Buddhism in America | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

With Fervent Regard

March 15, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

One of the problems that we Westerners have is that we’ve grown up with religions that say God is external. That is not what the Buddha teaches. The Buddha teaches us not that our supreme object of refuge is an external God, but that ultimately, in the deepest sense, our supreme refuge is enlightenment, the uncontrived natural state free of desire. According to the Buddha’s teaching, it is possible to achieve realization; that desire-free state, that natural uncontrived wisdom state is attainable. According to which path you take, it is attainable in many lifetimes, it is attainable in some lifetimes, it is attainable in a few lifetimes, or according to the Vajrayana, with sincere practice it is attainable in one lifetime.

You have to decide for yourself what you’re going to do. It’s a difficult job, because we are so filled with ideas from our upbringing. People say, “I’m moved by what you say, but I just don’t know if I can renounce everything. I just don’t know if I can give everything up.” That’s not what’s being talked about here. What’s being talked about is that you have to determine your objects of refuge. You have to determine what your refuge is, and from that you should make your own decisions. There are many different levels at which you can practice. You can become a full renunciate, taking vows, taking robes. You can also practice in a more casual way, laying the pathway for eventual deeper practice. Nobody’s making a rule for you. The point is that you should think for yourself and you should think past the ways in which you were brought up. You should look courageously at suffering, at the causes for suffering, and at the end of suffering.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, there is nothing on this Earth that can end suffering for all sentient beings. If we found the cure for cancer, AIDS, for everything, something else would happen, because the karma of sickness is there. If we found the cure for poverty, something else would happen. If we found the cure for war…. and all these ifs are mighty big. The karma of suffering is desire. It is the root cause for all suffering. Having determined that, we have to think that to get rid of it from our mindstreams will take something more profound than manipulating our external environment. The problem cannot be solved in that way.

I think it behooves us as Westerners to think deeply about these things. From my point of view, I have seen Westerners adapt the Buddhist religion, and I am not satisfied in the way that they are doing it. They’re practicing Buddhists, they know the mudras, they know the mantras, and they know how to ring the bells. They know how to do all the ceremonial things that come with the Buddhadharma; and I am not happy with their minds. Because maybe they didn’t take long enough to decide for themselves what the object of refuge is and what the cause of suffering is.

You can collect Dharma in a materialistic way just as well as you can collect cars and TVs. You can collect Lamas and the blessings of Lamas in a materialistic way just as easily as you can do anything else. You can collect new thoughts and new ideas and spiritual truths and books and all kinds of things, and never change. Or you can come from a really pure place and examine these things with courage and with pure intention. You can be determined to awaken the seed and the fire of compassion in your mind by examining the suffering of all sentient beings. You can encourage that flame, that fire, fanning it into life so that it burns away all obstacles to your practice. And you’ll find for yourself your object of refuge, and you’ll go…just go. You can do that. It takes courage and it takes pure intention and it takes determination to really think about these things, in a logical and real way. That’s what I hope you will do.

I am a Buddhist, and I always will be. But I’m not trying to sell Buddhism. What I would like to see is a world without suffering. That is the point, hopefully, of all religions; certainly of mine. I wish to talk about the same thing Lord Buddha himself talked about: the causes of suffering and the end of suffering. If we start there, thinking of these things and thinking of them with what Buddhists call fervent regard, we can make a lot of progress.

Contemplating these things creates a great deal of virtue and merit. After you think about these things, please dedicate the time that you spent and the effort that you took, to benefit all sentient beings. In other words, offer the virtue or the merit that you have accomplished by even just wanting to love. There’s a tremendous amount of virtue in that. Offer that as food and drink to all sentient beings so that the karma of that can be shared with a world that is suffering.

Determine How You Will Spend Your Life

March 14, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I wish from my heart that it would be okay to be a renunciate. Because to be a renunciate is to renounce the things that one has desire for, the objects that one grasps, and instead seek only a true source of refuge. To renounce the sources of suffering. There ought to be a place for that in our society. It ought to be okay for anyone to do what they want. It ought to be okay if they want to remain as they are and continue to function in the ordinary ways that we are used to in our society. But it ought to be okay if a person sincerely becomes discontented and wants to seek a supreme refuge that is the end of suffering, which is enlightenment.

You don’t necessarily have to be a Buddhist to adopt these kinds of ideas, although I found for myself that the Buddha’s teaching was the best way to do it. But not only Buddhists can do this kind of thing. In order to do this successfully you have to determine what your supreme refuge is. You have to really review that. This is why I like what the Buddha said, because in the foundational teachings you are never asked to buy something with blind faith. You’re asked to think things out logically.

This is what I suggest you should do. Think to yourself, “Really, how do people suffer? How do sentient beings suffer?” Sentient beings of all kinds, not only people. If you can learn anything about non-physical sentient beings, do that. The Buddha has many teachings on non-physical realms. But, even about just the ones that you know, human beings and animals. Check books out from the library on different life forms and different conditions around the world. Check out books about India. Check out books about Ethiopia. Check out books about different cultures and different ways in which people live. Check out books about different animals and different life forms. How they grow, how they evolve, from insects to lions. Study them all carefully.

You will see that animals are consumed: that they are eaten, and that they eat. That human beings grow sick, grow old, and that they die. That so far, no one has definitely proven they can keep from doing that. Even within that, there are sub-sufferings and different kinds of sufferings. While you are studying all of those things, develop a deep sense of compassion for the endlessness of it. Compassion for the lack of resolution and that everything around you will have its moment of intense suffering; everything and everyone. Develop a deep sense of compassion, that their suffering is endless. That it is unbearable at times. And that there is yet no solution. Think for yourself, what could be the possible solution; try to think one up. Really work that through, down to the place where you’re into the planning stages. You will find it will never work, because we are all filled with the karma of desire. Every one of us.

Having decided for yourself that all sentient beings are suffering so greatly that you can no longer bear it, and having understood that there is nothing else but to end this suffering, then maybe you might also think there’s no other way to spend your life other than to accomplish that for yourself and other sentient beings. Because the only way you can truly benefit beings is if you yourself have achieved some realization and understanding of the causes of their suffering.

Having understood all these things, then you must determine for yourself how you will spend the rest of your life. You must determine this, and it will take every day of your life, because we’ve been trained to do the opposite. You must think for yourself again and again and again, of what use is this life? If I am constantly filled with more suffering, if I am constantly participating in a scenario that always ends up with suffering, how will this life be of any value? And if you come to the solution that this life has value if it is a vehicle for enlightenment, then you should think for yourself, how should I do this? You should examine what you do now; how you spend your day. Then you should think, how have I spent my years? Then you should think, what should I do?

Red-blooded Buddhist

March 13, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Now, I’m a red-blooded American. You can’t get any more American than born in Brooklyn to an Italian father and a Jewish mother. That’s as American as they come in this world. So I understand our culture. I don’t claim to have any special powers or abilities; in fact I could study Lord Buddha’s teachings for the next twenty thousand lives. It’s the same for everyone: until you reach supreme enlightenment, you don’t understand the Buddha’s teaching, because to do that you must understand the Buddha’s mind. I feel that I am a beginner. But one thing I do understand is that as Westerners we have not yet come to understand what our objects of refuge are. One of our main sufferings, and the cause of more suffering, is that we take refuge in the wrong things.

As a culture we have not come to understand the value of using this life as a vehicle to achieve supreme realization. Even for those of us practicing Dharma, it takes a long time to understand that the only value of this precious human rebirth is to achieve enlightenment. Here in America we have the most precious jewel of all: the leisure to practice. If we don’t have the time, we can make the time. You can. Try it. You can. We have the leisure to practice. We have the ability to study. We have within our grasp a true path that has proven again and again and again it can produce enlightenment. We have these precious things, and yet we don’t understand that the only point of this life is to end suffering, not only for ourselves but for all sentient beings. Because once we ourselves achieve realization, we can contribute to the end of suffering in a real way for all sentient beings. For all others.

We tend to think of our lives in a very different way, because we don’t understand what our objects of refuge are. We try to live our lives with immediate gratification. We think, “Well, I have to be busy because I have to have this and this and this and this and this and this. I have to buy this, and I have to have this and I have to attain this.” We don’t accept that maybe it is possible to live a completely successful life under a completely different set of rules.

Renunciate in the USA

March 12, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The idea of renunciation is not popular in our country because we don’t understand it. In America we believe in accumulation; that’s our source of refuge: we accumulate. The minute we have that coffee pot and that microwave and that big- screen TV and all those different things, we’re going to be happy. If you don’t have a car, if you’re not rich, if you don’t have a toaster, if you don’t have a dishwasher, if you don’t have all of these things, that is the cause of suffering. Yet the Buddha says, “No, that’s not the case. The cause of suffering is the desire for those things.” Having devoted ourselves to accumulation, it becomes uncomfortable to think that we might have to dedicate our lives to renunciation.

It depends on your objects of refuge. If you really think that the coffee percolator, the TV, the anti-aging cream, the microwave, the big car and all the money are your source of refuge, then most Americans are practicing their religion correctly. But if you believe that enlightenment is the end of suffering, then that is your object of refuge. All the teachings and the supports to the Path to enlightenment – the Buddha, the Dharma or the Buddha’s teaching, and the Sangha or the Buddha’s community – are the objects of refuge. That is what you see as the solution. The things like toaster, can only make toast. The things like coffee pot can only make coffee. The things like TV can only show whatever they show. They are not sources of refuge; they never, ever, end suffering for more than a short period of time. If we understand that our sources of refuge are those things which end suffering, we’ll be able to perceive in a logical and real way.

We are a hard-working people. We get up very early in the morning. We quickly get ready under stressful conditions, putting on as much of those Estee Lauder things as we possibly can, before seven o’clock. Then we leave and stay on the road for a very long time, under terrible conditions. Then we get somewhere and we work very hard with people we don’t know very well, doing very strange things that are very different from our nature, all day long. Then we come home on a very long road that is also very difficult to travel. Then we eat very quickly, and don’t feel very well, watch TV and go to bed. That’s what most of our culture does. And it’s a very hard road.

We use so much energy doing things that we are told we must do. We must have a certain level of education. We must have a certain level of accumulation. We must care for these things that we have accumulated. We must cultivate certain kinds of relationships. That’s a big job. According to our culture there are certain lines that we have to cross in order to be successful and happy. We work very hard at these things.

But chronically and repeatedly at certain ages of our lives we go through phases or passages when we are dissatisfied. Marriages go through the seven-year itch. We go through middle age and we go through menopause. We go through all these different stages, and they’re so common and usual that our psychologists are beginning to recognize and document them and consider some of them normal.

What are they really? We work very hard to get to a certain phase of our life and then we find that it’s basically empty. We didn’t get the satisfaction we were promised. Then we gear ourselves up for another phase. When we get there, suddenly we find: uh oh. That’s not to say we don’t have our little joys and happiness’s along the way. But basically as a people we work very hard and yet are becoming deeply disappointed and disillusioned.

The way that some of us have chosen to deal with it is to think more positively and convince ourselves that we really are happy. We go to friends or support groups or some New Age groups or a psychologist; all the different avenues that people explore when they’re really hurting. What you basically come out with is, “Oh you have to change your thinking around.” You are told to think, “My life is full, my life is fruitful, I am really happy and I like being busy like this because it means that I’m having many experiences.” There are so many people doing that kind of thing it’s painful to watch. Some people are okay with that; it’s their karma to live a good and simple life, and throughout their life they try to be kind to others. But some people are really struggling.

True Refuge

March 10, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

In the West we have a certain context through which we understand. There’s a certain karmic format that we all participate in; our thoughts are shaped a certain way. When we are children and form our ideas we all receive, individually and collectively, a certain kind of input. These things have a very important influence on us. So the way a Westerner and an Easterner might approach the Buddha’s teaching is probably slightly different.

All of the cultures that practice Buddhism on a grand scale practice them from birth. The basic ideas of the Buddha’s teachings permeate the entire culture. But that’s not so with ours. In fact, there are some ideas that we have been brought up with that seem to be contradictory to the Buddha’s teaching. From this point of view, teachings of the Buddha have to be presented in a way that we can understand that while they seem to be contradictory to what we have learned, in fact they are not.

There is a universal truth being presented that isn’t contradicted by our culture, although the language and understanding is different. If something is a universal truth, then it must be true wherever it is, or it isn’t true at all. So what we’re looking for is a way to explain some of the basic thoughts to those that have never practiced Buddhism and haven’t heard any of these teachings before.

Compassion is a foundational thought that occurs again and again in the Buddha’s teaching. But Westerners define compassion differently than Easterners, because Western ideas surrounding the concept of suffering are different than Eastern ideas. From a Westerner’s point of view, we tend to think of compassion as meaning you feel sorry for somebody. It seems to be understood on a relatively superficial and ordinary level. If I say to you such and such is a compassionate person, you would think, “Oh probably he or she is kind. They probably speak nicely. They probably feed hungry people and put seed out for birds.”

Now, perhaps for a people or culture more schooled in the Buddhist teaching, when you say compassion or Bodhicitta, levels and levels of understanding occur within the mind simultaneously, and a more profound understanding takes place. So although as Westerners we might think it would be valuable to be compassionate, if we understood the full implications of compassion on the many different levels that it exists, we would think compassion is not only desirable, but essential. There is no life without compassion.

One of the things I would like to do is deepen our understanding of compassion so that it becomes essential. If it doesn’t become essential, we have the potential at any given moment to choose to be compassionate or not. We can fall into being not compassionate. We can accidentally forget to be compassionate. All these different things can happen. You know that this is true, if you look at your life: if you remember and are mindful, you sometimes do a fairly good job. Then if you go into your natural habits, or become tired, have indigestion or PMS or whatever, you may forget and not be mindful of compassion.

If we had a deeper understanding of compassion it would be part of our foundation and there would be no choice, in the same way that there’s no choice about breathing. You would never think, “Well, I’m in a good mood now, I’ll breathe,” or, “Well breathing is okay now because I’m relaxed,” or, “I can manage that now.” That doesn’t happen because you know that to breathe is to live. If we understood that compassion is as much a part of our being and as essential to our existence as breathing, then there would be less choice about it. It would more naturally and gracefully be part of our mind state. In order for that to happen, we have to understand what compassion really means, and we have to understand the nature of suffering.