Guru Yoga | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Feast

May 30, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Tsog - A Spiritual Feast

The banquet is ready
The feast is set
And never will I forget
The taste, the sweetness.

The Bodhichitta, sublime display
Of all the Buddhas. Sweetness
Without measure. Peerless pleasure
The dazzling play of light
And essence.

Oh! For the day still coming
When virtue prevails
The ship to Liberation sails
For you. Come aboard!
Know the Lotus Lord.

In this day, in this time,
Taste the bliss- love sublime awaits.
Where are you? Will you obey
The call within, or turn away?
Will the treasure be yours, today?

Oh, Beloved, will you stay?

By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on October 23, 2009

The Graceful Movement of Offering

April 5, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Seven Limb Puja: Viewing the Guru by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

In the face of the Guru, which is always, we should always be making offerings. Do you make offerings when you come to temple? Nice, but not enough. Do you make offerings when you put water into the little bowls on your altars in the morning? Nice, but not enough. Do you make offerings of the first portions of your food? Great, but not enough. We should be making offerings constantly. But how can we do that? You think, “Oh, my hands are busy. I can’t always be making offerings.” Well, of course, most of the offerings, therefore, are going to be mental offerings. If we are making mental offerings appropriate to the information that I have just given you, which is that the Guru’s face is indistinguishable from our own nature, and that we are always in the presence of the Guru, then there should never be a moment that we do not make offerings. Now, what would that look like? How could you practice that way?

In the face of the Guru you must not grasp or cling to anything.

That means, if you smell something and it’s a delicious smell, you offer it immediately, rather than keeping it for yourself. You know how, when we smell food, we go (sniff sound) “Mmm Delicious! I’m keeping that; that’s mine! I get that!” So instead of that, you smell it, you enjoy it, and you offer the nectar of that to the Lama; every smell that you take in that is beautiful; even the smells that you take in that are not beautiful, you think of them as being instantly transformed into the very essence of bliss and offer that to the Guru. Offer everything that you see.

You know how we see things and say, “How beautiful! Good, I’ll take that!” We walk outside like we own the day. “Beautiful day! My eyes are drinking it in! I’m getting this!” That’s how we enjoy the day. We eat it, eat it, eat it. The habit of greed is so strong. Instead of doing that, remember that you are in the presence of the Guru constantly; that the Guru literally abides within your channels, winds and fluids, within your psychic spiritual inner structure. That nature which is your nature IS the Guru. So whenever you see something with your eyes that is beautiful, instantly offer your eyes, offer the vision, offer the feeling, offer the pleasure to the Lama, to the holy one who has crossed the ocean of suffering for your sake. Instantly offer it up.

Eventually, you get into a habit. At first it’s like, “I saw that!” Quick, “Okay, I saw that! Okay!” In the beginning we get a little spastic and a little nuts. But, later on, it becomes a natural, graceful, spontaneous movement. You actually change the way your perception works. It takes a little time, it takes some practice, but there will come a day when naturally you do not cling to your sight. Yes, you see; yes, it registers in your brain; yes, your pupils and your irises and all those things work just right, but the difference is that there is a kind of graceful offering up that naturally occurs. It’s as though you didn’t grab onto everything in front of you. Eventually it becomes a natural, graceful movement of offering.

Do you remember when you first started practicing Bodhicitta and you didn’t feel like it? It was like, “Yeah, I’m grateful to all motherly sentient beings. May they all rest in peace.” in the same tone of voice that you would say, “Rot in hell!” That’s the kind of thing we did when we first started practicing Bodhicitta and we didn’t have the habit of it. I watched; I saw it. And then, after a time it became more natural, didn’t it? It becomes more natural to think kindly, to think of compassion regarding other sentient beings. It’s like that now with your perception. You make offerings constantly to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and to the Lama who embodies all the objects of refuge. Anything that you receive, consistently offer. It doesn’t mean that you don’t get to keep it. I mean if it disappears in front of you, I would take that as a sign that somebody wanted it! Please understand that we are not looking at this in a limited, superficial way! We know that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas don’t actually need our offerings. They are content and complete. They are perfect. So when we offer to the objects of refuge we are doing so for our sake, not for their sake. Isn’t that true? So, of course, you think in that way. Obviously then, if you make an offering, it probably won’t disappear! But you never know!

You get in the habit of thinking that whatever you have, “Ultimately belongs to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. Ultimately, everything that I own I have given.” There is this posture that naturally occurs over time of peacefulness and lack of tension regarding personal possessions. We begin to think that it’s already been offered and therefore, there’s nothing to cling to. And so, slowly, slowly, over time, we develop that habit and the habit becomes very real. Our minds become very smooth and more joyful. It isn’t having that makes us joyful, it’s freedom from the need to have that makes us happy.

Therefore, we make constant offerings because we are constantly in the presence of the Guru and we should think like that. We should actually think that here, in the presence of the primordial empty nature, non-dual as the display of luminosity, here in the presence of the fundamental Bodhicitta, the miraculous Bodhicitta, the unbelievably potent, pure uncontrived Bodhicitta, it is simply not appropriate to cling and grasp. It becomes filthy and disgusting.

Suppose Guru Rinpoche were sitting right in front of you, and there was some tea or some food put in front of you. Would you say, “Gimme, gimme?” I mean, how could you even think of eating with Guru Rinpoche in front of you? You would offer, “Please take, please, take everything. Please take everything that I have! Please eat. Please let me offer this to you!” You must think that, in fact, that is the case. That the precious Bodhicitta is always with us, that the Lama is always with us, and so it is never appropriate to grasp; it is never appropriate to keep for ourselves what should naturally be offered. In this way, we get ourselves into the habit and the grace of constant offering.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Precious Nectar of Enlightenment

April 4, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

When we meditate on Buddhahood or contemplate on what it would be like to achieve realization, what do we think we are after? What do we think the result will be? Eventually, through the force of our practice, we are hoping, (and if we practice well, this will surely be the result), that someday we will awaken as the Buddha has awakened. So we are actually looking to give rise to the very same thing that we are looking at when we see the Guru. We are looking to give rise to the primordial empty nature. We are looking to give rise to this nature which is free of contrivance, free of distinction; this primordial empty nature that is the innate nature, the Buddha nature. We are trying to give rise to that in such a way that it appears, even within samsara. We wish to attain realization now. So it is that very union of emptiness and display, of emptiness and luminosity, of wisdom and method that we wish to give rise to in our practice. This is the very ultimate object of refuge.

From the Vajrayana point of view we are told that realization will never happen without the necessary ripening that is provided by the root Guru. We are told that in our practice we are dependent upon the root Guru to transmit this blessing and to lead us through the door of liberation. But we must understand that it is more than that. Practicing devotion in the way that we do opens the door, creates the connection, creates the habit, creates the karma, creates the cause by which we will awaken to our own primordial wisdom nature in the future. And that nature will appear in samsara as the enlightened appearance. This is the goal. This is the very wish. Understood in that way, the Lama then becomes even more the center of our mandala – the mandala of our practice, of our hope, of our prayers, of our devotion, of our lives. The Lama, then, becomes the very core of our lives.

You must understand that there is never a time that you are not in the presence of the Lama. Not for a moment is there a time that you are not in the presence of the Lama. If you refuse, if through ignorance you doubt, if through habit you ignore, if through slothfulness you simply put no effort into accomplishing that view, then you are not actually turning away from the Guru “out there.” This is not an act that is happening between you and somebody else. You are not slighting the person that is sitting on the throne. That is not what is happening. What is happening is that you are turning your own mind away from the very face of your Enlightenment, away from your nature. You are splitting yourself away from salvation. You are wrenching yourself away from the very hope that will bring future happiness and realization. You are cutting yourself away from the root of your accomplishment.

Now that I have told you this, you cannot in good faith and good conscience remain superficial in your practice any longer. You must understand that every moment that you say, “Oh, well, I can do this,” or every time you push away the Lama in order to live in your ordinary samsaric mental posture; every time you do that, you are spitting in the face of your own Buddha seed. You are turning yourself away from primordial emptiness, from the Buddha nature, from the pure luminosity that is the very display of that nature, that luminosity that we also know as the Bodhicitta. So then you have abandoned the root of your accomplishment. You have abandoned the very milk of your nature, and you have shut the door to the great Bodhicitta. That is what we do when we forget and deny that we are always sitting at the feet of the Guru. We are always looking into the eyes of the Guru. And so, we have to train ourselves to keep the Guru above the crown of the head, on the throne within our hearts, in our eyes, in our ears, in our hands. We have to train ourselves as though we were some kind of precious vessel that was carrying around this most precious nectar of Enlightenment. We can’t spill a drop; neither can we turn away from it. And we’ve spilled so many drops already.

But now we know what we have in our hands, and like practitioners that have perhaps moved from childhood to adulthood, we can now expect ourselves not to drop the ball, not to drop our practice, whereas before, we were like children. You know, when you teach children to prostrate, you do not worry whether their form is perfect. When you teach them to say mantra, you know they are going to make mistakes. But now we’re moving past that regarding our devotional yoga. We can no longer allow ourselves to be the children that we once were.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Religion of Cause and Effect

March 17, 2018March 16, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

We try very hard as practitioners to practice Guru Yoga clearly and purely, the practice of fervent regard toward the Guru, utilizing the Guru as a tool of benefit in one’s life. One thing that we should be perfectly clear about when we are trying to practice in this way, is which religion we’re actually practicing. Our tendency as Westerners is to repeat the patterns and ideas that we have seen before in the religions that have been in our culture far longer than Buddhism has been. In the religions that our parents practiced and their parents before them, that are native to our Western culture, the idea of looking at the object of refuge, might be, perhaps, if one is a Christian, Jesus, or if one were a Muslim, Mohammed. I don’t know enough about the other religions to really say clearly. If I’m making a mistake, please pardon me. But I will say that generally the pattern that we have been taught is that you have faith, and the declaration of faith is simply enough, that you embrace this idea of faith, and the faith itself– there’s an element of magic to it, in a sense. It seems as though the faith itself will simply carry us through.

In Buddhism we don’t feel like that, although faith is certainly an element, and it certainly has the capacity to carry us. Buddhism is, uniquely, a religion of cause and effect relationships. When we go into life situations, we do so with our brains intact and our eyes open. We clearly are aware that without creating the causes for happiness there will not be the condition of happiness, that you cannot create an apple tree through a grape seed. It simply doesn’t happen. Cause and result seemingly arise one after the other, but in fact we are taught in Buddhist teaching that they arise at the same time, interdependently. And we are a religion of realizing that we must create the auspicious causes in order to receive the appropriate results. So while we want to adopt the idea of faith, we wouldn’t do a practice or hold an inner mind posture that would be what I call “idiot faith.” We would not engage in a practice that, well, quite frankly, makes us look a bit like a bliss-ninny. We would not engage in a practice that was mindless and not thought through.

Faith is definitely a component, but the way that it is used when we are using the practice of Guru Yoga, is like this. All conditions have within them a mixture. Even the best conditions, the most wonderful conditions, have within them, because they arise in samsara, the seed or inherent causes by which equal amounts of unhappiness as well as happiness will arise. And so, when unhappiness comes to us, we absolutely should engage in curative measures.

Primarily we would engage in curative measures through establishing faith and confidence in the Guru, but it doesn’t stop there. It isn’t simply holding the idea of faith and confidence in the Guru. At that point, with faith and confidence in the Guru, we actually have to rely on the teachings that the Guru has given us. That’s how you have faith and confidence in the teacher. You don’t just say it and proclaim it and go back into some deluded “oh-don’t-worry-everything’s-going-to-be-fine” kind of idea. You would, with faith and confidence in the Guru, begin to use what the Guru has taught.

The Guru teaches us first of all, of course, that in order to create the result of happiness and freedom, we must create the causes of happiness and freedom. The causes of happiness and freedom are given to us in our Dharma practice. They’re not a secret. You can come here; you can learn; you can begin today, this very moment, to engage in creating the causes that will create your future happiness.

The Nature of the Guru

February 18, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Guru is Your Diamond”

The Lama gives us not only a way to have single-pointed concentration, but the Lama also offers their own accomplishment. When one practices the Guru Yoga really deeply, whether it be in the Guru Yoga in Ngndro, or Shower of Blessings, or in any of the pujas that have Guru Rinpoche as the main focal point or Guru Rinpoche and consort as the main focal point, we should think thatthis is the way to practice Guru Yoga. And in each one of those practices, whichever it is, we understand nondual nature. That’s what we’re working on.

We see the arising from the nature of emptiness appearing in a real, but insubstantial gossamer-like light form, first as the seed syllable, and then as the Guru. We are telling ourselves our own story, because it is we also who have arisen from emptiness. It is our nature that is indeed also the seed syllable. Ultimately we are the same nature as the Guru. By the power of the Guru’s accomplishment, through their many lifetimes of amazing practice, many lifetimes of looking out after sentient beings and accomplishing the needs of sentient beings and liberating sentient beings, they offer themselves and their accomplishment in that way to be the very door to liberation. And so we should think of our teachers in that way—that we are in a burning house, no other way to get out except that one door. Boy, would you ever be devoted to that door. That door would be on your mind if your house were burning, and there were no other way to get out, wouldn’t it? And that’s how we should think. We should think that here we are in samsara. This is indeed the time of Kaliyuga. We have, at best, as many habitual tendencies guaranteed to bring us suffering as we do to bring us happiness. At best. 50/50. And that is so unusual. We tend to make ourselves more unhappy than we do happy. So we are in this burning house and we look to the teacher to provide the door to liberation.

So when we give rise to that devotion, it’s not to the person Guru. It’s not to that person. It doesn’t matter if you like what they’re wearing or how they smell or what they look like or how they walk or anything like that. It doesn’t matter. That’s just the stuff you do in regular life. So you can just sweep it over. Instead you think, “This one has appeared and will appear throughout time out of mind until all suffering has ended, until samsara is emptied, as the door to liberation. What kind of dope am I that I wouldn’t walk through it?” It’s that kind of fervent regard. Think of it that way—more than like-dislike, that kind of judgment, but rather, fervent regard.

We rely on the accomplishment of our teachers. If our teachers had not accomplished any Dharma, how would they be of any use to us? So we expect it of them and we rely on them to guide us in the way of Dharma. Sometimes it pisses us off. We’d rather go on vacation. We’d rather have a little more fun. I mean, it’s Sunday afternoon, isn’t it? And we have all kinds of reasons why we should maybe do something else. But we come back. There is my friend.

If this teacher can bother to appear again and again for no reason other than to liberate sentient beings as my Guru has, then I can at least be here. I can at least come half way, come full with devotion. When we are in the presence of our own Root Guru and we have that connection and we have the history and karma of the Guru having ripened our mind in some way in the past, that ripening will surely come again. With faith and devotion and practice, it will surely come again. And so we have that kind of faith. We know in our hearts and our minds that we can rely on this one for that kind of help.

In the Posture of Honesty

February 12, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called the Seven Limb Puja: Viewing the Guru by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

We should always be in the posture of confession. We love confession, don’t we? It’s so Catholic! Well, no, we do it differently here. In Buddhism confession need not be heard by any other person. When we first got into the teachings about confession, there was a line of people waiting to come to confess to me. I thought I was going to have to build one of those booths! Now you know that confession need not be done in front of anyone else. We’re talking about spiritual confession. It need not be done in front of anyone else, but one should always be in the posture of confession. Why is that so?

First of all, we know that since beginningless time until now when we have received the teachings, we have tried to be happy but we have not known how to be happy. Isn’t that right? That means there’s a pretty good chance we have blown it, big time. And judging from the fact that we are still suffering in samsara, we know that it’s true. We know that at least 50% of the time, we have committed non-virtuous acts: at least 50% of the time, just by the law of chance.

Suppose you came to see the Guru but you didn’t change your clothes. And you had shit all over you, really stinky. You walked through mud and you had mud all over you, and maybe you even shit in your pants. That’s what we did until we got here. We just shit in our pants. We didn’t care. We didn’t know. So you=ve got a load, like a kid with a slung-low diaper. We’re walking in like that! And we stink and we’re nasty. If you were going to see Guru Rinpoche, don’t you think you would clean up a bit? Do you think you might clean up a bit?

Think of confession in the same, exact way. Think that you’re always in the face of the Guru, that you are always in the presence of that primordial nature. Yet you know that to simply fake it and put on a quasi-pseudo spiritual face is not going to cut it because you’re not looking at a being, you’re not looking at something samsaric that wouldn’t know the difference. You are in the presence of the primordial wisdom nature. All things are revealed.

Being in a posture of confession doesn’t mean that you’re constantly repeating verbal confessions in your head. That would make you nuts, especially if you’re trying to offer and pay homage at the same time! But the posture of confession is a little bit different, and here we’re talking about subtleties. For those of you that love to be black and white, this is going to take some cooking on the back burner for a while. We’re talking here about a subtleness, a posture of confession. That means that for the first time in our samsaric lives we are not trying to hide our non-virtue, and play the game of acting spiritual on top of that. There is a natural to-the-bone honesty of realizing that you are a being wandering lost in samsara, realizing what it took to get that wandering and that lost in samsara, and realizing that that’s what you’re holding here. With that kind of awareness, there is the profound wish for all such causes of suffering, all such non-virtue, to be purified. So that would be a posture of confession: I know that I have engaged in non-virtuous conduct of all kinds. I have no illusions and I do not try to pretend or shut it down or make nicey-nice with with my superficial face. I do not pretend that none of this has happened. I am truly, within the deepest part of my heart, a penitent person. I am constantly in that posture. I am realizing that I have performed non-virtue and in the face of the Guru I wish to hold that up as though dewdrops were being held up in the sun. And that sun has the same capacity that the sun has naturally: that by the light of midday those dewdrops will all be gone — if we don’t hide them under a rock, pretend they don’t exist and put them away somewhere. Instead, we hold them up in the act of penitence and compassion and honesty. With complete confidence that this non-dual emptiness and luminosity, like the sun, will burn away all such poison.

Rather than being somebody who is doing shuck and jive, trying to dance, trying to pretend that we’re all goody two-shoes, rather than committing that horrible non-virtue, instead, we are in a posture of honesty. And in that posture of honesty, the heart is relaxed and the mind is opened. The non-virtue, in that posture, begins to evaporate like the dewdrops do.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Pick Your Poison

February 3, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

We have made many offerings to the Guru. Mostly what we have offered the Guru are five cups: five cups of poison. We have offered the Guru hatred, because there in the presence of the primordial nature, there in the presence of the display of the Bodhicitta, there in that non-dual pristine purity, we have shamelessly hated, abused, and neglected. We have committed horrible sins against others who are innocent — against motherly sentient beings — not only in this lifetime, but previously as well. And we have done this bold-faced in the presence of that which is so holy as to be indescribable.

We have offered the cup of greed and grasping. Every single day in the presence of our own mind, the face of the Guru, in the great silent sound of primordial emptiness, there in the great quiet light of the display of luminosity, right there in the place of Bodhicitta, from our mouth, we have offered the cup of greed instead of the speech of comfort. This is what we have offered to the Guru. This is the offering that we have made. Without shame we grasp. We are filled with greed. We do nothing but think about me, me, me, and “What I can have?” and “What I can do?” and “How great I am!” and “Don’t you want to give me some more approval?” “Don’t you want to give me some more?” This is what we do in the face of the Guru.

And then the third cup that we offer to the face of the Guru is our ignorance. Not only do we begin with ignorance — which is forgivable, in the sense that we are born; we wake up; at five or six years old we come to consciousness. Later on, we figure out that we’re as dumb as posts. We just don’t know. We are ignorant. We don’t have the teaching yet. But now we have come to the point where we have received the teaching. We have received enough of the teaching where you could say that while we still abide in samsara, we are moving away from ignorance. We are bringing down, or quelling, the poison of ignorance. Yet, in the face of the Guru, in the face of the primordial empty nature that is our nature, in the face of the very display of Bodhicitta, we have willfully remained ignorant. Willfully. We have not accomplished our practice. We have turned away from our practice. We have not tried very hard. We have not listened to the teachings. We have not taken the advice of our Gurus. We continue to listen to the teaching as though it was water rolling off of our back

Imagine that you had one chance to listen to Guru Rinpoche and that was the only contact with Dharma that you were ever going to have in your whole life, and Guru Rinpoche offered to give you the keys to liberation, everything that you need. What would that listening look like? Hopefully, if you are not dumber than a post, you would listen to the Guru as though it were your very breath. You would listen with your whole heart and every word would be like food, like nectar to you. You would take every bit of it home and work with it all the time. If that were the only opportunity you would ever receive and you were receiving these teachings from Guru Rinpoche, maybe you might think like that.

But in the face of our root Guru that’s not what we do. We report dutifully for class and we hear the teachings. I used to walk around and ask students, “What was the teaching about that I taught the other night?” But I stopped that because that used to break my heart, when there was no answer.

We are faulted in the way that we make offerings. We cling to our ignorance. We have heard the method, we have heard the teachings, and yet we do not practice accordingly, to the best of our abilities. And so, we have offered the cup of ignorance to our Guru. And that has been the best that we could do.

The next cup that we have offered to the Guru is jealousy. Bold faced, in the face of our very nature, in the very display of Bodhicitta we have looked at the accomplishments of others, and we have said, I can do that. We have competed and we have been jealous. We have looked to other’s belongings and we have said, “I wish I had that instead of you.” We try to make ourselves feel better, to practice self-aggrandizement, by lifting ourselves up and putting others down. These things we have done in the very face of the Guru who is indistinguishable from us and from our nature, and indistinguishable from the nature of all beings. There is only nature. It is not divided into pigeon holes. Its not like an ice-cube tray where its all divided into sections. So when we look into the face of any other sentient being, any motherly sentient being, and perform our usual ritual of jealousy and competitiveness, then this is the game that we are actually playing with the root Guru. We have, therefore in truth, been jealous and competitive toward the root Guru, because there is no distinction. And if we think that it’s okay to be that way in front of other sentient beings but not okay to be that way in front of the Guru, then we are holding up the cup of ignorance as well. By now we should know better than that. We have been taught more than that. By now we know that all sentient beings have within them the Buddha nature, the Buddha seed, and that is inseparable from the Guru’s nature. So, if we harm, or ignore, or treat badly or abuse others, this is what we have done to the Guru. We have held up the cup of jealousy.

And the last wonderful offering that we have made to the Guru is the cup of pride. In front of the Guru, that nature which is all-pervasive, fundamentally undifferentiated, free of any kind of conjecture, or contrivance, or distinction; in front of that pure display, we have held ourselves up as great, special and superior. We have held ourselves up as that which requires special attention. We have held ourselves up as that which requires approval because we are so wonderful. And we have not been ashamed, in front of the face of the Guru, to indicate that we are superior to others. We have not been ashamed to do that. Strangely, we feel shame and embarrassment at the idea of surrender in devotion, but we have no shame about showing our stinking nasty pride in front of the face of the Guru. That doesn’t bother us at all. Our thinking is completely backwards.

Now, this is not good news. We like hear good inspiring things. We like to be entertained. This is not the kind of thing that we like to hear. But you know, if you really are honest with yourself, if you really examine yourself, you know that what I am saying is true.

Ever-Present Blessings

December 24, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo called “The Guru Is Your Diamond”

Guru Yoga is the most potent of all practices and it’s the most simple. One can practice Guru Yoga simply by visualizing the Guru above the crown of one’s head and making offerings by visualizing them, and then receiving the blessing, real quick. The white blessing from the Guru’s Body to your body comes in the head, white to white; the red blessing from the Guru’s Speech, from the Guru’s throat to your throat; the blue blessing from the Guru’s Mind, which is the heart, from his heart (or her heart) to your heart). You can receive that blessing constantly. It’s free. It’s yours. You can receive it periodically. You can receive it every morning, every night. Whatever you want, as much as you want. That’s the beauty of Guru Yoga. And you should think that the Guru is like your constant companion. Not in a creepy way. I don’t want you guys looking in my window (laughter). But in a wholesome way, where we understand that this nature is freely given, like method that one can use. It is indistinguishable from the ground which is full enlightenment, the method which is Dharma, and the result which is the completion or accomplishment of the precious awakened state.

So we understand the Guru is the ground, the Guru is the method, the Guru is the result. And we begin, through the devotion, through calling out our own nature, our own mind, our own qualities, to mix willingly with that of the Guru. Over time, that blessing mixes like milk with water and we understand that indeed, Lord Buddha resides in us all. We understand that indeed each one of us is some uncontrived beginningless and endless and yet fundamentally complete luminous nature, some state of awakened and yet uncontrived view. That we are that in our nature. Our job in this lifetime is to use the blessings of our Gurus, to use their accomplishment, their qualities, their methods, to listen carefully and accordingly accomplish awakening to that nature. It’s the swift way. It’s the rocketship. It’s powered because it’s like lighting something at both ends. You’re not thinking, “Oh I have to go there.” We are thinking, “This is like a mirror and a mirror”—inseparable in their nature.

Here in America, we have a lot of pop-psychology. We all have these little boxes about how relationships ought to be. Pop-psychology has told us how big they ought to be and what shape they ought to be. We are told that we should be independent in certain ways and then sharing in other ways. One way or another way, we are told how we ought to be. I want to tell you that the relationship of Guru Yoga is not like that. For instance, in relationships we are taught, I’m ok, you’re ok. What is it? Don’t be co-dependent. So don’t be in a co-dependent relationship. Well, if you’re going to be in a co-dependent relationship, I guess it ought to be with your Guru (laughter). But you don’t look at it that way. Because a co-dependent relationship is where two people who are ill or not seeing clearly or are deluded or neurotic in some way, are being neurotic together, and it fits.

Well, that’s not the same with one’s own Root Guru. You can freely and openly give your whole heart and know that you are not in danger. You can freely and joyfully walk, dance through that door of liberation, and you will be happily and joyfully received. You can depend utterly and completely on the Three Precious Jewels and the condensed essence which is the Root Guru and never fall. This is the one time you should not guard your heart. A difficult habit to break for all of us.

So again, we’re not talking about personalities, because that’s ordinary. We’re not talking about you guys all coming to live at my house. Not like that. That’s ordinary, ordinary context. We are thinking that the blessing of my teacher resides as me, in me, and I am that. And like we say in The Seven Line Prayer, “Following you I will practice.” Through that devotion, through that practice, all the blessings of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are yours. Freely given. To the deserving student, to the practicing student, the Guru will always appear. And we should always today be creating the causes for the Guru to appear tomorrow. In whatever form.

So, I guess that’s it for today. It will give you something to think about. And I hope when I give teachings like this that you will really take them in. Don’t bar the way. Let them come in. And if you are moved to go recite The Seven Line Prayer and open your heart and feel that blessing, then I ask you please to fill up. Don’t deny yourself. You’ve done that for too long. Instead welcome to the banquet of Dharma and the yummy good food of Guru Yoga. I invite you to partake.

The Guru as the Path to Recognition

December 13, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Guru is Your Diamond”

How do we use the Guru Yoga as this rocketship? How do we understand the way it is used? Well, first of all, if we look at the Guru Yoga in our Ngöndro book, the prayers are achingly beautiful. The tune, Lama Khyen No, that beautiful tune… You could almost hear it being sung on misty mountain tops. There’s something about it that’s just so haunting. And you get the idea when you’re doing this practice that it’s kind of geared that way. It’s geared to bring tears to one’s eyes. It’s geared to create an interdependent relationship that’s so intimate, it’s more than what we are accustomed to. We wouldn’t take an ordinary relationship and sing Boyfriend Khyen No, (laughter) Girlfriend Khyen No. We wouldn’t do that. And why? Because there wouldn’t be any result. You might as well twiddle your thumbs. There just simply would be no benefit.

We are given this method and it should cause us some benefit. Why? Why is that? Because we are opening the eyes of recognition. What is it Lord Buddha said when he was asked how it was he was different? He said, “I am awake”. Awake in recognition. We are opening the inner eyes of recognition to understand the difference between the precious connection with one’s Root Guru, the ultimate nature that we share, that we depend upon utterly, and what is ordinary. You know, the stuff we get lost in so easily.

We have this single-pointedness that we can whip ourselves back to. That’s how we use the Guru, when we get lost and wobbly and we’re kind of out in space… You know how we get—the noises in our head and everything. We get lost in that. We can use the Guru as our centering back to the single-pointedness. We think this is none other than Guru Rinpoche, the second emanation of Lord Buddha, himself. This is the way. This is that nature. This is what is precious.

How to Cherish What is Precious

December 12, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Guru Is Your Diamond”

We should understand that if we feel that connection with the Guru, and that it is heartfelt, that is like a diamond that you should invest. To hold onto it and to keep it stagnant is not the way. One should not say, “I’ve got this connection, therefore I’m in like flint.” One has to take that connection and build on it. You have to use it for investment. You use that connection to create more virtue through learning the Buddha Dharma and practicing accordingly, through going to the teacher for guidance and advice, and then practicing that accordingly.

There’s no use going to the teacher for guidance and advice if you don’t practice accordingly. Then you’re simply cashing in that diamond for nothing. You’re throwing it out the window and it’s too precious to waste. Instead again, you should invest in it, build on it. That’s cash. That’s money in the bank. That’s the most precious thing you own in this lifetime, no matter how wealthy you are.

So you go to that teacher for guidance, for advice. You allow that teacher, and ask for that teacher, to open and prepare your mind, and to deepen the mind and to mature the mind; and you depend on that teacher similarly to… Let’s say you had somehow a cash cow in the bank, you know a diamond or some fabulous thing that could be earning interest. In the same way that that diamond might be the nugget and maybe you’re living off the interest, you think like that about the teacher. But you’re always making the moves and doing the things that never harm the principal and only increase the interest. See what I’m saying. I’m using a funny money analogy here, but it’s like that.

That diamond must be kept in a sacred place, enthroned upon the Lotus of one’s heart where it cannot be harmed. And if you find that that diamond is somehow misplaced and it’s in your mouth and you’re talking about it in a non-virtuous way, get it back down there again. Do your practice. Recite The Seven Line Prayer. Reestablish that connection. Think that it lives in you, as it does.