Guru Yoga

The Nature of the Guru

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

According to the Buddha, the state that is the pure undefiled primordial wisdom state—this precious awakened state that is luminosity and emptiness inseparable from one another—is our true nature.  But since time-out-of-mind, we have been involved in the incorrect assumption of self-nature as being inherently real.  So due to our fixation on specific awareness and therefore our constantly defining and reestablishing the distinction between self and other, and the resultant attraction and repulsion that we are constantly involved in, we have never tasted this nature.  We don’t know it.

It isn’t that it’s far away. It isn’t that we don’t have it yet.  It isn’t that we have to grow it.  It isn’t like that.  That nature is right now!  It’s right here. It isn’t anywhere else; it isn’t far away. And yet it is beyond here and now, beyond here and there.  Due to our fixation on self-nature as being inherently real, due to the delusion of division within our mindstreams, we cannot taste that nature.  We are involved in the process of fixation, and that nature which is all pervasive is not understood.

Guru Rinpoche is that nature.  In his Dharmakaya form, he is displayed as Lord Buddha Amitabha—the Absolute Nature, free of any contrivance, free of any distinction, that nature which is emptiness. In his Sambhogakaya form, he is considered to be Chenrezig, that Nature which is pure luminosity, free of any contrivance. seen in a miraculous blissful display—a dance, if you will.—that shows itself in an emanation form displaying Wisdom and Miraculous Accomplishment, Emptiness and Method, or Luminosity and Compassion. It is so hard for us to understand what that really means.

For us, what we see is the Nirmanakaya, the physical form. Through thinking about it, we can understand the great benefit that Guru Rinpoche has brought.  We can understand the extraordinary good fortune that we have to be able to do the practices that he has taught.  We can understand that this is compassionate activity.  We can understand that by the virtue of what he has done, we have a shot (if you will) at achieving some realization.  We have hope; we have a path; we have a method.  Through reliance upon his blessing, we come to realize that his very nature is the door to liberation.

If we go deeper, we realize that he is not only the Nirmanakaya form, but also, he is the deeper and more subtle forms.  In fact, he is the very display of enlightenment itself. We realize then that Guru Rinpoche is inseparable from our own nature.  How do you cut that nature up?  The Buddha Nature is the Buddha Nature.  And so, when we look at Guru Rinpoche, and we practice devotion in order to achieve a certain natural transmission, aren’t we actually walking through the door of our own nature?  Aren’t we actually looking at the true face which is our face as well?  Aren’t we actually doing what we do best—seeing something as external which is actually inseparable from us?  That’s what we do very well.  That’s all that we know how to do.

And so we practice Guru Yoga.  Ultimately, we understand that by receiving the empowerment of the Lama, and practicing deeply, to understand the nature of the Lama, is to understand our own nature.  That to meditate accordingly is to see the true face which is that nature.  Ultimately, we will practice in such a way as to dispel the delusion of separation. We will come to dispel such distinction.  We will come to realize that nature as our own nature,  an event that is not ordinary.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Guru in Vajrayana

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From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

In Buddhism there are many levels of study and practice. And I speak, here, generally; in a way digestible to a general audience without much specific training in Buddhism.

For instance, in Vajrayana alone there are many levels. Preliminary, Ngondro, is like boot camp where gross defilements are pacified. Intermediate practice, mostly (but not all) consists of generating the Meditational Deity in order to develop enlightened qualities. Next is Dzogchen which also has many levels and leads to direct experience, leads to awakening (if one practices well with diligence.) And even with all this one still has the responsibility of purifying the five main poisons.

As I said, there are three main levels amongst the many methods the Buddha taught. Some during his life, others came with the great Guru Padmasambava and later the tertons he passed his treasures to. And there are many great realized masters that followed the great Guru. The other main levels are Theravaden, and Mahayana.

In Theravaden the main focus is on the Vinaya precepts, the rules by which the ordained community abide by. Even lay people have precepts to fulfill. The main focus is purification.

Then there is Mahayana, where the Bodhisattva Vow is the main vow. It does not abandon the Vinaya, but builds on it and in so doing changes focus. In strict Vinaya a monk must never touch a woman. In Mahayana the focus is Bodhisattva Vow (compassion) and here is an example:

A monk sees a woman lying by the road injured and in great distress. A Mahayana monk must help her out of compassion, and to do so he must touch her. His duty is to help.

Next Vajrayana, the seat of Dzogchen and pure view goes even further and not only includes Mahayana’s great Compassion, but also includes Vinaya, while developing in a deeper and quite profound Way. In Vajrayana the main focus, is the Lama (Guru) as representing the Three Precious Jewels, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Lama is the main focus and we rely on the enlightened intention and wisdom and pure qualities of the teacher to give direct indication and mind to mind transmission. This is so to the degree that if the Lama, say, acts wrathfully toward the student, the student must never let anger and rage enter their minds. Why? Because it is the Guru Yoga discipline that ripens the mind, and opens the door to Liberation. The student mixes their mind with the Guru’s mind like milk with water. With faith, a blessed transference occurs. And devotion becomes a method like none other, especially in these degenerate times. Vajrayana is considered the one method to deliver realization in one life. This is accomplished through the accomplishment of one’s root Guru and faith.

Once I had a disciple with profound Guru devotion. She went to New York retreat to study with great Palyul Tulkus, she was simple in her practice, yet very diligent. When she passed I performed the Phowa and there were signs. Her body was kept for one week because she offered her skin to others. After a week she was brought to the funeral home to be cremated. First she was dressed in all her sacred robes, then flowers and incense offered for her pure life of loving service. The workers there said, and the four nuns I sent, were amazed that even before Ani was adorned her body was fragrant and fresh. Even though she had open wounds in her skin. Her complexion was pink, fresh and luminous.

His Holiness Karma Kuchen saw the pictures and declared this a miraculous event and she had accomplished this precious human rebirth. EH MA HO! This was a result of her practice and devotion. Her name was the Venerable Ani Thupten Palchen. And now, she is free! May she return quickly for the sake of all sentient beings! EH MA HO!

I am also reminded of how pleased His Holiness Karma Kuchen was, saying this was proof that westerners could attain in this life!

OM BENZAR SATO HUNG!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Relying on the Guru in Degenerate Times

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My life is a bridge between the East and the West. My intention is to keep the best of both worlds to function as one, without interference.

Yesterday, and today as well I feel exhausted and sick. I think it is the hate and vitriol, the harassment, constantly. Stress is a killer, so I rely on my practice, the kindness of my Sangha, friends and family for strength. With my practice and prayer I feel His Holiness Penor Rinpoche close to me, in the great expanse of the Dharmadhatu. He is my comfort, my treasure, my life! No one can understand unless they accomplish the Guru Yoga. Without Guru Yoga it is hard to attain realization in these degenerate times. Here we mix our mind with that of the Guru.

So we rely on the Guru in that fashion. Guru Yoga is not about “liking,” or any other personality concept. We rely on the Guru for every facet of awakening, from blessings to teachings to empowerment to guidance, all of it – which is a gift, as those without a Guru tend to run amuck.

Likewise, those who rely on an ordinary person with nice words become lost and damaged. We see a lot of that these days as was predicted by Guru Padmasambava – tough times with strange signs and false teachers with false teachings. I’d say the huge animal die offs are a sign.

In short I’ll say this. It’s time and beyond to find a pure teacher with pure Dharma and Practice, meditate, contemplate. Do the Dharma now!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Swiftest Path

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From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Mind as Guru happens after one practices well with Guru Yoga according to Vajrayana Buddhism. Guru yoga is the most powerful method of all. We are taught it is the fastest method to realization of all. The Guru Yoga is practiced at every level. It is a large part of Ngundro, and real accomplishment of Dzog Chen depends on it. In these times of degeneration it is without exception the best way. One mixes mind with that of the Guru like milk mixed with water until they are inseparable. Not the personality, that is just relativity, not important, but the accomplishment, the lineage of pure transmission, the true face of a Nirmanakaya appearance; Buddhahood.

Without this peerless training and practice there is little hope in these dark times of worthless opinions and pride. To rely on one’s own limited mind without first practicing Guru Yoga is useless as the mind has not been ripened. An unripe mind is deeply opinionated and ego-centric. Hard like rock and worthless, in that it has no capacity to perceive with any depth. All is mental acrobatics and superficiality. Therefore one sounds, even trying (from the ego, natch) to sound deep it is just spiritual bologna. The meat is mixed with crud from the floor and stuff one cannot spell or name. To think the mind is Guru before it is deepened and ripened is dead wrong.

We consider our Tulkus to be Nirmanakaya Buddhas, therefore not “of”, or trapped in samsara. Like entering a room full of smokers, the Tulku may smell like a smoker, but the taint is gossamer thin. The actual smoker has the poison throughout their winds, channels and fluids. So we look to these Nirmanakaya forms as that which did not arise from samsara. They are an extraordinary display of all the Buddhas and their retinues. The personality is irrelevant. It is the direct line to the realization of the Guru we look for.

Many claim enlightenment, even saying they are the Guru. But when we examine the results, their lives, their accomplishment, their capacity, their deeds we can see this is not so. You see, the seed of samsara only produces more samsara. Whereas the seed of the awakened mind arising from the primordial ground of being will result in Buddhahood.

Sadly there is no free lunch here. One has to work the path to see the result. Like exercise, it doesn’t help to think about it. One has to practice and build until real muscle is seen. That muscle, in this case, is the accomplishments of one’s life. Not just selfish concern but true benefit for all beings. Have you fed them? Clothed them? Liberated minds? Have you done anything beyond the personal realm? So we’ve raised a couple of kids, cook dinner every night, all that. Good for you, but all mammals do that. It is the extraordinary accomplishments that make the difference. Many boast about their accomplishment; I say, show me. There is plenty of wheat and chaff in samsara; can you make gold? Can you make a lasting footprint of Bodhicitta that will benefit beings in the time to come? OK, well, I guess that’s my job then. I accept!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Can You Change?

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From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (@jalpalyul), December 23, 2010

Tonight I am asking for prayers for my little Boston Terrier “Truman Bean” who had to go for emergency surgery tonight. He had a bubble on his eye which was being treated with various medicines. This afternoon the bubble opened into a horrible ulcer. Don’t know if he’ll keep his eye or not. He was in terrible pain, is in VA hospital now with eye surgeon. My sweet Baby! Please pray for him. Man, this is getting brutal! Another surgery, this will probably cost $6,000.00 that I don’t currently have. Here we go again, my little feller Truman Bean in great pain, facing surgery tonight. I have to sell something, or raise money.  At least the hospital took him, and is kind.

Please pray for my Boston Terrier, serious eye surgery, pain, I rely on your prayers. He is such a love. I had thought to talk about Guru Yoga tonight. Hard to do when my Bean is having surgery. I pray he will keep his eye, and that he is free of pain. When I am in pain I call to the Guru for relief. Animals cannot do that. We must do the Prayers for them. They do not have that great capacity, although they have, frequently, excellent qualities. I wish it were true of all of us.

If a puppy is loved and trained from birth it will be loyal and loving. Even if rescued, they can change and transform for the better. It is actually harder for humans. We have so much pride and conceptual proliferation we find it difficult to change. Dogs live in the moment. No pride, no resistance to change. The dog looks to us, without fear, for guidance. If we break that commitment the dog and the human both lose. We must be a rock of support for our animals. They cannot understand many things and rely on us to guide them through a human world. We domesticated the dog. Now we owe them our support and loving kindness. Dogs can no longer care for themselves, have lost their doggie skills. Whenever I go out I try to bring something home they will recognize as a “kill” so that they can understand where the “alpha” has been. Dog packs have the “chip” to understand that the alpha must hunt for the pack. This way they can feel the alpha caring for her pack. Sometimes it is Dingo bones, or other yummies. But once they settle down to enjoy, the event is over. Alpha Mama is home and all is well. OM MANI PEDME HUNG!

May I speak about Guru Yoga now? Here in the west devotion is completely misunderstood. Buddhists feel they can be Buddhas the moment they decide to – like changing shoes. In Vajrayana the fastest most complete and most efficient method is Guru Yoga. Not intellectual prowess. You cannot think, plan or proclaim Enlightenment and make it real. We rely on the realization of our Gurus because they have crossed the ocean of cyclic existence many times before and are appropriate guides. The Guru is considered the door to Liberation, as if the house was afire and the Guru was the only door. This is why the Tulku system is necessary in Vajrayana. If we follow a fake Guru with poor qualities and little realization there can only be poor result. The seed becomes the tree and bears fruit. What is the fruit of an ordinary mind? Just ordinary, not leading us out of Samsara, but deeply entangled in it. A realized Vajra Master is them self free of the gross attachments, and faults we all need help with. Left to our own human resources it is hopeless. Big egos become king babies. Lotsa blow, no show, no glow, nothing to rely on.

Often when we fail at Guru Yoga, devotion, we think we are finished with the path. We start to teach one another, like a fourth grade child teaching a third grade child. No particular benefit. They are both grade school children, maybe more interested in collecting chewing gum under their seats, or pulling little girl’s pony tails. A mature, grounded, selfless, compassionate Guru is needed so we don’t spend our short lives acting out like bad children going every which way- acting, re-acting and most importantly, never learning how to die!

In Buddhism we gather virtue and merit for this and all future lives. The hope is to die and be reborn consciously and flawlessly. This is our way! To live and pass without fear, whining, and in such a way as to be reborn intentionally for the sake of benefiting beings! This is the benefit and great wondrous beauty of our path. May all sincerely enter to completion! Learn to see your own capacity in the face of the Guru! Not the personality, or clothing, or appearance or activity of the Guru, but the awakening, the true face which is the fundamental ground of being. The true Guru, then, is one’s own inseparable nature understood deeply and profoundly, not just intellectually and with many words and pointless concepts. Do not follow what is incapable. Follow what is perfectly endowed and fly!

©  Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Tsawei Lama 2

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Jetsunma greeting His Holiness Karma Kuchen
Jetsunma greeting His Holiness Karma Kuchen

It’s raining now, but I can see
That soon the sun will be with me.
It’s pouring now, but I can tell
That soon the bliss will come, as well.

That kiss of sunlight, a warming spell
Reminds me that when darkness fell
It seemed I’d lost you for a while
But then the gift- your blessing smile.

I knew that it would take some time
That soon the glory that is your Mind
Will come again, and in a while
You will come as a precious child.

Oh, lead me swiftly to that day
When I can close my eyes and pray
When I will know in that secret way
He has come!  He is here!  The great display!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

A Constant Wish

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The kind of practice that results in supreme enlightenment is the continuous, natural, graceful effort.  It is a happy, blissful,and  joyful effort.  We should always be in the posture of the teachings.  That means that you literally walk around with your heart like a bowl, your mind like a bowl and you are in the posture of a constant wish:

“Please Lord Guru

Change me into whatever form is necessary.

Change my mind – Change my heart – Purify my karma.

Please Lord Guru

The only thing that I request that you do is to not let me remain the same.

Please Lord Guru

Constantly pour the nectar of your Dharma into me.

Lord Guru,

Do not abandon me in samsara.

Do not leave me in the condition that I am now.

Change me utterly and completely to where I do not recognize

Myself as an ordinary samsaric being any longer.

Think of the Guru like a mother bird.  Constantly remain in the posture of beseeching the Guru for teachings.

The thing that you have been terrified of, the thing that you have guarded

yourself against, is the very thing that you should be requesting constantly:

That you should be transformed and changed according to the wishes of the

Guru.

Do not let me be separate from your teachings even for a moment.

Have courage.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Rejoicing

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

The next posture that we maintain constantly is that of rejoicing.  Constantly rejoice. This posture of rejoicing actually isn’t like, “Walk around being happy!”  That would be like putting on a false face.  You have all this samsaric past in you and yet you’re putting this happy face on it.   That’s not what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about rejoicing in the accomplishments of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, of all those who have achieved realization.  We’re talking about rejoicing in the accomplishments of others.  In the face of the Guru, as the Guru’s child and inseparable from the Guru’s nature, instead we say, “Oh, this one has crossed the ocean of suffering,” and rejoice in the accomplishment of the Guru.  The accomplishment of the Guru reflects on one’s own karma, if you think about it. “I rejoice in the accomplishment of the Guru, and now I am in the presence of the Guru, and now the accomplishment of the Guru then becomes available to me, as well.”  How do you think the accomplishment of the Guru could ever become available to you if you do not rejoice in that respectfully, if you do not give rise to the recognition of the joy of that?  If you say, “Well, I wonder what she really has accomplished?  I mean, let’s think about it.  I mean she really doesn’t pay much attention to facts.  She doesn’t know any of those lists.”  You know  those lists that you all have to know? So you might be saying to yourself, “She doesn’t know any of those lists, so how good can she be?”  So that’s the kind of thought that you might have about your teacher, and maybe in this case you would be right.  But in this case you would be wrong for you, because it doesn’t help you to think like that!  If you find fault in the face of your Guru, you will never achieve realization.  Period.  That’s it.  If you don’t recognize the nature of the Guru, you cannot recognize your own nature.  It simply will not occur. So instead, we recognize the qualities of the Guru.  We see that this is the very extension of Guru Rinpoche’s miraculous compassion, that this is primordial empty nature and luminosity, non-dual, expressed in the world in a form that I can understand. This is beyond flaw.  Because that’s what it is.  It is not a human being.  It is not a samsaric being.  It is not a prop.  It is not a thing.  It is not ‘out there.’  It is the very display of our nature, in a form that we can recognize.  So we rejoice in that.

That’s how it’s relevant to our practice, but in general, rejoicing in the welfare of those who have accomplished Dharma includes rejoicing in the Buddhas who have crossed the ocean of suffering and returned for the sake of sentient beings: rejoicing in the Bodhisattvas who hold back from the brink of nirvana for the sake of sentient beings; rejoicing even in practitioners who have accomplished, who are now accomplishing, Dharma in order to benefit sentient beings.  When you hear that one of your peers has completed Ngondro or completed some other practice, or had a really profound relationship with their practice or they are really going into it and they are really moving on it, the faulty human tendency would be to say, “Well, I could do that.”  Or,  “Well, yeah, but they’re not taking out the garbage!  I mean, they’re practicing all day, but you never see them take out the garbage.”  That’s the kind of tendency that we have.

Instead, we are talking about constantly rejoicing in the achievements of others.  That is a way to increase your own accomplishment as well.  But in terms of practicing with the Guru, you should think that, in fact, we are looking at the face of primordial nature, we are looking at the nature of emptiness, at the display of luminosity. The Guru appears in the world, and we are rejoicing in the accomplishment of the Guru, rejoicing in the magical, mystical and miraculous appearance in the world, for the sake of sentient beings.  We are constantly rejoicing in that to where there is no room for grasping and clinging and judging and all those things that we normally do.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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