Buddha Nature | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Primordial State

December 8, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

Here’s what my practice looked like. At that time I didn’t know that it is better to meditate sitting up, so, I mediated some of the time laying down and some of the time sitting up. I actually found that when I lay down I would fall asleep. So, eventually, I developed the habit of sitting up. So, slowly, slowly, we find our way.

I would set up a symbolic altar. I had a dresser top that I would use for this purpose. I put representations of all things physical. I had some plants, leaves and things like that. I had some food (I think it was fruit generally), andpebbles, rocks, brightly colored things from outside. Then I put a mirror because somehow instinctively I understood. I was sort of in a quandary. I hadn’t had any teachings yet. I was extremely spiritually oriented, yet the only teachings I’d received indicated that God was kind of an old guy with a beard who sat on a throne somewhere. He was making x’s if you were bad and checks if you were good. That was pretty much my understanding of what religion was. I didn’t really buy into that. I really didn’t feel that that was appropriate or acceptable, and it seemed to me just not right.

So my understanding of the divine nature, or what was called God, I had to develop from within myself. I didn’t like to use the word God because I thought that indicated we were talking about something separate. I really thought that whatever that absolute nature is, it is absolute to the point where it cannot be separated from one thing and another. Whatever that nature is, it must be all pervasive. It must be the same nature that causes fruit to ripen or flowers to come forth in the springtime as it is to make my own heart beat. And I really thought that was it. I didn’t know what to call it, but that was absolutely it. So as well as I could understand, I began to meditate on what Buddhists call the primordial wisdom nature or the uncontrived natural primordial view. There are many different ways to describe it, but that was what my meditation consisted of.

My altar had a mirror on it; it had of all these things that represented earth. In my mind that represented all that is form and all that is formless. I didn’t have the word “samsaric” and I didn’t have the idea of things that are contained in the cycle of death and rebirth. I merely thought of things that are displayed in form and those things which were absolute and natural and uncontrived, and I thought my altar encompassed both elements of reality. I was pretty satisfied with that as being something that I could work with.

So, I began my practice. I used to mediate on this absolute nature. I used to think, ”This nature, this nature, what is it? What is it like? What is this thing?” And I would think to myself,

‘Well, this is the same nature that causes flowers to open, the same nature that causes my heart to beat, the same nature that causes my son to be born to me, the same nature that makes people love each other. It must be that this nature is the fundamental foundational underlying reality”. I thought like that.

Instinctively, I understood that this nature was natural and uncontrived. For instance, if we were to meditate or rest in that nature we wouldn’t be thinking, “Oh, I want this or I don’t want that. This is beautiful and that’s ugly.” We wouldn’t be thinking like that. I understood that that nature was some kind of restful state that was spontaneous and luminous, but free of contrivance, free of the distinction of self and other, free of the distinction of good and bad, hot and cold, ugly or beautiful, here or there even. I didn’t even think that in this state time and space actually applied. I realized that this state was free of that kind of defining or discriminating conceptualization. I thought to myself, “This is the underlying reality”.

When I meditated on that state, I knew, or I tasted, that upon holding the mind in that natural restful state free of contrivance, free of discrimination, there was no potential for suffering in that natural state, because nothing that causes suffering was there. Grasping and desire weren’t there, hatred wasn’t there, selfishness wasn’t there, anger wasn’t there, ignorance wasn’t there. We meditate on that state; we are not blind to that state. So, I didn’t feel like there was ignorance there or dullness or any of those things that cause suffering. I felt we were not inherently there in that nature.

Life on the Merry-Go-Round

October 21, 2016October 20, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Awakening from Non-Recognition by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

According to the Buddha’s teachings and according to everything that we can surmise from the information we receive as we travel along the path, we as sentient beings, are in a state of non-recognition. When you hear a term like “non-recognition,” it’s hard to really understand what it means. When we think of the word “recognizing,” we think in superficial terms such as “I recognize you” or “you recognize me.” We recognize people with whom we are familiar.

That concept still holds true, but there needs to be a deeper, more able way to understand what non-recognition means. According to Buddhist philosophy, we contain within us the seed that is the Buddha nature. It is not smaller than the Buddha’s nature. It is not bigger than the Buddha’s nature. It is not different from the Buddha’s nature. It is the same. It is that nature inherent within us that is the primordial wisdom state or the natural ground-of-being that is our nature. As we move toward enlightenment, we don’t construct that nature. It doesn’t become complete. It doesn’t become bigger. It simply is what it is, but we move from a state of non-recognition into a state that the Buddha clearly described as being awake. And that’s the only difference.

In our culture we tend to think in a materialistic way even about things that are very subtle, very pure, very profound and very spiritual. We tend to think that perhaps the Buddha or a great Bodhisattva or even one’s teacher has a bigger Buddha nature than we do. Somehow their Buddha nature is bigger and maybe more muscle-bound, more fit or stronger than ours. At the risk of being crude, we wonder if the teacher’s isn’t bigger than ours. According to the Buddha’s teaching, that is not the case. The simple difference is recognition. One Buddha nature is not different from another.

As ordinary sentient beings we are locked in the state of non-recognition, and that non-recognition is so all-pervasive that it becomes invisible. It’s like being born on a merry-go-round. If no one ever stops the merry-go-round and you spend your whole life on the merry-go-round, you will never know that you’re on it. You will never know anything other than that reality. Our condition of non-recognition is very much like that. It has always been this way. We project everything outward onto a screen. We know no other way to be aware. So that is the dilemma of sentient beings. We wish to awaken as the Buddha is awake. We wish to come to understand our true nature, our primordial wisdom nature, which is the ground-of-being, and yet we are locked in a state of non-recognition.

Free of Limitations: an Excerpt from “Buddhahood Without Meditation” by Dudjom Lingpa

April 28, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “Buddhahood Without Meditation” by Dudjom Lingpa:

On yet another occasion, when I met the great holder of intrinsic awareness, Hungchenkara, in a vision, I asked him, “What is this array of apparent phenomena like?”

He bestowed the following reply: “Ah, great spiritual being, the consciousness of the five avenues of the senses are like space in which anything is capable of emerging. Discursive thought is like the substances and mantras employed by a magician. The array of apparent phenomena that manifests from the synchronicity of these two comes about like a magical illusion. Consciousness that perpetuates this is like a spectator.

“This being the case, all substances offered or given are like substances used in magic. The approach of the illusion-like yoga involves using purificatory mantras to refine these substances into emptiness and mantras for increase to cause the unfolding of immeasurable appearances of sensory pleasures, which become objects of the six senses to delight all who are recipients of these offerings and gifts. Further, for the sake of sentient beings, who are like phantom emanations, through the illusion-like yoga one arranges the objective environment like a city of the gandharvas. One performs the acts of liberating and guiding beings as though changing the contents of a dream, thus gaining mastery over the supreme yoga of illusion.

“Consider the fact that no matter how many planets and stars are reflected in a lake, these reflections are encompassed within the water itself; no matter how many worlds there are as containers and their contents, they are encompassed within a single space; no matter how vast and how numerous the apparent phenomena of samsara and nirvana may be, they are encompassed within the single true nature of mind itself (sem-nyid).

“The nature of mind itself, referred to as ‘buddha nature,’ is a uniform pervasiveness unsullied by flaws. For example, even though there might be buddhas filling space, there is a uniform pervasiveness in that no object exists that benefits from their pristine awareness and positive qualities. Even though there might be sentient beings equal to the limits of space, each with an autonomous mindstream, there is a uniform pervasiveness in that no object exists that can be harmed by this.

“The ground aspect of dharmakaya as buddha nature is free of all locations, objects or agents of origination, and so is free of the limitation of origination. It is beyond there being any time at which it ceases or any agent that ceases to be, and so it is free of the limitation of cessation. Because it does not fall into the extreme of existence as some substantial entity, since even the eyes of a victorious one cannot see it, it is free of the limitation of permanence. Since it is nonexistent without being absolutely nothing and constitutes the common ground of samsara and nirvana, it is free of the limitation of nihilistic negation. Since it is beyond all locations, objects or agents of going, it is free of the limitation of going. Because no location, object or agent of coming can be established to exist, it is free of the limitation of coming. Because all phenomena of samsara and nirvana arise distinctly and individually within the vast expanse of the ground of being, or buddha nature, like the planets and stars reflected in a lake, it is free of the limitation of identity. Because the modes of samsara and nirvana, however they arise, are of one taste with the same ground of being, or buddha nature, just as the planets and stars reflected in the ocean are none other than the ocean, it is free of the limitation of separateness. Because it does not fall into any of these eight limitations of conceptual elaboration, there is a uniform pervasiveness unsullied by flaws.”