impermanence | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Dissolving Constituents: Understanding Death

September 12, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”

The Bodhisattva understands that everything we amass during the time of our lives—everything we strengthen around us, all of the protection we build, the superstructuring that we do when we meet up with other than self-nature and react with hope and fear and begin to do the dance of self-protection and of self-establishment—the entire structure of self and its relationship to other, the entire idea, the Bodhisattva knows that eventually this will come to nothing. This is an intellectual response due to the Bodhisattva’s training, not a feeling response. The Bodhisattva is trained to understand that no matter what we accumulate and gather together during the course of our lives, by the time of the end of our life, none of that will have any meaning. At the end of our lives we experience the winding down of all of our energies. And as we die, even the physical, psychological, emotional constituents, particularly the physical elements, one by one, all begin to dissolve.

The fire element within our body begins to dissolve. The body cools. The water element within the body begins to dissolve and break down. The body becomes drier as we approach death. The mouth, the mucous tissues within the body become drier and drier. The earth elements within the body all dissolve. The body itself begins to break down and even the wind element within the body begins to dissolve. Mental process begins to slow and one’s activity level also begins to slow at the end of one’s life.

Then at the time of death, all of the constituents actually break down and separate. As the consciousness abandons the body and the body becomes simply a heap of broken-down constituents, what remains is the consciousness, which has its habitual tendency fully established. It is not able to take with it any of the real or material objects that it has gathered in its drama during the course of its life. And so all that remains is the consciousness, that, like a basket, held these material things, these solid, impermanent realities associated with that particular life.

The consciousness, however, remains. And if the consciousness spent most of its lifetime in establishing material wealth or gathering substance to support the ego, then at the time of death the consciousness has only that habit of supporting the ego to take with it, only that habit. On the other hand, if a life of generosity and caring have taken place, then that habit moves as consciousness into the next rebirth. Now the Bodhisattva knows this and so the Bodhisattva’s prayer is not based on a feel-good emotion of “Gee I’d like to be a really cool person, be so kind and so neat, and so terrific that everybody loves me and calls me saint somebody.” That’s not what the Bodhisattva thinks.

The Bodhisattva thinks instead in a very logical and precise way, according to the Buddha’s teaching: Everything will dissolve. All the efforts of my life together will come to nothing. All the efforts of my life to build up my treasure-house of material goods and keep them for myself will ultimately come to nothing. All of my efforts to preserve my power will ultimately come to nothing because power dissolves at the time of death also, but the habit of grasping at power is reborn as consciousness. So if gathering power will come to nothing, if gathering wealth will come to nothing, if preserving myself in this extraordinary way, thinking only in a self-cherishing and egocentric way, will ultimately come to nothing other than suffering in the next rebirth, why not give everything now?

Can You Take It With You?

September 4, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”

Our consciousness sees everything as being solid. And it’s so odd, isn’t it, because seven years ago we were completely different. If you think about what you looked like ten years ago, twenty years ago… Don’t take my word for it, bring out the pictures. You look completely different. I look completely different. I’m sure you do also. So even though we have a sense of self-nature being inherently real and solid and very permanent, still we are this very impermanent condition that thinks of itself only in a certain regard. But when we first meet with the path we are taught that all things are impermanent and we are led to a study of that.

The study should look like this. We understand in this way: When we are born, we are born drawing on the karma of our previous existences, and that scenario is catalyzed by the environment around us. Whatever karmic potentials are within our mindstream are then ripened and matured and brought forward due to certain catalytic events in our environment. Then beyond that, we continue to habituate ourselves. We have certain propensities due to our karmic flavor, if you will. These certain propensities look like habitual tendencies and they are, in fact, habitual tendencies. One person may have a great habit toward generosity and look for ways to engineer their life going on the track of generosity, compassion. Another person may have the habit of self-absorption and angerand regard only their own feelings, not taking into account the feelings of others in the environment, being very self-absorbed and wishing that others would help them, would be of benefit to them. That kind of selfishness becomes, then, a deep habit and very difficult to break. So another person may have that kind of habit.

Unfortunately there are sentient beings with many different kinds of karma. One may have had the habit pattern through many lifetimes of creating this habitual tendency of harming others, or hurting others, or killing others. The kinds of animals that are, by their type, predators, are actually beings who have within them the habitual tendency of killing, and they manifest as predators due to that habitual tendency. So we come in with certain kinds of habits, and then we tend to reinforce them throughout the course of our lives.

According to this teaching that the Buddha has given us about impermanence, we understand that there is nothing, not one thing, that we can accomplish or accumulate during the course of our lifetime that we can take with us at the time of our death. Meaning this: Let’s say that we accumulate a great deal of money. Let’s say that in the past we have been very generous to others and so we have the karma of being able to manifest money fairly easily. Many people do. It’s that simple. It’s due to having been generous in the past. This element of money coming into one’s life is like greased lightning. It just really comes in very easily.

So, if that’s the case, then let’s say during this lifetime we spend a great deal of time making a lot of money and yet, even though we had the habit of being very generous in the past, somehow the impact of receiving so much money in this lifetime is a shock.. It reminds me of the story about the man who is making lots of money with computers these days. He came from nowhere, Mr. Computer Geek, and then suddenly he’s a multi-billionaire. It seems, from everything that I have read about him, that he is shocked and he just doesn’t get it. To have several billion dollars that you can get your hands on if you really need to, and then to think that you need to make more before you can be generous is really an unusual way to think. I mean how many billions can you spend in one lifetime?

So for somebody like that, obviously he was very kind and generous in the past, but here he has been hit with this amazing shock of money just flying into his pocket. Now he is in danger of making the mistake of spending his energy and his opportunity increasing that money without increasing the generosity, and therefore in the future he will not have the same results, because none of that money that he’s making now is going to go with him. This is the Buddha’s teaching, that we cannot take even one sesame seed’s worth of our accumulated wealth with us when we go into the bardo.

But, according to the Buddha’s teachings also, supposing we were to make the choice of being extraordinarily generous and using our wealth to make the world a better place, to benefit others, to support others who are in need, that sort of thing. Then we can take this habitual tendency of generosity, this karmic potential,. with us into the next life by virtue of the fact that we have given so much to others and been so kind and generous, because it isn’t measurable like a sesame seed. It is the karma of one’s mindstream. It is the habitual tendency of our consciousness, and that does go into the next life. These are the Buddha’s teachings: We actually have the opportunity to create benefit in this life that does last into the next life; but it’s nothing material, nothing that we can ever create in samsara, that will go with us. Nothing that has weight, size, dimension. Nothing we can hold. Nothing material. Only the habits of our mind. So these are the teachings that we receive when we first come to Dharma.

Awareness of Change

September 3, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”

One of the main thoughts that one hears when one begins to turn the mind toward Dharma is the idea of impermanence. Now when we hear that all things are impermanent, we take this just as it sounds. We know from our own experience that all things are impermanent, or at least we know that roughly. We know that if we buy ourselves a quart of milk that the quart of milk will either sour or be used up. We know that if we buy a car or a color TV or something like that, that eventually the car or the color TV will break down. Then we’ll have to buy another one and go through the entire process again. We also know that what is young becomes old, much to our dismay, and that no matter what we do, what we do only works temporarily—what was young becomes old. We also learn that what is high will become low; what is low will become high. What is brought together will separate; what is separate will be brought together again. These aspects of the idea of impermanence we don’t really hold to; we don’t really understand very well. We try to have a more superficial view of impermanence because the idea is painful. It’s not our favorite concept.

When the Buddha taught us about impermanence, he taught us about impermanence as a way to understand the faults of samsara, and as a way to understand how suffering is all-pervasive. Again, as human beings, we like to ignore the idea of suffering. Of course, when we are suffering and we can feel it very deeply, it’s pretty hard to ignore, but when we are feeling pretty and feeling comfortable, the idea of suffering becomes sort of distant and cloudy. When we feel up, in a way, we have mixed feelings. We feel as though it’s always going to be this way and life is pretty good. But then, by the same token, we’re afraid to feel too up, because we know if we feel too up we’re going to have too far to fall. It’s odd. We have this neurotic capacity for seeing the truth, and yet using it against ourselves or hiding it from ourselves. It’s like we know, but we close our eyes because we don’t want to know.

So this particular suffering of samsara becomes to us somewhat hidden; and actually the hiding of this particular truth leads us to many disappointments. For instance, in the case let’s say, of meeting someone that you love very much, meeting a loved one and coming together with that loved one in some capacity. Perhaps if it is a romantic relationship, and there is a coming together in marriage or something of that nature. If it is the coming together of a parent and child such as in the birth of a child, then the parent sees the child and the child sees the parent. The parent, being the elder, has the capacity to perhaps recognize something very familiar about that child, or to feel that this isn’t a new acquaintance, that there is a deep and profound connectionwith this child.

Sometimes people will meet each other in a very casual way and will become instant allies and best friends. I know that’s happened to each one of us at some point in our lives. It certainly has happened to me. You meet someone and suddenly this person becomes your ally, your friend, someone who is really a helper to you and who understands; and it feels as though you have been friends for a very long time.

So in each of these cases, when we have these wonderful meetings that bring us so much joy, at that point we like very much to forget that that joy is impermanent. Yet, everything we know and everything we’ve seen teaches us and leads us to believe that everything is impermanent. We have seen that even in the case of romantic relationships that result in marriage. Should that marriage go really well, then ultimately the bond will be separated through death. And we know that in the case of parents and child, no matter how close the parent and child are when they are younger, the relationship will evolve and change. In some cases the relationship becomes very distant, unfortunately. In other cases where that does not occur, then even when the relationship between parent and child stays loving and has mutual concern in it, still eventually one will leave the other. There will be the separation of death. The separation of death always happens. Even within that experience of togetherness, there is so much change that you can literally say that two people who married in their twenties are not the same people that are together in their sixties and seventies. They look completely different. There are worlds of difference between a twenty-five year old and a sixty year old. There is a vast amount of experiential living and maturity that has occurred. That person at twenty is quite different when they reach sixty, very different.

I remember being in my twenties, and where I was and where I wasn’t. And I know that I am not the same as I was. I know that many of my understandings, beliefs, habits, even values have matured and changed. So it is impossible to think that we will remain in the same comfortable, stagnant condition for the rest of our lives, let alone the fact that we are all separated by death.

No Time to Waste

May 2, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Death comes to us all, often sooner than we know. Prepare for death. If you have accomplished Phowa then death is not frightening, and can be noble and of benefit. Leave with no debt unpaid, and practice. Death will be in the heart of the Primordial Mother.

One can practice Amitaba Buddha, and at the time of passing to Dharmakaya Buddha, the practice will be the connection. OM AH MI DEWA HRI!

Either way, if dying, renounce all, for not one grain of rice will go with you. This is not a time to pick apart the world, or hurt anyone.

These are the teachings as given by my Lineage, Palyul.

If death is chaotic and fearful, unprepared or cruelly, there is unimaginable suffering in the Bardo of death. Always attend your mind. Leave some worthy act of compassion, keep the mind loving and peaceful. Life is as short as a cup of water travelling down a waterfall, and as fast.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo

The Burning Room

April 30, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue Into Life”

We can live our lives as the walking dead, and then die, unprepared, like going to a continent filled with precious jewels and coming back empty-handed. Or, we can switch on the lights, face facts and do what it takes to negotiate the shoals of samsara, as painlessly as possible.

The Buddha teaches us that we should think of our lives as like a burning room and that the smoke is beginning to choke us, fill us up. And you know, if you’re in a burning room, eventually you’re going to get burned. It’s going to consume you, right? So think of ourselves as being in a burning room, and think that there is one door. That door is wide open to you. Do you get that? It is wide open to you. That door is the door of Dharma. There is one door by which to escape and you can walk out that door. You should think of the very doorway of that door as being your own root teacher. That is the implement, the tool, that you should use to get out of that room—your teacher, your practice, Dharma.

If you were in a burning room right now, and your skin was beginning to crackle and the smoke was beginning to overcome you, how would you think about that door? With fervent regard, the way we are instructed to think about our practice. That door would look pretty much like God to you! That door would look like the best thing you ever saw! Every breath of air that came through that door would be sweeter than anything you have ever known because that door is freedom.

You should think about your practice that way, because that is the way it is. That is the way it is. In samsara here, we are locked in a burning room and there is a door. And we have the great good fortune of not only seeing that door, but having the capacity to exit through that door. Not only that, but that door has a door sill that is friendly and helpful and appropriate for the size and shape of our bodies that will help us to exit that room comfortably. And that’s how we should think about our practice. Number one, wake up. Number two, get the big picture. Number three, act as though you were a sane and reasonable person, which most of us don’t. We don’t act like sane and reasonable people.

I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know. You know that life is impermanent. You know that you have suffered, and you know that you feel unable to really face all these things because it seems so hard to simply live a virtuous life. But I can tell you that it’s like anything else that you do as a friend for yourself that’s good for you, such as changing your diet to really nutritious food. At first when you do that, you know how it is. When you’re young, you can eat anything. You have a cast iron stomach. I mean the things I ate when I was young I can’t even look at now. Now I’m 45 years old and I have to eat right. If I don’t eat right, I don’t feel good.

But do you remember what it took to change into learning how to live well in that regard? To go from eating the food that I liked to eating the food that I have learned to like was hard, and I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t think I was up to it. And to go from the kind of activity that I engaged in when I was younger… Oh I could stay up all night if I wanted to, every night if I wanted to. I was blazing. I was a crazy girl. But now, if I don’t get a certain amount of sleep, the next day I’ve got bags down to my knees. You know, it’s horrible what life does to you! You look terrible and your whole face shows it. You feel awful. You feel like a dog. You feel worse than a dog.

So how did you feel when you had to change from those old habits to these new habits? At first it was painful. You didn’t want to do that. You didn’t want to change. When you learned that your body was going to fall down if you didn’t exercise, you started to exercise. At first, you hated it. You hated it. Nobody likes it when they first start to exercise. It’s painful. Your body doesn’t want to do that. But then when you finally do start to exercise, your body likes it and loves it and it feels good.

Living a virtuous life is like that. The decision to live a virtuous life is painful at first because you have to face the facts, and the facts are you’re dying. You’re dying on the hoof, right now. The second fact is that if you engage in virtuous activity you’ll be happy, and if you engage in nonvirtuous activity, you will be unhappy. That is not something we want to face. We want to do what we do, effortlessly, la la la la la, like little children. We don’t want to examine ourselves. We don’t want to look at what we do, but once we have done that,I’ve found, and many of us who are practicing for some time now have found, that we come to love our practice. We come to deepen in it and truly love it. We come to love the life of Dharma. We come to love a life that is engaged in bringing benefit and happiness to others. We come to find out at last that we never, not for a moment, liked ourselves when we were living the other way, the nonvirtuous way, the no-brainer. We never liked ourselves. There was no self-esteem happening there at all.

So then my suggestion is that we get started. Go through it. Buck up little soldier! Do what it takes to stand up tall and open your heart and get the big picture. Once you do that and you start to engage in a virtuous life, your mind will be smoother, you will be happier. You will be happier. This I promise you.

In the meantime, because our minds work the way they do and because we can’t see the direct relationship between cause and effect, we have to listen to our teachers. There is no other choice. Our teachers have crossed the ocean of suffering, just as the Buddha has done. Crossed the ocean of suffering, and returned for our sake. Our teachers, having seen the further shore and having seen the journey there and back, have come back to bring us this understanding. Live this way. Bring your life to the pinnacle of what it can be, and hold it steady and grow up, because that’s what it takes to be happy.

Do It Because You MUST

April 29, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue Into Life”

Here are some thoughts that we do not accomplish because initially they are uncomfortable. They are painful. We do not want to know this. We have this idea when we’re young, that by the time we get to be an adult we’re going to have all the answers. And in fact you do have all the answers, until you’re about 25. Before that you’re omnipotent you see, and then when you’re 25 you’re no longer omnipotent. Do you know why that is? Because you have a brain that has finally started to grow in your cranium. Before that it was only brain buds. So now that you’re about 25 you’re beginning to realize that you don’t have all the answers and the omniscience, the supreme omniscience that you were afflicted with earlier, is dissipating.

That happened to me too. When I was little I used to think when I grow up, I’m going to be completely comfortable. I thought when I have children I’m going to raise them just this way; and I will never do this and I will always do this. Who has had good luck with that I want to know? Have you ever heard yourself yelling at your kid and you find out you are your mother? You have turned into your mother for real! Well, that kind of thing has happened. Also, you grow up and you think, when I grow up I’m going to have all of the answers. When I grow up I’m going to be secure. When I grow up I’ll have financial things worked out. It’s all going to come together for me. When you’re young you think like that. And when you’re older you realize almost none of it is going to come together for you, almost none of it. Some, yeah. There are good things in life. There are good things in samsara, but you realize that it’s not what it seems to be.

As practitioners this is really what you have to take away with you. As a practitioner, you cannot fall into the trap that we as younger people fall into. You can’t stay there very long. And you that are younger, you need to create the habit of thinking about this: Samsara is a deluded experience. It’s like a narcotic. It fools you. It creates a way for you to look in the mirror at 45 with dyed hair and think “I’m not dead yet!” Instead of pinching your cheeks for a little blush, putting on your lipstick and bouncing out of the house like you did when you were 18 or 20, after 45 minutes with the makeup, you look at yourself, blink twice, hope that the eyelashes don’t stick together, and go “I’m not dead yet!” again. You can’t stay like that. You cannot keep yourself in that childlike, ridiculous idea. You must, at some point in your life, realize that life is going by very quickly and that you are going by with it, and there is not a moment to be wasted.

When it comes to who should practice and who should not practice, it is not for you to practice to impress your friends. It is not for you to practice because I want you to practice and it would please me. Certainly not. It is not for you to practice because you’ll be cheek by jowl with the other people who are practicing. It is for you to practice because this is the nature of your situation. You are involved in the cycle of death and rebirth. Life passes quickly and if you do not prepare for your next life, your next life will not be what you want it to be. There is a very good chance that you will end up with a lower rebirth or a rebirth of extreme suffering. So, when you think about why you should embrace spirituality, particularly when you think why you should embrace the path of Dharma, don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for the temple. Don’t do it because it’s cool. Do it because you must.

Facing Reality

April 7, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue into Life”

Why is it we’re not facing that? Because of the very nature of samsara. It is like drinking alcohol. It is like taking a narcotic. There is something about the way we perceive in samsara. There is something about the way we register data that causes us to not see time passing, to remain fixated on a certain internal idea and not really taking into account what is actually happening. We learn instead to accommodate ourselves. We start dying our hair. We put on more makeup than we did 10 years ago. What else do we do? If we are men, women are not the only ones who dye their hair. This I have found out! This is the truth! Women are not the only ones that are doing it. Men are doing it too, or they use that, what is that stuff that you comb in and it takes, Grecian formula. Yeah. Some men use the Grecian formula.

Then others of us, we have different ways of not dealing with reality. You know, you get to be maybe 45, 50 years old and you realize that you can’t do what you did before. You just cannot. You don’t do it. You don’t want to do what you did before, but you simply cannot. Physically you cannot do what you did before and so the way you deal with that, instead of really dealing with that and really looking at that, is you sort of change your life style and you think, “What I’d really like now is a change of life style where coincidentally I am slower. I don’t have to walk or run as fast. I coincidentally would like to have a house with less stairs. I coincidentally would like to have clothes that are a little looser on me than they used to be.”

Some of us, the men for instance, when they are younger what they really want most in this world is motorcycles. You want a motorcycle so bad you can taste it! You’d do anything for a motorcycle or maybe a new guitar or fast car or whatever it is that young men really want. Then when we get older we don’t face the fact that we’re older, but suddenly we want a town and country car, the kind that has a special kind of seat for lower back pain. Then we get one of those beaded things you put on the seat for hemoroids. It’s all right, because nothing has really changed. I’m still a good looking man. You know, that’s the way we think. We’re just missing something here. We are not facing reality.

Examining the Waterfall

April 6, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue Into Life”

My experience has been that here in the west, when students come to Dharma, when they embrace Dharma and even when they’ve been practicing Dharma for a long time, they have the attitude that we, as people, are going to that church or that temple which is out there somewhere. It’s an incorrect attitude that bears examining. We go there and we act in a certain way according to the beliefs of that church or that temple, and then we go home and we continue on with our lives as though our lives have not been changed, as though nothing has been heard at this church or temple that is relevant to our lives. We don’t even realize that we’ve done that, but it’s such a deep prejudice that each of us has—this idea that one’s spiritual life or one’s religious life is somehow separate from the rest of one’s life. For westerners it is a deep prejudice to the point where it is almost invisible. It is so much a part of us that it has become, in a sense, part of our background, part of the landscape within our minds. It’s hard for us, at least, to pick this out and say “Look at that. I act this way when I’m around the temple and I’m thinking about Dharma and I’m thinking about the Buddha’s teachings. Specifically when I’m doing particular Dharma practice, I act this way. Then I go home and I proceed as though I had never heard of it.”

We don’t even realize to what extent we do that. Oh, it’s not to say that we don’t hear anything and we don’t try to do anything with our practice. For instance, if a teacher were to say to us “All right, now I’ve given you this empowerment.” And often when a teacher gives empowerment, the teacher will say “Now I’ve given you this empowerment, I need something from you in exchange. And what I need from you in exchange is the commitment to good moral conduct,” let’s say. Or “What I need from you in exchange is the commitment to never kill or harm another living being.” So when we have a directive like that we can fixate on that. We can put that in our pocket. That’s a direct order. We can hear that. That’s something we can carry around and it’s easy.

Maybe we go home and maybe we don’t kill anything anymore. Maybe we do things like, instead of getting out the old fly swatter, we capture the flies and we take them outside. So that’s our big effort as a Buddhist. The flies are thrilled. But the rest of what the teacher taught—those thoughts that should gentle the mind and turn the mind toward Dharma, that should make us see more clearly, that should make us live better and in a higher way, a more responsible way—these things we often miss. These things we don’t carry home with us.

A good “for instance” is the idea that samsara, or the cycle of death and rebirth, is tricky, seductive, that it is a narcotic, that samsaric living deludes us into a feeling of safety. In fact, our lives are samsaric lives. Since we have been born, they are involved in the cycle of birth and death. Our lives, in fact, according to the Dharma teaching, pass as quickly as a waterfall rushing down a mountain. This is an excellent example. This is something that every teacher will teach you the first time they see you; and they will teach you every time they see you until the last time they see you. In one form or another, you will hear this same teaching and these are some of the thoughts that we are taught that turn our mind toward Dharma. That’s an interesting thought, and actually that’s a very interesting image. It’s a perfect image, in fact, by which this teaching can be taught. The reason why is that when you look at a waterfall rushing down a mountain, you might see a waterfall that has been rushing down a mountain for hundreds of years, thousands of years. You could go to someplace where there is a very high mountain. Perhaps there’s been a waterfall there for a thousand years and you might think to yourself “My life is going to be as fast as a waterfall rushing down a mountain. Good deal.” Except that’s not how it’s meant, you see, because what the Buddha is talking about is that, if you took one cup of water and dropped it from the top of the waterfall, it would be down at the bottom of the waterfall in a flash. You couldn’t even follow it with your eyes, it would happen so fast, and that is how fast our lives pass.

Now when we are looking at our lives, we look at them the way we look at a waterfall going down a mountain. We don’t see the cup of water. We don’t think like that. We don’t want to think like that! Who wants to think like that?! We see the waterfall as being something stable, so this analogy becomes perfect. When we look at our lives, the evidence is clear. I don’t know about you, but I don’t look the same way as I did ten years ago. Do you? Even if you are 20, ten years ago you were ten. You still don’t look the same way as you did ten years ago. When you are 45, you know you don’t look the same way as you did when you were 35. So the evidence is clear and you see it every morning. You see it every morning when you brush your teeth or you do your hair or shave, or whatever it is that you do. You know about it. In fact, you’re playing this little game with yourself. I know because we all play this little game. Trust me on this. Especially the women can really identify this. We play this little game with ourselves. We’re not graying because we can go to the hairdresser and he will fix it. Every now and then we get really brave when the guy is up there fooling with our hair and putting the glop on. We say, “O.K., how bad is it? How gray am I?” And I don’t know about your hairdresser, but my hairdresser takes my hand and lovingly speaks to me and says “You will never be gray. I will help.” So the delusion goes on. See? It simply goes on, and we’re not facing it. We’re not facing the fact that this thing that we are most afraid of is actually happening.

The Missing Link

March 31, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying a Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

What is the missing link? What causes us to shunt ourselves off in that direction and create a scenario whereby we either don’t relate deeply to our path or it cannot nourish us, or we find ourselves feeling dead inside? How does that happen? One of the things that you have to remember—and it’s really important to think about—is that it is more and more prevalent in modern society to not see some of the natural currents of life. This is particularly true in our country with our level of technology and all the civilizing factors that have come together to make us what we are.

For instance, here we are so technologically advanced and removed from certain natural occurrences that we rarely have the opportunity to see the beginning of life carried all the way through to the end of life. Unless we ourselves have had a baby and daddy went into the birth-giving room and mommy had a mirror—unless we do that—birth to us is a mystery. We do not see what birth looks like. We have pictures of it. We may have seen a movie, but the direct sensual experience of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling, we have not experienced. Even those of us who are parents are somehow absent from this experience because many people do not have a real direct experience of their own birth-giving. They go to sleep during it or they’re drugged or something like that.

Neither do we have an experience of dying. When we die, we will have that experience; but until then, it’s hidden from us. We have no way to prepare ourselves for the reality of death in our society. We have no way to understand what is gained and what is lost during a life. Watching someone die is an interesting experience because you can see that everything material is left behind. You have a sense, once that consciousness has left the body, has moved on, that there is a really distinct difference between what the body is like at the door of death—even if it was unconscious—and what it’s like after consciousness has actually left. It’s quite different. Any of us who have seen loved ones immediately after their death will know this. You know that there is nothing in there, unless you’re completely out to lunch, which I also have seen! But you can see that something essential has left and that everything material has been left behind. It’s such an eye-opener, particularly if the person who has died is not very old. Perhaps they were still at the point in their life where they took a great deal of pride in their body or thought of themselves as being very vital. You might remember different things about the person. You might remember that the person didn’t like their figure, felt that they were too fat. Maybe you know that during the person’s life they obsessed about this. They felt really bad about being fat and they tried to do things about it without success. Then you see that person die. When the consciousness leaves, you realize that everything they struggled with doesn’t matter. Whether that body was fat or skinny, it didn’t go with them.

An understanding of how superficial such a struggle is occurs when you naturally see the rhythms of life and death. Do you see what I’m saying? There is a natural understanding that no one else can teach you. You have to see it yourself.

To understand what we are, it’s also good to see a number of babies being born. Babies are different when they are born. Hospital nurses who care for babies right after they’re born can tell you this for sure. Babies are not blank slates. Some babies are very aggressive and very active, and you can tell that they have tiny, little, confrontational personalities already. They’re just that way. And then other babies are just wide-eyed and open. They’re like little jelly fish. My two sons have always been polar opposites—from the first moment they were born. A mother who has had more than one child can tell you that’s how it is.

Many of us are completely separated from these natural events, yet they teach us very profound things about how to approach spirituality. Even the story about the Buddha indicates this. At first the Buddha was prevented by his father from seeing the suffering of old age, sickness and death. After having witnessed these sufferings, he found the strength to go on in his path because of compassion, because of the deeply felt recognition that occurred to him on some subtle level. That’s a metaphor for the problem of our society. What a display Lord Buddha gave us when he showed us that, because on several different levels we are prevented from seeing suffering by our society.

We take dead bodies away and put make-up on them. (Can you believe that? I want all my make-up on my body before I die. I do not want someone to put it on after I’m dead. All of you can remember this? That is not the time for a face lift.) On an internal level, because of these subtle messages that we get, we do not come in contact easily with any real internal processes. We avoid them in the same way we are taught to avoid them externally. We’re told, “Don’t go there, it’s not safe. Just don’t go there!”

We are told not to approach things in a really intimate way. Now in the story about Lord Buddha’s life, when he saw the suffering, it bothered him, hurt him, upset him, scared him and shocked him, and he had to—oh my—go through transformation, that “T” word that scares us so much. Transformation is related to change, the other word that really scares us. So, yes, he had to go through all of that, but what was the result? The result was he became deeply empowered and was able to make some very difficult choices.

He decided not to live an ordinary life in which he was extremely happy. He was a prince with all the blessings. He loved his family. He had a beautiful and devoted wife, and they were very close, very intimate. He had a beautiful newborn child and was not a distant or absent or unconnected parent. He loved his greater family as well, his father and mother—the king and queen. But for the first time he saw the suffering of old age, sickness and death, and it moved him to his core and enabled him to make choices that are very difficult. He came to the point of deep knowing within himself, that if he wanted to really love his wife and his baby, he had to find the way to liberation for their sake. The phrase “for their sake” became real to him. It’s not real to us.

How Will You Live Your Life?

March 14, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

You live in human form because you now have the merit to do so. When the merit is exhausted you will die. All is impermanent. Therefore while we live, this Precious Human Rebirth must be honored as the perfect vehicle for awakening it is. Accomplish your Dharma while your mental capacity is clear and strong. This is the time to Practice Dharma! While younger, before age fades aptitude.

Please do all you can to make the world a better place. Try to satisfy the needs of all sentient beings. Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Share your worldly goods. Save animals from suffering. Shelter the homeless. Ease the suffering and fear of the dying. Accomplish the Phowa for yourself and others. “Do” for others what they cannot do for themselves. While doing so, please respect their dignity. Please allow other folk their own faith without meanness and disrespect. We have faith. And we try to live it.