The Wedding Cake: Stages of the Path

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

Yesterday a new student asked the following question, “What is the difference between Mahayana and Vajrayana?” She had studied for six years from books. This question can take years to answer! So I apologize for giving the quick cereal box top version.

There are three main levels of Lord Buddha’s teachings. They can be thought of as a “wedding cake” shape, if you will.

The first Level was the first teaching, Theravadin. It is based square on the Vinaya structure, relates to purity and no-harm. It is the basis for all further turning of the “Wheel of Dharma.”

The next layer of the cake would be Mahayana, or “Great Vehicle” and is associated with the Bodhisattva vow, along with refuge in the Three Jewels, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Now, in the Vinaya, to purify, one gender must not touch opposite sex, handle money, has many laws. In Mahayana, the same laws apply but are modified by the Bodhisattva vow. In that vow one cultivates Bodhicitta, compassion. So a monk could theoretically touch a woman to give aid, medicine, food, comfort, support. And as Bodhisattvas in training, vow to liberate and care for all sentient beings. Through ordinary and ultimate kindness. In Mahayana we dedicate all our merit, practice, efforts to all beings, thinking of them as our own kind mothers in all lives. And we help all we can.

Vajrayana is like the top level if the wedding cake. It is a very profound and mystical level. And within that there are preliminary, generation stage, and lastly completion stage practice. Preliminary is Ngundro, generation is of the three Roots of practice: Lama, yidam, and khandro with protectors. The completion stages are Tsa-lung, Togyal and Trek Chod. These are the practices that can deliver Liberation in one lifetime.

Now here is the thing. These wedding cake layers cannot be separated, or the whole thing falls down. Theravadin, Mahayana and Vajrayana are totally and completely inseparable. If not the case, there is no stability in the practice. One sustains the other and is it’s very foundation! It’s support. So the Vinaya supports and gives rise to, through purification, the Mahayana Bodhisattva level, with additional vows. The top layer is totally depending on the other layers and they cannot be separated. Vajrayana requires the practice of giving rise to Bodhicitta because the yidams, the Three Roots, are the very display of Bodhicitta in the world! They are not ordinary and come from the play, the dance of the Buddha nature in phenomena. Each and every yidam or meditational deity is not separate from Bodhicitta, never could be, or it could not be a display of the Buddha.

We must learn to accept the feast of the whole cake as it is. We cannot pick the easy part, the one we like best to feel smart. We cannot change the cake. We can change the flavor, the color, to suit our culture, but not the layer cake!

And what is at the top? The union, Yab/Yum. Wisdom and compassion; emptiness and method. Or empty primordial nature couples with display/samaya in that union, we are liberated! EH MA HO!

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Compassion in Action: Bodhicitta in Real Life

Excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

Everything that you do should have meaning. It’s important that your life be understood as a vehicle for practice. It’s the only thing that is meaningful: to make this life, which is so rich in opportunity, a vehicle by which you can come to benefit beings. This is the development of aspirational Bodhicitta. Every time you do something good, use that opportunity to dedicate it to the liberation of all beings. If you pat a little child on the head and it makes them smile, that’s a good thing. So you must think, “I dedicate the virtue of this action to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings.” If you give money to somebody, pray, “I dedicate the virtue of this act to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings.” You should continue like that in everything that you do. Make up your own prayer. You don’t have to use mine. Dedicate everything that you do so that it might go on, and grow, and be of use to benefit beings. Wean yourself from empty activity, activity that is useless and meaningless. Wean yourself from the need for ‘feel-good’ junk. Learn how to live a life in which your only concern is to liberate beings from the causes of suffering, because doing this is the only thing you can really feel good about. You aspire constantly through these prayers. You really train yourself to do this, and it should never stop.

After you are stable on the path of aspirational compassion, you have to think about concrete or practical compassion. You don’t forget aspirational compassion, saying, “Oh, I did that for a little while when I was a younger practitioner.” You should never stop. Never. I will never stop, and you should never stop. That’s not baby stuff. That’s the real stuff. Then you expand this to include practical compassion.

First you have to decide that the Buddha was right. You look at the Buddha’s teachings and you say, “If he’s right, then I have to think of some practical way to eliminate hatred, greed and ignorance from the world and from the mindstreams of myself and all sentient beings.”

Based on that you begin, and your practice should be deep and true. If you choose to be a Buddhist, the path is laid out, and the path is secure. It goes all the way to supreme realization. If you choose not to be a Buddhist, you still have to find a way to live a life of practical compassion, based on the goal of rooting hatred, greed and ignorance out of the mindstreams of yourself and all sentient beings. You should think that reciting many prayers on a regular basis for others could be of use. You should think activities that cause you to realize the emptiness of self-nature and therefore eliminate desire from your own mindstream would be of benefit. And that, finally, free of desire, when you are truly awake, as the Buddha said, you can go on to benefit others. You should be determined to liberate your own mind, and you should pray every day that you will return in whatever form necessary in order to liberate the minds of all sentient beings.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

It’s About Them…

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

So where do you start?  Exactly where you are.  Remember that different people have different experiences.  If you’re not sure about that, ask other people.  No one knows what another person’s experience has actually been.  No one knows how karmic patterns develop into the tapestry that they become.  As people engage on the path of the Bodhisattva, each and every one will look a little different.  It’s not for you to judge.  It’s only for you to begin.

When some people begin to engage in the Bodhisattva meditations, although they’re saying, “I dedicate myself to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings,” they’re thinking, “I don’t feel like it today. I’m not happy about it, but I know it’s the right thing to do. So I’ll work on it” Another person will say, without thinking about it at all, “Oh, yes, right now I dedicate myself to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings!!!!”  Both are equally ridiculous!  Why make a judgment about either one?  You can see that’s just the first step. So whatever it looks like, let it be that.

Eventually in maturity there is not so much concern for appearances, not so much concern for how it should be. There is mostly concern for others.  Now there’s a new trick.  Rather than being concerned about appearances, we are mostly concerned for others.  When we were judging ourselves and others for not looking perfect as a Bodhisattva, that’s the part we left out, wasn’t it?   It isn’t about how we look. It’s about them.  It’s about others.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Bodhicitta in the World

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo given at Palyul Ling Retreat 2012:

They say that I am a Dakini.  I’m not so sure but they say I am.  The Dakini has to do with the activity of the Buddhas.  And so that being the case, I feel it is my responsibility to try to bring some benefit in the activity way.  So I try to feed everybody – animals, people, and the birds outside my house.  Everybody knows that we spend a lot of money on feeding people and feeding beings.  And it is a happy thing to do.  It makes us all happy.  So many beings are fed.  And they are having what they need because of the kindness of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, and what he taught me.  The precious bodhicitta, the nectar of kindness that is inherent in the dharma.  This is what I was taught, what I learned, and its what I practice.

We have a prison program also.  We like to forget people who have done something wrong and just throw them away, but we have a program where we can go and teach prisoners some dharma, because these men will die in prison.  And they will have no way to get any kind of help or straighten themselves out for a proper or good rebirth.  They don’t know how to die well.  They have no teachings on Phowa.  It makes us sad, and so that being so said, we’re able to go out and do these things.  And it is why KPC is always broke.  We don’t have any money because we spend it on the needs of sentient beings, and I am very happy about that.  That makes it worth it to me.

In our food program there are many people who don’t know how to cook the kind of food that we provide for them, because they are poor people and they are used to cheap food.  And so we have been trying to teach them how to cook lentils, and beans, and rice and things that are very nourishing.  We try to teach them how to make protein, and how to eat well so that they feel better.  This is a totally new thing for them.  They don’t know how to be healthy, and their children don’t know how to be healthy.  Many of them eat too much sugar and too much candy and they are unwell.  And so we are teaching them.  We are involved enough in the community to teach them how to cook, how to prepare food and what food is nourishing, and what is not.  These are great pleasurable things that we do.  Not that they are so great, but they are great pleasure.  To see people become nourished.  To see people learn some dharma, whether they understand it or not.  To even understand, Om Mani Pedme Hum.  To even repeat Om Mani Pedme Hung is so much better than anything else they could receive in the ordinary world.  Very simple things like that can make the world of difference, as you know.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

You Can Be Exactly Who You Are

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

As westerners, we want to make Bodhichitta about feeling: “Feelings, nothing more than feelings…” You know that song?  I wish they’d never written it, because somehow it’s gotten into our consciousness as Americans. We’re singing this tune and believing it, hook, line and sinker.

Here’s a magic golden key: Once we realize that giving rise to the Bodhicitta is not about a feeling,we can be more tolerant with ourselves, more comfortable on the path. We can still consider ourselves practitioners of the Bodhichitta if we’re in a bad mood.  Do Bodhisattvas ever get PMS?  Yes, they do. I can tell you that for a fact.  Do Bodhisattvas ever wake up feeling like they got off on the wrong side of the bed and they are not going to be happy? And they are determined not to be happy?  Yes, they do.  Do Bodhisattvas ever get sick to death of everything?  Yes, they do.  Do Bodhisattvas ever wish that everybody in samsara were o.k. and they could just ride off into the sunset and do exactly what they want?  Oh Lordy, yes they do!  Bodhisattvas feel all of those ways, but they have that practice, that knowledge and that determination.

Once you let go of the idea that compassion is about a certain feeling or appearance or some ridiculous verbiage about love and light, then maybe you can be comfortable on your path.  Maybe you can still be a Bodhisattva when you have PMS—because you don’t get time off for that I’m afraid to tell you.  Sentient beings are still suffering, whether you have PMS or not.  So you become a mature practitioner.  Human frailties are human frailties and we all have them.  We’re walking around in human bodies with arms and legs and we feel the way we feel.  But what has that got to do with the needs of sentient beings?  Our determination, therefore, through really studying and practicing in this way (link to yesterday’s teaching), should remain firm and strong.

I have my really bad moments. Yet I have to say that every time I have a bad moment when I just don’t feel like it, I learn to respect and understand the condition of sentient beings.  If you didn’t have those feelings once in a while, you wouldn’t even know what you were up against, would you?  It’s almost like that’s part of who you are.  So be comfortable with that and don’t let it influence how you engage on the path.  If anything, let it make you even more determined.  It’s o.k. to be exactly who you are and be a Bodhisattva.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

True Nature

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

Bodhichitta is, in fact, our nature, as much our nature as Buddhahood.  We are, in our nature, this fundamentally compassionate reality.  Buddhahood itself has no other capability, other than that of Bodhichitta.  Yet it has within itself all potential, unborn, and yet spontaneously complete.  This is the great mystery.  It cannot be understood in language.  Our language betrays us in this way.  Even as I speak these words there is probably a little voice in some of your heads that’s saying, “That’s not possible. How can that be so?  I haven’t seen it.  I haven’t smelled it.  I haven’t touched it.” And that’s true, because the five senses are extensions of our ego and they are meant to interpret and measure our egocentric experience about which we already have pre-constructed beliefs.

But Buddhahood has nothing to do with that.  Buddhahood is simply the “primordial wisdom ground of being.”  It contains all potency, all potential. It is unborn yet spontaneously complete.  How can one understand that?  Certainly not with the intellect.  Eventually, as one moves forward in one’s practice, one comes to understand experientially.  And the Bodhichitta is like that too.  Within the Bodhichitta is every potential.  The Bodhichitta is inseparable from Buddhahood in the same way as the sun’s rays are inseparable from the sun.  It is the same essence, the same nature.  So within the Bodhichitta that is also our nature, there is all potency, all potential and the Bodhichitta as well. While it is spontaneously accomplished and fully complete, it is as yet unborn.

At first when we begin to understand what Bodhichitta actually is, and put it into our practice, there is a kind of distance and a kind of confusion that naturally occurs.  This occurs because we ourselves have not had that experience yet.  We have not tasted our nature. We have not tasted what it’s like when the mind remains absorbed and stable in that nature. Yet this is how the Bodhichitta naturally arises.  If somehow you could magically remain absorbed in the fully awakened state the way the Buddha is, every activity that you would engage in, every interaction with any sentient being that you would have, would naturally be completely in accordance with the Bodhichitta.  So the teachings that we have from the path of Dharma, from the Buddha himself, tell us that, in fact, if (now this is the big if) one has attained enlightenment, if one has attained this precious awakening, then all of one’s activities from that time forward are naturally that of the Bodhichitta, no matter what they look like.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

What Is Bodhicitta?

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

Bodhicitta is the one subject that is taught from the first moment that one enters onto the path until the last moment before one really engages in completion stage practice. It is a primary and necessary fundamental foundational meditation, an absorption that one should remain in from the first moment upon hearing the Dharma to the last moment before one actually enters into nirvana.  There should never be a moment when the the idea of Bodhicitta is not part of your life and part of your heart.

So what is Bodhicitta?  Bodhicitta means the “great awakening,” and it has to do with the awakening mind.  The Bodhisattva, one who is engaged in the practice of Bodhicitta, is one who is an awakening being. The Bodhisattvas take a vow by which they do not actually go into Buddhahood.  They move further and further along what are called the bhumis, or steps, further and further into this precious state of awakening. Upon taking the Bodhisattva Vow, remaining fully absorbed in that vow, and beginning to accomplish that vow, one then begins to enter the first bhumi which is a very major step, a very major accomplishment. Then from the first bhumi one goes to the second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on, and at the tenth bhumi one is then able to step very easily into full Buddhahood.  However, the Bodhisattva who is on the tenth bhumi holds back and does not take that final step in order to remain in the world for the sake of sentient beings: appearing in a form that is of benefit to sentient beings, and being able to teach and guide them.

So we are practicing and studying this Bodhicitta which is so precious and so important.  Many of the religions in the world have the idea of compassion.  That idea of compassion is stated in various ways, but in the Buddhadharma, it is not only one of the teachings, it is considered to be one of the two main legs of the path of the Buddhadharma.  There is the wisdom and the Bodhicitta, wisdom and compassion.  So these are the two legs of the path. It is considered that if one cannot accomplish compassion, if one cannot accomplish the Bodhicitta, then whatever else one is doing on the path amounts to very little.  Bodhicitta is the cornerstone, the key. It is the essence of development. The Bodhicitta  is the practice of compassion, when it is seen in a relative environment, such as this earth, filled with materialistic view and material phenomena.  In this world of duality and relativity, when we think of Bodhicitta, we think of it as a practice in order to attain.  But actually in truth, Bodhicitta is the very display or essence, the nature of the ground of our being.

Buddha is not just a historical man that lived a long time ago.  Buddhas are not just the little statues, some of them fat little guys and some of them fancy guys.  Buddha is our nature and can be considered the primordial ground of being.  It is that essence, suchness, which is very difficult to describe.  In fact, once one describes the nature of Buddhahood, then one has actually left the nature of Buddhahood.  It cannot be described in such a way that one remains stable in the view of Buddhahood because once conceptualization and discrimination actually occur, then the meaning of Buddhahood is changed.  So, ultimately, Buddhahood can only be understood in one’s meditation practice.

The closest we can come is to describe Buddhahood as being the fundamental ground of being.  It is neither empty nor full. It is both and it is neither.  It is neither silent nor filled with sound.  It is both and it is neither.  It is neither form nor formless. It is both, and yet neither.  Buddhahood is that ultimate mystery that cannot be described in terminology that we understand because our terminology requires duality. It requires us to separate ourselves from that which we describe as though we were an audience.  It requires us to discriminate and conceptualize.  Discrimination and conceptualization are not in accordance with a true view of Buddhahood, because when one realizes and gives rise to that precious awakened state called Buddhahood, one cannot detect any separation.  One cannot determine definition.  One cannot judge where one thing ends and another thing begins. If we were to view from the fully awakened state that the Buddha was in when he described himself as being awake, we would not be able to determine where one being ended and another being began.  That whole concept would be lost in the state of Buddhahood.

We think of Bodhicitta as the practice of compassion that we should attain to. We only have that idea because we are in a fundamentally deluded state, in a separated state, believing that self and other are in fact separate, believing that relative view and the view of Buddhahood are somehow separate.  So that’s how we view Bodhicitta, as some thing that we do, some thing that we practice, but in fact the Bodhicitta is the very breath, or first movement or display or dance of the Buddha nature.  If the Buddha nature is like the sun, radiant in every conceivable way, then the Bodhicitta can be considered like the rays of the sun.  The rays of the sun cannot occur without the sun in the same way that Bodhicitta cannot occur without Buddhahood.  In the same way, the sun does not occur without its rays; therefore Buddhahood does not occur without Bodhicitta.  These two are inseparable.  They cannot be determined as separate in any way, shape, manner or form other than through the dialogue of confusion, which is how we talk—language based on separation and delusion.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

On The Suffering of Beings

A slideshow compiled by a student of dharma who was inspired by the compassion retreats of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, founder of Kunzang Palyul Choling:

The music accompanying this video is a prayer offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo for the benefit of any being who is suffering (human or non), especially those suffering from illness or death. More information on this prayer and a download link can be found here: https://www.tibetanbuddhistaltar.org/prayer-to-be-reborn-in-dewachen/

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