Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Who Can Be a Guru?

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An excerpt from a teaching called Compassion, Love, & Wisdom by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

According to the Buddha we continue in cyclic existence and suffer as we do because of desire, and that desire is born of the belief in self-nature as being inherently real.  Therefore the cessation of desire, in all its forms, is synonymous with enlightenment. That state of enlightenment is a pure awareness, pure recognition of the natural primordial wisdom state free of all contrivance.  That state is both blissful and awake or alive.  It is described as having the quality of innate wakefulness, which means when we describe that state as empty of self-nature, we are not describing something that is dead and dark and cold.  It has the quality of innate wakefulness.  In that state of pure awakening, free of the contrivance of desire, free of the very causes of hatred, greed and ignorance that arise within the mindstream once one has desire, free of these things that are seeds for all future sufferings, we are limitless and free in our capacity to be of benefit to beings.  If the Buddha is correct, and I know that he is when he says that all sentient beings are suffering because of desire and hatred, greed and ignorance that are results of desire, then who can help us?  Who can be a Guru? Who can benefit us if they themselves are not free of those causes, if they themselves are not free of desire, if they themselves are not free of hatred, greed and ignorance, in the sense that humans experience them?  Looked at this way, how can an ordinary sentient being lead us to enlightenment if they themselves have not obtained enlightenment?  How can they guide us to be free of the causes of suffering if they themselves are filled with the causes of suffering and will continue to create more and more results that are suffering?  So, if it is not possible, and I don’t think it is, for an ordinary sentient being with ordinary means at his disposal to give us what we need, then we need to look to a guide who is free of such things.

When I look at the Buddha and his life I am satisfied that he has achieved that pristine state of pure cognition.  I am satisfied that he experiences wisdom.  I am satisfied that he reaches the state, or has reached the state, that is wisdom itself. The pure natural uncontrived primordial wisdom state.  When he was asked, “What are you?  What manner of thing are you?”  he said, “I am awake.”  It is that state of innate wakefulness, that pure uncontrived realization, which must be considered the goal.  Therefore to help us accomplish our goals, to help us accomplish our path, we should only look to one who satisfies those questions and who has those qualities.

The Buddha teaches us that in order to be of benefit to sentient beings it is necessary to experience the pure uncontrived nature of one’s own mind in its natural state without the grasping of desire, without the limitation of the sufferings that are caused by that grasping, without the constant attraction and repulsion that we experience every moment, and without the resultant hatred, greed and ignorance. In order to be of use to sentient beings we must ourselves attain these qualities.  He describes wisdom in that way, putting a tremendous emphasis, through meditation and practice, on having a taste of that pure state. That taste so precious, without it we cannot know.

There is no way that I can tell you how to know the awakened state.  There is no way I can say to you, and have you really understand it: this is what you must do in order to be of benefit to sentient beings, to bring about the end of suffering, to yourself be free of suffering.  Because what I am telling you is only that which can lead to the accumulation of knowledge.  I have given you things and you know something, if you are listening, that you didn’t know before. If you use that which you are hearing to practice, and if you practice in such a way that your mind becomes deepened, and you really work at intensive and sincere practice for a great period of time and accomplish just what the teacher tells you to do, and you utilize a path that is pure, that has consistently proven results and brings about the necessary changes that lead ordinary beings, such as ourselves, to experience the natural state, then after some period of time you will have a taste of that nature.  That is the wisdom being spoken about; it is not the same as something you learn.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

It’s Simply Phenomena

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An excerpt from a teaching called Compassion, Love, & Wisdom by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

It is difficult to see the many different spiritual systems prevalent in our country that are based on the accumulation of knowledge. The thought is that at some point you will have enough knowledge, as if you can get a big bag of it and you can get enough in the bag that finally you have enough knowledge. At that point some sort of change will occur, a switch will flip and you will have enough, and there it is.  Why is that not possible, according to the Buddha?  Because according to the Buddha what you are accumulating as you accumulate knowledge is a contrivance in itself.  It is the necessary road we must take in order to reach certain conclusions, in order to understand in the ordinary human way.   Because of the way our minds work, I can’t even talk to you about Dharma without using language. I can’t talk to you about the primordial wisdom state without describing it. The tricky part is that the moment I describe it, that is not it.

Every bit of information that you gather, whether it is good information or bad information, whether it causes you to draw good conclusions or causes you to completely ruin your life, whether it causes you to give up drinking and smoking or whether it causes you to go off the deep end and cut off the tip of your nose, whatever bit of information you get from the primordial wisdom state it can be viewed as phenomena, exactly the same.  It is hard to understand because we really think things need to be judged by high and low, good and bad, here and there, up and down, and we have our criteria for judgment. We think that this is meaning. Yet from the pure state we must understand that all phenomena is the same – it is simply phenomena, good or bad, high or low, it is all a contrivance.  It is all an encumbrance upon the natural view.

Ironically, if you cut off the end of your nose and it causes you to realize the suffering of sentient beings, and because of that you practice, then that is good phenomena.  Likewise, if you get on the wagon and give up your drinking and womanizing ways, and you live a good life and become an upright person, causing you to become satisfied and think that is enough, you become a little rigid. That causes you to become a little egotistical and that causes you to get a lot of pride going, and that causes you to never to look any further than yourself, and if it causes you to think that it’s important what a good person you are, then that is the worst kind of phenomena.  So from the natural state, phenomena only has importance or any meaning in relation to the ability you have to become awake and to realize the primordial wisdom state.  The only thing that is meaningful is that which leads to the ultimate goal.

If you take that standard and really learn it and adapt yourself to it, and you look at the life you have lived so far, you should think about the many different things that were important to you.  I look at my own life that way and I see that I have placed importance on things that have no meaning because they did not lead to supreme enlightenment. I can look at the lives of all sentient beings and I can see that we spend a hundred and ten percent of our energy doing that which you cannot take with you when you die.  We are all involved in doing things that are, from that point of view, utterly meaningless. Also meaningless in the sense that not only do they not lead to the supreme goal, but they do not empower us to be of any benefit to sentient beings because we do not remove from our minds the causes of suffering: desire, hatred, greed and ignorance.  I think this is true of everyone.  I don’t think anyone is exempt unless they were born supremely realized, born on a lotus, and I was definitely not born on a lotus.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Undefiled Awareness

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An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

As Buddhists, we are not as infatuated with the idea of gods and goddesses as people in some other religions.  Why not?  Because we think of them as part of cyclic existence.  Long-life gods can grant blessings.  But can they get anybody enlightened?  No!  They don’t have Enlightenment.  You can wait around for someone to give you a blessing––or you can practice Dharma.

Neither are Buddhists impressed by talk about going to heaven or going to God.  For us, all this is just part of perceptual experience––just phenomena.  I’m not saying that phenomena don’t exist, but the goal of a Buddhist is beyond all phenomena, beyond the fixation of being caught up in cyclic existence.  It is not a goal that can be externalized.  It is pure, awakened Awarenes.  We talk about being reborn in Dewachen (which can sound similar to “being reborn in heaven,” and in one sense it is), but what is actually meant by that is to be reborn in the Dharmakaya state––to be born in a state of pure, undefiled Awareness.  To shed ignorance and to be reborn in undefiled Awareness is the only goal of a Buddhist.  It is not a conceptual process.  It is liberation from all the components of suffering.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

Life is Fleeting

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An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Have you ever seen someone made completely  miserable by neediness?  Some people are like a big gaping hole,   and all the love you could pour in there would not be enough.  Haven’t you ever gone through a phase like that yourself?  We’ve all had extremely needy, hungry-ghost-like phases.

Have you ever been prideful, arrogant?  Deludedly thinking that you’re better than other people?  Have you ever felt yourself so attractive that you thought you were hot stuff?  Do you ever think you smell better than other people?  I do.  I wear Estee Lauder.  Many people have that kind of pridefulness.  Haven’t you seen people being arrogant––while you wondered why they considered themselves so special?  It’s a kind of dream-like delusion from which they’re not able to wake up.

We have seed-like causes planted within our mindstream that we may be unaware of, among them our jealousy and competitiveness.  Have you ever been so angry that you were hell-bent to get someone’s goat?  That was all you could think about until you realized that you had put yourself in a kind of hell.  Have you ever seen other people living that way, continually frothing at the mouth and hell-bent on being right?  We can detect these things in our own mind––the impressions of them, like footprints in the sand.

The Buddha taught that these six realms exist and that we all have the karma to be reborn in any one of them.  He also taught that we have the right, the power, and the responsibility to produce the causes to ripen auspicious karma––to be reborn in an auspicious way.  In other words, there is no predestination.  No one is doomed.  No one is jinxed.  We all have both beneficial and unfortunate karmic potential in our mindstreams.  To the degree that we decide, we can engage in the ten virtuous activities which produce an auspicious rebirth.  No one is special, no one is flawed, no one is damaged, no one is brain-dead.  While you’re human, you have many options.

Having understood that rebirth in any of these realms is possible for each of us, we must make the best use of our time now.  There is an urgency in Buddhist thinking: you are asked, please, to make use of this fortunate human rebirth.  Don’t waste your time.  If you feel pushed to do as much as you can, the purpose isn’t to entrap you or to tell you that “there is only one right way.”  It is only to urge you to use your time effectively and courageously––because there is so little of it.

Buddhist teachings describe this human life as a waterfall.  Now, where is the drop of water that even a moment ago was at the top?  That’s how our lives are.  They appear stable, but they go by in a flash.  We need to use our opportunity.

 

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

We Made It Up

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love Series

Look at a cup. Find cup in there. Take it apart. Grind it up, find cup. Cup is the idea of cup. And you can continue with everything – your house, your family. Let’s take your house and examine it. Let’s take your house apart. We’ll put it all under the microscope. Then find family. We’ll examine the people that you are calling family. Which one of them is family? We’re going take them all apart, just the way we took you apart. Where are we going to find family? Family is a concept. Who made it up? You did. Where are you? I haven’t found me yet!

It’s crazy, but it’s a good way to start practicing, because we’re going to find that everything we live by – the things that make us suffer, the things that we bust our tails trying to do, everything that we do – is based upon an idea that we made up. We did! We made it up, and it has affected us for all this time. We can begin there. It’s true that it would take some time to achieve realization by meditating in that way, but it’s a good place to start. Meditating on the emptiness of self and phenomena can give us the foundation and the strength to live the extraordinary life of compassion that I have been talking about. It’s that kind of extraordinary life of compassion, coupled with profound prayers, which will allow us to return in whatever form necessary in order to benefit beings. Even now, we will be able to benefit beings if we consider this is the most important thing in our entire lives, and we yearn for it.

Peters cup3

We will have a little side benefit if we do this. The side benefit is that, in the process, we will be purifying our mind of the garbage associated with self and desire we have gathered around it. We will move closer to successfully meditating on and knowing that profound, uncontrived, natural state of mind, just through the virtue of considering ourselves to be only important in as much as we can benefit beings, and beginning to function in that way.

But, I tell you, the more we get on an ego trip about this, the more we are creating the causes of suffering and the further away we get from perceiving the natural state. Because the natural state is, as it is – unpolluted, untarnished, untainted. The only thing that makes us perceive something else is that we have stuck blue in the back of the crystal, and the blue, symbolically, is conceptualization. The way to liberate the mind from the belief in the phenomena of blueness as being inherently real is to meditate on the emptiness of phenomena, the emptiness of self-nature, and to live a life that causes the purification of the mind and actually cleanses discursive thought. That is the ticket.

No matter who your teacher is, if you really could talk heart to heart with any profoundly realized teacher of any religion – and I’m willing to say this publicly, any teacher, any time if they are profoundly realized, no matter what religion they started – will tell you that the answer is the end of ego, all of its desire, and the conceptual proliferations that come with it. The realization of the natural state is the answer. That state is uncontrived, unchanging, unborn and infinite.

That’s your Kellogg’s cereal box-top, nature of mind teaching for today.  Whether you go the traditional Buddhist route, or whether you want to continue in a more general, yet profound route, I hope you will consider the tremendous opportunity and rewards of an extraordinary life. For you to even have the karma to come to this point where you might consider such a thing is tremendous. I urge you not waste this precious human rebirth. It’s an extraordinary opportunity. You have the opportunity to see things and to hear teachings that will change your mind forever, so that in some future time, you will surely be able to benefit beings in some extraordinary way.

I urge you to continue, and don’t waste your time. The expression, ‘don’t throw your pearls before swine,’ really does apply here. This is an extraordinary life, and if you were to spend it on ordinary things, it would be a shame. I hope that you will cultivate your excellent qualities and let them grow so that they will nurture all beings.

Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Search for I

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love Series

All conceptualization, all phenomena arise from the belief in self-nature and from the compulsion, at that point, to make self appear separate from other, making a reactive relationship necessary. Your entire mind consists of the phenomena of hope and fear, of discrimination in a subtle and dense way. But the nature of mind itself remains steadfast, clear, uncontrived. When there is no concept of self.  It is pure, perfect.  It is only suchness. Only that. It cannot be altered. It remains unchanged. And the weird thing about it is, the minute that you start talking about it, you’ve removed yourself from the potential to understand it.

When you look at a crystal, it might be understood as a symbol of suchness. Now, if you were wearing a blue shirt and you put your arm behind the crystal, you would then see blue. Has the crystal become blue? Well, you have to look at it on two levels. With your arm behind it, the crystal looks blue. So, in that sense, the crystal appears to have become blue. But if you move your arm away does the crystal change? Is it still blue? So what is blue? Who perceives blue? The crystal is the same. It is the same. It is completely unaltered. What is this appearance of blue? What is this appearance of phenomena in general? This appearance of phenomena, in general, is merely conceptualization. Who perceives it?

Here is a very crude example, but then I told you I was born in Brooklyn. I’m not making any apologies. That’s it. Let’s take two objects: we have chocolate, and we have shit. Yes, shit, you heard it right! We have chocolate and we have shit. Okay, they’re both brown. I’m sorry, but we have to do this. They’re both brown, right? They both have a creamy consistency. So sorry! They both have a strong aroma. What makes one chocolate and the other one shit? Who determines the difference? Who is the taster? Who sees this? Who sees that? What is happening here?

How do you get free then of distinction between shit and chocolate? How do you stop seeing the blue in the crystal? How do you perceive that true nature? Little by little, you have to disengage the idea of self, and you have to meditate on that. I recommend that you begin in this way, whether you are a dyed-in-the-wool Buddhist, or whether you are a person that has never even heard of any of this before. I don’t recommend that you taste both shit and chocolate, but you can try, let’s say, honey and lemon juice. Look for yourself and ask, “Who is the taster?” You say, “I taste.” Then, “Where am ‘I’?” Well, “I’m right here.” Okay, where are you here? Let’s take you apart. Let’s find out where ‘I’ is. We’ll look first in the feet. We’ll start low and work up. Did you find ‘I’ in your feet? Take them apart. Really, you have to make slides of everything. You have to buy yourself a microscope and make slides and see if you can find ‘I,’ okay? Go all the way up. Look everywhere that you can, examine every single molecule. Go all the way up to the heart. Everybody thinks hearts are big these days. Let’s look in the heart and see if we can find ‘I.’ Then, we’ll look in the throat. What part do you identify with the most? Do you have great legs? We’ll look at your legs. Do you have a beautiful figure? We’ll look at every part of it. Look at everything! Let’s look in the brain. Everybody thinks they come from their head, right? So we’ll look in the brain. Where is ‘I’? You can even look in your eye, in your eyeball. See if you can find ‘I’ there.

No matter how hard you look, even if you make microscopic slides of every single part, you will not find ‘I’ in this body. You will not find it! Well, you say there must exist an ‘I,’ because how else can I go from lifetime to lifetime? And, I’m telling you that the idea of ‘I’ is only that. It is a conceptualization that has built around it so much karmic flatulence that the profundity of it has managed to exist for lo these many eons. At that point, you can begin to understand that, essentially, nothing has happened. In truth, nothing has happened. And you can begin to meditate on the emptiness of all phenomena.

Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Crystal Clear

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love Series

Do you remember the innocent sense of longing you felt when you first started to seek the spiritual path? You must have felt it at one point or another, or you could not receive this teaching. You could not. You must have longed to purify suffering. You must have longed to be of benefit to someone, sometime. You must have longed to attain the end of suffering, and there must have been the desire to do that in order to help others. It has to be.

Remember how happy you were when you felt that innocence, that beautiful longing? There was a time when you were really happy when you thought that. Now, of course, we’re too sophisticated. We’re on the path, and we’re already practitioners. So we tend not to continue with that thought in our minds, but we should. We should constantly, with great longing, make prayers in that direction. That’s how you begin aspirational Bodhicitta. You begin to make prayers of longing: “I long to benefit beings. I pray with all my heart that I can take whatever form necessary in order to bring peace to the world, in order to benefit beings, in order to end the suffering of beings.” You should cultivate that longing, really and truly. You should do that until tears are in your eyes. You will find when you begin to develop that ability those tears are not sad tears. They are the happiest tears you’ll ever cry, and they are a heck of a lot more happy than going to the shopping mall and buying something new. I mean, really, that sounds like a superficial comparison, and it is. But we spend much more time at the shopping mall than we do longing to be of benefit; we should long constantly to end suffering.

You begin in that way. Then you start to think of the emptiness of self-nature, even if you don’t know how to meditate. If you haven’t the technique, then you might contemplate upon the emptiness of self-nature. This goes hand in hand with living the extraordinary life of compassion. They are inseparable, because along with the emptiness of self-nature is the understanding that all suffering is born of delusion. The antidote to that suffering is the annihilation of delusion. It’s the same as the meditation on emptiness.

For instance, let’s take a crystal. It looks really, really clear. A crystal is exactly like your mind. It is exactly like the nature of your own mind in its clarity. In its natural state, it is free of any form. There is no form in there. It is said that the nature of mind is clear, self-luminous, that it exists in such a form that once any distinction is made, it is not understood. It is free of any contrivance, in the same way that a crystal is free. When you look inside a crystal, you see only clarity. A better example, of course, is a crystal that is perfectly clear without any flaw, because that crystal is exactly like your mind, perfectly clear, without any flaw. You, in the natural state, are that. You are pure suchness. The moment you began to appear as you do now, was the moment you began to make distinction. In the natural state it is not so. The mind is clear, self-luminous, free of contrivance, completely relaxed. It is not gathered around itself, because it has no conceptualization of self. It’s completely relaxed. It is suchness.

Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

With Prayers of Longing

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love Series

Let’s say you’re not up to following a qualified teacher. Let’s say you don’t go that route. You can still meditate. You can still follow those basic precepts that are brought to us through the enlightened mind of the Buddha without going that route, if you wish. You may wish to bite off a small piece, and then see if you want another piece. There’s no problem with that. You might realize some of the basic teachings, such as all sentient beings are suffering; there is an antidote to that suffering, which is supreme enlightenment. When we reach enlightenment there is no conceptualization of self, therefore there is no desire. Therefore, there is no discursive thought. Therefore, there is not the cause that creates the effect of suffering.

You must also realize that all sentient beings desire happiness, no matter what they are doing. Even if they are robbers, rapists and murderers, and they are doing things that look to you like all they’re trying to do is hurt people. They are confused. They have the karma of murder in their minds. They are completely deluded. They are whatever you want to call them. But in their deluded way, in their feverous way, they too desire happiness. All sentient beings desire happiness. Yet, all of us, whether we are murderers, rapists and robbers, or if we are the nicest little New Age flower children you have ever seen in all your bliss-ninny days – we are just so sweet and we walk around with flowers in our hair and only eat vegetables and tofu – even if we are like that, we are still creating the causes for unhappiness. I’m giving it to New Age people, but I’m just making fun. It’s no big deal. I’ve been known to eat tofu on occasions also! Anyway, even if you’re that kind of person, you are still creating the causes for more suffering. You know that’s true, because while you may not be murdering anybody, if you look at your life and look at the probability of the continuation of your life, you will at some time be sick, you will certainly age, and you will certainly die. There will certainly be circumstances you cannot avoid describing as suffering.

In order to get to the depth of this awareness we can begin to practice as the Buddha practiced. We can begin to take the antidote for desire. We can begin to take the antidote for the belief in self-nature as being inherently real. Therefore, the antidote will also be applied to the clinging and the reactive relationship of hope and fear, the attraction and repulsion syndrome, which is the mother of karma and circumstance. These are what cause circumstance and they will become eliminated.

How should we apply the antidotes? First of all, by living a life that is as selfless as possible and by beginning to purify our minds in such a way that we really honestly examine ourselves. Just how much of an ego do we have, anyway? If we can sit there and think, “Oh God, such an ego, you can’t believe it!” If we can do that, then we’re on our way, and we probably have less of an ego than the next person. If we’re truthful with ourselves, we’ll discover that any one of us has an ego that is so enormous; we’re surprised we can fit in a room. We have to begin to examine ourselves as carefully, diligently and purely as we possibly can.

How do we do that? Do we just sort of go through our stuff and process it? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think the thing to do is to process it and be sorry that we have a big ego. What we want to do, actually, is to begin to practice in such as way that we say, “Okay, I have this ego. I want to apply the antidote. What is the antidote? The antidote is to strive to constantly live a life in which my welfare becomes less important – because I am only one – than the welfare of others, who are many.” Again, it doesn’t mean you roll your eyes heavenward, become extremely thin and become a martyr. I don’t think that is the answer. The answer is that you live a life in which you consider how you can best benefit beings. You can start by aspiration, the aspiration to be truly compassionate. If you don’t have the technique, if you don’t know what to do first, begin through prayers of longing.

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Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Offer It Up

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo from The Spiritual Path

We never lose sight of how we feel. We are always monitoring ourselves. We want to feel free of suffering, free of stress. Sentient beings strive endlessly to be happy, so it is very difficult to achieve a sustained, sincere practice of generosity. Think what you have done over the last 24 hours. Work? Practice? Television? Family time? Social obligations? Was your first and foremost thought to benefit sentient beings? Or were you doing things to strengthen your ego in some way, to make you feel better? Mostly the latter, I think. Even our Dharma activity is often done to make us feel better about ourselves—to make us feel busy, wanted, necessary, energetic. Or, perhaps, spiritual, holy, and pure. We always have our selfish purposes, so it is difficult to be generous.

How should one be generous? How should we think about generosity? To begin with, we should not consider phenomena something we can have or not have, something that attracts or repels us. We should view all phenomena as a pure celestial offering that we can actually make to the Three Precious Jewels. We should view our entire world as an exquisite, vast celestial mandala. We should think of phenomena as Mt. Meru, surrounded by its beautiful continents. We should think of all sights, smells, sounds, sensations as precious jewels that we offer to the Three Precious Jewels themselves. It is a more profound version of what we do in our Ngöndro as mandala offering. The deepest way to engage in the practice of generosity is to offer one’s environment continually. But how many of us do that?

Think, for instance, about the way we react to food. We eat food with desire. We taste it with lust, more lust than we think. Shopping for food, we want the best apples, don’t we? The purest, the finest. We want the best carrot cake, the best vegetables. We even lust after color. Our eyes, our feelings are drawn to it. We think we look good or bad in a certain color. We perceive color with attraction or repulsion. All our senses function like that. Actually, generosity should be practiced in such a way that we offer the very senses that we have. But do we offer our taste? Our hearing? Well, we might say that. But we can’t wait for the next sound, the next taste. We cling to our existence as a sentient being, a feeling being.  We long for the next touch, the next sight. When you go for a walk, what do you do? You look at the flowers and trees. You sniff the air, smelling everything. The senses are yours. And you have no idea of offering, no intention of offering them to the Three Precious Jewels. And yet, that would be true generosity.

What is the basis of that generosity? How can such an offering be of benefit? You may think: “If the Buddha wanted my taste, my sight, my hearing, my touch, he’d get his own! A truly enlightened being can manifest all kinds of incredible siddhis, or powers. So why do I have to offer this phenomenal existence to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas?”

Well, why do you have to do that? There’s a real logic behind it. How long are you going to have your senses? You’re going to have sight until your eyes go. Even if your eyes last until the end of your life, they will die when your head dies. You will only have touch as long as you have skin to touch with. Your perceptual experiences will not outlast your body. So what are you holding on to? The traditional teaching says that at the time of death, we cannot take with us so much as a sesame seed. You take only your cause-and-effect relationships and habitual tendencies. So if you have clung to your experiences, establishing your particular neuroses at every moment, that is what you will continue to do in the bardo. If it has been your habit to look for approval and to gather things, situations, people around you for that purpose, you will not be able to take any of that into the bardo. All you will have is the habit of that longing, that desire—and the karma you have engendered from reacting to that need.

How much better to practice generosity—to offer your five senses and all phenomenal existence to the Three Precious Jewels. Why? You create a stream of merit. Offering is one of the major ways to accumulate merit, and that merit can be dedicated to benefit sentient beings. In fact, you can visualize yourself and all sentient beings offering the five senses, offering consciousness itself as we know it. You can think of all sentient beings gathered together with you making offerings of the three thousand myriads of universes purified into a precious jeweled mandala.

What is the value of such an offering? It cuts to the bone. It is so profound that it transforms the entire perceptual process. This deep level of offering pacifies our habit of clinging to cyclic existence. It purifies our self-absorption and selfishness, and we can offer the merit to the countless beings who are themselves constantly involved in selfishness and self-absorption, unaware that they can make any offering at all.

Unfortunately, we are afraid. If we offer something, the Buddha might take us up on it. If I offer the experience of being the mother of my beautiful daughter, maybe they’ll take her away. If I offer all my clothing to the Three Precious Jewels, they might take that away. We fear that something will be lost to us. But you can see that this is a product of our delusion. Our experience of phenomena depends entirely upon karma. As our karma becomes more purified, more virtuous, as our minds become more spacious, more relaxed—our experience can only be better. Suffering only happens due to clinging and desire. In our delusion, we continue to lust after experience, and that lust continues to cause our suffering.

The practice of generosity is an antidote to all that. There is literally nothing to hold on to and no one to do the holding.    Everything you have ever experienced—all you will ever experience—is the result of the condition of your mind. Why not then practice this deep level of generosity? Why not view phenomenal existence for what it is? You will in the end, anyway. You’ll see it disappear before your eyes. At the time of your death, you will see the elements disappear, dissolve. Whether or not you will recognize what is happening is another story. (You may merely pass into unawareness, and that would be for one reason only: you lived in unawareness.)

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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