Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

True Confession

September 21, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

If you feel that you have become deadened to that longing you once felt, if you think that you don’t long for your Teacher or long for the Buddha, if you think that you don’t long with a heartfelt longing for that awakening, then you should try to remember your childhood and the different feelings that you had.

What are some of the things that you did? Were you promiscuous? Did you become involved in drugs or alcohol? Did you become very materialistic in certain ways? And if you can remember the beginning of that, was it based on longing? Was it based on something that you could hardly remember, but remember that it was sharp and poignant? Was it really based on that?

If you can remember a time like that, you should spend time becoming reacquainted with the purity of that urging. Cultivate that longing. Not cultivate it in a false way or in a contrived way, but search for what was already there. Feel what was felt. Don’t make up a feeling. That’s important, because then you’ll blame yourself again. Instead, try to remember that feeling, even if it just numbs you to think that you have gone so far astray, you should not be ashamed because your karma is that you were born into a culture where what you felt was not acceptable and you tried to fit it into ways that were acceptable. Those ways did not work for you and then you shut down. You should try to go back to that original feeling and find a way to forgive yourself. You have to confess in order to be able to fully forgive yourself. Don’t confess: Oh, I’ve been a bad girl, or I’ve been a bad boy, I’ve done this and I’ve done that.

The confession that you should make to the primordial root Guru is: You were everywhere, and I tried to find you here. The true confession is the lack of understanding the nature of the Guru. The true confession is the lack of understanding as to what you are. That’s the real confession, and that’s the real sin that was committed. Yes, karma happened. But that core confession and purification can bring about the end of all the karma that arose from that, truly. It can bring about the end of all sufferings that came from that point. You should allow yourself to remember the longing that you felt and learn to live with it.

In learning to live with it and having it be the warmth in your heart, allowing yourself to be with that and to live with that, then that longing will bring the proper result. So long as it is diverted, so long as you refuse to feel it, so long as you do not allow yourself to be pure and then constantly cover up with feelings of impurity, so long as that condition continues, the longing cannot be satisfied.

That longing, if it’s felt in its pure way and if you can manage to get your ego out of the way, can be the very bread by which you are nurtured to continue in a firm way on your path. That longing can be the way that provides the actual, undeniable connection with one’s own root Guru. It perfects that relationship so that one can realize the nature of the primordial Guru and realize that they are the same. You can understand that what you see in front of you is the miraculous touch of Lord Buddha, that the relationship with the Teacher, the relationship with the path, the relationship with all of the teaching, the relationship with your own practice can only be a result of the miraculous intention of the Buddha. So long as we continue to understand our teaching and our path as something external, we will never understand the nature of it. We will never be able to truly drink of the taste of that nature. Instead, we will continue to feel separate from the mandala.

Vajra Kiss

September 12, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Good night, sweet dreams!

May Dakinis hold your hearts and grant theirbliss!

The Vajrakiss.

Can you drink the poison too? I know you do!

You might as well agree to this: That you would sell your soul for bliss.

Even I can answer this; There is no soul, there is no goal.

Even bliss is this: emptiness so profound.

The vibe of Light cannot be found!

So forgive, wake up, dispel.

There is depth to this well.

In the end..I am your friend.

Hallelujah and amen!

A New Wind

September 8, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo originally tweeted on April 21, 2011:

For the last two to three days I’ve felt a change in the wind. As some of you know I have taken time off to heal. In these last days I realize I have not worked so hard at it. But I’ve been reading about people who have had similar challenges and have broken through into better balance. And they seem happy and engaged. The stories of how their lives are remind me so much of my own, and their beginnings seem to be like mine. I feel very inspired by these courageous Tribal people, yet I also feel guilty, and disappointed in myself. I see that I have been waiting for something, someone to heal and re-inspire me, unconsciously. For this I am ashamed, for I myself have allowed my mind to fall into a disempowered state. The last three to four years have been devastating and I’ve let myself down by letting them take my confidence, courage, hope. I see that I have begun to feel that I cannot help others, have no strength to do so. I have allowed fear to rule my life. And I’ve been keeping this to myself, just waiting for the cure. How ridiculous! There is healing all around. But I did not reach for it, I just let others decide if I was worth anything or not. For some reason my mind is like a mirror, I absorb what others tell/show me about myself. When with my Lineage and teacher I feel good. But around gossip and hurt, negativity, being put down constantly by ordinary view – it just knocks me to the ground.

I have, as you know, also been greatly concerned with the condition of our Earth Mother, and the rampant poisoning of her precious body. So I call out night and day for her relief from suffering, and for all her children. But have not done one thing to help myself. Therefore I’ve let not only myself, but all creation down. I am deeply ashamed. I am working now to see what can be done for me.

Since my guru Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche found and recognized me, and well before, I saw how much people were suffering, mostly spiritually. So even as a teenager I tried to help others. And others were drawn naturally to come to me. After the recognition I understood why and took off with my feet already running. That was, sadly late in life, I was a mother, etc, so I could not just run off to India, although I did go to be taught, and many teachers have come to teach me Buddha Dharma. I never learned how to nurture myself. So when others knock me down I have a hard time getting back up. Maybe because of my ugly childhood, but I only blame myself.

I worry about others, and must help in my intended way. I am seeing that we are connected to Earth and it matters very much that we take care of ourselves and each other. We think the Japanese radiation is ruining Earth or maybe pollution, so many things are happening. But here is the truth: we live in and on the Earth, our Mother and the Earth also lives within us! As do the Sun, Moon, Stars, all elements! We live within each other, and are one human family. So how can Japan’s problems happen? War? Pollution? Because we feel separate from it all and each other. We even become separated from our own minds and hearts. A shame we were taught badly by teachers with nothing but ordinary view, but we have. Thus we must seek connection, wisdom and truth. I’m going to use what I have been given, and seek more. I must lead myself out of this sorrow, and keep on learning and growing. Oh, true, I’ve built the Temple, a bunch of powerful Stupas, taught a lot. But I’m not dead yet, so I cannot let fear rule. It is compassion, responsibility, connection I must go to, to pacify this hard time. How? I don’t know yet. But there is a change in the wind, I feel it, hear it, smell it and feel I can trust it. Come with me, we all need to learn, search, pray, and love. Because a new wind is coming. And I feel it. Kye HO!

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SO HA!

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG!

A True Dakini

September 6, 2012 by Holly

1053875117_GmHds-S — HH Kusum Lingpa and Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

On May 3, 1994 His Holiness Kusum Lingpa gave this commentary on the Long Life Prayer for Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo that he wrote for her.

I wrote this longevity prayer on the day that I arrived here. The first human rebirth of Ahkon Lhamo occurred some 300-400 years ago in Degii, which is the eastern country of Kham. She was born as the sister of the Vidyadhara Kunzang Sherab who was the founder of the Palyul lineage. And her name was Ahkon Chang Chub Lhamo. She was a true Dakini. At that time in her life she didn’t have a lot of wealth or a lot of ordained sangha followers per se in a monastic type of situation, but she was a great practitioner and she had tens of thousands of disciples. She was able to spread forth the doctrine in an amazing way. Previously, she was Mandarava, Lamchen Mandarava, who was the Indian consort of Guru Padmasambhava. Mandarava was well known of the 21 Taras to be the emanation of White Tara and Drolma Karmo.

Now she has once again arisen from the sphere of the Three Kayas and the name that I have mentioned for her is also her name in this lifetime, Lhamo Metog Dron, which appears throughout this prayer. She has come to you as a true guide and object of your devotion to lead you on the path to liberation so you should always have strong faith and devotion in her and receive her spiritual instructions.

She is one who is destined to work for the doctrine and the purpose of sentient beings and won’t have a lot of time for retreat or extensive accomplishment practices, because her commitment is to spread forth the doctrine and work for sentient beings directly through activities in the same way as leaders like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who always shows the amazing example of someone who is solely concerned for the purpose of benefiting all people of all nations in the world, but of course primarily as his responsibility, he is the spiritual and secular leader of all of the six million Tibetan people.

The Dalai Lama himself is always circling the globe in pursuit of bringing the message of freedom and peace of mind to all beings, so he is a supreme example of someone who untiringly and unceasingly works for the benefit of parent sentient beings and the doctrine through his activities.

Similarly, His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche has undergone incredible hardships and difficulties to establish the doctrine in India and in Western countries. He has thousands of ordained sangha members surrounding him and is the upholder of the supreme Nyingma School at this time, a great example of someone who unceasingly works to spread the doctrine and benefit beings in this world.

Similarly, the great Dodrupchen Rinpoche who is one of the great masters of all time, an emanation of Guru Rinpoche, has thousands of monk followers and is someone who supports all of his sangha, even right down to giving them the food that they eat. And so, he has had to take it on as his own responsibility to support all of those who have chosen the path of renunciation and who wear the golden robes of the ordained sangha.

Now, for myself, even though I also do have a fairly large institution, I myself really don’t even eat food that is that good and I always try to give better food to my community. I consider myself to be a servant of sentient beings. I try not to stay in a high place with a lot of elaborations.

In fact, the way to be of the greatest benefit to others is to personally remain low and humble. This is the way that the Dakini always remains as well. And so, I would like to make it the first priority of Dakini Ahkon Lhamo and the sangha to always honor the sovereign of your Buddha family, His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche until the time of your death. He is truly your leader and your root teacher, the head of your lineage. There is nothing else that you need to do. There is no other place that you need to go other than to be right here to propagate the doctrine that he has so securely established here. If it were I, I certainly would be 100 percent satisfied to be under the guidance of such a great realized being.

In terms of this Palyul lineage, since Ahkon Lhamo herself is the reincarnated sister of the founder of the Palyul tradition, Vidyadhara Kunzang Sherab, then clearly this is your own spiritual tradition. Except for Palyul, it is not so important to pursue other traditions because primarily you should be propagating the Palyul tradition. It should certainly never, ever be forgotten. Ahkon Lhamo must continue to propagate it and never forget it, even at the cost of her life.

And so, primarily then, Pema Norbu Rinpoche is your sovereign, your supreme root teacher, whom you should always honor above and beyond all else and you should always uphold the Palyul lineage and doctrine and see that it is propagated in this Western land. All of you disciples should take care of your precious teacher and she will always take care of you in assisting one another to accomplish these goals in this land.

His Holiness Kusum Lingpa and Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo wearing Green and White Terton Robes

Courageous Awareness

August 24, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I eventually came to draw a lot of strength and a great deal of comfort from that early practice (Chöd) because I found out that I actually never ever had to make another decision. And that’s what we struggle with all the time.

The rest of my life became not a dilemma in some odd way, even though there are many aspects of my life that would seemingly be problematic. It isn’t a dilemma because already the mind is relaxed. That’s one of the great benefits of that practice—the mind becomes relaxed. You’re not tense in the position of getting ready to determine, getting ready to decide. That requires a great deal of mental tension. So that’s done. The mind’s relaxed and it’s all right. There’s a big yes happening. There’s a big yes happening. I agree. I agree. It’s already done, so I don’t have to reinvent that dilemma and solve that dilemma every time. It’s already done. That’s the great blessing of a practice like that.

I have to tell you, once you really examine the faults of cyclic existence that way, and the eyes of suffering… I really recommend that if you do this practice. you can do it sitting, standing, anyway you want to. Do it while you’re walking around. Just constantly think like this. My recommendation is fill your eyes with suffering. Not your heart, not your mind, your eyes. We walk around feeling insulated. We don’t want to see it. You’re flipping through the channels and you see that child in, what, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, someplace like that, belly bulging, ribs sticking out at the same time and limbs that big around, and crusty at the side of the mouth. And why? Because they haven’t had any food recently. And no good food consistently. They’re starving. The first thing we do when we see that? Change the channel because we have the habit of not wanting to see that. We don’t want to see that.

My recommendation is spend some time seeing it. Stop turning away from the sight of suffering. Use that as a tool. It doesn’t mean that you have to, you know, give Buddhism a bum rap. I’m not asking you to be unhappy. I’m telling you that if you really open your eyes and see, you are in a scene where you are half unhappy and half happy already. It’s already mixed. This is not something you have to pretend. All I’m asking you to do is face it. Really look at it. Do not turn your eyes away from it. Fill your eyes with suffering. Stop faking it. We are a nation of fakers. Stop faking it and really see it. See what hatred produces. See what it looks like. Look into the face of it. See what hunger looks like. Face it. See what bigotry looks like. Look at it, face it, see what it feels like. See what ignorance feels like—the kind of dullness and slothfulness that you can hardly get yourself together. Get a good mouthful of that! See what that looks like. Look at all of this concerning ordinary experience in samsara. And then, having filled your eyes with that, you can use that as motivation, as a reason to practice.

So my recommendation is practice deeply, practice consistently. Do not turn your eyes away from suffering. Practice with courage. Be really courageous about this, and never let yourself off easy in this practice. To the bone, and then give them up too. Practice to the depth of your being, until you are deeply satisfied, until you know that you would never take back that offer again, the offer to be a vehicle by which suffering might end. Do not give up your practice until you know that you’ve done that. Be a hero. All you have to do is be a hero one time, one time in your whole life, concerning giving rise to compassion for the sake of sentient beings. Be a hero. Be undaunted. Do not be happy or satisfied with yourself until it is complete. Do not be happy or satisfied with yourself until you have really seen the suffering of cyclic existence and it makes you sick to your stomach, that not only you, but everyone you see is caught in it.

Practice as deeply as you are able. And you are able to practice more deeply than you could ever have imagined. So the goal here, of course, is to give rise to the Bodhicitta, give rise to compassion to realize the faults of cyclic existence. I used to think this to myself, whatever I saw,”There’s no future in this.” So in the future when I picked up a bag of potato chips, I’d go, “Well I can eat it or not eat it, but obviously there’s no future in this!” And I could look at any scenario in life and I would go, “Pff, no future in it. I’ve examined it. I’ve been there, I’ve done it in my mind.” That’s the awareness and understanding that you should be armed with.

What Are You Looking For?

August 21, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Longing for the Guru”

In order for you to be with your Teacher, however good or bad that Teacher may be, if you are in a situation where you are close to your Teacher and consistently so and have a great deal of relatively intimate guidance, you must have spent a great deal of time longing for the Teacher. It must be that you have spent a great deal of time making wishing prayers that you would never be separate from your Teacher. There had to be a great deal of time spent in that consideration and with that intention. It’s the only karma that will allow for this situation.

Each of us, then, as we grew up, must have experienced the seeds of that longing. If we look back at our earlier lives, we may not understand that. It’s very difficult to understand how we ended up practicing Vajrayana. We certainly weren’t brought up this way. We certainly had no idea in our younger lives that we were going to be Buddhists, that’s for sure.

Yet, if we were to look in a penetrating way, we would discover that somewhere in our childhood there was a longing. That is the seed or the residue of something that we experienced in a previous incarnation. Because it is not consistent with our culture, because it is not sympathetic with what our culture views as proper, probably when we grew up, we never heard of a Teacher. We never heard of a Guru. We may have diverted into different paths. We may have felt the longing as a need to find ourselves or we may have felt a sense of waiting to be told or to find something that we knew we would find.

For instance, it is possible that you felt a sense of searching and perhaps went from relationship to relationship, searching for someone who would be intimate with you, a certain searching for a fullness that was never found. It could be that you even went from a self-help group to insight situation to church to different kinds of situations that you thought would bring you the answer and you had no idea that it was a spiritual search.
But now, in retrospect, if you examine that, do you think that perhaps you were looking for something you didn’t find because you did not understand exactly what you were looking for? Surely, if you examine your life, you will find something of that longing in your past.

Gaining Strength!

August 20, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Just back from Phys Therapy. Worked hard and making great progress! Even one session made a difference. Proud of myself and happy with the clinic.

My physical therapist is awesome! She totally gets how I got there. A kind lady. I trust her.

OM TARE TU TARE TU TURE YE SOHA!

When you’re gaining strength you are alive!

The Teenager and Ethics

June 17, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Walk the Talk – Ethics by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, June 8, 1994

How do ethics come about in our personal lives? Study sociology and you can find out how ethics evolved in our society. Study developmental psychology and you can find out how ethics developed within us as individuals. I would like to focus on that a little bit so that we can relate to it as individuals.

How many of you remember something about your teenagerhood? If you remember much about your ‘teenagerhood’, and you if you ask your parents, they will agree with you; that was the time when you were most disgusting and obnoxious. Most parents will think that their teenagers really should be put to sleep when the hormones start raging and put in stasis and reawakened later on. As a parent, I can certainly see the wisdom of that.

That’s one shining example. When you finally left your teenagerhood, did you look back at yourself and think, “My God, I was the most selfish creature that ever walked on the face of the earth. I was completely selfish.” No, because it is normal at that age. When you are a teenager it is as though biologically, physically, and a little bit of your mental and emotional development has started to take on the image of an adult. Your body is changing, your mind is changing, the heart is changing, everything is changing, but it is all in flux. Your hormones are going crazy. Your body does not look the same from one week to the next; it is doing things underneath you that you do not understand, and so you are not in total agreement with your body at all times. Your emotions are raging. You have found out about all the things that you can have in the world and the forbidden fruits are suddenly becoming more reachable. You have just figured out that you can say no and you are big and tall enough now to get away with it. You know how to walk away. You know how to run. You can learn how to drive a car. There are all kinds of power that you have that you did not have before. But what you do not have as a teenager is the emotional maturity to deal with it. You have all kinds of power and new things that you can do and a new body to do it with and none of it is under control. Basically, as a teenager, you are out of control. Your mind is out of control. You are not mindful. You are not conscious of your environment. You are not aware of what other people think or what other people feel. You are simply absorbed in these raging developments that are happening in your body and in your mind.

What begins to happen as you move out of teenagerhood is that you go through a lot of pain. Do you remember how painful your teenagerhood was? It is an extremely painful time. Once again you found out about all the things in samsara that you can have, but you also found out that you couldn’t have them all. The minute you found out about sex you found out not everybody wants it with you. And when most people do want it with you, you find out that there are definite drawbacks. There are all kinds of things that happen. Basically you are an older version of what happens in the terrible twos, when two year olds learn how to say no. They did not know how to say that before, but at two, they can say no. And it seems to have some effect on the world and they are giddy with the realization of this. That is actually what happens to teenagers. They are simply giddy with what they can get away with. If they can get away with a lot, if the parents do not have the strength to control or help them or if the parents are out to lunch, the kids are down the road in destructionville, setting themselves on fire because they can say no, again. That is the big realization that has come into their lives. They can say no. So, they are going to say no to everybody.

What happens as you begin to leave this really lousy age? Nobody is exempt. I was very selfish as a teenager. And I felt I knew it all, too. I was supremely omniscient until the age of about 21 when I realized there were others that had thoughts as well. That is just how it is when you are a teenager. You know everything. You have had your first rudimentary thinking process as your tiny little brain buds begin to develop a little growth, and so, at that point it is a big deal. Then when you realize that other people are having complete thought processes, thinking in total equations, you realize were not doing that at all. At that point, you are turning 20 or 21. This is not a joke. This is what happened to you. Can you remember? You are just beginning to rise from the primordial ooze around the age of 20 or 21.

Often at that point, kids that are well raised and basically fundamentally secure, happy in their homes and have good communication with their family, look at their parents and say, “Ooh. Sorry.” They really do. They look at their parents and say, “Gee, I was a real jerk for five years.” And the parent says, “Yes” and it is all made well.

That particular growth process is extremely important, because teenagerhood is filled with suffering. Do you know what the suffering is about? The suffering is less about raging hormones than we think. It is actually more about the fact that these poor sentient beings do not have the capacity at that age, to have or hold to any kind of ethical system. They do not have the capacity really even to see or sense what other sentient beings are experiencing or to empathize sufficiently to be able to gauge their own behavior. One of the things that happens at about 20 or 21 is that it actually dawns on the person that they have been hurting others. They actually learn from hurting their parents. Unfortunately, as parents, you have to understand that. If you have teenage children, one of the things that you have to commit to; that they are going to do as teenagers, is hurt you. It is necessary. It does not mean you let them get away with it, because if you do, you are both dead. They are going to go down into self-destruct land and you are going to go down in to schmuckland, not able to ever relate to your child in a strong way. You do not let them get away with it. You have to have firm discipline. Those of you who are parents who do not have firm discipline in your homes, will know about it now, because if your kids are old enough, they are already out of control and it was because you did not have firm discipline. It’s really cute to be that way with your kids when they are younger, but when they are teenagers, they must have the habit of firm discipline or they will not be able to manage, and you will not be able to help them. Because when they are teenagers, they are going to hurt you and if you are not in control, they are going to hurt you badly. And it is what they need to do. That does not make them bad people. They are not different from you. They simply have to do that to learn. They have to learn by your response. They are going to learn. When they crumble, when they watch you cry for them, when they watch you come back at them with the same vengeance they came at you with, or whatever it takes. They are like little computers, taking that in. I mean, some of them are not little computers and they are still kids. If you can imagine they are almost like little creatures that are learning the size of the room they are in by throwing things against it, seeing how long it takes to bounce back. It is not so different, again, from the baby in the highchair that we all know and love, who loves to drop his fork or his spoon or his food just to see how long it takes to get to the floor and how long it takes you to pick it up. They need to do that. It is about learning.

That is what teenagers do, and at that point, they come up with rudimentary ethics. We learn ethics through our own pain. As teenagers you learned ethics through seeing other people hurt. You learned them through watching. What really happened was when you were a teenager, you got hurt; you got blistered by what you saw. May not be when you were 21, it may have taken you a while longer, but at some point you decided it is not good when people hurt me. But later that comes to mean I cannot hurt anybody either. But it really starts right around that time of teenagerhood and it starts by watching how the world responds to what you’re dishing out.

A Garland of Utpala Flowers

June 8, 2012 by Holly

From the speech treasury of Padmasambhava

The Longevity Supplication of Lhacham Ahkön Lhamo called

A GARLAND OF UTPALA FLOWERS

EH MA HO ORGYEN DU MA THA LA’I ZHING KHAM NE

EH MA HO In the pure realm, Dumatala’i of Orgyen,

KHA CHÖD KHANDRO’I TSO MO DRÖL MA KAR

White Tara is the principal Dakini of Khachöd

DAKI LHACHAM MANDARAWA NYID

Whose nature is the Dakini Lhacham Mandarawa

BÖD YÜL AHKÖN LHAMO CHANG CHUB DRÖN

Appearing in the land of Tibet as Ahkön Lhamo Changchub Drön,

KU SUM ZHING NA TRO DU DZED PA’I GAR

Performing the dance of radiating and reabsorbing from the realm of the three Kayas.

AH KAR ÖD DZE LHAMO ME TOG DRÖN

Beautiful light of the white AH, Lhamo Metog Drön (Goddess Flower Light),

CHI LING KYE NUB DREN LA SÖL WA DEB

I supplicate you to save beings in the Western realm.

TSHE DAG RIG NGA TSHE YI PHO NYA DANG

The five classes of the owners of life and the messengers of longevity,

PEMA KA RA GYA GAR RIG DZIN GYED

Padmasambhava and the eight Vidyadharas of India

NE YÜL ZHING KYE PA WO PA MO’I TSHOG

And the assembly of Dakas and Dakinis of the realms of the sacred places and countries,

CHI DAG PUNG JOM KHYED NAM DEN TOB KYI

By your power of Truth, overcome and defeat the Lord of Death.

AH KAR ÖD DZE LHAMO ME TOG DRÖN

Beautiful white light of AH, Lhamo Metog Drön,

KU TSHE’I GAL KYEN BAR CHED YING SU SÖL

May the conflicting circumstances and obstacles to your life expectancy dissolve in the sphere

of Truth.

DÜL CHA’I KHAM LA DÜ SUM TAG ZHUG SÖL

Throughout the Three Times, pray, remain firm in the realms of beings to be tamed,

GYAL TEN DZIN KYONG PEL LA NÜ TOB GYE

Ever increasing your strength to hold, maintain and increase the Buddha’s Doctrine.

ZHAL JAL SUNG THÖ ZANG NGEN GANG DREL CHE

May whoever sees you, meets you or hears your speech,

MED JUNG KU ZHI’I LING DU WANG JOR SHOG

Be it a positive or negative connection, become a sovereign of the unsurpassed realm of the

Four Kayas!

Samaya ku sung tug kyi gya

This supplication prayer was revealed by the well-known incarnation of the Indian Mahasiddha Trilwupa, Tertön

Pedma Tumpo. May virtue prevail!

Fire and Gentleness

May 27, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Dharma and the Western Mind by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo given on January 29, 1989

Adapting Dharma for Westerners is not difficult if you understand what our needs are. The first thing that a Westerner has to do is to become stable in this path. You have to remain stable and you have to remain stable for the right reasons. I have seen old time practitioners that have seen the best Lamas and had the best opportunities and the most glorious teachings, but I am not impressed with the stability of their path and I feel that the reason for that is that they have not come to the point where they have really cultivated a gentleness of mind. They haven’t really cultivated the necessary fire in the heart that keeps everything going. They haven’t lit that dynamo that makes them remain passionate about loving.

Sometimes I am disappointed in when I see old time practitioners doing the Dharma talk and walking the Dharma walk and spouting this name and knowing that term but their hearts are unchanged. There is a hardness there. The most tragic thing about that is that even though they are hot and heavy on the path now they may not remain firm on the path. And time has born that out. There are many Western Dharma practitioners who were really on and now they are really off. I think that the reason why this happens is because they did not take the time to build a foundation based on compassion. We cannot consider that it is a baby teaching. I talk about bodhicitta and compassion all the time. If bodhicitta, which is the term for compassion, were ice cream you would come here and you would get a different flavor every week. That is how I teach. And I teach it as many different ways as I can. I try to be creative and sometimes I pull rabbits out of hats and sometimes I whisper it and sometimes I shout it and sometimes I give it to you to read, but it is always about Bodhicitta. It is always about compassion, it is always about love in some form or another.

I really have had old time Dharma students say, “Hey I have had Bodhicitta already, and I am tired of Bodhicitta.” I am so sad when I hear that because if you can get tired of that subject then you don’t know it at all. You think that it is a baby subject yet it is the very union of the wisdom of realizing the emptiness of self-nature and the compassionate self that is truly the awakened mind. There is no time when you are finished learning about compassion. There is no time when you are finished learning about love.

Westerners who have been to college, to university and have papers are the worst problem we have in this country when it comes to practice, because we think that having got papers we don’t need to be learning about this simple stuff. We say, “I need the real teachings. Give me some Dzogchen. Give me some heavy stuff. I want the real stuff, because I am an American and I can deal with it.” The problem is that as Westerners, no matter who we are, if the mind is not prepared, it is like the ground not being cultivated. You drop the seed and it goes plunk on the top and if our minds are not gentled and deepened we go plink. We may be able to memorize a wonderful Dzogchen teaching, we may be able to read the text but we are still plinking merrily away. We have to have these foundational teachings and they have to be with us always. There is never a time, no matter how advanced you are that you should forget that the greatest Dzogchen teaching, the most pure and pristine understanding of the Nature of Mind is an understanding of the nature of compassion. The most pristine, achingly beautiful understanding of the Primordial Wisdom State is the awakening to love. There is no difference: the two of them are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. And you may think to yourself, “What comes first the chicken or the egg? Can’t I learn to love after I am wise already?” I don’t think so because really the mind has to be prepared for these precious deeper teachings. It has to be gentled.

There is a confession that His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche gave to us and the translation that I have says, “That my mind is as hard as horn.” And I think about that all the time because at any stage it is possible for the mind to become hard as horn, to become so impressed with its prowess in playing with Dharma terms, to become so impressed with how we can sit straight when we meditate, to become so impressed with how good we live and how sorry we are for every one else, to become so impressed that we are hard. It is important for us as Westerners and as part of the human family to cultivate gentleness so that we can truly accomplish Dharma.