grief | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Responsibility of Choice

December 7, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I’d like to explain it in whatever way I can—even though the vocabulary is limited, and I myself am extremely limited—I’d like to explain it in whatever way I can over and over and over again. And do you know the interesting thing is that I often get caught in not understanding. It hooks me, too. Every time. Recently, I saw again, after not seeing for a very long time, someone whom I consider to be tremendously suffering, tremendously suffering, who I’ve known has had a great deal of the experience of suffering during the course of their life. Someone for whom in my heart of hearts I felt, you know, a terrible grief. Terrible grief. And for that person, I always wished that there was some hope. The idea that I had, although it was on a subtle level, was that that person had been victimized. I know that as a child that person was a victim of abuse. I know that many circumstances happened that made that person’s life very, very difficult. And during the course of that person’s adult life, there were tremendous, tremendous obstacles to overcome, tremendous difficulty. And yet, I know the Buddha’s teaching, and I know that the content of our mindstream is constantly being displayed as our lives. But caught in the trap of that idea that somehow we could suffer without cause, that somehow we were victims, that somehow circumstance could occur to us, and that we were somehow blameless and innocent, I fell prey to that idea. That’s never the case; it is never the case. Each and every person who experiences difficulty does so because of cause and effect relationships that they themselves began at some point, perhaps a point that they do not remember. The Buddha teaches us that if we have suffered a great deal, if we do suffer a great deal from loneliness, and the longing for love and approval, and that kind of need, a strong need, that somewhere in the past (and this is hard to take in), we ourselves were not kind. We ourselves were not supportive of others. We were not generous and loving. Now it may actually be that in this lifetime, we have made a real effort to be generous and loving and supportive to others, so you can’t go by that.

The Buddha teaches one thing about which I am supremely confident, and I’ve become more and more so with each passing day: You should never go to a psychic or anybody like that to find out what your past lives are about. If you want to find out what your past lives are about, look in the mirror now. Are you poor? Then you weren’t too generous. Are you not so good looking? Then in the past, you were not, with your body, faithful and loyal and virtuous. That’s the truth. Are you lonely? Because in the past, you probably were not kindly and supportive to others. Are you wishing that you had love and there isn’t much love in your life? Then, probably in the past, you were self-absorbed and really only caring about what you felt and what was going on with you and what your needs were. These are hard things to take in. But the Buddha teaches that for every single result that we are experiencing, there is a cause; and that cause is within our mindstream. Now, that’s both good news and bad news. At first, you have to look in the mirror and you have to be real brave and you have to face that. And that’s the hard part. That’s the bad news. Nobody wants to look in the mirror and say, ‘You did that. You had something to do with that.’ You have some qualities that are in seed form hidden within your mindstream that are ripening even now. Nobody wants to take responsibility. We all want to feel only good; and we only want some external force to give a blessing and then we’ll all be happy in heaven. That’s what we really want. Take a pill. Like that. So at first it’s very difficult and I think that the beginning of adapting this philosophy and accepting the Buddha’s teaching and beginning to act on it is actually an act of courage. It’s tough. It’s really tough.

What makes it tough? Is it because you have to practice for hours and hours a day? No, that’s your choice. You can practice a little bit, or you can practice a lot according to your disposition. You can start practicing a little and you can end up practicing a lot. It’s really up to you. You can be following the Buddha’s teaching at your own level. There’s no pressure to do extraordinary amounts of practice. It’s not like that. What makes that first step so courageous is that you really have to accept the great law of cause and effect. But the good news is that suddenly you have power. There is an antidote. Before you were hopeless and helpless. If you looked at your life, and there was no love in your life, you could only say, ‘Wow, poor me! There’s nothing I can do about this. I’m really hopeless and I’m really helpless. What am I going to do? Nobody loves me.’ And then you can start whining about it. And, of course, that will never make you happy. And what is it going to do? Is it going to change anything? It will never change anything. It will only alienate others even more, because you will be continuing the root cause of selfishness and self-absorption. It will never produce any good results. And if you were to look into your life and you were to say, ‘Well, I’m really not a happy person. I mean, I have many things, I have many physical things. I have a good house and a good car and all kinds of interesting things in my life, but I’m not happy. I don’t seem to be happy and it’s just, you know, I’m a victim. Just some people are happy, and I’m not. And I don’t know why other people get all the breaks and why I don’t get all the breaks.’ I mean, you’ve heard the litany, haven’t you? I don’t need to repeat it again. I’m sure if you haven’t said it recently, then you’ve said it in the past; and if you haven’t said it in the past, you have, but you’ve forgotten. But, anyway, you can remember somebody else doing it. So I don’t have to repeat the litany. But with understanding cause and effect relationships, you can look in the mirror and you can say, ‘Yes, up until this time, I have planted seeds that have brought bad fruit, but I have the opportunity to apply the antidote. And I can apply it, I can plant good seeds and reap good fruit.’

Happiness, love, wealth, joy, contentment and peace, relaxation in any form, even health are all habitual tendencies. They are all habitual tendencies. Those among us, and there are many, who do not seem to have the karma of happiness or contentment, who cannot achieve any kind of inner peace, cannot do so because they do not have the habit of it. And they do not have the habit of it, because in the past they have instituted many causes that bring about the result of such an occurrence. If we have the result in our lives of having no capacity to be able to engage in, for instance, a loving relationship, if it seems that we look around and there really are no loving relationships in our life, it is because we do not have the habit of it. And we do not have the habit of it, because we ourselves in the past did not engage in the giving aspect of that kind of loving relationship. Well, we all think that now, now we’re changed. Now we are engaged in the giving aspect of such a loving relationship. Yes, I’m trying to get a loving relationship. I go from person to person, and try to get a loving relationship. I get in everybody’s face that I can get my hands on, and say, ‘You will love me.’ And so I’ve changed. Now I’m a loving person. I love everybody I can get my hands on. What are you doing? Are you generous, are you kind? Not in the least. Are you giving love? No, it’s all about you. You want, you need, you want, you need. That’s what you think about, because you have the habitual tendency of being needy and loveless due to a lack of generosity in the past. Now, the Buddha teaches us that the antidote is not to go out and join a singles club; but, rather, what we must do, instead, is to be as loving and as kindly to others as possible. To give without thought of any return. You want any thing in return. You don’t need approval; you want approval. You just give. You’re kind.

Now, at first, most people don’t know how to do that. They really are inept at that sort of thing and they will end up trying to take anyway. So the Buddha gives us an actual series of practices that are antidotal. Very, very different. There are many different kinds of practices from generating oneself as the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and pouring forth compassion without exception to all sentient beings equally. And you don’t get letters back from them, believe me. Pouring out compassion to all sentient beings equally, and in that way, beginning the habit of genuine loving kindness. That’s one antidote. That’s a good one. And then you can make wishing prayers for all sentient beings. You can circumambulate the stupa going clockwise. Please do so. It’s makes me happy to know that you’ve had the opportunity. So you can circumambulate the stupa, or you make some offering on an altar; and at the same time you say, ‘By this merit, or by this offering, or by the virtue of this prayer, may all sentient beings be free of suffering.’ You’re lonely? You know what the best antidote to that is? Pray for those who are lonelier than you. Pray endlessly. And don’t expect any of them to know that you’re doing so. And don’t expect anything back for it. That really is an antidote to such suffering. And those who are the unhappiest are the ones who are most resistant to hearing that. But, there actually is an answer; there actually is an antidote. And you can begin like that.

Limit the Obsessive Interaction: From “Surviving a Stalker” by Linden Gross

March 2, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “Surviving a Stalker” by Linden Gross:

Stalking is like a long rape. The stalker’s objective is to force you to surrender. Victims respond not with a single reaction, but with a progression of emotions akin to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of loss: denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, and then acceptance. But because you participate, however unwillingly, in the crime, you also experience depression, anxiety and fear.

Put yourself in the place of a stalking victim. Whether you’ve just split up with a mater who refuses to let you go, or attracted to the unwanted of a co-worker or stranger, what would your first reaction be? “This can’t be happening,” you’d say to yourself. “Things like this happen to other people. Not to me.” Then you’d assume that you must be imagining the whole affair. “I’m just overreacting. I’m paranoid.”

By doubting your own reality, you’ve begun to doubt yourself. In one quick step, you’ve put yourself at a disadvantage.

When you finally realize or accept the fact that you are being victimized, you try to bargain with your stalker. If you can just appease him by giving in to some of his wishes, then maybe he’ll leave you alone, you figure. “Okay, fine,” you tell him. “I’ll meet you for coffee.” But the demands escalate. And now that you’ve established a precedent, the stalker expects you to respond in similar fashion.

Anxiety sets in. Never knowing when or where he’s going to turn up or what he’s going to do next, you can think of little else. You don’t feel safe at home, at work, or anywhere else. The more frightened you become, the more debilitating your anxiety. In trying to cope with the situation and manage your emotions, you basically start to short-circuit. “You’re using so much mental energy that you begin to eat up your supply of neural transmitters,” explains Dan Coler, a Richmond, Virginia, psychotherapist. “At which point the synapses of your brain start shutting down and large parts of your brain just stop functioning. Suddenly you can’t concentrate. You feel like you’re an ant struggling to carry a matchstick. Little things that never bothered you before are major catastrophes. ”

Exhausted, you have no resources left.

That’s when the depression hits, so profound that you feel like you’re in a deep dark hole that you can never climb out of. Your self-esteem begins to disintegrate. You can’t function normally. Recurrent nightmares, sleep and eating disorders, and a growing sense of apprehension about everything afflict you.

You begin to wonder why this has happened to you, what you did to encourage it. Should you have said yes to him? Should you have said no more firmly? If you had just walked the other way, taken another job, or married someone more suitable, none of this would have happened, you reason. Then, as if to cement those notions of culpability, the stalker goes after someone close to you. Maybe the person you’re dating. Or your mother. “You can’t control what he does,” says the therapist you’ve started to see. It doesn’t help.

With time you begin to realize you’re not to blame. As with the rapist, the stalker’s act is what counts. You just happened to be there. The more fully you acknowledge how little the situation actually has to do with you, the harder it is to countenance the impact the stalker has had on your life. You get angry–so angry that you’re ready to do almost anything to get him out of your life.

Finally, you accept what your life has become. And while you mourn the innocence, trust, and insouciance that you’ve lost, you can finally start to deal with your situation objectively. Which means that you can finally limit your ongoing role in the obsessive interaction.

If you’re a stalking victim, you certainly can’t be blamed for the harassment to which you’re subjected. But you may have inadvertently contributed to the problem. Most stalking cases–those that don’t involve public figures–aren’t lightening strikes or shark attacks. “There is something about who the stalker selects and where he finds his encouragement early on,” says Gavin de Becker. “Stalkers, like all predatory criminals, circle around the victim and test her a little bit. With a jab here and look there, they try to figure out whether their target is going to hurt them, or whether their target is going to play into their scenario.”

Once a stalker has selected someone he suspects won’t assert herself, he’ll most often manipulate his victim through fear. But guilt also serves as a valuable weapon for establishing a power base.

In the fall of 1988, entering freshmen Theresa Esquibel met Ted Miller, a resident in her college dorm. The two clicked well and soon started sharing the intimate details of their lives. He talked of the problems he’d had with his parents and of an early attempt at suicide. And he helped boost Theresa’s self-esteem, which a serious car accident and long recovery had shattered.

Midway through the fall quarter, Theresa began to realize that her new confidant might want to be better than her friend. A discussion just before the holidays relieved her concerns about his interest. “I love you as a sister, nothing more,” he told her. “But that means a lot to me because I’m an only child.” Later that night, after they’d spent hours talking, he began to hold her. Although the contact wasn’t sexual, the physical closeness made her uncomfortable. But she said nothing, hoping she was wrong. The Bible that Ted gave her for Christmas however, clearly betrayed his true feelings. On the inside cover, in tiny print, he’d carefully written the word I love you over and over again, line after line, covering a page and half. “That’s so you’ll always think of me,” he told her.

Theresa returned from the holiday break feeling stronger and more ready to deal with the mental and emotional rigors fitting into college life. Of course, investing more energy into her classes and reaching out to new people meant that she had less time for Ted. He took it personally. “You never come by my place. I always have to come find you,” he would say. Or, “I left two messages on your machine, and you’ve been back from class for five minutes.”

He began to monitor her arrival in the dorm, and show up at her door immediately upon her return. When she told him that she needed some time alone, he accused her of not being a true friend. T hostility increased when she began to date someone steadily. Theresa tried to maintain their friendship, but that was getting harder and harder. “It was like I was his wife and not treating him fairly.”

Unable to contain his jealousy, Ted would pepper Theresa with questions about her relationships with other men. Then he’d sit on the dorm landing and chronical her comings and goings. One night as she and Joe, her boyfriend, left for a dinner date, he heaved a book against the wall just as the elevator doors shut. When Theresa later questioned the violence of his reaction, he told her that he wanted to make a point to them before they went out, in a way that would give them no time to react to him.

Life had begun to close in on Ted. Upset about his father’s plans to remarry, devastated by the news that a close high school friend was fatally ill, he couldn’t bear the notion of losing his main source of emotional support. In an effort to hold onto Theresa, he became controlling and domineering. “Don’t you ever reveal anything I tell you,” he said to the increasingly intimidated young woman. “I’ll be able to tell you have just by looking at your face.”

As the weeks passed, Ted’s anger grew. He accused Theresa of betrayal, and tried to intimidate her with allusions to the kinds of violence of which he was capable. “I have so much anger, I could kill anyone who wrongs me, and I would if I ever lost control,” he told her at one point. Another time, he threatened to kill Joe.

One night he called her room. “Good-bye,” he said into the phone in a quivering voice. Afraid of the message’s implications, Theresa raced to his room. When he finally agreed to let her in, she found him sitting at his desk, his eyes expressionless, his lips pressed tightly together. Lined up before him were six bottles of prescription medications.

Theresa spent the night trying to dissuade him from killing himself. He responded by trying to get close physically. “You are responsible for my life, I have no one else to count on,” he told her while caressing her face. “Don’t leave me. You are the only one who can help me.”

As the weeks went by, Ted continued to monitor Theresa’s activities and try to control her actions, especially with regard to Joe. “Did you fuck him?” he asked upon the couple’s return from an impromptu trip to San Francisco. “I’ll find out anyway,” he said when she refused to answer. “Word will get out. I’ll know.”

By the time Ted dropped out of school later that year, he’d succeeded in making Theresa feel responsible for his decline. Four years later, she’s finally coming to terms with the idea that he was emotionally and mentally unstable. But his face still haunts her dreams.

Society encourages women to be soft and loving, and to use their sexuality–in the guise of smiles, flattering clothes, and gentility–to deal with the world in general and men in particular. To a potential stalker, those traits can be interpreted as receptiveness and malleability–usually, all the encouragement he needs.

Like Vibes With Like

December 22, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Let’s say that your immediate family consists of four people, so you have a particular karma with three others. Those three all have both negative and positive karmic seeds coming to the surface, just as you do. When you four came together, you did so because certain karma was ripening. You could not marry; a child could not be born to you, unless that particular karma was ripening in your mindstream, and in someone else’s. When this karma comes together, it has a kind of interactive characteristic. Like tends to attract or “vibe with” like.

Perhaps you have some horrible negative karma associated with cruelty to animals. You may have a child, or there may be someone else in your family, who has a similar negative karma. Though you won’t understand why, it is likely that something will happen to reinforce the catalyzing effect of your relationship. For instance, you might get a dog that both of you abuse. Or you might develop a terrible animosity toward animals that you would not have experienced so overwhelmingly, if you had not been with that particular person. In your past, you also have karma of being kind to animals. And had you come together with a person with strong kind-to-animals karma, that relationship might have catalyzed something completely different. Let’s say that you have a period of intense anger: the karma of anger is coming to the surface. If you let yourself fall into that anger, really wallow in it, then you will tend to ripen still more anger from the deeper past, and those bubbles will continue to come forward. On a superficial level, the anger will seem to feed on itself. You will feel compelled to be angry.

But suppose you do everything you can to overcome your anger. Though angry at someone, you tell yourself: “This person is suffering just as all sentient beings are, and doesn’t really mean to act that way.” If you truly try to circumvent the anger by reasoning it out, what will happen? Instead of having more anger ripen and come forward, you will ripen a different kind of karma. Perhaps the karma of clear thought. Basically, you can prevent future ripenings of negative karma by taking hold of yourself at any given point. You have a precious human rebirth; you have the Dharma; and you can think logically. You are able to choose how to cope with any anger that arises.

When some people have an unpleasant feeling, such as anger, hatred, or grief, they habitually cover it over. If they become angry, for example, they say, “I feel only love.” Or: “There is only love.” This is like slapping a Band-Aid on an ulcer, which only continues to ripen and grow deeper. By plastering one thought on top of another, you actually link them together. And what happens? Either your anger and hatred will remain inflamed on an underlying level (a frequent result), or you may ripen the karma of delusion. Your mind will be very unclear. Those who use such methods over a long period of time become deeply set in delusion. It seems as if they have gone somewhere else, and one is tempted to ask, “Are you still in there? Anybody home?” There are just too many layers of Band-Aids. What you need is to examine the contents of your mindstream. And begin to view your own mind as something you can work with, something you can take responsibility for.