enlightenment

Enlightenment is Awakening

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An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In their Nature, all sentient beings are essentially the Buddha––all humans, all animals, even all the microscopic little beings   running around on the tips or our noses.  We should regard that Nature as the basis or seed of the Path.  The Buddha’s revelation of the Path came directly from his awareness of this Nature.  Even though we ourselves are this Nature, we have a fixation on self-nature as inherently real.  Any idea we have now, any conceptualization, anything that comes from us, arises from thinking of ourselves as a self.

The Buddha gave the Path after he attained Enlightenment, and it arose from his Enlightened intention, from Enlightenment itself.  The Path is considered to be “the method.”  All the Dharma teachings you receive, even the commentary teachings I may give, all derive from the Buddha’s teachings, or have as their basis the Buddha’s teachings.  They are considered precious because they are the “method” that arises from the mind of Enlightenment.

You can only achieve the result of Enlightenment if the method you use arose from the mind of Enlightenment.  And you can be certain that this is the case only if you know that the result has been proven again and again.  This is because we ourselves cannot recognize the Buddha Nature––not in ourselves, not in any other being.  Not yet.  All we have to go on is a proven, result-bringing method.

The basis, or cause, brings forth the method, or Path, which is not separate from the goal, the fruit––which is the Awakening into our inherent primordial wisdom state.  These three (the basis, the method, and the goal) are inseperable, indistinguishable one from the other.  Therefore, we Buddhists never consider that we are moving towards an external goal.  We never make the mistake of those involved in a more Western idea of linear development––thinking that they are building a higher self, or even making a connection to a higher self.  And we never make the mistake of thinking that we are becoming great beings, or Masters, as those who are involved with linear thinking may do.  From our point of view, we haven’t moved at all.  Attaining Enlightenment is not gathering together a bunch of facts, as you might do in college.  Nor is it the gathering of a bunch of experiences.  We are indeed the total of our experiences, but only in a karmic sense.

Enlightenment is actually the “Awakening” to the naked state––the state that is free of all experience, the state that is pure luminosity.  We don’t go anywhere.  There is no building, no tearing down.  There is nothing of the accumulation we value in our life.  We have only pacified our chronic, compulsive fixation on self-nature, the fixation we have had since time out of mind.  This constitutes a profound difference between Buddhist philosophy and Western metaphysical or religious thinking.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

To download the complete teaching, click hereand scroll down to How Buddhists Think

The Benefits of the Awakening Mind

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1000 Armed Chenrezig Mandala

Here is another excerpt from the first chapter of A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life called “The Benefits of the Awakening Mind.”  May these words written by Shantideva inspire all who encounter them.

#26

How can I fathom the depths

Of the goodness of this jewel of the mind,

The panacea that relieves the world of pain

And is the source of all its joy?

#31

If whoever repays a kind deed

Is worthy of some praise,

Then what need to mention the Bodhisattvas

Who do good without it being asked of them?

#32

The world honors as virtuous

One who sometimes gives a little, plain food

Disrespectfully to a few beings,

Which satisfies them for only a half a day.

#33

What need be said then of one

Who eternally bestows the peerless bliss of the Sugatas

Upon limitless numbers of beings,

Thereby fulfilling all their hopes?

#34

The Buddha has said that whoever bears a harmful thought

Against a benefactor such as a Bodhisattva

Will remain in hell for as many aeons

As there were harmful thoughts.

#35

However, if a virtuous attitude should arise (in that regard),

Its fruits will multiply far more than that.

When Bodhisattvas greatly suffer they generate no negativity,

Instead their virtues naturally increase.

#36

I bow down to the body of those

In whom the sacred precious mind is born.

I seek refuge in that source of joy

Who brings happiness even to those who bring harm.

The Way Out

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Turning Adversity Into Felicity

When we practice Guru Yoga, we actually begin to develop the view that the lama is the source of liberation.  We begin to understand using traditional, prescribed images.  For instance, we are taught that we should think of samsara as being like a burning room. In samsara there is a great deal of suffering, and it’s actually just as probable that you will experience adversity as it is probable that you will experience felicity.  It is just as probable that you will experience suffering as it is that you will experience happiness and joy.  So we think of samsara as being untrustworthy, and we think—and this is true—that within samsara, because of our confusion and our lack of awareness about what our nature actually is,  we are constantly giving rise to the causes for more suffering.  This is constantly the case.  So we think of samsara as being like a burning room with no windows, that there is no escape except for this one door.  In our practice we think that the Lama is like that door.

The Lama is considered to be the door to liberation, the very means by which the blessing comes to us.  Without the Lama, we would not have been hooked onto the path.  Without the Lama, we would not receive the teaching.  Without the Lama, we would not understand the teaching.  Without the Lama, our minds would not be empowered and ripened and matured.  That is the responsibility of the relationship between the guru and disciple.  The mind must be matured in order to progress on the path.  So we rely on the Lama for all of these things without which we remain wandering in samsara experiencing birth/death/birth/death/birth/death with very little control.

Of course, when life is going well we think that this must not be true.  It looks like we have a lot of control in our life.  But if you think that, then you should read the newspaper more frequently, and you should talk to people who have been inflicted with incurable, diseases, who were afflicted completely out of the blue, not expecting that their lives would come to this.  You should talk to people who have suffered through circumstances that seemed to come from outside, misfortune, the loss of a job, the loss of loved ones.  These are terrible sufferings for us as human beings, and until we have experienced our fair share of them — and we will, eventually; old age, sickness and death, these things occur to all of us — we have the delusion of a certain kind of control in our life.  Ordinarily that kind of delusion comes with youth, and then later on, as we pass the age of supreme omniscience at about 30, we begin to discover that, in fact, we are not totally in control, that life seems to control us.

So we think of samsara as being this untrustworthy, inescapable difficulty, and we think of the lama as being the door to liberation.  We hold that kind of regard.  It isn’t that we worship a personality.  Of course, it’s not like that.  That would be very superficial and useless.  What good is a personality?  If we conceive of the Lama as a personality, what good would that do us?  We are a personality, and look where it’s gotten us!  That’s nothing to rely on.  So we rely on the Guru as the condensed essence of all the objects of refuge: all the Buddhas, all the Bodhisattvas, all the Lamas, all the meditational Deities, the Dakinis and the Dharma protectors all rolled into one, including all of the teachings.  These are the liberating truths of Dharma.  These are the objects of refuge.  So the Lama becomes the door through which we exit samsara.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Your Guru

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Ven Gyaltrul Rinpoche

From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Teacher is the cornerstone of all practice. The Teacher is everything—the underlying strength and the means by which transmission and understanding occur.

Let us compare the Teacher’s function with the function of various other objects of refuge. All people—not just Buddhists—have such objects. Try for a moment to determine your own. If you think that the accumulation of material wealth is the way to happiness, money has become your guru. The material things you treasure are your guru. If, on the other hand, you choose the beer-and-sports routine, watching ESPN every night until you fall asleep, you have accepted the TV as your guru. It pacifies you. It makes you temporarily happy. You betray yourself: these things are unreliable, impermanent, and deceptive. Yet you put your trust and faith in them. Nothing in our impermanent realm of phenomenal existence can lead to happiness. Nothing—even if it seems ideal, like the perfect job or the perfect relationship in a perfect split-level, with 2.5 perfect children surrounded by a perfect white picket fence. At the moment of death, you are alone.

According to Buddhist teaching, there is a lasting happiness: enlightenment. It is the only end to all forms of suffering, including impermanence. Enlightenment cannot be tainted; it cannot be eaten by moths. It cannot rust; it cannot be destroyed. Enlightenment is the true source of refuge, the only thing that will not allow you to be betrayed. True happiness cannot be taken away. It is permanent and unchanging—the steadfast, stable reality of the enlightened mind. When you achieve enlightenment, what is revealed is your own primordial-wisdom nature. Some people think that they must give birth to enlightenment or that they have to find it. Actually, the primordial-wisdom nature has never left you, nor is it unborn. It remains in the way that a crystal is still a crystal, even though covered by dirt and mud.

Once you accept enlightenment as your goal, you should understand that the Guru is someone who can get you there. What should you look for in a Guru? A Teacher should not be seeking power or personal gain. Your Guru should have profound compassion, profound awareness. Most important, your Teacher should be able to transmit to you a true path. Suppose you go to a psychiatrist who helps you to be happier, more effective. This is very useful, but it is only a temporary way to cope, whereas the Guru offers you supreme enlightenment. This has nothing to do with coping. In fact, it has nothing to do with satisfying the ego.

Do not be fooled by charisma, saying: “I can tell by my feelings. This is the Teacher for me!” Instead, ask: Does this person teach a path that has been proven, time and time again, to stabilize the mind to the extent that miraculous activity can occur? Does this Teacher offer a technology that can stabilize the mind during the death experience? Can this technology result in miraculous signs at the time of passing? Are there indications that others have had success with this path and can now return in an emanation form in order to benefit beings? Look at the people who have practiced before you. Look at their successes or failures. Examine the history of the path, including the accounts of any enlightenment it has produced. At their passing, practitioners may produce miraculous signs: rainless rainbows, sweet scents, the transformation of the body into a rainbow of light, leaving only the hair and nails, the mysterious formation of relics or other unusual substances. On the Vajrayana path, such miraculous signs have been witnessed and recorded by many. People have seen the rainbow body; they have smelled the sweet scents; they have seen these extraordinary events.

The Buddha Himself said that we should use logic in choosing a Teacher or a path. After that, however, you begin to rely on the Teacher for everything. Why? Because you make a god out of your Teacher? Do you lose your brains and become a drone or a bliss ninny? Not at all. We Americans like to think we are unique, important, the best in the world. We think that to be happy, we must develop our individuality, so the idea of following a Guru is unappealing. But a teacher should not be chosen with blind faith or rampant emotion. You should exercise both intelligence and surrender. They are not in conflict. They can coexist very comfortably within the same mind, the same heart.

Note that you do not surrender to a person. It is not about a person. Your Teacher represents the door to liberation, the path that leads to enlightenment. Your relationship with the Guru is the most precious of all relationships. This is you talking to you—and finding out that you are not you at all. This is a glimpse, a taste, of true nature. At last we have arrived at the correct way to understand the Teacher.

Cultivate the precious relationship with your Guru through devotion. Make sure, however, that it really is devotion—not merely the kow-towing to a physical being. Devotion is an understanding of refuge, an understanding of your goal, plus the courage to walk through the door you have chosen. Choose only once, and choose correctly. From then on, allow yourself the grace to love deeply and gently.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Compassion – The Foundation of the Path

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An excerpt from the Vow of Love Series by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In a superficial way the idea of compassion can seem very simple, and we might make the mistake of thinking that we understand it. But if we study compassion deeply, eventually we will come to understand that the ultimate view of compassion is enlightenment itself. It is the natural, primordial wisdom state itself. That’s why compassion isn’t truly known until we reach supreme enlightenment.

Compassion is the foundation of the Buddhist path. Without it, like any house that does not have a firm foundation, the house will crumble. It will not stand. One’s motivation to practice must be compassion. If your motivation is not compassion, it will be very difficult to firmly stick to the commitment to practice and meditate every day. I feel for those who say, “I’d really like to practice. I would really like to have a time in my life everyday to meditate, and yet I don’t have the discipline. I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the commitment.”  If you have the right motivation, if you want to do this solely and purely from the point of view of compassion, you will find the time and you will find the commitment and you will find a way to do it. For those who have tried to meditate everyday or be consistent in their practice, if they can’t do it, my feeling is somehow the foundation of compassion isn’t strong enough.

If we could make the idea of compassion so strong that it becomes a burning fire consuming our hearts, until we are nothing but a flame. If the need to benefit others becomes so strong that it’s irresistible. If the understanding that others are suffering so unbearably in realms that we cannot even see, let alone the realms we can, that we cannot rest until we find a way to be of some lasting benefit to them. If these things can truly become part of our minds, we will find the strength to practice.

How do you find the strength to breathe? “Well,” you say, “that’s easy. Breathing is a reflex. I have to breathe. If I don’t breathe, I die.” What if you could cultivate the understanding that all sentient beings are filled with suffering that is inconceivable in its magnitude and that there are non-physical realms of existence we are not even aware of, filled with suffering? What if you could cultivate this understanding so deeply that, because of your realization, compassion and profound generosity became as much a reflex as breathing?  That is possible.

“Well,” you say, “I don’t have that kind of understanding. I’m just not like that. I can’t make myself really buy into that.” Let me comfort you with this awareness. Unless you are supremely enlightened you are not born with that perfect understanding. No one is. No one is born with enough understanding of the suffering of others, and an affinity with the idea of compassion, to create that perfect discipline naturally. That understanding comes only through its cultivation, and we must cultivate that understanding consistently every day.

The Beginning of Awakening

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An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

One of the practices that we are taught as Buddhists is that always, always, Guru Rinpoche should be above the crown of our heads.  We should be mindful that Guru Rinpoche is always there, seated on his lotus throne.  Upon going to sleep, we should visualize that Guru Rinpoche becomes like light or liquid and then pours into the top chakra and through the central channel, and remains in the heart throughout the night.  We fall asleep with Guru Rinpoche in the heart.  This kind of mindfulness is the best part of practice.  No matter what else I do, even if I don’t sit down and practice formally, I practice like that all the time.  That’s the backbone that I rely on.

When I talk to any of my students, the way that I practice View is that, as a Lama, I consider that the students are higher than me.  (You should never do that!  But I can do that.)  I consider that the students are higher than me because there are many of them and I am only one and our nature is the same.  It’s a little bit like the posture of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. There is an element of sacrifice, there is an element of viewing the propagation of Dharma and the display of Bodhicitta to be all there is, the highest.  There is nothing else higher.  So I practice in such a way that the students are higher.  I hold them in high regard.  They are more precious to me than the other stuff that I do. I hold the students much higher than I hold myself.

It is the student’s job to practice that discrimination constantly.  One thing that we should do is consider that every event, every moment, every hour, every day, every breath has as its core nature Guru Rinpoche, the blessing of Guru Rinpoche, the appearance of Guru Rinpoche.  How does one practice that?  It is the kind of thing that you have to grow into.  You can’t just think all of a sudden, “Well, I’m never going to think about anything else.  I’m just going to think about Guru Rinpoche from now on, and therefore that’ll be real easy.  He’ll just always be on my mind.” That would make you crazy, wouldn’t it?  Trying to force that little monkey in a cage to do what you want? You don’t have to do it that way.

We start by creating habitual patterns that include body, speech and mind.  We want to include these three elements.  One way to practice this kind of mindfulness is to have an altar in your home.  If you don’t have an altar in your bedroom, perhaps you can have a picture by your bedside of Guru Rinpoche or your Root Teacher, maybe both. That’s a good visualization. Then, when you first wake up in the morning, the first thing you do — even before you go to the bathroom, even before the coffee — the first thing you do is look at that picture and reorient yourself: that this day the Guru is above the crown of my head.  This hour, this day, right now, the Guru is above the crown of my head and you make three prostrations.  You have it in your mind that this day is therefore sacred and then you dedicate the sacredness of this day to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings. No one can take that away from you no matter what happens during the day.  If you get hit by a car and both your legs come off, they still can’t take that away from you.  Even if you were to lose your life, the sacredness could not be taken away from you.

Any time you go into a specific event, whether it’s ordinary or whether it’s a spiritual event, hold the picture of Guru Rinpoche or the Root Guru in your mind, reestablish the picture above the top of your head, and know that this experience begins and ends with the Guru.  If you’re going to the grocery store to buy food for your children or your family, this is an excellent thing to do. Gradually, over time, even in ordinary experiences that had no flavor, that seemed to have no connection between this ordinary activity and spirituality, you will begin to establish more of a View and begin to see every experience as spiritual.  Whatever job you have, whatever activities you engage in, look for the Guru there.  If you look, you’ll find him.  If you don’t look, you’ll never find him.

With that kind of discrimination and Guru Yoga, I find that the amazing opportunities and blessings come through the most ordinary experiences.  To the degree that I see all phenomena as the mandala of the Guru, and I hold to be in union with the Guru constantly, then ordinary people, like gas station attendants, will say things that will blow your head off.  That has happened to me, where I’ve been in that frame of mind, looking for the Guru and constantly mindful, and then pull into a gas station, and the gas station attendant says something that just rocks your world.  And it’s about something weird, like renunciation or karma or something like that, and you say to yourself,  “I’m listening, OK!”  That happens.  That doesn’t make the gas station attendant your Guru.  You see the difference, don’t you?  But it does mean that you are beginning to discriminate that nature.  You’re beginning to awaken to that nature.  It’s just a little thread, but it’s something.  It is the beginning of awakening to that.

Somehow we have to think of incorporating this distinction of what is extraordinary into our lives.  It has to be an effort that we actually provide for and make substantial, that we actually create in our lives.  This opportunity to practice like that will never simply come to you.  You may simply meet your Guru, but that’s because you practiced in your last life.  That’s because you practiced before, that’s because you earned it, but once you meet the Guru, once you are on the path, this practice of Guru Yoga becomes your responsibility.  To the degree that you really address it in a very profound, deep and heartfelt way, to that degree, it will benefit and it will awaken the mind.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Get Real

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Yeshe Tsogyal

From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

 

The Vajrayana path is a great gift. Your mind can be purified through the practice of allowing it to arise naturally with those qualities of perfect union and perfectly purified perception. “Well,” you may say. “That sounds good, but will it work?” Yes, it will work. It will work by the power of the transmissions, by the intensity of your effort and faith, and through the power of the mantra and through devotion. These mantras are not invented by ordinary people. They come from primordial wisdom itself.

Though your perception is still faulty, understand that within the center of this confused mandala you have found the perfect path. You have found your teacher and you have received initiation. Something is happening. Therefore the process is not as endless as you may think. This is your precious opportunity, and you should take advantage of it. Where will you find another like it? You have so much help and all the necessary tools and nourishments. Keep in mind the choice. Do you wish to be a practitioner seeking that one precious virtue, or are you just a person wearing a costume? If you are a serious Vajrayana practitioner, you will stop dancing around with rules and regulations and, pardon the slang, “get real about it.” Get real about this path. Understand that you must have the only thing of value—the perception of primordial mind, the realization of the natural state of all phenomena. This is true purity, true virtue.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

What is Enlightenment?

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An excerpt from a teaching called The Seed of Your Buddha Nature Within by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

One understands that Enlightenment is actually the awakening to the Primordial Wisdom Nature, the awakening to the Buddha nature.  The Buddha never said that he was different from anyone else. He said simply, “I am awake.” He is indicating that he has awakened to the fullness of his own Nature and is able to abide spontaneously in that awakened state without any interruption or impediment. So, from that perspective, the basis of practice, the basis of the path itself is exactly the same as the goal. They are indistinguishable from one another. The path that one uses in order to achieve the goal is also indistinguishable from the basis, which is the Buddha Nature, and is also indistinguishable from the goal, which is the Buddha Nature. So, these three things, the basis, the method and the goal are indistinguishable from one another.

For us, however, it does not appear to be so, simply because of the way our minds work, involved in discursive thought as they are. We distinguish between what is potential and movement. We distinguish between movement and the goal. But in truth, you cannot distinguish between these three. If the basis for practice is the same as the goal, then anything in which you engage in order to achieve that awakening to your own Nature, must also be indistinguishable from your own Nature. The path, then, or the method, is not separate from the Buddha Nature.

Now, where we run into trouble is when we make our Dharma practice an outward movement that goes somewhere. When we do our practice, we project that there is going to be a certain result. That very subtle concept prevents the practice from doing all that it can do to remove obstacles from our own perception, because we cling to the idea of here-ness and there-ness, of such-ness and thus-ness, and in doing so, we cling to the idea of self. It’s very hard to understand that subtle difference, but that subtle difference is very important. If we did not view our Dharma practice as a subject, object, thing or as a linear movement in some way, we would more easily understand that the goal is the un-moveable, unchangeable, fully complete and spontaneously realized Nature itself, which is already present. The potential for the realization of that Nature would be much stronger in our practice, in terms of taking responsibility for our situation and utilizing our practice to its fullest capacity.

In order for us to consider our Dharma practice, or even the ability to listen to teachings, as a movement that ‘goes somewhere’– we have to be considering it in a very superficial way. But if the practice is understood as a natural and spontaneous manifestation, arising from the Buddha Nature that is our Nature, then the practice becomes less materialistic and more meaningful in a very profound way. In the same way, if we are in an ordinary environment and an ordinary teacher comes before us, we don’t respond as we would if the Buddha himself, with all the signs and marks, were sitting in front of us. If the Buddha appeared, we would respond with, “Whoa! Whoa! This is important! Something is happening here. The Buddha is here!” In truth, we should respond that same way to our own simple practice because that practice is indistinguishable from the Buddha Nature itself. The Buddha is here. But  the impact is different in the way that we consider and understand what we are doing.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Many are More Precious than One

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A Teaching from Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Three thousand years ago Lord Buddha introduced the idea of great compassion to an unknowing world. After his enlightenment he was asked to teach others the means to supreme realization. Although he was tempted to simply leave — knowing that almost no one would be interested in his teachings, and of those who were, few would try to follow them and fewer still would succeed — he nonetheless replied, “For those few, I will remain.”

Buddha is the exceptional teacher who teaches the development of great and selfless compassion as part of the technology of the path to enlightenment. But to develop such great love, it is first necessary to familiarize oneself with the nature of suffering and especially with its causes. Amidst the array of spiritual teachings, this perspective is unique because most people do not understand the reasons for suffering or how suffering appears in the world.

The Buddha taught us that human happiness through ownership, eating, drinking, gaining love, stature, approval, or even the happiness of engaging in pleasurable activities is at best temporary. These experiences do not prevent suffering because between these happy times we can experience times of distress.

Nor do happy times solve questions concerning the nature of suffering and why it arises. The Buddha taught that the happiness of enlightenment is not composed of impermanent things but occurs when one cuts out the sources of all unhappiness. Through understanding and meditation, one liberates the mind into true awareness, a state free of conditions and defilements. This pure awareness is a lasting state.

Ultimately, the attitude of care-taking or being responsible for the wellbeing of others, of caring for planet earth, its inhabitants and all the 3,000 myriads of universes described in Buddhist cosmology  is the true cause for ultimate and permanent happiness. Being responsible for all sentient beings is a spiritual technology the Buddha taught to be the supreme antidote to selfishness, compulsive desire, self absorption and all other symptoms of the ego.

When we remain selfish and neurotically fixated in the ego, we remain deeply unhappy. When we are in a state of profound generosity, having a relaxed mental attitude and pure motivation, we remain stable in a state of joy. Yet if we view caring for others only as a medicine, we may miss the beauty of it.

No sentient being is born with pure, unconditional, constant love. In the beginning, selflessness and generosity require discipline. Like all things, they must arise from a cause. One must break old habitual tendencies, and this requires discipline. Initially, one must understand the values of generosity and the pitfalls of selfishness. One cannot then rely on one’s feelings, because they are products of an ego distorted by the self-centered habits that produce unhappiness and disregard for others. It is necessary to understand the cause and effect relationship here.

Happiness does not just appear. Enlightenment does not just appear. Neither do unhappiness or suffering just appear. When one understands this apparently simple truth, it is possible to make generosity part of one’s activity in a true and lasting way, because one has a basis of understanding that will support and uphold the discipline necessary in the initial stages.

Ultimately, through persistence one can soar. There is a point at which a great leap takes place and one moves into an experience of effortlessness. This is because ultimately, in the pure state, compassion is part of one’s nature. We each, in fact, live in a world of our own making and have the choice of living selfishly, trying in a futile way to get happiness through gaining or having more phenomena (whether external or internal)  or we can live a life of generosity and responsibility, cognizant that there are many more sentient beings than just our selves.

Because their value is equal, many pieces of gold are worth more than a single coin. So it is with sentient beings. Many are more precious than one. Fortified with that awareness, one can live and act accordingly with simplicity, generosity and respect for life. The attitude of cherishing all sentient beings as though they were truly the same as you is a deeply moving and personal experience. It is a life changer. It is also the cause of happiness.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Practical Bodhicitta

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

All of our suffering is brought about because we have desire in our mindstreams.  Having desire, we have attachment and aversion, hope and fear. Examine your own thoughts.  Every one of them is either a thought of hope or a thought of fear.  There isn’t one that doesn’t have as an underlying cause of hope or fear, attraction or aversion.  Every one.  That is the way the mind of duality works.  So all of the experiences that we have, according to the Buddha, are caused by the karma of desire.  Making wishing prayers to return in a form in which you can benefit beings purifies the mind of desire.  You will find that desire rules your mind less and less. Compassion is the great stabilizer of the mind.

Never stop cultivating aspirational Bodhicitta.  While you are practicing aspirational Bodhicitta your mind becomes firm and stabilized.  You are so on fire that you need to practice, in the same way that because you are determined to live, you always remember to breathe.  With that intensity, you should be absolutely determined to accomplish compassion and benefit all beings.  You always remember to practice and be mindful.   Then you begin to practice practical Bodhicitta.

Practical Bodhicitta has two divisions.  It has a lesser and greater division, or personal and a transpersonal division.  Compassion on the personal level is what we call ordinary human kindness.  It is invaluable.  There is never a time in your life that you should not practice ordinary human kindness.  I am sometimes dismayed at people who have a high-fallutin’ idea about compassion and how to practice the Vajrayana path, and they know how to do the proper instrumentation and they can chant and they can do all these wonderful things.  But they aren’t kind to one another.  How you can think of yourself as a real practitioner and not even be nice to the person next to you? How can you be arrogant?

Ordinary human kindness must be constantly practiced.  If you know of someone who is hungry, you should do your best to feed them.  If a starving child were in front of you, wouldn’t you feed him or her?  If someone that you loved really was lonely, wouldn’t you try to help them?  Of course, these are ordinary human kindnesses.  We’re not even perfect in that, are we?  I mean, we let ourselves and our families down.  We let everybody down on a regular basis.  Sometimes ordinary human kindness is impossible to achieve.

Ordinary human kindness is not lesser in its fabric or nature, but it touches less people.  For instance, let’s say you needed a friend. If I were to stay with you for some period of time, we would talk and we would share. Maybe I would teach you to meditate, if I were to discover that you’re the kind of person that would really respond to that.  But if I don’t do that, maybe I’ll have the time to teach a large group of people. Essentially I might be able to benefit many people as opposed to benefiting one person, even though you are very important and precious to me.  Yet even teaching a larger group of people is actually an intermediate level of practice. There are only so many people that can fit in this room and can be taught.

What is the highest level of compassion?  What is the highest level of Bodhicitta?  You have to go back to the Buddha’s teaching to figure this one out.  The Buddha says that all sentient beings are suffering and that there is an end to suffering and that the end to suffering is enlightenment.  That’s the only true end to suffering.  If you fed every one that’s hungry everyday and provided them each with a companion so that they’re never lonely, gave them nice clothes, they still will experience old age, sickness and death.  There’s nothing you can do about that.  And you have no control over how they will be reborn in their next incarnation.  They could come back in a form in which they still suffer.  The only end to suffering is to eradicate the cause of suffering from the mindstream.

The root cause of all suffering is the belief in self-nature as being inherently real. It’s the mother of all-pervasive desire in the mindstream.  The children are hatred, greed and ignorance.  The mind of duality causes us to act in certain ways that create the karma so that our lives manifest in certain ways.  If we suffer from hunger or old age or sickness or death, whatever it is that we suffer from, the root cause for those sufferings is the belief that self-nature is inherently real. How can you possibly uproot all of that from your mindstream?  How can you rid the very seed of suffering from your mindstream?  According to the Buddha, that is to achieve enlightenment.  To help sentient beings remove these causes from their mindstreams, we must ourselves first achieve enlightenment.  The purpose of self, which is to achieve enlightenment, is the same as the purpose of other, which is to achieve enlightenment.  They are the same, in the same way that we are non-dual, these purposes are non-dual.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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