Buddhism | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

We The People

November 4, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is a series of tweets from Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered in support of the #Occupy movements:

For those who bring compassion to the people OM MANI PEDME HUNG! May you abide in the comfort of love.

For those who may die or are being hurt from the struggle. OM AMI DEWA HRI. You will be crowned as a protector of “we the people.”

For those who break through ignorance with the sword of wisdom. OM AH RA PA TSA NA DHI – You are the bringers of the way for “we the people.”

For all who hunger for the clear light of Primordial Nature and safety – Long Life for all OM TARE TUTARE TURE PUNYE PUSHTIM AH YOU PUSHTIM KURU YE SOHA. You may save us all!

For you who treasure truth and pray for the liberation of “we the people” – OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PEMA NORBU SIDDHI HUNG- I treasure you, the beautiful.

For those who wish to serve the people and feed the poor – OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA – May you have, and share, every gift in every form. I love you.

May “we the people” gather, talk, march, pray, be together as one to birth a new world of virtue and compassion for all.

I believe. I believe in you.

Thank you all for your good efforts.

Peace. Occupy Earth!

Love is the Medicine: Quotes from Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

November 4, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

No true Dharma Master behaves with rage, hate, ranting, self- importance. These are signs of mental instability, a character flaw. Never follow such a one as that.

One should rest with a peaceful and loving mind. Even wrathful emanating Buddhas manifest solely out of the wish to liberate beings.

Respect kindly all religions that teach loving kindness, and have no respect for envy and jealousy. Never follow hate.

No being incapable of controlling their own mind or developing ethics and a loving character can ever be a Master. First we must have accomplishment.

If we develop a good heart we will progress to true compassion, and awaken Bodhicitta. This is the way of the Buddha’s method.

The way of loving kindness is what is to be accepted. Love! The benefit is clear. Rage, hate are the way of chaos and darkness – to be rejected.

In short: if one has nothing of value to say, only that which is impure defilement, avoid them. They are masters of the dark. Of no use.

Always walk in peace and beauty; in grace and love, speak only truth and you will be blessed. Where we are, let there be light.

Hate is the last refuge of the ignorant. Love is the medicine. Compassion is the gift of the awakened ones.

Two Steps Forward…

October 24, 2011October 24, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Many of my followers know I’ve been stalked and harassed in some cruel and unthinkable ways – and recently I’ve made great progress with The PTSD. But it is often two steps forward, then 1.5 steps back. I just don’t have my life back. Days like today I wonder if I’ll ever recover completely.

I’ve always felt my life had such potential. How do I get it back? I’m still a good teacher, but I feel panic in public, and have Irritable Bowel Syndrome now. Sometimes I feel completely beaten. The man is in prison now, but there is no assurance he will stay there, and even now his friends carry on. But I am unaware of his friends having any violent past as has the stalker.

Want to stay strong and carry on. Some days are good, as they once were. Some days it is just too damned Hard. Fear is a mind and life killer. OM MANI PEDME HUNG

Introduction to Buddhism: An Overview by Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche

October 5, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a public talk offered by the Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche

First of all, it’s important to understand that the term Buddhism means the inner pursuit, turning inside rather than outside. What we look at within ourselves is the nature of our own mind. We engage in the inner pursuit to root out the delusions and to actualize our highest potential. Once we have decided to engage in this inner pursuit, we may find we need guidance, that we need a teacher.

The teacher we choose should be one who has already realized the nature of his or her mind and is liberated from the round of cyclic existence. Otherwise, if we follow a teacher or teachings that arise from someone who is still in the world, still worldly, then, because such a person is no different from us, it is not possible for him to help us in a meaningful way. When we engage in the inner pursuit, which means the spiritual pursuit, we do so because we want to improve our inner self. So it’s important that the teacher we find has already accomplished the result that we want to achieve.

How do we know that a teacher is qualified in this way? According to the Buddhist path, it is an accepted fact that Lord Buddha Shakyamuni is such a teacher. Born Prince Siddhartha, and destined to be the most powerful king of India at that time, he renounced all of his worldly power and wealth because he saw that the nature of cyclic existence is suffering. Wishing to understand the true nature of life and the true nature of reality, he pursued the spiritual path until he attained the state of full enlightenment, the state of awakening, which is characterized by tremendous compassion and concern for all living beings and their awakening.

Biography of Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche

Biography of Vidyadhara Kunzang Sherab – Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche is Kunzang Sherab’s current incarnation.

The Trap of Delusion

September 28, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Nowadays so many people describe themselves as Buddhist but aren’t, as they do not practice what the Buddha taught. And don’t understand. I hear it is like that with other religions, philosophies, as well. It is easy to use the words, and much more difficult walking the talk.

It seems to me that if you have an enemy you fight with, then in truth, you have already lost the war. That is because the “enemy” is actually within; the real problem is our own poisons. Hatred, pride, greed, ignorance, jealousy, doubt, these are the true enemies, the real cause for all wars. I dare say that if we all conquered our “inner demons” our outer troubles would be defeated also, as what we perceive “outwardly” is our own consciousness, our own mind stream. Cause and effect, karma. We literally are trapped in a bubble of our own delusions.

Yet, people call themselves Buddhist with no attempt to pacify their own hurtful and negative tendencies. Some deny rebirth saying Buddha never taught it. Some feel that even though in Buddhism the path is considered “life after life,” Enlightenment can happen instantly, with no causing factors. Nothing happens instantly with no cause!

One guy I read sits under a tree every day, thinking he is Buddha. Yet if anyone disagrees with his words he is rude and hateful. And the rant begins. There is seemingly no understanding that compassion and kindness have anything to do with practicing Dharma. I enjoy watching this kind of thing as a “case study,” wondering how a person could fall down so far. And how it can happen that Buddhism is so misunderstood by people who call themselves great practitioners, scholars, etc and never look in the mirror to see what is really going on. These are the prisoners of their own, self-made war.

The prison is samsaric delusion. Even in a jail cell a person can be free. If the situation is such, change the mind to dissolve the bars that harm us all! Altruism is the way, charity, love, ethics and a genuine caring for the welfare of all beings equally. The inner jail always falls before the “outer” jail ever does!

OM MANI PEDME HUNG

OM AH MI DEWA HRI

Karma and Purification on the Path

August 5, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I personally know a story about a young lady who took robes of ordination as an Ani years ago. Deep habitual tendencies caused her to fall off her path and break the vows very seriously, more than once. As a lay woman she continued the pattern, there was so much rage in her, the events seemed neurotic, obsessive. She was determined to ruin her Teacher, as she imagined the downfall was her Teacher’s fault. The breakage seemed to spiral and worsen until she lost friends, and suffered terribly, as did the ones she attacked. It was a terrible mess! But she went to other Lamas and asked for advice, and to become their student. All told her she must return to her own Tsawei Lama and make amends.

How terribly difficult when so much damage to so many had been done. But she persisted. Correcting lies, doing purifying practice, applying the proper antidotes. She went to retreat and was welcomed and treated kindly. Her Guru had already taken her back. Except for one elder Lama who, when she served tea, poured it on the ground and said “you may not serve me!” as he himself had witnessed what she’d done personally, and had known the effect on all. She accepted and bowed low, wondering why everyone didn’t treat her just the same. But it was through that Lama’s activity she was instantly able to see the depth of her betrayal and was able to make confession without leaving out any details at all. She was given kind instruction from His Holiness Palyul Karma Kuchen Rinpoche and is now taking advanced teachings, much happier and her mind continues to be freed from the imprisonment of the cycle of hatred, greed and ignorance. Stage by stage she grows more free!

She repeatedly asked why she was so compelled, so intensely obsessed with harming her Teacher and Dharma. The answer, repeatedly, was a real kicker. In past lives she had made up her own path and convinced (skillfully) others to follow and practice what she taught. So in this life, although she is skillful and brilliant, it was impossible for her to keep the robes of the Buddha or to follow the path of Buddhism nicely or purely. It will take time to repair, but she is diligently applying herself. She was instructed to tell truth always and make an unshakable commitment to never behave that way again.

There is always a way to purify mistakes, but so much better to never make them in the first place. To try to teach a made-up path that causes downfall for others results in great mental instability and even insanity. Emotional equilibrium is lost. And it continues into future lives. Suffering of others is experienced by the false teacher. You will always know them by their current lives and experience. Sadly, still ignorant, they cannot see it for themselves. Karma is real, if you believe it or not. And you are experiencing it right now, and will continue until Supreme Enlightenment.

One more thing. I am so proud of her. And love her so deeply, she is a miracle.

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.

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.

Six Realms of Cyclic Existence

January 9, 2012June 11, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Most people, however, fixated as they are on self-nature, experience hatred, greed, and ignorance. This is the content of their mindstream. We all have a great amount of self-concern, craving, desire, and grasping, which Buddhists consider a form of greed. We have abundant anger.

You know you have anger; everyone has anger, which Buddhists consider a form of hatred. And we have ignorance, which in Buddhist terminology signifies the lack of awareness of the primordial Wisdom State. It means the lack of being awake as the Buddha is awake.

In the Bardo, some of the latent karmic potential, or the karmic seeds in our mindstream, will ripen. For instance, if we have hatred within our mindstream, we will perceive it externalized as some kind of demonic entity––and respond with fear. And we will try to take rebirth as soon as possible. We will go compulsively into the next rebirth. So it’s very possible that we take rebirth in an undesirable form.

Even if we achieve again the precious human form, we might be reborn in poverty in Calcutta, or as the offspring of parents who have AIDS. And we ourselves could have AIDS. There is no way to predict how karma will ripen. This is the unpredictability of cyclic existence.

Of the six realms of cyclic existence, the human realm is considered the most precious––because it is the only realm in which we can practice Dharma in order to achieve Realization. In all the other realms, preoccupation with immediate experience is too tight, too intense––so much so that one cannot meditate, contemplate, or practice. This is true even in the higher realms.

The highest realm into which we can be reborn is the realm of the long-life gods. The suffering in this realm is actually related to pleasure. You may think, “I’d like to suffer like that,” but in this realm pleasure really is the source of suffering.

To be reborn in this realm requires tremendously good karma, but also involves the karma of pride. (It is your pride that will, despite a great accumulation of positive causes, keep you from being born in an Enlightened state.) Positive causes produce the experience of great pleasure which prevails in the long-life god realm. The scent there is an overpowering experience, sensual and erotic, healing instantly and completely. Any sense––touch, taste, sight, hearing––is so potent that one is completely intoxicated, completely consumed by it. The gods in this realm are extremely, excruciatingly beautiful. Their bodies are sweetly scented; their skin, exceedingly pure. They swim in nectar-like water; everything they taste is the elixir of life. And they live for thousands of years.

Some people may think: “How do I get into that place?” But there’s a catch. When the thousands of years of their god-realm karma are exausted, these beings begin to change. Suddenly they are no longer so sweet-smelling. Then the other gods and goddesses start to move away from them––as far away as they can.

Soon the god-realm beings whose good karma is depleted become aware that they are deteriorating. No longer are they quite so beautiful; their “high” is wearing off. They realize that they’ve used up all the fortunate causes they had accumulated for aeons. Since they have a touch of clairvoyance, they can look down and see that there is nowhere to go but to a lower rebirth. And they get no help from the other gods and goddesses, who are still absorbed in their intoxication. This is the most pleasurable rebirth. You suffer only as it ends.

Immediately below the long-life gods is the realm of the jealous gods. The causes for being reborn there are power-hunger, competitiveness, and jealousy. There is much wealth in this realm, and intoxication too, but of another sort––intoxication with power. There is continual warfare––and the suffering which comes from it. There is suffering, but also pleasure. The jealous gods are very powerful, very demanding. They engage in battle with other gods, and they sometimes become involved with other realms in order to use them for their warfare agenda.

Some say that the Old Testament God Jehovah is actually a jealous god, exhibiting the characteristics of this realm––wielding destruction and demanding exclusive allegiance.

The realm below the jealous gods is the human realm. In this realm, old age, sickness, and death are our main sufferings. If we live long enough, all of us experience them. One cause for being born human––instead of appearing miraculously in the state of Enlightenment––is doubt. Everyone in the human realm experiences doubt. You must look at yourself as if from the outside and recognize that doubt is an obstacle to your practice. We have the habitual tendency of only believing what we can see and hold in our hands.

We may not believe that there are non-physical realms. Well, we’ve heard of them, and think they may possibly exist. We think we may have lived before, but we don’t know for sure.

Right below the human realm is the animal realm, in which a rebirth results from “dullness.” The word actually translates as “stupidity,” but we hesitate to use that term because we all love animals. Here however we are focusing on the consciousness of animals and their inability to absorb the teachings needed to achieve Realization. They can’t reason, they can’t be taught in the way humans can. They’re tightly reactive, completely involved in their experience of phenomena, without any spaciousness between event and reaction.

A tiny bit of spaciousness is the difference between us and animals. Unlike them, we can consider and formulate in a creative way some kind of impression and response. An animal’s inability to do this is termed ignorance, or stupidity, or dullness. Animals are preyed upon by predators, pursued and eaten by one another. They are often at the mercy of humans, who eat them or use them for their own purposes. Animals suffer greatly from all that.

Below the animal realm is the realm of the hungry ghosts. These beings are not visible to our eyes, but we have information about them: the Buddha in his omniscience saw and described them. The cause for being reborn as a hungry ghost is grasping or desire. With very small mouths and very big stomachs, these beings are weak from hunger and hardly ever able to get what they need. They suffer from physical and other kinds of hunger and cannot be satisfied. They have the unfortunate karma of strange, mixed perception.

When you drink a cup of tea, it tastes like tea to you. (To long-life gods, it would taste like the most exquisite nectar.) Hungry ghosts would experience it as pus or another equally horrid substance. Their perception is askew because of their greed and desire.

The lowest rebirth is in the hell realms. The main causes for being reborn there are hatred and anger, and the suffering is tremendous. Who can claim a mind free of anger and hatred? If you’ve ever had a frightening nightmare from which you felt you could not escape, then you have the potential to create the phenomena of a hellish realm. It’s the same.

To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

Overcoming Life’s Obstacles

January 9, 2012June 10, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Turning Adversity Into Felicity

Ours is not a religion that believes you can get through a room full of obstacles—which life basically is—without turning on the lights and seeing where the things are that you might trip over. Our religion is one where we turn on the light, we look with our eyes, we do not absent ourselves from the responsibility of clear thought, of the reality of cause and effect relationships, of engaging in those practices that will clear the obstacles.

In our lives, perhaps, we might suffer from the loss of fortune. Let’s say that we have a certain situation where we were very wealthy, we had everything that we needed, and suddenly bam! Misfortune hits. It happens, doesn’t it? It happens a lot. Misfortune hits and suddenly we are no longer wealthy. Perhaps it isn’t about money. Perhaps it’s about relationships. At one point, for the women, the prince rides up on the white horse and everything looks like it’s going to be happily-ever-after, you know, the Dream. For men, the Queen of Sheba has landed in our lap somehow, and here she is with all her blazing glory.

So maybe that kind of thing has happened. But eventually we will find that the cloud definitely has another side to it. It has a silver lining, yes, but it has a little rain in it as well. For many of us, we would experience some loss. Perhaps we might think that we have everything we need, and then simply it is lost. That might occur with our health. Many of us, we don’t plan to die, we don’t plan to get sick, but suddenly, perhaps even at a point where we thought we were young enough and sturdy enough to have been healthy, we find that our health slips and we can no longer rely on our health. And then, for others of us that survive all these other things without too many disasters, eventually we will get old and we will die. So there are these situations that must be dealt with.

Now when we deal with them, should we just paste some sort of unthinking, syrupy, positive statement on top of it and therefore make it acceptable? Should we say, “Ah, well, you know I’ve lost the great love of my life, but hey, it’s not so bad. What’s the big deal? I can do this!” Or, “Once I was rich and now I’m poor, but hey, I’m a positive thinker and wealth will come to me soon, I’m sure.” Do we think like that? I don’t think so.

We are taught by our teachers to engage in creating the causes by which our suffering might end. Clearly if you do not have enough fortune or money in your life, the causes by which that might come to you have not been created, or they haven’t been created in sufficient amounts. So we turn to the guru, not with an empty prayer of, “Gee, hope you’ll land a few thousand in my box. Just stick it in the mailbox. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.” You don’t pray like that. You don’t pray to win the lottery. That isn’t how it goes. In our religion, the difference is that we actually pray for guidance and we use the teachings that the teacher gives us and we begin to create the causes by which we can overcome the obstacles in our lives.