duality | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Understanding the Causes

October 13, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Why We Suffer”

When we come into this life, although we are little drooling children, although we cannot understand very much, we will grow. And as we grow what we will see is the display of those habitual tendencies of the continuation of the movement of that which is called the mindstream. When we, seemingly as individuals, hold to the idea of self-nature as being inherently real, in order to continue that continuation of holding to self-nature as being inherently real, we constantly have to distinguish between self and other. Otherwise, we cannot understand self-nature. Self-nature is only a relative term. Self-nature has no meaning unless we continue to define the difference between self and other. That is one aspect of our habitual tendency that is so deeply ingrained that it must happen automatically. Because if it does not happen, the stream of continuation simply cannot exist. There is no continuation.

Believing self-nature to be solid and real, we must distinguish between self and other. Therefore, we must find other to be solid and real. And so, the way that we move through what seems to us to be linear experience is by clinging to self, defining it, creating all kinds of conceptual ideations surrounding self-nature, constantly being involved in distinction between self and other, and therefore constantly being involved in acceptance, rejection or indifference to other. Reaction. We continue in that mode. What is actually happening here, in the midst of this deluded and very energetic and very involving and actually narcotic experience, this dynamic continuation? It seems to us that we are individuals who are moving through linear time and that is the delusion, the active delusion that we are involved in. But, according to the Buddha’s teaching, we are actually experiencing the display of our own habitual tendency, our own mindstream.

Because of the belief in the distinction between self and other, because of this basic fundamental assumption of self from which all reaction, from which all ideation that is the foundation of every circumstance arises, we have our experience, and that is the material of our experience. But, actually if we were to examine our own experience from the point of view of realization, such as the Buddha experienced, if we were to examine at the most profound and the most deep level, if we could somehow eradicate our addiction to this kind of experience, our fixation on the solidity of self-nature and its distinction from other, if we could stop reacting, if the mind were completely relaxed, we would understand that what we are actually experiencing is the material of our own mindstream. This is very hard information to take in sometimes. Especially, it’s hard for Westerners because of our training.

The Trap of Duality

July 16, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Tools to Deepen in Your Practice”

We see ourselves in a dualistic way. We have very concrete roles as to how that dualism plays out: in the way that we procreate, in the way that we die, in the way that we’re born. We have very exacting ways in which it plays out because of our belief systems, because of the system of duality. And we’ve had a long time to work out the kinks. So, when we believe in physical reality as being essentially real, we can find all kinds of facts and information and people who will agree with us.

And if you wish to avoid awakening to the primordial state, you’ll have lots of friends, because most everyone is locked into that confusion of the five senses. Like a dream. We know how it is when we’re in a dream. We may on some level understand it’s a dreamlike state, but the emotions are so strong. It just pulls us into it. A dream can be very sensual. It can be very alluring. It can be very stimulating in that you’ve had dreams with interesting things that happen and interesting colors, or something. But we’ve had all kinds of dreams. We’ve had all kinds of phenomena as well.

That’s a terrible obstacle. That’s a mean one, oh boy! Because when you are getting ready to generate the deity, you cannot even allow the deity to arise naturally, as it does, from the from the wisdom that is emptiness because your brain has a better idea. That’s unfortunate, because it is that wisdom that we need.

Here in Tantric practice, particularly with the Nyingma tradition, we are considered the ‘ancient’ ones, the oldest. They say, “How many Nyingmas does it take to change a light bulb? Well, none. We all meditate in the dark.” (much laughter). So we are the ancient ones and we like to meditate in the dark.

So in Vajrayana, what is the most precious capacity is that capacity to simply let go the thoughts, the conceptualization, the products of the five senses—you know, all the conceptual proliferations that we’ve built around what we sensed. It is letting go of that. It is opening the senses to allow the view. That is the wisdom that we really work on that becomes the very foundation for any accomplishment that we have on the Path. That’s the foundation for it.

The Nature of Perception: His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche

February 16, 2013 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism” by His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche:

Although all these phenomena are compounded internally by the mind, their apparitional aspect and supporting foundation are the five gross elements of which external objects are compounded, and which are caused, conditioned, supported and substantiated by the fourfold process of creation, duration, destruction and dissolution. As the number of mental propensities through which they appear as objects expands, the world realm of desire containing the four continents, Mount Sumeru and perimeter appears like a dream, along with the realm of form, which originates from the contemplation of the summit of existence, and so on. In brief, the entire array of the inanimate container and animate creatures, mobile and motionless, subsumed by the three world realms, does not appear in the ultimate vision of sublime beings. Rather, it is an apparitional mode of the bewildered intellect of sentient beings, which appears by the power of the subject-object dichotomy lapsing into delusion, like water in a mirage, and into erroneous perception, like seeing a mulicoloured rope as a snake. As it is said in the Pearl Necklace (mu-tig phreng-ba, NGB Vol.9):

In this way, the diverse appearances
Resemble a rope when seen as a snake.
Though not so, by clinging to them as such
The outer container and inner essence
Are established as duality.
The rope itself, on further investigation,
Is primordially empty of container and essence.
The ultimate takes form as relative.
That perception of the snake is visually true,
The perception of the rope is genuinely true.
Enduring, for example, as a bird relates to a scarecrow,
The independent existence of the two truths
Refers only to the relative world.
It has no relation to genuine reality.
Because of the expanse of emptiness
The essence of that [reality] is that all is free.