Letting Go of Judgment

moms against hunger

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bodhicitta”

 We should begin to think of these teachings that the Buddha has given us in such a way that we awaken within ourselves a real caring for the well-being of sentient beings. If you saw a tiny rabbit caught in a trap, and its leg was bleeding and bruised, I know that you would open the trap and let the rabbit be free. If you saw a child that was really hungry, hopefully you would be not in the circumstance where you would make all kinds of judgments about that hunger, such as, if you looked at a bum who was drinking alcohol or something like that where your discursive mind got in the way. But if you just looked at a child, just a child, a helpless child, who was hungry; if you had food on your plate, I know that you would give some to that child. In this way, you should think of other sentient beings and begin to, through utilizing that kind of thought, understand their plight. It is most necessary to understand their plight, and through that begin to polish away the dirt and the filth that covers that precious jewel which is our inherent nature. 

We should take a hold of ourselves in such a way that we do not feel separate from Bodhicitta as though it were a thing that we have to get, but instead begin to develop the understanding that ultimately it is the awakened state. Because of supreme awakening, we will understand fully the faults of cyclic existence. We will understand absolutely the awakening that is the cessation of all suffering and be naturally and completely motivated to bring about the end of suffering for all sentient beings, because at the same time, we will understand that the self that we cling to, the one that causes us to think only of selfish concern, this self is also illusory.

Having realized that, there is literally nothing to do other than to emanate in a form or to engage in miraculous activity that brings about the liberation of all sentient beings. So this activity is not something we do when we get kind. It isn’t something that we collect as though it were wisdom. It is the natural state of awakening.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

Polishing the Diamond

white-diamond-on-the-polishing-wheel_1852.eeb69

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bodhicitta”

I have been aware that people in our age and people who are awakening to spirituality and meditation and these different philosophies have been exposed to the idea that we have lived only just a few times, whereas the Buddha teaches us that is not true. The Buddha teaches us that we have lived, we have revolved in cyclic existence over countless aeons. An aeon alone is a very long time. And countless aeons, that kind of terminology is inconceivable to us. In order to have revolved since beginningless time, in countless aeons of cyclic existence, we had to have parents every time unless we were born in a realm in which parents were not the way of birth. But whether we were animals or humans or some other form that we don’t recognize at this time, whether we were born in the form or formless realms, there is a great potential for all sentient beings to have been our parents endlessly. And the way in which to understand the kindness of all sentient beings, the way in which to understand their kindness to us so that we can begin to build Aspirational Bodhicitta, is to understand that at this moment we’re here. We are hearing the Buddha’s teaching and we are experiencing comfortable circumstances in which to practice. We have no defects of mind or body that would prevent us from practicing the Buddha’s teaching. We are capable and we are able and we have the leisure to accomplish practice. We have very auspicious circumstances. 

To have come to this point, we must think of the kindness of all of the situations that have brought us to this point. We shouldn’t think that our parents had any capability to prevent us from coming to this point, because they haven’t prevented us from coming to this point. So we shouldn’t think of their cruelty. We should think of their kindness because somehow, having birthed us, they have given us this precious opportunity to accomplish enlightenment. This is true for all of the circumstances that we have ever experienced, all of the births that we have ever experienced. Having come to this point, we should be thankful and grateful and happy, filled with joy realizing that this auspicious moment has occurred at last. And like finding a precious jewel while sifting through garbage, here we are and we have found the Dharma.

So having experienced this joy, we can begin to understand that all sentient beings have been our kind mothers and fathers, and that we owe them a great debt. We can remember once again that cyclic existence is just that, it is cyclic and endless, and that they are struggling night and day working very hard to make themselves happy and have no way to do it. We should think again and again that they are lost. Although they have given us birth in such a way that we can accomplish Dharma, and that all of these many parents who have birthed us over these many lives in order to help us to create the causes by which we might meet with this perfect Dharma, that even while they have participated in that, they themselves have not done it. It reminds me of a form of animal that I read about. It’s actually an insect called the midge. It conceives its young within itself and the young, as they begin to grow, actually eat the inside of the mother; and consume the mother. By the time they are ready to come out, the mother is dead, and they simply break out of her body as though it were an egg. We should think of that, and we should think that perhaps all sentient beings have done that for us. If they remain in a condition of suffering and we have now found the perfect path by which to alleviate their suffering, then perhaps it’s time to begin to develop the kindness that will liberate them from their unbearable suffering and their continued involvement in cyclic existence.

So when we hear about this Aspirational Bodhicitta, we become confused as to how to think of it. Time and time again students have said to me, “What practice will help me develop Bodhicitta?  Isn’t it true that once I begin to practice, I will develop Bodhicitta?” or, “How can I best develop Bodhicitta?” They talk about Bodhicitta or compassion as though it were something separate from themselves because we think of all phenomena, both internal and external, as separate from ourselves. That is part of the basic delusion of believing in self-nature as being inherently real. It seems to come with the package. Yet, we need to take a hold of ourselves and begin to understand that Aspirational Bodhicitta is potentially the way we are. It is not a reality separate from ourselves. It is not a mystery that we should approach in a linear way, perhaps in the way that we used to think of spiritual mastery. It used to be that, before we studied the Buddha’s teachings, we began to think of spiritual mastery as accumulating this wisdom and that wisdom and this wisdom and that wisdom and this wisdom and suddenly, you would become a great master. And that’s it. Now you’re a master. Well that isn’t really how the Buddha considers realization. The Buddha considers that you cannot collect wisdoms or knowledges and that they in a sum total will create mastery. The Buddha considers that true wisdom is the realization of the emptiness of all phenomena and the emptiness of self-nature, the illusory nature of phenomena, the illusory nature of self. This is the true wisdom, and it is not something that you can collect or gather.

In the same way, when Bodhicitta is fully realized, it is none other than the Primordial Wisdom state. It is none other than supreme awakening. Bodhicitta then, ultimately, when it is fully realized, is our own nature, and we should not treat it as though it were something separate from ourselves. We should not treat it as though it were a thing that we could collect by doing this practice or that practice. Instead, we should take a hold of ourselves and begin to uncover the diamond of Bodhichitta, the jewel of Bodhicitta. We should begin to uncover it by polishing away the delusion that occurs through the selfish concerns which are born of a lack of understanding of what awakening truly is.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Practicing Deeply

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

Westerners, in particular, have this habit. I think it may be somewhat unique to us because our experience is so multiple. We could go into the spiritual supermarket and buy ten different kinds of baloney. That’s the truth. We can go anywhere and get anything. We have so much to look at, so much that we can have, that oftentimes when we’re given a practice and the teacher says to us,. “Turn to page such and such. Read this practice and visualize like this. Then you say the mantra. Then you do the closing prayers. Do some dedication.”  Done. The practice is done. On Wednesday I make out my shopping list, and it’s with that kind of fervent regard, unfortunately, that westerners tend to practice, like we’re writing out laundry lists.  We need this. We gotta have this. We’re going for this. Let’s do it. It’s very much by rote.

I felt that my good fortune was that this practice had to be brought up from the very depth of me. I had to feel it or it wouldn’t work, and so that was my task. To the depth of my being I had to find a way to renounce. I had to face the part of me that was attached and addicted to whatever parts or things about my life that I had that feeling for. I had to face the ramifications if I didn’t accomplish this practice. That meant we all get to die and everything just goes on the way it is. That seemed to me unbearable being as there is so much suffering in the world.

It’s as though I had to reach down in the depth of my gut and pull this up everyday. It was so hard and so rewarding at the same time.  I have to say there are very few practices that I do at this time that match the intensity and the depth and the regard and the beauty that I felt at that time. In some ways it was so natural and so innocent and so total, because I couldn’t stop and go on to the next thing until I had really really accomplished the previous phase. That was the important thing. Unfortunately, we don’t practice, we don’t think like that at this time. That was my practice every single day.

Over the years that practice has made my life much easier.  In a way it was kind of like putting money in the bank for the future. My teachers have instructed me that that practice is called chöd . There is no text to go with it so you couldn’t say it was the practice of chöd as it is written in the text. It has been called by my teachers the essence or essential nectar of chöd. So I have been given permission to continue to practice that way and also to teach others to practice in that way.  My experience has been that it has made my life a lot easier.

 Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

Motherhood

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

Somewhere in this process I had my second son. I remember picking him up. Here he is a newborn baby, and I am looking into his face. Those of you who have had children, you know what that is like.  You look into that face and you can see your genes! I don’t know how that is, but you can. You can see that this child has your blood in him. There is just this connection. Plus there is something visible, like you recognize those feet. There they are again, or something like that. You have the sense of that. So I remember holding this newborn baby, having this connection with this child. I breast feed this child. I gave birth to this child. This child, at least in part, looks like me. I love this child so much. There is nothing like that feeling. You can hardly think about anything else.

I am holding this child in my arms, and I am thinking, “I will never let you suffer. I will never let you suffer. I will never let you get cold. I will never let you get hungry. Wherever you go, even if you have to go off by yourself, I will watch you and I will follow you.  I will make sure that nothing happens to you. And as long as I am alive, you will have food, you will have clothing, you will have a place to live. You will be safe.” Then I realized what I had just said,“As long as I am alive… “ Then I realized that that is no promise at all. What is that? I am lying to my child. Then I thought, ”What if I could somehow provide for my child all the way until the time of his death.” Then I thought, “Yeah, but when my child dies, can I guarantee that that death won’t be a suffering? Can I guarantee that it won’t be a terrible feeling of loss or that it won’t be painful in some way?”  No. Can I absolutely assure thatmy child is going to die in a painless way? No. There is nothing that I can do about that. I don’t have that kind of power.

So I thought to myself, ”How disgusting! Here I am holding my newborn baby in my arms and I am making all these promises and I am lying. The first thing I have done for my child is to lie to him. That really made me unhappy. I just couldn’t think what to do. So I used that as a way to practice. I thought to myself, “Therefore, this temporary reality, the human reality, is worth nothing. If there is a way to absolutely embody this primordial wisdom nature, I know this nature is not limited by death. I know this nature is something that is all pervasive. I know it. I don’t know how I know it, but I know it. I think to myself, “If only I could really embody this nature, then somewhere in there is the way to protect my child.

It was being a mother that really taught me how to feel the same way about sentient beings because ultimately I came to understand that if you look at two children side  by side because you are the mother of one but not of the other…What is that? These are both my children. How do I say that this one is not my child but this one is? I couldn’t. That doesn’t even make any sense to me.

 Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

Going Deeper

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I thought about my ears in the same way. I would listen to some music, and I really like music so I could become hypnotized by the music; I could become entranced. I could become sort of addicted to music, and maybe that’s all that I think about is music. In my head is always this music. Have you had it happen where you get a song stuck in your head and you think it will drive you out of your mind?  That kind of thing. So what if I were really to do that with music and just remain in that “music is so wonderful” state. You might think the benefit of that would be that it could be relaxing. It could be pleasurable. Maybe if I shared the mood music with someone else, it might make them feel temporarily better. But, ultimately if I use my ears to just give myself some kind of narcotic experience like that, what good are they?  I am going to stay in samsara and I’m never going to get out. It’s not going to produce any real result.

Ultimately, I came to understand, here in this day and age, that my ears are precious because I can hear the voice of my teacher. I can hear the prayers. I can hear the sound of mantra.  So my ears became to me precious; but I’ve also understood that in truth while they may be a beautiful and precious animal, they are a work horse. They should not dominate me. I must dominate them.So I am thinking like that even with the five senses. I learned how to renounce them and how to experience them as something that will lead to ultimate benefit rather than to something that is temporary.

I thought that way about touch as well. Touch can be very seductive. We can live our entire lives wishing nothing but to be in love and to touch our loved ones, to have that wonderful sensual type of experienceMany of us have the kind of lives where we simply go from one of those experiences to another.  It can be very seductive.  Touch is good. I can comfort my baby.  I can sooth someone who is not feeling well. I can make someone that I can touch temporarily happy.  But I came to understand that touch has its limitations and that it can be seductive.  I came to understand ultimately it is touch that enables me to turn my page. I can tell where the pages are. Touch tells me how to get to the prayer that I want. So I have come to understand that touch is another animal that can be ridden and that can bring about benefit.

In every case, from the different parts of my body to the whole total sense of my identity to all of my senses as I understood them at that time, even to the external circumstances of my life like the clothing that I wore, or the food that I ate, the car that I drove, the house that I lived in, all of these things that I examined, I thought of in the same way as having some temporary benefit, but that ultimately whatever one receives one will also lose. And that these things are very limited.

You might say to yourself, “Well, gee, did you develop a kind of cynicism?  Did you just sit around making yourself miserable all day long?”  And I have to tell you that, in truth, there are moments when I felt the grief of sentient beings. I recommend doing this, and I don’t recommend letting yourself off easy. It is like exercise. You know that if you don’t put any weight in your hand, but you just keep going like that [pumping your arm], maybe that muscle will get some blood in it. But if you take some weight in your hand and you really think about it, and you really work it, you will develop a very tuned, very strong muscle. So it is like that. I have to tell you that I would spend some days thinking about the suffering of sentient beings and it would not be happy. It would be really sad.

 Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

The Eyes

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I would work as hard as I could on each body part until I felt that I had gotten to some level of result, and then I would continue. For certain aspects of that practice, it really did take a month, a whole month, for just one small thing. Eventually I found that I was able to go through every single part of my visible body.

Then, I was able to think about my five senses—my eyes, my vision. That’s another thing that, really, we are very much attached to. The idea of being without vision, of course, is terrifying. When we really examine what these eyes actually do, we find out that they prevent us from running into trucks or maybe walking into walls, or they help us to read books, and watch TV, We can see our children, we can see our families, we can see our loved ones. We can see beauty, we can see in the mirror. We can see all kind of things…. These eyes are really good, right? I’ve also found when I really examined them that these are the eyes of dualism. That these are the eyes that are literally an extension of dualistic thinking. These are actually the eyes that are meant to see samsara or the cycle of death and rebirth, and only that. That’s all they can show me. They’re not able to see the primordial wisdom nature. They’re able to see that mirror on my pretend altar that was like a symbol of that, but they cannot see deeply. They cannot really see anything. Eventually, I came to understand, for instance, without my eyes I would not be able to read my prayers and I would not be able to read text of any kind. So I’ve come to understand that definitely the eyes, like any of our senses, according to the way humans appear in this realm, make us complete. With all of the senses and faculties complete, I came to find out eventually that we can practice Dharma because of that. So this is a really good thing.

Although they can be used to help an ordinary sentient being practice the practices that bring about the awakening to the primordial wisdom state, still, I would have to say that the ordinary use of these five senses is extremely limited.I cannot directly use my eyes to liberate anyone or terminate the suffering of anybody else right now. Eventually maybe I can if I keep reading the text and really practicing. But, for right now, maybe I could help somebody cross the street if they couldn’t see or if someone got something in their eyes maybe my eyes would work well enough to get it out.

There are pros and cons of the five senses, but ultimately I found out that whatever they are, they are not enough. I found out enough to know that I intend to use them to accomplish practice, that I intend to use them to benefit sentient beings. Ultimately, concerning the five senses, I found them to be more like work horses. They should not dominate me. I should not look at the world and go, “Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow! I want that and I want that and I want that.” Everything is a big feast of desire, you know, and all I think about is gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. You know the old mantra? Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. So if I use them like that then what are these things? They are just round spheres of flesh. They are nothing else. It is just meaningless. The fact is that they would help to hook me in even deeper to samsara if all I see is objects I desire.

 Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

What Drives You to Practice?

An excerpt from a teaching called Bodhicitta by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Some of you show up for practice because you think your teacher will get mad at you if you don’t.  So you make yourself visible.  Some of you show up for practice because you’ve got to get it in today.  When do you do practice because you are sick of delusion? When do you do it because you are sick of death?  When do you do it because you are sick of watching sentient beings suffer and yet are helpless to help them?  When do you say those prayers so deeply that your heart and your mind are purified of delusion and of hatred, greed and ignorance, so that your heart and mind are so deepened that you will absolutely incarnate in such a way to benefit beings?

The single most abundant deepening quality that you all have is your great love and desire to help others.  If that’s the ticket with you, ask yourself if you really want to help others or if you want to look like you are helping others?   Sometimes I think people want to look like they are helping others so they can be a nice person.  As soon as you’re finished with that and you decide that you really help others because you really can’t bear to see their suffering and are finished with watching people suffer, then use that.

Why do you just practice by the book?  Why don’t you walk around the temple and make prayers constantly, visualizing the refuge tree; walk about the living quarters of your Lama and the temple itself and the Sangha that’s in it saying, “In this way, let me follow you forever.  In this way, let me always revolve around the Three Precious Jewels.  In this way, let me be born under whatever circumstances to help sentient beings,” making these profound and sincere prayers.  Maybe you can break through into depth.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Those With Hopes of Us

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

The Buddha teaches us that there are literally so many sentient beings that, not all the great Bodhisattvas and lamas have connections with all of them.  That’s how many sentient beings there are.  We don’t have connections with all of them.  That means that there are sentient beings with whom you have connections, sentient beings that you have been involved with in one form or another since time out of mind, and their only connection to future practice, to being liberated from samsara, to practicing Dharma, is you.  Literally there are sentient beings right now who are waiting for you to achieve liberation.  The more you dance around with this, the more they suffer and the longer they wait.

From the moment that you begin to practice Dharma, these are the ones that you should live and breathe for—these precious ones who have hopes of you.  You should think of them as your children, as your purpose, as your parents, as your beloved because without you, they have not much hope.  That’s why we practice Dharma. That’s why we work hard at it— to alleviate suffering for self and others.  And we consider that to be completely nondual and equally importantSofor this reason it’s time to face the music, go deeper, and that hated word, commit.  That’s what it takes.

  Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

What Does Love Taste Like?


In this excerpt from a teaching called The Dharma of Technology, Jetsunma is speaking to her students who had recently received the Rinchen Terzod from His Holiness Penor Rinpoche who conferred the Rinchen Terzod at Kunzang Palyul Choling in 1988

Do you remember in the empowerments in the Rinchen Terzod we had the opportunity to taste different things, something sweet and something bitter, then His Holiness said, “Who is the taster?  You know what makes this sweet and this bitter?”  The taster does, because if you tried to find the essence of the thing that you’re looking at, remember, if you divided it down and looked at it under the microscope you would never find its thing-ness.  In fact, you would never find its sweetness.  Which molecule is the sweet one?  You would never really find that.  What is sweet is sweet to the tongue and the tongue is the determiner of that taste.  Who does the tongue belong to?   The tongue belongs to you.  So you, in fact, are the one that determines whether the thing is sweet or not.  You are the taster.  And so when you examine yourself and you boil everything down and smear it on the microscope, you can’t find where you are, then you realize that sweet and sour, sweet and bitter are concepts and they are just proliferations of the mind.

In the same way, this person that drives you crazy and this person that is the precious jewel in your life are equal.  It is the hatred and the desire, the hope and fear, the attraction and aversion in your mind that causes you to make a difference between them.  If you looked at them with the mind of enlightenment, you would see that they are the same.  Yet we all have our likes and dislikes.  But somehow through our practice, we have to accomplish such pure view, free of desire and on fire with love that they are the same.  We have to give our lives equally for both of them.  We have to be willing to eat an ocean of suffering for the ones we can’t stand and for the ones we truly love.  It’s easy to make sacrifices for the ones you love.  It’s easy to make sacrifices for your children.  That’s not hard.  Anyone can do that.  I was reading the other day about a creature called a midge.  It conceives its children inside its belly and then as the children grow, they eat the mother from inside out and the mother dies.  It’s a shell and it opens up and the children come out.   And then after a while they reproduce in the same way.  If a little bug can do that, if it can give its life to nurture its children, you can do that.  That’s not hard.  That happens even on the lowest realms.

What’s really hard is to give your life for all sentient beings, the ones that you know and the ones that you don’t know and to do so in a way so that the ones that you can’t stand are equal to the precious pearls in your life.  They have to be the same.  If you give only so much and you stop giving, only extending your love to your family or friends and to the people that you know here, or your nation or your planet or even your universe — what about the other 2,999 myriads of universes?  What about all of the sentient beings who are, with hatred in your heart, not worthy of your love, but with love in your heart, the same as you?

That’s when you have accomplished Dharma, when your love is that great, when you are that mindful of compassion, when through your meditation and through your practice, and through your understanding of the Buddha’s teachings, you have come to understand the equality of all that lives, that they are the same mind, the same uncontrived primordial wisdom nature, that they only appear to be different.  They suffer, they live and they die because of their confusion.  What makes the ones you hate so hateful?   First of all, it’s your vision of them.  You are the taster.  Someone else loves them.  Who loves them is the same as you and you’re the same as them.  The difference is the particular karmic pattern of attraction and repulsion, of desire that manifests in your life.

The one that you hate is the same nature as you with the same capabilities, with the same desire to be happy.  The difference is that this person may be confused and the only way they know how to reach for happiness is in the ways that make them unhappy.  And of course you, in your hatred and your greed and your ignorance interpret their activity because of the karma of your mind.  This sounds like elementary stuff. The sun pours forth and it doesn’t say, “Well, I think I’ll go to violets today and roses are going to be in the dark.”  The sun doesn’t do that.  Its nature is to pour forth and embrace all life and it is the source of life.  Your compassion, your mind is like that in its natural state.  It is that all-pervasive compassionate reality, that all pervasive non-dual mind state and so your love has to be that way.  Your accomplishment of Dharma has to be like that, with that understanding.

It sounds elementary.  It sounds simple.  But we still hate.  We still judge.  We still have the seeds for war in our bodies and in our minds.  We still have the seeds for old age, sickness and death.  We still have the seeds for all the six kinds of suffering in all of the six realms, and so in that way, we have not accomplished Dharma.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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