Buddhism | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Original Longing

January 6, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Longing for the Guru

There are three different levels on which you can recognize your Teacher. One is an extremely poor level — a common and ordinary level. One is an intermediate level in which you see that the teacher holds the teachings purely and gives the teachings purely and you really admire and feel a great respect for the Teacher. That is still only an intermediate level of recognition. The deepest and supreme level of recognition is recognizing the Teacher not as a person but rather, as a door to liberation, as your own nature.

This supreme level recognizes the Teacher as one’s mind, as the miraculous intention of the Buddha, appearing in a manifest way in order to benefit beings. It recognizes the Teacher as that original longing that was felt to know that nature, to recognize the Teacher as the answer, to recognize primordial wisdom itself in some incarnate form. In this way your own relationship to the path becomes not an ordinary thing, but a very profound and mystical thing, a thing of truth, a thing able to bring about awakening.

With Loving Concern

January 3, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The result of poverty and not having enough is due, according to the Buddha’s teachings, to not having been particularly generous or forthcoming in our support or caring for others in the past, perhaps even before this lifetime. So we might look at our lives now with a sense of honesty. Is that the case now? Perhaps it’s also the case now, and we just haven’t thought of it that way. Or perhaps if we really look in our heart of hearts we might discover that there is a certain dark corner in there somewhere that has a strong element of selfishness and lack of giving. We might see it sneak out every now and then. Maybe not all the time, but it’s in there. Or we might discover that perhaps in our past, in our deep past, we have been less than generous.

So, in order to create the causes of having plenty, to open the doors and liberate the conditions under which support and wealth and prosperity would come to us, we would create the causes, by transforming our minds through practice into that which is supremely generous. If we have only $5 to our name, a good idea is to give maybe 50¢ of that, maybe a dollar of that, to somebody who doesn’t have 50¢ or a dollar. If you have nothing, I’m sure you can get it together to have enough to place a simple candle on the altar and make prayers that the merit generated by offering this light would help all sentient beings see their way through the darkness. A small offering like that and prayers to benefit sentient beings begins the process of creating the causes by which our suffering or lack begins to change, and as well our minds begin to transform into that which is filled with kindness. We begin to create the habit of caring for others, of kindness.

The idea is that we proceed with confidence in the teachings and in the teacher who has given them to us. That’s how you have faith in the Guru—not by making some bland statement with no depth, not by faking your way through samsara, not by controlling your mind with positive thoughts so that delusion only increases and you have no idea what you are perceiving—but instead by creating the causes through acts of generosity.

On the other hand, if we have experienced great disappointment in love, let’s say, the first thing that we think is, “Oh, now I’ve lost my boyfriend, or girlfriend or whatever, so I have to do everything I can to get them back.” Grasp, grasp, grasp! And when that doesn’t work—it doesn’t, you know—then what you do is you make prayers to the Guru: “Oh please, oh please, oh please!” And we hope and pray that the lotto will come for us on the romantic level. And then we even think stupid thoughts like, “Oh, please deliver him or her to me now! Along with the check, put him in the mailbox. I’ll pick him up tomorrow.” You know that’s the kind of thinking that we have. It’s like magical thinking, but that’s a different religion. That’s not our religion.

In our religion, if that had happened, we would look for the causes. What are the causes of such a loss? Perhaps I have not been kind and loving. I’ll tell you how it is, if no love is given, no love will be received. It’s like that. If we do not invest in generosity and caring and loving concern and regard for others in an unselfish way, there will not be a great deal of love forthcoming freely into our lives because we have not created the causes. We have not held up our part of the bargain. And so we begin, therefore, to create the causes: a real concern, a real interest in the welfare and well being of others. Not just the one you want back. That’s easy. Others, all others, with kindness and love and generosity coming forth from our hearts. That’s the investment that’s needed here, that we ourselves would be responsible for not abandoning and leaving without comfort, loved ones and friends, not just the one we want, but all our loved ones and friends. And then take it further than that. Not only our friends and loved ones, but also our not-so-friendly friends, maybe the people we don’t have much concern for, maybe even our enemies. A loving concern for them is what’s required here.

Turning the Mind

December 1, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

In the preliminary stages of this path, we must engage in a practice called “turning the mind.” What does that mean? Our minds are fixated on gratification and self-satisfaction, on the idea that “if I dance fast enough, I’m going to get happy somehow.” The Buddha teaches us to turn our minds to face the facts, rather than continuing this chronic, habitual fixation on delusion. We must see that cyclic existence is an impermanent, changing process that results in death and rebirth. And the rebirth takes a form we cannot foresee, a form determined by our karma. Once we understand this, we must act accordingly. Realizing that we have a choice, we can act intelligently.

The Buddha has made clear that all our suffering occurs due to habitual fixation on self-nature as inherently real, and the resultant desire. He also gives us a way to antidote that desire: a clear look at cyclic existence and its faults. We can see what the faults of cyclic existence are, and we can use this as a medicine, applying it till the end of our incarnation. Then we can look back on our lives, perhaps at age eighty, and say: “I have spent that time well.”

If we remain fixated on material things (a chicken in our pot, our boat, our color TV), dancing really fast, we may still reach the age of eighty before we die. But not even a sesame seed, as the teaching says, can we take with us.

If we choose wisely, we will reap the benefits of applying the antidote the Buddha prescribes. These benefits will come from purifying our mindstream and thereby pacifying our habitual compulsive tendencies.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, every bit of experience you now have is the result of your karma. Would you like to have a full-life reading about your past lives? Well, let me tell you how you can get one. Look at yourself now. Look at your cravings, your selfishness, your sadness. Look at your happiness, your generosity. Look deeply at yourself, with honesty and courage. Look at your appearance, at how you act. Everything about you is a reflection of your past actions, of cause-and-effect relationships. So you don’t need to pay someone a hundred dollars to give you a fancy life reading. Just look in the mirror.

Self-absorption Leads to Unhappiness

November 23, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The Buddhist path is not a selfish trip. It’s not a self-absorbed trip. In fact, as Buddhist practitioners, we strive to become less and less self-absorbed. Being self-absorbed is the exact opposite of prayer–180 degrees away from it. But most of us, unfortunately, have the habit of self-absorption, and so we spend most of our lives holding a prayer that is based on samsara. That has no good result. Without exception, self-absorbed people are the unhappiest people on the face of this earth, whether they have money or they don’t. Whether they have a home and a car or they don’t. Whether they live in a simple thatched hut or they live in a mansion, the people that are self absorbed and locked up in their own inner phenomena are the unhappiest people on the face of this earth.

The tragedy is that in our culture we are taught to think more about ourselves than about others. We are taught that if we buy cars and other stuff and maybe line up a few parties and relationships and line up a few fun retreats, we will be happy. That is simply not the case. Happiness never comes from self-absorption. It comes from being concerned about the welfare of other sentient beings.

The Guru’s Three-Part Empowerment

November 21, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The most important part of the practice of Guru Yoga is when we receive the threefold empowerment from the guru. We receive the white light from the Guru’s head to our head to purify our body. We receive the red light from the Guru’s throat to our throat to purify and empower our speech. We receive the blue light from the Guru’s heart to our heart to purify and empower our mind. We should be receiving these empowerments 24 hours a day. Every time our mind has a little space, we should train ourselves to remember to receive the nectar of the Guru’s blessing. Instead, we walk around saying, “I’m lonely. I need my space. I need to go out and do stuff. I need to spend some money.” And we whine and carry on in samsara. And yet every minute this amazing phenomenal connection is available.

We should develop the habit of constantly keeping that connection. Whenever we have a moment, we should recite the Seven Line Prayer and ask for the guru’s blessing. And then we have it –boom, boom, boom—because when we ask, it is always given. There is never a time that when we ask, that it is not given. It may happen that we can’t receive the blessing sometimes. But we just keep trying. It’s simply our habit, and habits can change.

This is prayer without ceasing. This is constant prayer. This is a personal version of what we’re trying to do here at KPC by having our 24-hour prayer vigil, with someone practicing all the time. It is developing a constant awareness of our non-duality with the guru.

As we practice, the experience deepens. When we do our sit-down practice, the empowerments become easier to receive. We will find that we can go deeper and deeper and deeper. Then when we receive that three-part empowerment, our mind will be mixed with the guru and all the blessings will be present. But be careful: Pride will stop the blessing.

So we wire up. We take refuge and are anchored in our confidence. We know, “This is my guru; I am unshaken. This is the method; I am unbroken. This is the result that I am going toward.” We maintain that connection constantly. Any time we have a moment, we recall our root guru appearing as Guru Rinpoche and receive the empowerments, mixing our mind with the guru’s mind. That’s the way to awaken to non-duality. That’s the way to awaken to our nature. When we mix our mind with the guru’s, we are deeply empowered with the bodhicitta. We can hear the calls of the suffering ones. They will fill our ears.

When we take this empowerment and we mix our mind with the nectar of the Three Precious Jewels, then we can pray. We can see ourselves as the same as the guru in nature, not in a prideful sense. Having received the blessing of the guru and of all the masters of the lineage, we are now able to pray. We can ease the suffering of sentient beings. Why? Because we have the merit of our lineage. Now we can take within us the suffering of sentient beings because we can handle it. We have the power of the vajra masters. That is our joy, our bliss, our ecstasy. We are never separate from them.

So prayer comes when we are in a state of awakening–when the bodhicitta that is the nectar of the guru’s mind is mixed inseparably with our own mind. Then we can pray: we can speak with the authority of the bodhicitta, in the way of the bodhicitta.

Do you hear the sense of potency I am trying to describe? It is a sense of being fully mixed with the nectar of bodhicitta, fully aware that our nature is the bodhicitta. It is the bodhicitta that benefits sentient beings. When we are aware that we are the bodhicitta, it is this that we send to others. That is the power of the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas.

When we are that bodhicitta, we can awaken the bodhicitta in others just by looking at them. I know from experience that when His Holiness Penor Rinpoche looked at my heart, my heart was his and it opened. He recognized the bodhicitta in me, and I practiced to mix my mind with his. And therefore it was done. And that’s the potency of prayer. Now I can pray.

There is no room for pride in prayer—just simple gratitude for receiving the blessing of the guru in a humble way, with confidence in that blessing. Because of that blessing, we can pray. Now we have the bodhicitta; now we are the bodhicitta. And that is the potency and power upon which we rely.

The Buddhadharma is with us every minute. It’s a path, a way of life. And it is the true method to achieve the precious awakening. When we know that other beings are suffering so terribly, and we have found this jewel and it is in our hands and this nectar is given freely, I ask you: Why not learn to pray?

Experiencing Bodhicitta through the Guru Yoga

November 20, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

We must practice guru yoga. Without guru yoga, we will never learn to pray properly. Guru yoga is the nest in which our prayers are developed. In guru yoga we see the lama as the embodiment of all the fields of refuge—all of the excellent, extraordinary displays of Buddha nature that did not arise in samsara, that are pure and untainted.

The lama is our boat across the ocean of suffering. A proper lama, from an unbroken lineage who is free of suffering and delusion and motivated by compassion, has made that trip before and knows how to get across. If we practice the Dharma correctly, we will see that lama in a way we’ve never seen anyone else before. We can then approach the lama like a child, without judgment. We can ask kindly and without fear, “Will you help me?”

Now, of course, judgments will rise up in our mind because that is our habitual tendency. But that then becomes our battleground. That is where we take a stand and draw the line. Once we’ve put our trust in the lama, we say, “I know that you have been taught by the great lamas that have been taught by the great lamas that have been taught by the great lamas, and all of them in an unbroken lineage have achieved enlightenment.” We realize that the lama is the door to liberation, and we do whatever it takes to walk through that door—whether it’s getting down on our knees, challenging our habitual tendencies or changing.

We have to be willing to change. Dharma cuts like a knife. It’s supposed to; it’s doing a big job. And we have a lot of work to do because most of our life we’ve spent chanting the mantra of samsara, the mantra of self-absorption. So we look to the teacher. We look to the Buddha. We look to the Dharma. We look to the Sangha. We look with determination, strength and courage or vajra pride.

Vajra pride, the courage to say, “I’m going through the door of liberation,” does not come from the ego. It is not ordinary pride. Instead it is steadfastness and determination to change utterly and completely. Do you know what prayer is? Prayer is this (makes a cutting motion and rips open her chest). That’s prayer.

Through the practice of Guru Yoga, we become absolutely non-dual with the guru. That is the wish and the hope. That is also the method and the way. We mix our mindstream with the guru like mixing milk with water. And they can mix perfectly and constantly.

We practice the ngundro Guru Yoga and we practice the Shower of Blessings, and that’s a wonderful place to start, but how many minutes do we miss? How much time do we miss playing around in ordinary puddles—ordinary reality—when the ocean of wisdom is within reach?

The lama is not a separate person who we only get to see every now and then. When we see the lama, we are looking at the Nirmanakaya form of the Buddha. Guru Rinpoche himself said, “I will be there in the form of your root guru. When you call out to me, I will be there.”

The Brilliance of the Great Bodhicitta

November 17, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

As we realize that others need our help, we begin to heed their calls. We begin to turn to what is real, what is profound—the brilliance of the great bodhicitta. The great bodhicitta is the first movement from the void—from the absolute, uncontrived, undifferentiated spontaneously complete emptiness. Bodhicitta is the arising of the Buddha nature in a gossamer-thin, seemingly phenomenal, form. Bodhicitta contains all potential. It is the big “yes.” Separate from nothing, containing all potential and all accomplishment, the great bodhicitta is the first movement of the absolute. Bodhicitta is also called compassion. Compassion is our nature.

We have deprived ourselves of the deliciousness, the comfort and the happiness of compassion for so long that the bodhicitta seems like something we have to work on—like an outsider that we have to bring into our home. How sad, because compassion is our nature. When we are self-absorbed, we are denying ourselves the nectar that is the first movement of our very nature. And so if the great bodhicitta is really the first appearance of any kind of phenomena, if it is the underlying reality of any phenomenon, then compassion is also our nature. In fact, compassion is the nature of the meanest little bug in the world. It is the nature of spiders and lions and tigers and bears—and everyone else too.

All sentient beings have that nature and yet they live in a state of sleeping. We, on the other hand, are practicing to be awake. We wonder, “How do I see the bodhicitta? How do I develop the unconstricted, uncontrived, non-dramatic, undecorated view?

Getting Connected

November 15, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

How do we pray? How do we rely on the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha and the Lama who is the embodiment of all three? First of all, we have to get connected. We have to get wired up. And the way we get wired up is to practice refuge.

We have to view the Three Precious Jewels as though we were hanging over a giant abyss with crocodiles at the bottom, and the only rope to safety is held by the Three Precious Jewels. The rope is Guru Rinpoche—it is the Lama—and we hold on and start climbing. In other words, we sincerely take refuge, deeply in the most profound way that we can.

Most of the time we take refuge in ordinary things. We take refuge in our television programs, in our computer, in our social life or whatever it is that we like to do. We go to them to be happy. That’s 180 degrees away from prayer. Instead, we should realize that here we are asleep, living in a dream state, and that we must rely completely on the awakened ones and their teachings in order to wake up. We can’t rely on the teachings of someone who is also sleeping. That would be the blind leading the blind.

Lord Buddha was called the Perfect One because in every appearance and in everything that he did, he demonstrated that state of pure awakening and enlightenment. The Dharma, the method that we are using, has come from that awakened state.

The Importance of Consciousness

November 10, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Quantum physicists are beginning to understand that the universe is multidimensional. They are beginning to understand that because their math is not working, there must be something else out there that they can’t figure out. The reason why their calculations don’t work is because they leave out one of the components of reality—consciousness. Time, space and consciousness are inseparable. So scientists are mistakenly looking out with their telescopes for the birth of the universe.

I’ve been asked, “How did this explosion of phenomena start?” I tell people, “Close your eyes. Let everything go. Dissolve into emptiness.” They do it. After a while I say, “Okay open your eyes.” Then I explain: “When you opened your eyes, that was the Big Bang. That was the moment. That was when movement started. That was it. It’s not out there.”

Phenomena appear in many different ways, in as many different ways as we can conceive, in as many different ways as we can move away from emptiness. The universe is an entanglement of intentions, dreams and potentials. Each one of us, every sentient being, experiences a separate and different phenomenon. Even though we are all in the same room, everyone here is experiencing a separate and different reality according to his or her individual karma.

The places that we can go in samsara are endless. They are infinite. As we conceive something, more phenomena are created. Lord Buddha taught about interdependent origination, that cause and effect arise simultaneously. They are linked. Even though we see the cause, we usually don’t see the result. That’s because we are still in a place where everything seems to be outside of us.

We pray like that, too. We think, “I am praying to Guru Rinpoche, and he’s going to make everything better.” We think, “I’ll say some words or I’ll say some mantra and magically they will go there and sprinkle star dust on everybody.” We pray as though we are unconnected. We pray as though we are not in charge. We pray by rote like parrots. We repeat our prayers and hope for the best, as if prayer is a magic incantation. We don’t have any idea how there’s going to be any benefit.

In order to pray let’s understand that, first of all, we are all that is, suchness, the uncontrived primordial view. We are every potential in its essential uncontrived form. Our nature is that which is unborn and yet absolutely complete and perfect in every detail. It isn’t made. It isn’t grown. It can’t become stronger or weaker. It is conditionless. And so we practice view to allow the boxes in our mind to fall away so that we can recognize that conditionless state and awaken to it at last. Our prayers have to be like that as well.

There Is No Self

November 8, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray By Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The Buddha taught that there is no self, that all that exists is primordial wisdom nature, with every potential, including the idea of self and the idea of phenomena rising out of emptiness. This potential is here. Although one of the ways that the primordial wisdom nature displays itself is in phenomena, we cling to phenomena as being inherently real. In fact, we cut our teeth on phenomena.

We have experienced phenomena since time out of mind, and so we are accustomed to the experience. It’s the only thing that makes us feel safe. Oddly enough, we spend all of our time contemplating the solidity of self nature, and we believe that self nature is inherently real. We identify with this body, thinking it’s us. We think that if we hold onto to self nature, we’ll be safe because we’ll be us. We think, “I’ll be staying here, you’ll be staying there, and we’ll continue in phenomena.” But in fact, there is no difference between phenomena and emptiness. They are the same nature. They are the same essence. They are the same taste.

So while our habitual tendencies cause us to remain in this delusion of separation, still this nature exists—wholesome, absolutely complete and perfect, with no need for aggrandizement, with no need for construction. It is as it is. This is the nature that is our nature, and it is as much our experience, even now, as phenomena are, but it frightens us. So we cling to phenomena. Sadly enough, we become self-absorbed in that process. We think, “Oh this is me. I’ve got to take care of myself. I’ve got to do what is right by me. I’ve got to have fun. I’ve got to have excitement. I’ve got to have pleasure.” And that’s our experience—even though emptiness is at hand and we experience emptiness in our nature now. The Buddha nature that is our nature is complete. It doesn’t need any tinkering. Still, we cling to the idea of self. And of course, that’s the trouble that we’re in now.