Eight-fold Path | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Foundation

July 2, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Reclaiming Our Merit”

Lord Buddha built the path sequentially. First what did he teach? That all sentient beings are suffering, that suffering is all pervasive,. that the cause of that suffering is desire and greed. None of which we, by the way, have bothered to get rid of. But he also taught that there was an end to suffering, and he taught that as the eightfold path. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten so ahead of ourselves, thinking that we are Dzogchen practitioners that we haven’t bothered to have right mind, right concentration, right meditation, right work, … (I have a list somewhere. I’ve forgotten them all.) But all of the eightfold path, all of those different qualities, they have to be looked at one at a time. Right speech: That means cut out the gossip; that means you cut out the bullshit and the bad words you have toward each other. Right contemplation:. Ok, what is wrong contemplation? Wrong contemplation is watching phenomena dance around you and just buying in, dancing with it. Right contemplation would be taking the Buddha’s teachings one by one and studying them carefully. Have any of you practiced the eightfold path? No. No. Then the Buddha came along, and he took the eightfold path and he sort of condensed it into the Mahayana view, which is wisdom and compassion.

The thing is, that when we have wisdom and compassion, we think, ‘Oh, that’s much easier.’ So we leave behind the eightfold path and we go right to the wisdom and compassion; and really we do ourselves a disservice by faking our way through it. Wisdom is something that arrives through practice, through service to fulfilling the ideas that Lord Buddha presented before. In other words, wisdom and compassion are not considered separate or different or above the eightfold path. You still have to accomplish the eightfold path, you see. And when you have fulfilled that, then you have the capacity to give rise to wisdom and compassion. And then you find out that the reason why the eightfold path was taught first, and Mahayana second, , is that it’s almost impossible to keep your commitment as a bodhisattva and to practice the way of the bodhisattvas for even one hour.

And so we have to rely on all that we’ve learned before this to build this house of Dharma. We have to make sure it’s all standing correctly, and we’re all here in line, and the foundation is good. Then you can start to build a house. That’s your wisdom and your compassion. And you have to ask yourself, has it come yet? We’re waiting for compassion to come likeHappy Birthday, you know, some sort of thing that is coming from a wave from the sky. Suddenly you’ll be good. But in order to really give rise to compassion like that, you have to have your foundation; and then as you begin to give rise to the bodhicitta, you have to base it on what you learned before.

What did you learn before? All sentient beings are suffering. That in samsara, suffering is so pervasive that our perception is askew. We don’t know up and down. We’re running so fast to get away from discomfort and pain; we really don’t have ourselves in order. This is what the Buddha taught. And so you look at the situation of sentient beings. If you did that right contemplation and you did it right, you really spent some time on it. And you open your eyes. You don’t close them and say, ‘I hate this stuff. I can’t look.’ You open your eyes and see it, and be willing to shoulder the burden of noticing that what Lord Buddha taught was right: That there is nothing but suffering, really, and we’re causing it ourselves through our being asleep and our lack of understanding.

Right Intention

November 2, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Eight-Fold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

All of us have intention, and intention refers to mental energy. We have intention now, but we are not really conscious of our intention. We don’t think of it that way other than when we say, “I intend to go to the movies tonight. I intend to wear my new dress tomorrow. I intend to eat broccoli for dinner.” We have that kind of understanding. But what we don’t understand is that intention goes with mind power. They are the same. And mind power when it is expressed, has intention. Whether we like it or not, if we have mind, we have intention. So, the mental energy that controls our actions is our intention, and that intention. Maybe we have a nihilist point of view. We don’t really think that life is cause and effect. We don’t have any understanding of that. “Wherever life takes me; I’m going to go there.” That’s kind of neutral. And of course, with that kind of neutrality, life will take you anywhere it wants to. You have no control. You are like a doughnut on the ocean. You are going to take on water and sink.

Right intention is about formulating an appropriate intention, and it has to do with ethics. Ethics in the Buddha dharma are absolutely foundational. Once we get into the higher practices, we neglect, I think too much, to talk about it. Right intention is absolutely important to cultivate. Otherwise the mind is simply wild. It wants what it wants. It just does what it does. There is nothing to think about. If we have bad intention, of course that gives rise to great suffering. Like if we wish to be higher than everybody else, or we wish to be more powerful than everybody else, or we wish to be richer than everybody else. That’s kind of a negative intention. It is okay to have wealth, it is okay if you have some power, and it is okay if you’re pretty, but to have that wish to be prettier or more powerful or wealthier than everybody else, that’s not good intention. And that will cause you to suffer because someone’s always going to be prettier than you. Someone’s always going to be richer than you. Someone’s always going to be smarter. And so you’ll suffer. It brings about suffering. Negative intention should not be tolerated. Not only does it bring about suffering for oneself, but also it brings about suffering for sentient beings because if we have poor ethics or if we have bad intention, we tend to harm others, as well as ourselves.

So we are supposed to train ourselves with good intention, for instance, the intention of renunciation. To have the intention of renunciation again is so important and foundational on the path. What are we renouncing? Well, you could go and renounce things piece by piece, and get absolutely nowhere. “I renounce bottle tops. I renounce red drinks.” And then get totally neurotic about it, “But I want it.” That obviously is not the right approach. The intention of renunciation actually refers to resistance to the pull of desire and attachment. You begin to practice that resistance. I promise you that when you just start to practice it, you won’t be good at it, if you have no experience with it. It takes time. You have to examine desire.

Now, you understand that desire is all-pervasive. I’m not talking about what happens in people’s bedrooms. I’m talking about all-pervasive desire. Desire for everything that we want. And we want a lot. We want good days, we want good experiences, we want good friends, and we want good times. None of which are bad, but if you’re addicted and attached to them, then you will suffer. And again the Eight-Fold Path is about liberating from suffering. So, it is the renunciation to the pull of desire and the poison of attachment.

Right intention also is the intention of good will. Meaning resistance to the feelings of anger and aversion. We all have that. It starts in the morning. “God, who made this coffee? It tastes awful.” “I’m having a really terrible hair day. I’m averse to my hair.” We have this aversion, and then we just don’t like things. Don’t like people. Don’t care. Just don’t give the big hoop. I would call that wrong intention. If someone were to approach you and say to you, “I think it would be healthy for you to practice more compassion.” Of course, our natural thing is to react with “Shut up!” and to react with anger. But that is the exact instinct we need to fight. That is the exact thing we need to fight. Now, if somebody comes up to you even if they are somebody you may feel doesn’t have that much compassion, and they give you the piece of advice, “I think you should have more compassion.” You cultivate patience and right intention. You think, “Well, it is good that person is talking about compassion, even if it is a left-handed gift. Still there is something there, and you can have some good intention, good attitude about it.

Basically you develop good will towards all sentient beings. You don’t think that animals should be killed or harmed. You don’t think that dogs should be put to death. You don’t think that people should be at war. You don’t think that suffering should occur. You don’t think that poverty should exist. These are right intentions. These are right thoughts. Right thoughts that can be cultivated even on a very personal level while the path you’re traveling is still very personal. You think like that.

You start to pacify anger and rage. So many of us have so much rage stored up. Some of it is from childhood. Some of it is from the stress of everyday living. Were we really meant to go 60 million miles everyday? You know that kind of stress. We hold rage inside. And so part of the Eight-Fold Path is to begin not to suppress the rage, but to contemplate it, be aware of it, and look through it. Suppression equals neuroses. We are looking for you to be awake to perceive more correctly what the nature of attraction and repulsion actually is, how they are not conducive to happiness and are the antithesis of the path.

The last part of right intention is the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion. We forget that. Again a foundational truth on the path, and we forget it. We walk around with our malas and our robes, and we think, “I’m so cool. I’m a Tibetan Buddhist.” Well, you are not Tibetan. And if you act like that, you’re not much of a Buddhist either. So, forget it. And of course cruelty, if we have any cruelty in our mind, it may be a reflection of past habit or past incidences. We have the power to examine that cruelty, to see its root, to see its fruit, to push it away, to see through it in other words, into the true nature of the Eight-Fold Path and of the Buddha dharma. We have that power. We shouldn’t think, “Oh, I’ve got this rage, and I’m stuck with it. It’s just there.” We have the power to change that by practicing this right intention.

We give up the thoughts of violence, of aggressiveness, and we begin to develop compassion. And again what is it based on? It’s based on the Four Noble Truths. The compassion comes from the realization that all sentient beings are suffering. That suffering is all-pervasive, and that it is not necessary because there is an Eight-Fold Path. That is our way to contemplate and to bring ourselves up to snuff with right intention.

Right View – The Essential Nectar Drop

November 1, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Eight-Fold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Right view should be understood as the underpinning, the beginning and the ending, and everything in between on the path. It is in some ways the essence, the essential nectar drop of the path. In right view through meditation, through contemplation, and through receiving teachings, we come to understand the nature of samsara. We meditate on samsara and understand its flaws, its faults, and how it is so confusing to all of us. By understanding the nature of samsara, we know what to avoid and what to pick up. But without contemplating on and understanding the nature of samsara by remaining constantly in a reactive stage, there will be no accomplishment. We grasp what is impermanent, what is imperfect. We begin to contemplate and study the empty nature of phenomena. That phenomena is what it seems to be, yet even now we know from the scientific world that it isn’t what it seems to be. It seems to be this way, but we know that it isn’t. We know that for instance that on the surface, the nature of glass, the nature of wood, the nature of material, all of it is basically molecules with a bunch of space in them. And so while they appear solid, its all really energy, electromagnetic energy that binds molecules together. It is not the way it appears to be. We have the habit of seeing what we see. But when one is awake, phenomena is basically empty of self-nature. And subtle energies, the very display that is samsara is understood in its nature.

In order to attain right view, you don’t have to be smart. Even though the people that are teaching it often use these wonderful big words, “all pervasive this,” and “foundational whatever.” And you think, “Wow, this sounds like you have to have a PhD to understand this.” And it’s not true. Correct view or right view isn’t about smart. It’s about wisdom. It’s about experience through contemplation and meditation. Even if you don’t have the big words, you can have a direct experience through contemplation. It begins with the insight that is brought to bear by having meditated on the Four Noble Truths in that we understand that all sentient beings are suffering. We begin to realize that desire is the problem, to understand the nature of reaction and attachment, and to understand the nature of phenomena and the truth that the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas prevail and are indeed omniscient and powerful. They have brought us the path and they remain. In other words it is the awareness and belief in the Three Precious Jewels – Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

We all have view. We have view right now. We are viewing each other. I’m viewing this lady’s pretty necklace, and I’m viewing my daughter, and I’m viewing you. We have it. Whatever we think in our mind, when we are viewing, this is our view.

To practice Right View, one trains the view. One trains so that when you look at somebody you don’t say, “I like him or I don’t like him.” You don’t react with attachment or repulsion. Right View means that you train yourself to see differently what is. For instance, say I am Caucasian and you are a black man. I look at you. If I say to myself, “Oh, I’m Caucasian, and he’s a black man.” That’s my view. That’s what I’m seeing. And in the Buddha dharma, it is not correct view. Not correct at all. Because we are to understand that within each of us, we are equal and we have the Buddha nature and that view is so completely superficial. If we look at someone else from another culture or family or another planet, and see only the differences, right view would be to correct that. It would be to see the sameness, to wake up to the fact that all sentient beings are inherently equal and that we share the same nature. I may be one color and you may be another but we share the same nature, and there is no color on that nature. So, this is where you begin. You see how this is a foundation where you become mindful and thoughtful? It’s not a generation stage practice where you are actually doing a puja, but it’s where you contemplate the fundamental meaning of the path. Having trained oneself in Right View, its so much easier later on when you begin to approach the bodhisattva vow and the compassion that we learn in Mahayana Buddhism, because with Right View as the foundation, we are half way there. We can have compassion for others. We can uphold others as the same as ourselves. And we can do for others what is kind and good to do. If we understand Right View properly and we have done the preliminary contemplations, then in Vajrayana it is much easier to have proper view with Vajrayana meaning.

In Vajrayana meaning we should see every female as the goddess, and every male as a god. We see each being in their truer nature. And we respect the women as being dakinis. We respect the men as being dakas. We respect, that is the View in Vajrayana. And nobody’s higher than anybody else except in the practice of Guru Yoga where we actually use the Guru as a focus to understand our own nature. But we’re not there yet. We’re still on Right View.

So it behooves us to contemplate the meaning of this, and how to approach viewing others, viewing your life, viewing your potential, and viewing the world at large. This is mind training. This is where you train your mind. If you don’t train your mind here, when you get to the higher levels of practice, you are too wobbly and unstable. You can practice real well for a while, but then you are gone. You must have this underlying stability, this understanding in order to really practice the path well and keep flourishing on it.

The Power of Speech

January 28, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

What is “Right Speech” in Buddha Dharma? Mostly as with the Eight Fold Path, we must do no harm. To understand right speech one must first understand what non virtuous speech is. That is where one speaks in a way as to be hurtful, offensive to another. Like name- calling and bullying others. Hate speech, in other words. Any speech that elevates oneself at the expense of others. Mean speech, speech without foundation, especially, which is gossip. Divisive speech. Speech that is not factual – lying. Telling tales to hurt a person’s livelihood. Lying speech causing one to prosper while others cannot as a result. Some think brutal honesty is right speech. Not so. Take the brutality out. Some think they are always right so brutality is necessary. Never the case!

We can always use right speech if we try. And to try we must be warm hearted and caring. Willing to take a back seat and applaud another’s efforts. At that point we can develop right speech, that is helpful. We can nurture, build confidence, benefit others with right speech. It is teaching, helpful and loving. When right speech is accomplished, in a future life one’s voice will be gifted and empowered. One will bring happiness and good result from teaching. One will be born with a beautiful voice, that is well loved and can transmit many blessings. That is the power of right speech, and one can see if they have spoken kindly in a previous life. The voice will be a beautiful thing, like a golden magical flute. All will benefit and Dharma will be spoken.

Guide Your Life With Right Though Part 1: Full Length Video Teaching

January 5, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

Right thought is part of the 8-fold Path first taught by the Buddha as he described the method for exiting suffering. Jetsunma explores the concept of right thought and how i weaves with your karma to affect your experiences now and in the future.

Guide Your Life With Right Thought: Part 1

January 3, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

Right thought is part of the 8-fold Path first taught by the Buddha as he described the method for exiting suffering. Jetsunma explores the concept of right thought and how it weaves with your karma to affect your experiences now and in the future.