An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
Truth be told, we haven’t really awakened to the conditionless state yet. Maybe we’ve had a few experiences in our meditation, a little taste of emptiness if we really go deeply into our practice, but it’s only for a second.
For most of us, we are unable to let the boxes down so that our view opens and we are in a state of recognition. Because of that, we are taught that we should rely upon the Three Precious Jewels—the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and mostly especially the Lama, as the embodiment of all three.
In other words, when we see the lama, we are seeing the Nirmanakaya or body form of the Buddha—a projection of the Buddha nature in phenomena. The Nirmanakaya has appearance and characteristics, but these are gossamer thin. These are insubstantial, like dew on a hot morning. And so we rely on our teacher as the representation of the primordial wisdom nature.
We rely on the Buddha because the Buddha is the doctor who gives us teachings—tells us what is wrong with us and how to fix it.
We rely on the Dharma, which is the medicine—the tried-and-true method that practitioners have used for thousands of years to escape the suffering of samsara.
We rely on the Sangha who care for us, like a nursemaid, until we are awake. It’s as if we are in a coma, and there’s nobody to take care of us but these nurses. The nurses bring us the medicine. They support us. And so we love and respect the sangha.
An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
In order to really pray we have to let go of our pride, of our clinging to self. We have to let go of our self-importance, of that part that says, “Look at me, I’m praying” or the one that says, “Maybe if I recite mantra, it will go over there to that person.” That’s not awakened; that’s dualistic. So pride is the main obstacle to our true prayer—pride and its twin, doubt.
There is a Christian teaching that explains why. Although I am not a Christian minister, I do very much value the teachings of Jesus and know that he was a great and realized bodhisattva.
Jesus once gave a teaching in which he said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” What did he mean? In ancient Jerusalem there was one gate that went into the city (it was known as “the eye of a needle”), and that gate was very low and very small. In order for a camel to get through it, it had to get down on its knees and crawl. But a rich person is often too proud to kneel. So that teaching explains that pride is the obstacle. Pride is the enemy.
When we have prideful thoughts, we are clinging to self-nature as being inherently real, and we are always in a state of judgment. If we are high, others are low. So the most important element in learning to pray is to let go of pride—the idea that I am a practitioner, that I am praying, that I am doing some good. Instead of that pride, we need to develop an awareness that everyone is the same in their nature. All of us are expressions of the infinite possibility of the primordial uncontrived wisdom state—like white light going into a crystal and breaking into different colors, into beautiful reflections. Do we cling to the colors and no longer look at the light? Do we only look at the display and not look at the foundation? No. What would be the benefit of that?
So when we get ready to pray, we should do like the camel did in Jerusalem: we should get down on our knees. Our inner posture should be a heartfelt awareness of our interconnectedness. We should pray, “Here are my brothers and sisters, some of them swept off the face of the earth (by a giant wave, an earthquake, a plane crash, an act of war or some other tragedy…). Some of them are hungry. Many of them have died. Many have lost their families and loved ones.” We think with that kind of compassion and consider the situation of other sentient beings rather than just worrying so much about ourselves.
We simply consider their suffering. We keep our ears open to their calls, and we recognize that we are the same as they—not higher, not lower, but the same in our nature. We all have the seed of awakening. There is no difference. The haughtiness that we have, the games that we play, all have to go.
Instead, we adopt a posture of clear hearing. We have to hear the cries of sentient beings and then remember that they are the same as us. We have to think, “I hear you. I am not separate from you.” And we remember the Three Precious Jewels. It could easily be that in our next life, we are in their position and they are in ours.
By untangling our pride, we realize that it is our privilege to benefit them. Pride is like a constricting force around our heart. It keeps us from opening up. It keeps us separate. It keeps us miserable, and it affirms samsara every day. When we are prideful, we are praying for suffering. We are praying to continue in the land of lost ones.
So we are taught to drop that prideful stance and to connect and wire up to the Three Precious Jewels. We take refuge because we realize that in samsara there is only samsara no matter what it looks like or how dynamic it appears. Samsara will dance and seduce. Samsara will say, “Drink me.” Samsara will say, “Eat me.” Samsara will say, “Come and play. Be free.” Samsara is a seductress who will make us suffer even more than we thought possible.
An excerpt from the teaching When the Teacher Calls by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
What is it that the teacher experiences as the teacher begins to call the student? In the Vajrayana tradition we are taught to consider a tulku as an emanation of Lord Buddha or Guru Rinpoche’s enlightened compassion. Guru Rinpoche himself said, “I will appear in the world as your root teacher.” The root teacher is defined as the one with whom you have such a relationship that upon meeting this teacher, upon hearing this teacher, you have understood something of your own mind. You have come, in some small way, to see your own face. When you meet your root teacher it is truly the display of Guru Rinpoche’s touch. It is how Guru Rinpoche has appeared in your life. You cannot doubt that. It is the beginning, it is the movement, it is the method of enlightened awareness.
Generally, if the teacher is a bodhisattva or an incarnation who has achieved some realization and therefore has returned solely to benefit beings, there is some design in his or her method. The tulku will have a sense of purpose from a very young age, and all of the circumstances that arise in the tulku’s life will arise from the intention to be of benefit. As the tulku moves toward his or her time, there is a sense of calling the students. It isn’t really like the teacher will know the name of a certain student and necessarily be about finding that student. What begins to happen is that there is a quality of intention, of loving kindness, of compassion that begins to ripen in the teacher’s mind, and it sets up a vibrational field, almost like a sound or song that will reach out and touch particular students, and their minds will respond to it. Students literally will appear from nowhere. The sound that goes out is like a hook. Just as a piece of Velcro doesn’t attach itself to a smooth surface, if the student doesn’t have the responding “piece” in them it won’t connect. But if the student has that other piece they’ll be tight. You can’t separate them. To separate them literally sounds like Velcro: it sounds like your heart is being torn out. There’s something there that is so fantastic that it cannot be explained in ordinary terms.
From the lama’s point of view there is simply the display of that compassionate intention. That’s all that happens. The student might be a course and crude construction worker, a ballerina, the student could be a disco dancer or drummer, but suddenly something begins to happen and they will say, “What am I doing here? How did I get into this? What is this?” Truly there is no “monkey business” on the part of the teacher. There is simply this call, this sound that is going out, and the student, if the hook is there, suddenly becomes velcroed.
Sometimes one is angry at first because you didn’t want to be velcroed. You didn’t ask for this. You wanted to be free and independent. But suddenly you can’t get away. You’re hooked. The hook doesn’t happen because the teacher is manipulative; the hook happens because you have seen your face and the karma in your mind is such that you have responded in a way that you could never have predicted.
The student might be very conventional, never religious before in their life. The student might be very unconventional and never thought they would deal with a conventional religion like Buddhism. They might be really ticked off about it. They just didn’t want any of these things to happen, and suddenly they’re hooked! They can’t move. What are they going to do? And they grieve. They start to grieve like someone died. Yes, something died: the part of their life when they were not hooked just died.
The teacher continues in what seems to the student a relentless way to send out this call. You can’t resist something that is like your mind. The teacher is karmically set up, due to his or her compassionate intention, really without any choice, to sound like them vibrationally, sometimes like them situationally. Sometimes a student may simply hear the words, and it’s so much like the way they are. So funny. So strange. All you’re really experiencing is compassion. That’s all that is to be understood.
You should never think that you’re understanding the teacher by determining how much the teacher is like you. All you’re understanding is yourself. The teacher is only acting from the point of view of compassion. If the teacher is considered to be a bodhisattva or a tulku, then what you’re seeing, really, is the display of compassion, and what you’re seeing is your own face.
You must understand that all that is really happening is that there is a sound being sounded that on some level you are capable of hearing due to the karma of your mind. What is happening is happening because of you, not because of anyone else. This is your mind, this is your karma, this is your face that you are seeing. Your response is your own response.
When the student first responds, generally there are obstacles that come up. Sometimes – and this is odd – when the student first finds the path they’ll get physically sick. They’ll suddenly come down with everything you can possibly imagine. But hopefully, if they can really work on devotion and purify their connection to the teacher, whatever obstacle arises will ripen benignly. When the student starts off in a different way, sometimes with anger, they must understand that suddenly this piece of anger didn’t come from somewhere else. Who’s running this show anyway? If the student feels anger it must have been in the student’s mind. What happens is that obstacle ripens, and it comes to the surface like a bubble rising to the surface of a pond. You have the opportunity to live and breathe and hold onto the stink of anger, or you have the opportunity through your practice, through practicing the antidote which is compassion, to let the bubble do what bubbles do: come to the surface of the lake and simply pop. What is the bubble once it has popped? Gone. The first breath of kindness and devotion can surely blow it away.
The student always has this opportunity, but instead the student generally responds by saying, “I’m right here. I have reasons to be angry.” Try to realize that what is coming to the surface is an obstacle to your practice and that it has no more power than you give it. Realize that you are capable of simply letting go, of surrendering, of practicing devotion, of using method in order to overcome the obstacle.
Remember, all the teacher is really doing is sounding that note that is so like the student’s mind that it begins to bring forth this response that is in the student’s mind. What the student sees is their own face: layer upon layer of their own face. Ultimately, if they practice devotion, they will see their true face, which is their nature. Now they’re only seeing the dust that is covering it.
The sound is some kind of thing that you can’t even hear with your own ears, but it is so powerful it can change the life of a student instantly. It is so powerful that it can change a community, it can change the world, but it’s so subtle that you probably couldn’t even hear it with your own ears. What is it? It is the greatest and the most gossamer force that there is, and that is the force of compassion, the Bodhicitta.
An excerpt from a teaching called Vajrayana’s Final Hour by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
One of the bits of information that has come out during the course of time is that cyclic existence is just that — it moves in cycles. There is a cycle during which the Buddha first appears, which is very expansive. During such a time, life is in some ways much simpler and much easier, particularly for attaining enlightenment. The fabric of our mindstreams is much more expansive due to the virtue of the Buddha’s appearance.
Then there is an intermediate time in which the Buddha has left, the Teachings are very strong, and are carried on by those who can remember the teachings, who have memorized them and can repeat them verbatim. The Teachings are taught in an unbroken lineage by those who have practiced the Teachings and achieved some result, but there is no true memory of anyone who actually has seen the historical Buddha, or even seen the Buddha’s disciples.
Now we find ourselves in a time that is considered to be a degenerate time. The fabric of cause and effect relationships, which includes the very fabric of our own mindstreams, is extremely contracted. Now it is much more difficult to achieve realization. One must work very hard at it. One has to take teachings, accumulate many repetitions of mantra and prayer, and accomplish puja. One must practice devotion to the highest degree, and accomplish Bodhicitta, the Great Compassion. One must renounce ordinary existence, whether as a monk or nun, or in a more internal way from the heart, being stable and unmovable in the mind.
Even though it is hard now, in another way enlightenment can be accomplished more surely and certainly than before, because in this time of degeneration when the content of our mindstream is extremely condensed and contracted, karma actually ripens very quickly. You may have noticed that. If you are kind and loving and if you practice the Bodhicitta toward other sentient beings, it will make you happy. And conversely, if you are unkind, selfish, angry, that too will come right back at you. Hasn’t this happened to you? You can be very unkind to someone, and in the same day you can see it come right back in your face. Your nose gets rubbed in it.
The good news in this is that the benefit of the practice comes back much more quickly as well. If one practices really intently and with fervent devotion (devotion is the key here), one can eat the fruit of one’s practice. If not during the course of one’s life, then at the time of one’s death, when the Buddha Nature reveals itself to us as the elements dissolve, one will perceive that Buddha Nature as the display of the deity and recognize that Nature accordingly. Having recognized that Nature, one will awaken.
An excerpt from a teaching called Viewing the Guru: The Seven Limb Puja by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995
We should be in the posture of requesting teachings. Think about that. Many students will have what they think is a nice relationship with the Guru. They think that they are on good speaking terms with the Guru. That tells you what’s going, doesn’t it? They think they are on good speaking terms with their teacher, and they think that, “Oh, I have a really good relationship with my teacher. I practice every day, and I come to teachings. And I pretty much keep up, and my teacher smiles at me and I give offerings and altogether I would say that things at the temple are going pretty well.” But the same student actually — and this is the case with literally every student that I have — the student does not come to the teacher and just throw open their hearts and their lives and say, “Take me and change me and fill my life with your blessing.” I have had students come and say that to me. “Oh Lama, make of me whatever I should be!” And their hair is nicely done, if you notice, when they do it. And then they pose a little. You know, they do it from their best side! “Okay, Lama? Watch me while I do this, mommy!” They do that with their mouth, but with their mind, with their hearts, not once, not ever. Not in any case have I had a student truly say to the Guru, “I request the nectar that you hold. I request what you have.” And the reason why is that we are still clinging to our ordinary samsaric experience, our ordinary samsaric lives. We say that we come to Dharma so that we can achieve realization, yet we don’t want to change. Now how is that going to happen? You come to Dharma so that you can change into a fully awakened realized being. But you don’t want to change. How’s that going to happen then? It is illogical! You can’t do that! It’s never going to happen!
Literally we find ourselves sitting at the feet of that miraculous appearance which somehow, magically, has appeared. Even through the thickness of our non-virtue, the thickness of our karma, yet still, like the sun penetrating these black storm clouds, somehow the teacher has appeared. And we know now from the teachings: this is the very face of the primordial wisdom nature. This is the very display of natural luminosity. This is the appearance, this is the magical, mystical appearance. And yet, we go away from it. We say, “Okay, you want to give me this fabulous teaching. Are you telling me that this is fabulous? Okay, I’m going to really listen up for this because I am a good girl.” And then, at the end of that, we close our minds, fold them up and go home.
If we thought of the Guru as an ordinary being, then we could say that the Guru only teaches two days a week. You can say that’s how it is. You can only hear the Guru’s words so often. Maybe you can make an extra effort. Maybe you could go back and hear some tapes. If the Guru were an ordinary sentient being, then perhaps that would be the only avenue open to you. But we have just learned that we are looking at our own primordial nature. We are looking into the face of our true nature. What are the limitations of that primordial wisdom nature? There are none. There are none whatsoever. So suppose, then, we were in the posture of understanding in a deep and profound way the correct view of how to see, how to know, how to experience devotional yoga. We see the Guru, we understand through correct vi
The following is an excerpt from a public talk given by His Holiness Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok:
When we think about the validity of religions—in terms of traditions, in terms of sciences internal and external, and in terms of pith essential pointing out instructions—there is no religion that equals that of Buddhism. At this time there is no opportunity to really go into it; but in terms of the validity of the tradition which goes back for thousands of years and is documented in pechas, or scriptures, which are available at this present time, if one were really to investigate the qualities of the Buddha’s path, it is something quite extraordinary and unequalled by any other religion. I would be more than happy to explain every single reason why in absolute detail, but there wouldn’t be time for that today, nor would there be time in the days that I have here, and you probably would become quite bored with listening to it. So we’ll leave it at that, but please understand that these points are fully documented in the scriptures that we have available to us which date back some thousands of years.
Because of my own qualifications and so forth, at this time I can tell you all that I am a practitioner of the Buddhist religion. I am a Buddhist, and yet I can assure you that at no time in my life have I ever felt a sense of attachment to Buddhism because that is my own religion, nor have I ever felt a sense of aversion to any other religion because it was not the religion that I specifically pursue. So please do not feel that I have any partial attitude towards my own tradition or a biased attitude towards any other tradition being inferior to it because I never have felt this way. However, for a very long period of time I have examined not only the Buddhist religion but many other religions, and Buddhism, as practiced in the land of Tibet, is practiced according to three great lineages or rivers of this tradition which have come down over the centuries from India, China and Tibet. Maybe many of you have heard of the Panchen Rinpoche who asked me to be personally responsible for examining the lineages and updating them and correcting any sort of discrepancies that may occur in present times. Due to that I spent a lot of time going into further examinations of the traditions, and I came to the conclusion that the path of Buddhism is absolutely unequalled by any other. It is absolutely superior.
Therefore I would encourage each and every one of you to carefully examine the spiritual path that you are involved in to make sure that you have not made any mistake. If you don’t examine your spiritual path and you just sort of mindlessly enter into a tradition which has no validity or true source, this is what is called delusion, ignorance. We Tibetans have a saying, “Don’t be like a dog.” If you put fresh lungs in front of a dog, the dog will just devour those lungs without even thinking for a moment, will just scarf them down. Don’t be like this in terms of pursuing a spiritual tradition. One should be very careful to examine in minute detail. And once one has found out for oneself through that process of analytical investigation that this is a true path and a path that is valid and has a true origin, then one can enter. But please don’t just aimlessly enter a spiritual path without thinking.
How to understand that your faith is alive? Try being alive in your faith. The ball’s in your court, and you’re not going to get away from that. You cannot change the religion and think that it’s going to suit your needs, because then you’re doing something else entirely. You’ve already decided what it’s going to look like and how you’re going to act. You’re on a track, that is unbendable, unmovable, unadaptable, and you’re going to bend things around you to fit. You cannot do that to the world any more than you can do that to yourself. Bash-to-fit and paint-to-match doesn’t work.
So our job then is to get in, to make this faith more than a formalized external thing just like an exoskeleton. The only way to get in it is by really understanding it, by really going through the process that empowers you, to see what the truth actually is. For instance, we’re told that cause and effect is for real. Cause and effect should be blatantly obvious to us by this time because most of us here are above five years old. But we don’t get it. Lord Buddha tells us that cause and effect really matter. If you engage in virtuous, loving, generous, kind acts, the results will be love, happiness, fulfillment, higher rebirth, all of these kinds of things. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
But if we don’t go through what it takes to truly understand this on a deep level, if we end up approaching even this very visible piece of truth by saying, “Oh this is another thing I have to learn.” I’ve seen my students do this – from my very oldest to the brand new ones. “From now on I’m going to do good things, because good things will get good results and I’m going to be happy. Okay. Let’s see now. It’s 7 o’clock in the morning. I will be out of bed by 7:15. Can I get a good thing done by 7:20? This is the way that we think, you know. It’s by rote. A chicken can do this! A parrot that can be taught to talk can learn these rules, but where is the heart of the parrot?
What if we could hear the Buddha’s teaching and say, “This is amazing wisdom that has come into the world. The Buddha organizes this wisdom and says to us, ‘Virtuous actions produce excellent results.’” What if we went through the process of really looking at this? What if we really tried to connect the dots? What if we looked at our own life experience? Yes, its’ hard to do. We know that. The reason it’s hard to do is that in order for you to examine what virtuous conduct looks like and how it relates to result, you have to determine what is nonvirtuous conduct. In order to do that you have to face some terrible truths about yourself, for example, that you don’t always engage in virtuous conduct. The minute we get near that sucker we back off fast, because isn’t religion supposed to make us feel better? Well, yes, if it’s an opiate. Well, yes, if it’s a drug – one of your many drugs.
Religion can be compared more to exercise. When we first start to exercise, especially nowadays, we join a club and get an outfit. (I have some killer workout outfits, I want you to know.) We get an outfit and everything matches, the socks, the headband. Or else we jock out about it. Maybe everything doesn’t match, but it’s all cool. And then we get in there, and we don’t work out or exercise because it feels good to lift vast amounts of weight over and over again. Not at first. In fact at first there’s a lot of pain. You get on those machines, and the next thing you know you can’t move. So starting never feels good but afterwards – when you’re in shape and your body is tuned up and you’re strong – you feel great! It’s an organic thing. It benefits all your systems. It comes up from inside of you. It changes everything about your life. It feels great. But initially no. Most people stop with that initial stuff, don’t they? The minute it doesn’t feel good, that’s when they stop.
We do the same thing with religion. Can you see that? We go into it with an outfit, and we do it until it’s a little uncomfortable, such as changing something about our lives or seeing something. Then we’re out of there, because we have the don’t wannas. We don’t wanna; it doesn’t feel god. We think, “I thought this was going to make me happy, and it really doesn’t. It’s kind of depressing to think about reality. I don’t want to.”
Now let’s look at a person who moves into making exercise part of their lives. You do it in a more directly related way. You learn something about it. You learn about the physiology of exercise. You learn that there are certain problems your body has that it doesn’t have when you exercise. Well, that’s one thing that will empower you to keep on going: You go for that goal of producing a certain result. Have you ever thought of that in your practice? Producing a certain result, instead of just putting in your time? There is a difference. With exercise we get to a certain point where we just begin to see because we’re looking inside of ourselves and we’re looking in the mirror. Suddenly, we notice that there is some result. The first time you see a result, it can be a life-changing experience, if you work to integrate it into your life.
It’s just exactly like that with religion. Initially, you have to change. Change is not comfortable. We already know this. So initially you change and then after that you begin to connect the dots. You begin to see some cause and effect relationships. You begin to see that virtuous behavior actually does make you feel pretty good, and you explore that. You don’t take it for granted like a big dope. You work it out in your mind – work the numbers, work the equations. What feels good? Does it feel good to be in charge of your own internal progress? I think so. It doesn’t feel good to walk through life and just let life hit you like a truck. It feels good to walk through life in my practice, knowing in my heart that I am deeply empowered by this direct intimate relationship to spirituality. I know what kindness tastes like. I can see direct results from certain kinds of behavior patterns, behavior changes. I can see them directly in my mind. I feel comfortable with that. How is it that Tibetan monks have the same restrictions as our ordained and they are so much more comfortable with them? How is it that Tibetan lay people feel so much more comfortable with their lives? It’s because they have some kind of direct experience that makes it sensible and realistic and reasonable to conduct themselves in a certain way.
We have not developed that sense. I don’t know how many times I can present this same teaching. It’s about understanding that the ball is in our court. It’s about having a direct hands-on experience, not about being a good boy or girl. Aren’t you sick of that? This moralizing stuff has got to go! Instead, have a direct understanding, a natural wisdom – your wisdom – that dry times cannot take away from you, that broken hearts cannot take away from you, that no one else can take away from you? Your wisdom. You don’t look to anyone else to get your wisdom. You’ve got it inside. You understand the path in a deep way. You are empowered.
I’m not talking about ritual empowerment. I’m talking about a deeper, truer kind of empowerment. How wonderful if we can know that spiritual empowerment deeply within ourselves, to then go through the process of ritual empowerment according to the teaching and know what it’s about. It’s not just a vase (or a bhumpa) being knocked on your head. You could do that from now until your head and the bhumpa are both flat, and there would be no direct relationship. If it’s all academic and intellectual then it’s the same as getting a Ph.D. Anywhere in technical sciences or whatever. It’s not really a path. A path is a way to go. A path is not an object that you consume or collect or put in your crock-pot and boil all day until it makes a gravy at night. A path is where you are. Where are you then?
What I’m talking about is carefully considering how to overcome the limitations of confinement of our kind of society, of our kind of culture; how to go more deeply to have a more direct relationship with our spiritual nature – a real mystical relationship with that nature. And I don’t mean just meditating on some sort of internal cartoon circus where you think you’re getting messages from the Pleiades or some baloney like that.
An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo from The Spiritual Path
Sometimes the ordained have problems with desire. When you take on robes, it doesn’t mean that desire ceases. Why not make that desire meaningful? You can offer desire to the Three Precious Jewels. It’s not a big secret that you’re feeling it. Use it as an offering! It is the most profound and auspicious offering. Of course, this is true for lay people as well. All the ego-clinging that you participate in can be offered. But what do you do instead? How many precious minutes do you waste? You sit there and think about how profound your understanding of the Dharma is, and you juggle your insights in the air. Aren’t you just continuing the habitual tendency of perceiving phenomenal reality according to you? You use your insights to increase your ego-clinging. Maybe you’re doing it right now, contriving your own version of the insight you think I want you to have. What you are not doing is offering your perception to the Three Precious Jewels. You aren’t, are you? You forgot. With this practice, you can break through the seduction of phenomenal existence. It is a way to break the cycle of desire and ego inflation. It is a way to awaken to the Nature. If you did that and nothing else, you would be an excellent practitioner, and you would achieve the auspicious result.
How can you break the cycle? If you remember just three times during the course of one day, three minutes of generosity, that’s a start. If you lose it after a minute, don’t give up. Keep climbing back on. When you fall off the horse, climb back on. That’s how you establish generosity in your mind. Write yourself a note. Put it on all your favorite places: your mirror, refrigerator, CD player. Whenever you turn on your CD player, you’ll remember to offer the experience of sound. A little at a time, day by day, you can have that experience. I have had the experience of going for a walk and doing that for an extended period of time. Each time I sensed the experience of perception, I would turn it over immediately, turn it over.
Your habit is to take a perception, hold on to it, and make something. Have you noticed that? But you can come between that moment of perceptual experience and making something. It’s tricky, and you have to practice it, but you can learn to put a little space in there. And you can use that space to turn it over, to dedicate it, to offer it. You can develop a repeatable experience. It can even become automatic. Just remember: the moment you experience your own perception, avoid forming it into a superstructure that enhances your ego. Turn it over, turn it over, offer it. What will happen? Your whole personality will change. Your behavior will change. It will have to change—because your behavior has been based on desire and on inflating your ego. Not only that, but if you engage in this kind of practice for an extended period, you can have something like a blissful experience. I say this with dread in my heart because I know what’s going to happen. You’ll go for a walk. You’ll put some minimal effort into this practice, and you’ll contrive for yourself an amazing, blissful experience. And then you’ll seize upon that experience and have a more meaningful self because of it. Don’t do that! Just engage in the practice and continually make that offering. You’ll find there’s a happiness that comes with it. There’s a joy, a spontaneous feeling of joy. But don’t cling to it. The minute you see yourself sensing the feeling, you’ve got to turn that over too. You simply make an offering. That experience of joy is an offering. See all your connections with the world through the five senses as a kapala filled with precious jewels. But don’t contrive something out of it. Instead, find the subtle moment right before the experience. Then, once you find it, simply use that moment to make the offering.
I hope all this is helpful to you. I hope you will use it. This is the kind of teaching that can change your life. It can change everything about your practice. I don’t think it is arrogant to say that. It is my personal experience. This practice, I think, has contributed more to my well-being than anything, even though, if I tried, I could find reasons to be unhappy. But for me, this practice has been like a happiness machine. I feel it has deepened my mind. I feel it has made my mind more spacious, more relaxed, more peaceful. I feel it has created a lot of merit. I visualize an altar in my mind at which I can constantly make offerings. You should think of your consciousness as an altar—and all phenomenal experience as the offering. The instant you decide that you must have the best apples, make those apples count for something. Offer them and everything that is delicious and beautiful and satisfying. Offer as well all experience, in its purest form. Dedicate the value of that offering to the end of suffering for all sentient beings. You have entered the path of ultimate happiness.
Kunzang Palyul Choling has maintained a 24 hour Prayer Vigil since 1985. In this video Jetsunma describes how engaging in the Prayer Vigil is a way to stand up against the suffering in the world today. Making that commitment and dedicating the effort to bringing an end to war, or peace to beings, is a powerful way to practice the Dharma. She talks about how every visiting Lama, including His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, all comment how precious and rare this vigil is, that it happens nowhere else. Jetsunma talks about how it is part of integrating traditional Dharma Practice into our American, modern lives.
[Adapted from an oral commentary given by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche in conjunction with a ceremony wherein he bestowed the bodhisattva vow upon a gathering of disciples at Namdroling in Bozeman, Montana, November 1999. —Ed.]
Sometimes, although you are maintaining the bodhisattva vow internally and your intention is purely to benefit others, externally it may appear through [your] conduct or speech that you are breaking the vow. Although it may seem that a failure is occurring, if your actions and speech are motivated by bodhicitta, then no failure is occurring. That is referred to as a “reflection of failure.” For example, if it is necessary to commit a nonvirtue of the body or speech for the sake of benefiting others, that is permissible. In fact, not to do so could constitute a breakage of the bodhisattva vow. The motivation must be very clear. Whether your actions constitute a failure or not is determined by your own mind’s motivation. Here it is crucial to be careful, since losing the vow means taking lower rebirth.
From “THE PATH of the Bodhisattva: A Collection of the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva and Related Prayers” with a commentary by Kyabje Pema Norbu Rinpoche on the Prayer for Excellent Conduct
Compiled under the direction of Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche Vimala Publishing 2008
