a self. That’s how it is. If you believe in the nature of self, you have to have an underlying belief that self ends here and other begins there. You have to have some conceptualization in your mind about what the self is, because the idea of self cannot exist without some definition. Conceptual proliferation develops, and with that, desire.

Desires are not always fulfilled. There is always the contest between self and other, and from those contests the three root poisons of hatred, greed and ignorance occur. It is the presence of hatred, greed and ignorance in the mind that causes phenomena to appear as they do. If there were no hatred, greed and ignorance in the mind, there would be no cause for suffering and therefore we would not see the phenomena of war, hunger, old age, sickness and death in the world. There would be no cause. This is the understanding and commitment that you should think about and work with in your mind.

Love That Sustains

July 10, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

How can you develop the kind of love that sustains itself? How can you cultivate compassion like a fire that never runs out of wood to burn? That never goes out. The fire of compassion is based on being courageous enough to come to an understanding of suffering. You have to come to a deep understanding that all sentient beings are suffering endlessly and helplessly, and bring yourself to the point where you can’t bear it. Cultivate the understanding that even though you know you can’t see all sentient beings, you can’t feel them, you can’t touch them, still, you want nothing more than to rid hatred, greed and ignorance from their minds, because you understand this is the cause of their suffering. You understand the whole dynamics of suffering: why it exists, how it exists, where it exists, how it grows, and at that point you become deeply committed.

You can begin by renouncing the causes of suffering yourself. If you have not renounced the causes of suffering, you can’t do a thing for anyone else, and so it takes a tremendous amount of courage. According to the Buddha, hatred, greed and ignorance in the mind are the causes of suffering. Hatred, greed and ignorance are preceded by desire. If there is no desire in the mind, there is no root from which these poisons can grow; there is no cause for hatred, greed and ignorance.

Motivation That Nourishes the Path

July 9, 2011 by Holly

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

It’s almost impossible to attain the goal of selfless compassion, where you commit every fiber of your being to benefiting all sentient beings, seen and unseen, without a moment’s hesitation. It’s almost impossible to develop the kind of compassion where you understand that all sentient beings are revolving helplessly in such suffering that they can’t bear it, and you can’t bear to think it’s going on, without cultivating a deep understanding of suffering. You want to avoid the trap of making the very same prayers that the selfishly motivated person might do, but instead have the idea that you want to be a great Bodhisattva.

One goal will produce lasting results and the other will not. The person with the motivation of selflessness has the key. Through extraordinary, selfless compassion, that person has the strength to persevere through everything until he or she is awake. That person will persevere until he or she has completely purged from his or her mind even the smallest, gossamer thin seeds of hatred, greed and ignorance. The person whose motivation is to be the ‘good person’ will not be able to do the same for any length of time. The foundation isn’t strong enough. That person may need some kind of feedback, or warm fuzzies as reward for being good. Even tried and true Buddhists will find this impure motivation in your minds. Even our ordained Sangha will find that they, themselves, will have dry periods. You’ll go spiritually dry, bone dry, and you’ll think, “What am I doing here? I can’t go on; it’s just too hard.” Then the next day, you’ll wake up and you’ll think, “Another day…good.” You’ll have all these different feelings that are just so common. Everybody, everybody has them. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to have these feelings.

Why does it flip flop back and forth? Because you have not built the firm foundation of very pure, selfless compassion. You need to cultivate it every single moment. You need to get yourself past the point where you need warm fuzzies to keep you going. If you are only looking at the symptom of suffering and trying to manipulate your environment to turn suffering around, you will always need feedback. That feedback may or may not come. Your compassion, your love should not depend on that.

Mindfulness and Compassion: A Meditation on Bodhicitta in Everyday Life

June 23, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

There are many different ways that one can actually engage and begin to train the mind as a Bodhisattva. Actually, as a Bodhisattva the goal is to make every aspect of one’s life a vehicle for the benefit for others. So, what would that look like? Well, what about the ordinary things that you do? Westerners have all these different elements in their lives, divided into sections, pigeon holes. There’s the holy part, and there’s the ordinary part. There’s your regular personality and the way you are to your husband, wife, kids, in-laws, and all those people that know you better than anybody. There’s another part of your life where you’re out on the street, and people get to see you with your street-face on. And then there’s the personal part. You go to the bathroom and all those kinds of things. There’s the intellectual part, the part that goes to the movies, and the part that exercises. There are all these different parts, and because we’re so deluded, none of them seems to have much relationship to each other. It’s like we’re juggling cats all the time.

One of the things that you have to do as a Bodhisattva is to make your entire life a basket, a vehicle for this compassion. But how do you do that? Well, there are these walking mindfulness meditations that you can do that are extremely beneficial. If you find yourself moving into a depression or some sort of negative mood, if you really try to practice some sort of absorption with them, they’ll pull you right out of it, It’s very simple. You don’t have to sit down and do the “holy” thing. You don’t even have to put on your dharma clothes, pick up your pretty beads, or wear your particular medallions showing that you’re cool. You don’t have to do any of that. All you have to do is, oh, I don’t know, let’s say, eat lunch. As you’re eating lunch, you would pick up a spoonful of the food and you would say a quiet, loving prayer, a heart-felt wish, “As I take this nourishment into my body, may all sentient beings be nourished by the light and power of Bodhichitta. As I take this drink into my body, may all sentient beings be watered and nurtured by the nectar of dharma.” As you walk through the door, “May the suffering of all sentient beings be ended by the virtue of my walking through this door. May they be led through the door of liberation.” It’s a constant mindfulness meditation. As I walk down the street, “May all sentient beings walk down the path to liberation.” In the car while looking at a map trying to find these crazy Washington streets and where they go, “By the virtue of this activity, may all sentient beings receive the proper guidance and direction by which they can accomplish dharma and be free.”

So you have a choice with everything that you engage in. You can be looking at the map and cussing like a trooper, hating the way D.C. is laid out with those weird tunnels, or you can be utilizing the opportunity. You’re going to be looking at the map and finding your street anyway. So instead of getting into a bad mood, perhaps you could use that as an opportunity to understand that all sentient beings are directionless and hungry for direction. A small prayer at that moment that all sentient beings be guided on the path to liberation is appropriate and beneficial. It organizes your mind and thought. Mindfulness becomes so profound and so clarified that almost anything that you’re doing at that time is better, happier. It takes on more meaning. The mind is more clear, less filled with the kinds of hyper-emotions that make us crazy and confused.

Turn everything into that kind of meditation, that kind of consideration for the well-being of others. Everything. “As I ascend the staircase, may all sentient beings ascend into the true meaning of dharma.” You’re free to make up your own prayer concerning the welfare of sentient beings. It doesn’t have to be my prayer. Make up your own. If you constantly walk around like that, you’ll find that you are changing in some subtle way that you can’t understand. You have less bad moods, less depression, less frequent overwhelming concern with your ego to the point where you are busy doing nothing but manipulating everything and everybody around you in order that they will get it right for you, which is pretty much how we live. That kind of thing begins to change and you’re less concerned with manipulating everything and everyone around you in order to get what you want. You spend less time accomplishing the great mantra of “gimme gimme gimme iwant iwant iwant hung phat!” And you are more concerned with the welfare of others. Something inside of you begins to change. Remember, our habitual tendency is so strongly biased toward ego cherishing that we really have to spend a lot of time putting something in the pile of concern for others in order to bring the mind back into some kind of balance. This kind of meditation really brings about that kind of balance, and your habit begins to change.

Bodhicitta and Generating the Deity

June 20, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in response to some comments from one of her students:

Gonpo: To say one “generates” this or that — deity or Bodhichitta – is a type of that materialism. Kind of like, “wow, look at me!” Our great Vajrayana teachers like Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo help is cut through such materialism. Help us cut ego, relax mind, do nothing maybe! I don’t know, but my understanding from Jetsunma is that the Bodhichitta, our Buddhanature isn’t where the work needs to happen. Our habits are.

Jetsunma: Your statement Gonpo, bears a little comment. “Yidam generation stage” is indeed Vajrayana. In the generation stage one generates the qualities of the yidam, mixing one’s mind so as to gain the mind aspect. One generates the handheld implements and their meaning to gain the qualities and activities of the Deity. Say your generation stage is Bodhisattva Manjushri. The implements are meant to be generated with a deep understanding of their meaning. Like Manjushri’s sword of wisdom is seen to cut through ignorance. The text he holds is a symbol of wisdom, purity of mind. All yidams are practiced like that. Now say you are practicing a yidam in yab/yum posture. What are you practicing there? The union of compassion and method! Or also called “wisdom and display” which also means one must accomplish the meaning and the concerned activities as your own very display in samsara.

All yidams, deities are the very door to liberation, and that is the great blessing power they offer. They are not ordinary, they emanate from primordial awareness, the profound Buddha Nature. Why is this? In their great compassion their sole concern is to liberate beings from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Therefore, if one generates any yidam their first and primary concern should be the same. To benefit and liberate all motherly beings from suffering.

OM MANI PEDME HUNG!

OM AH RAPATSANA DHI!

Moods, Bodhicitta and Mental Discipline

June 15, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching called “Your Treasure is Heart”

In order to understand how mental discipline will help you feel more compassionate, you need to understand that compassion is not an emotion. Bodhichitta is not an emotion. It doesn’t exist on that dense a level. It’s not as dense as an emotion. Emotions are actually reactions. If you take perception, delusion, duality, confusion, hatred, greed and ignorance, all of those things that are characteristic of samsara, and you shake them up in a jar, the bubbles that you would get, like the bubbles from soap, are roughly the equivalent of emotions. Emotions are the result of conceptual proliferation, whipped up into a very exaggerated state. They are reactive. Bodhichitta really has nothing to do with that.

When we begin to give rise to the Bodhichitta, we do so, first of all, through mental discipline. As we begin to practice, we have some understanding of the suffering of sentient beings and why we should engage in loving concern for them. When we examine the thoughts that turn the mind, we really tune into the sufferings of samsara. We tune in, as well, to the fact that we have lived so many lifetimes that literally anyone that we can see, or see a picture of, or hear or think of has been our own kind parent in some previous life. Yet these beings are wandering in samsara just like a bee that’s caught in a jar, absolutely clueless as to how to create the causes by which their terrible suffering might end.

Once you learn that, you discipline your mind not to ignore it. We like to surf on the sensual pleasure of the moment. We like to enjoy, and try to get as high in our daily routine as possible, so we can just surf on the moment of experience. We don’t want to think about the condition of sentient beings. So this mental discipline is required in order to be a serious practitioner. You can’t cut corners here. If you don’t put in the time, your practice will never be up to snuff.

Many students come to me saying “Well, I just don’t feel this compassion.” My answer is, so what! Compassion is not an emotion. Nobody is going to benefit by how you feel. They’re going to benefit by what you do. So do the practice. Discipline yourself to contemplate the causes and conditions of both happiness and suffering; and particularly contemplate the suffering of sentient beings, These contemplations cannot be short-circuited. They must be delved into with everything you have. Once you do that you begin to feel a certain kind of determination and motivation, and it begins to make sense.

When I was 20, I had not met with the path of Dharma yet, but I was actually given these contemplations directly in my own meditation and in the dream state. So I began to practice them. What happened to me was I realized that compassion is the only thing that makes sense. Think about the logic of it. Here you are, one sentient being on our planet where in the human realm alone, there are roughly six billion of us. On our planet there are also uncountable animal forms. You can’t even count the number of ants in an ant hill. Each one of them is a sentient being with the Buddha nature within them, just as surely as you are, yet they appear in this form due to their own habitual tendency and the way that their consciousness is functioning. How many uncountable sentient beings can be seen with the eye on this planet alone!

If this absolute Buddha nature, this ground of being, is my nature, and you are that also, and yet we appear in these multitudinous forms, wandering and suffering in samsara, it made perfect sense to me to dedicate my life to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings. Nothing else seemed logical or reasonable. And from that, gradually, this determination grew. For about ten months, I went through the mental discipline. I practiced for eight to ten hours a day only on those contemplations until I could see clearly for myself that this is the only game in town that made sense. With that knowledge, living any other kind of life seemed like whoring or prostitution to me, and it didn’t seem reasonable. So my discrimination was born.

In the Buddha’s teachings we are told that there are three thousand myriads of universes, three thousand myriads of universes. That’s just one number that gives us some understanding that we’re talking big! The Buddha also teaches us that there are formless realms, and there are uncountable sentient beings in these formless realms. So logically, if my nature is this Buddha nature, completely inseparable from the very Lord that I call Buddha, completely inseparable and indistinguishable from all these sentient beings, it is logical and reasonable that I would do everything that I can to bring benefit to others instead of spending my entire life in ego-gratification and self-cherishing. It is logical and reasonable also to me, that I will never be happy until every sentient being is free. That’s what seems reasonable to me.

Once you have that kind of understanding, you have to go through the process of reminding yourself, keeping it alive every step of the way. If any of you have been married, you know that taking the vow is not the end of the issue. If you want to remain in that situation, you really have to work at it. Giving rise to the Bodhichitta is like that . The effort doesn’t stop once you come to the great conclusion. You have to remind yourself every day. It’s part of the discipline of practice so that you remain mindful. On the path of Dharma these contemplations are crucial.

So this is how it starts. It starts in mental discipline which gives rise to determination. Where’s the emotion in all that? Emotions become inconsequential. Once you realize that there are six billion humans, that you know of, wandering in samsara, not understanding how to create the causes of happiness, whether you have gas at that moment or are in a good or a bad mood, those kinds of things become a moot point. You learn that it’s OK to be a Bodhisattva in a bad mood. But you don’t get to stop, you see, because you’ve learned something.

Willingness and Bodhicitta

June 9, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

How do you practice this Bodhichitta? In the beginning, the most important posture is to start from where you are. That is your time and space grid, That’s your place, your posture, your “now.” You have to start there. Now that may seem like restating the obvious. “Of course you’re going to start from where you are, oh queen of the department of redundancy.” But most people never start exactly where they are, with that kind of self-honesty, being genuine on their path. No baloney. No games. You look and see what your habit patterns are and what your practice has been. You really look inside yourself and see what your qualities are and face them honestly. It’s not necessarily going to be good news. Some of it will be good, but not all of it. Trust me on this. You look at it the way a child looks at a world it doesn’t have the capacity to conceptualize.

When we look at something, we judge it immediately. We don’t know how to look at something without judgement. When a child looks at the world, it looks at the world with a sense of wonder. In a way, it has no idea what it’s looking at. I read about a perfect example of this in a book. For instance, a one-year-old child, playing in their yard might stop dead in their tracks because they can feel a vibration, but they have no idea where it’s coming from. They don’t even know where to look. And suddenly they just look up and see this thing. They don’t know it’s a plane. They point, go “uh uh uh” you know. It’s shining and it’s moving; and they remain completely absorbed in it until it reaches the end of the sky. And then it’s gone and they just go “wow!” in baby talk of course, whatever their particular way of describing that is. Just two years later, by the time the child is three-years-old, they are going to hear the noise, know where to look, look up at the sky and go “airplane,” and then go back to whatever they were doing. That wonder, that freedom to reinterpret, to actually see everything, is gone. Literally, from that point on, they never see another airplane. It’s like that with all of our ideas and concepts, particularly these subtle concepts about ourselves and about love.

We have very little understanding about how to look at ourselves and to see ourselves fresh and new, so that we can determine how to give rise to the Bodhichitta within our lives. That takes a great degree of self-honesty. If you are not willing to see yourself, whatever poop you have produced, and whatever negative habitual tendencies you have, as well as, and equally with your good qualities, there is no way to actually know yourself. You’ll be like the three-year-old who says, “Oh, airplane.” From the moment that unwillingness occurs, you never see yourself again, not ever.

So here’s the trick. Be willing, in an honest way, to really look at yourself and see where you are, and from that point, you can freely and honestly begin to practice the Bodhichitta. That is a very important first step.

Letting Go of Concepts

June 8, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

How are you going to practice Bodhichitta? That’s the question. What’s it going to look like for you? Do not make the mistake that so many people make by trying to adapt a saintly demeanor where everything is love and light and there are no real feelings, only fabricated ones. As if all of those neurotic little ulcers in our personality are neatly covered with bandaids and we’re not seething underneath them at all! That’s not the mistake that you want to make. That’s not even what compassion looks like. Why should it? What difference could it possibly make to any other person, really and truly, that you look saintly? How is that going to help someone else, unless that’s exactly what that person needs to see? Then, as a Bodhisattva, that’s what will happen.

I have to say, for the most part, my experience has been that love is not neatly tied up in little bundles or appearances. It doesn’t necessarily fit in a box. Love, we should all know by now (unless we’re just stupid) is not convenient. It is just not convenient. Love is messy.. It doesn’t have any particular appearance, because it appears exactly as it needs to appear. So don’t make that terrible mistake of doing something that’s the equivalent of playing dress-up, putting on your mommy and dad’s clothing and walking around like “Oh I’m a Bodhisattva now.” That’s not it. Adapting a certain demeanor that you feel is some sort of compassionate ideal has nothing to do with love. It brings no real benefit. All it does is stroke your ego. In one way, the most self-absorbed thing that you can do is to selfishly use Bodhichitta as a costume for yourself. Instead toss all those images out the window.

Do you think that Bodhichitta should always appear as sweet words and sugary kindness? No. No, if sweet words and sugary kindness always worked, if that’s all that it took, you could go to Dale Carnegie or something like that modified to fit this particular need. You could learn how to speak words of love and light, and how to be so sweet that everybody loved you. If that’s all it took, how easy it would be. I mean, really, it would be a no-brainer. Somebody could write a list of statements and responses that you could have all typed up on a laptop computer. Whenever you got hit with a situation and didn’t know how to practice Bodhichitta, you could just key it in and come up with a response—see the blue aura, give the blue speech. It could work, but that’s not how love is. Love is messy. Love has to reinvent itself every single moment, because it’s constantly looking to see what is needed. The moment love becomes a concept, it is not love. The moment you have a concept about what love should look like, you are not loving. Love is not the way you think.