Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Miraculous Signs: The Birth of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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The following story was told by Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo in response to repeated requests by her students:

Well, this is the story that my mother told me about the time of my birth.  And I feel certain that it is true because she didn’t know what any of it meant and was reporting it like a person who didn’t understand.  She told me that it actually took three days for me to be born, which is kind of interesting.  I’m sure it set off the groundwork for a great mother-daughter relationship, but she told me that it took three days for me to be born. Whenever it seemed as though the contractions were getting stronger, I would go back up again, and they had a hard time delivering me.

It turns out that I was in a breach position, which is common for tulkus; but uniquely when I was delivered, what was delivered first was my bottom with crossed legs.  My mother said it was really crazy because my feet were locked up.  From what I am able to understand, I was born in a lotus position.  So it was very difficult to deliver the bottom part with the legs.  The total mass would have been bigger than the head.   I think that is why the delivery was so difficult.  But I was born in that position and my hands were in an interesting position as well.  My mother said they thought I had a pulled nerve in my left arm because my hand was like this (Tara mudra) and they couldn’t move it.  They couldn’t budge it at all.  And my other hand was like this (Tara mudra), which they thought was normal.   But they could not move my hands, and they could not get me out of that position for some time.  I think my hands stayed up for three days.

They thought I was a very sickly baby, and I think I was because I was hard to rouse—I think I was meditating.  I was hard to rouse and difficult to get into another position.   It was kind of unusual.   I was born in the lotus position with the hands in Tara’s posture, and I had a zen [the upper robe worn by monks and nuns].  I was delivered with the caul or afterbirth partially on my body, and it was under my right arm and thrown up over my left arm.  It was exactly like a zen.

What else?  When I was born, my mother said that after the birth took place, the whole room filled up with the scent of flowers. And all the nurses and the doctor were just, “Where’s it coming from?  Where’s it coming from?”  And for some reason, everyone in the room cried, and they didn’t really know why they cried.  They just cried.  So, it was kind of amazing.

Choose Well

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

I can understand how bad the economy is for all of us. Many people, even former good citizens are turning to money crimes, sadly. They don’t see any other way to get funds. So they turn to illegal means to survive. The really awful thing is how temporary that gain can be! Once the “deal with the devil” is made, one has lost their way, spiritually, as well as character, ethics, purity and samaya. Then when the money is gone, no more happy times remain. And one has lost everything, all virtue diminishes, and future poverty and suffering is assured.

Why is greed so difficult to overcome? Or the urge to gather power and be on top? Perhaps no true understanding of the law of karma? Some will even allow themselves to try to take what another has earned. Even to the point of destroying the victim. That is just the perfect method to destroy oneself. The fact is, most people dumb enough to commit crimes are actually made stupid by their own lust for gain and mostly get caught. Or their criminal friends turn on them. There is no honor among thieves, they cannot be trusted.

I’ve learned so much about this in my life alone. We should always remember that some people are very, very weak. And some people are very, very strong. It is almost impossible to tell the difference. Until the thief turns demonic. Then they are easily known. Remember this. And choose well!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Peerless Guru: His Holiness Penor Rinpoche

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo: I wish there was no corruption in any religion. I wish there was no corruption in Buddhism. I wish there was no corruption in humans. When Tsawei Lama Third Drubwang His Holiness Penor Rinpoche was alive there was never any such thing. His Holiness always emphasized purity, honesty, bodhicitta. His Holiness Kyabje Penor Rinpoche ruled with care, and love. He was never in His life spoken of badly by anyone that mattered. All loved and revered him. His Holiness Penor Rinpoche kept his vows, outer, inner, and secret ones, all without stain. He began and built Palyul in India with his own hands! What Tulku, Khenchen, monk or nun could ever hope to accomplish the same? His Holiness Penor Rinpoche was peerless! Now we’ve lost Him. Who will keep Palyul pure? I can say this. No one should make money off Dharma. It should pay the bills, yes. KPC has no major donors, just many small ones. But we keep the doors open. Money goes to help sentient beings, like Garuda Aviary and Taras Babies or feeding the poor. Not lining pockets. Everyone, for the most part, wants money for themselves. Money is power. And it feels good until the Bardo, where all we will have is our selfishness without interruption! Everyone, except Kybje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. He only wished to preserve the purity of Palyul and to empty samsara from its depths! May His Holiness Karma Kuchen rise up and do His work. And offering the precious jewel Mandala I beg and cry out for His Holiness Penor Rinpoche’s Yangsi to appear and return to us who mourn! Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved originally published Sept. 2, 2011

Where Are You on the Path?

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

I don’t know how many times I can present this same teaching. It’s about understanding that the ball is in our court. It’s about having a direct hands-on experience, not about being a good boy or girl. Aren’t you sick of that?  This moralizing stuff has got to go! Instead, have a direct understanding, a natural wisdom—your wisdom—that dry times cannot take away from you, that broken hearts cannot take away from you, that no one else can take away from you. Your wisdom. You don’t look to anyone else to get your wisdom. You’ve got it inside. You understand the path in a deep way. You are empowered.

I’m not talking about ritual empowerment. I’m talking about a deeper, truer kind of empowerment.  How wonderful if we can know that spiritual empowerment deeply within ourselves, to then go through the process of ritual empowerment according to the teaching and know what it’s about.  It’s not just a vase (or a bhumpa) being knocked on your head.  You could do that from now until your head and the bhumpa are both flat, and there would be no direct relationship. If it’s all academic and intellectual, then it’s the same as getting a Ph.D. anywhere in technical sciences or whatever. It’s not really a path. A path is a way you go. A path is not an object that you consume or collect or put in your crock pot and boil all day until it makes gravy at night.  A path is where you are. Where are you then?

What I’m talking about is carefully considering how to overcome the limitations of confinement of our kind of society, of our kind of culture;  how to go more deeply to have a more direct relationship with our own spiritual nature—a real mystical relationship with that nature. And I don’t mean just meditating on some sort of internal cartoon circus where you think you’re getting messages from the Pleiades or some baloney like that. If you had a real, direct relationship with your own nature and you really understood the wisdom and the beauty of the Buddha’s teaching and didn’t see it as his teaching, but as a wisdom that appeared in the world here, you could see it as your teaching, as a wisdom that you could connect with.

Actually, we Westerners have a similar problem to what Black Americans have approaching Christianity. Black Americans pray to white Jesus. It’s not to say that their faith is small. I don’t know whether they have a problem with it or not, but it must be odd.  What does it look like seeing a white face on an altar when you’re a black person? Go home and look at all those Asian faces on your altar. They don’t look like us. What to do about it? How do you take refuge? How do you connect? It’s not about those pictures. It’s not about those faces.  It’s about you!  And it connects inside.

It isn’t about the shape of those eyes. It’s about what those eyes see. So you have to have that completely personal relationship where you look beyond that which is slanted or colored or this way or that way. It’s got to be a deeply personal relationship. To do that you must connect deeper than you’ve ever been before. We love to just skate over the surface of our experience of life. We’re even addicted to the highs and lows.

You can’t really understand why and how to take refuge by learning a set of equations or laws or rules. These can only function as guidelines. It’s really up to us to be powerful and strong and noble and knowing and awake on our path. Virtue cannot be collected. It has to be experienced, tasted, understood. Its nature must be understood.

This is not the news we want to hear. We want an easy religion.  We think, “Just tell us the ten things we have to do so that we’re not uncomfortable about dying.” I’m not saying those ten things are bad; they’re good, they’re wonderful. But where does it lead you? Aren’t you still the same scared little kid who was so neurotic because you are compressed with rules and society and with being told you can’t feel things. And now we’re going to do this with our religion too. Ten more times.

What if, instead of being a girdle that makes us out of touch just trying so hard to be good, we experienced our path—our method—in a wisdom way, in a connected way, in an in-touch way?   From that fertilization that happens when you really understand an idea and it causes you to go, “Ah-hah, therefore…”, from that point of view it’s like a plant or a tree coming up inside of you and growing. It bears fruit. It is a joyful thing, and you can see the fruit of your life. Most of us are so unhappy and so neurotic because we cannot see the fruit of our life and we do not understand its value. We haven’t tasted it. This direct relationship one can taste. It needs to be like that in order for us to really take refuge and not be lost little kids scared of dying, just trying to do the right thing—be good boys and good girls with a new set of rules—because maybe if we just had a new set of rules, maybe then we’d be good.

Instead of that, what if we were dynamically in love, inspired, breathing in and out on our path? The path can, in that way, be a companion, a joyfulness, a child of yours, a creation, a painting, something beautiful you’ve done with your life. You can’t make a beautiful painting by number. You have to make a beautiful painting from your heart.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Victory of View

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

I have been told many times that I worry. I must say I disagree. I do study things, try to puzzle cause and effect, try to glimpse behind the curtain. I love to notice patterns and find their meaning. I like to study abnormal psychology, love to hear about case studies, what makes people tick. I find reactions fascinating! I’ve learned that each bit of phenomena is amazing.

So you may see me with a knit brow…but this life has taught me squarely that it is a dream. One moment you feel mortally wounded, then with a little tweaking it isn’t so anymore. I’ve found if we step back and breathe we can avoid getting all tied up in stuff, and bound in neurosis, insanity. It’s choices.

Life is a whirling colorful, mesmerizing dance with lights, sound and distraction, like a circus. And like a circus it soon packs up and disappears, leaving only dust and tracks in dirt.

If we study life and think in sane full equations that add up, we can manage well. If we sink into reaction, rage, fear, despair, we will be ground into blood and guts and will always be a bee in a bottle. Round and round with no rhyme or reason or true purpose. And certainly with no accomplishment. Meditation, mantra, and prayer, all help soothe and deepen the mind, increases our view, relaxes our ego-clinging, helps us expand our thinking and being into something beautiful. Extraordinary! We can “be” to the degree that we can laugh with pure joy. Dance. Howl at the moon… cry, mourn and recover well. No, I don’t worry about life or death. I am into knowing, connecting, loving, laughing and recovery for all from trauma. I don’t take it so seriously. And I never worry anymore! I’d call that a victory of view!

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA!

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Meditation

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Image courtesy of NASA
Image courtesy of NASA

Download Guided Meditation

This is a guided meditation by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  In a teaching from the 1980s, Jetsunma taught about how this meditation helps one get passed the feeling of separation, and begin to imitate the radiant qualities of one’s true nature – light and compassion.

In her words, “Separation is the cause of all trauma, all pain, any grief that you have ever suffered anywhere, or at anytime.  Anything that has ever hurt you or been a bother to you has been because you believe yourself to be separate from everything.  Your true nature is Absolute Union or Oneness. The true nature that you are is light.

Effective prayer is about imitating that radiance.  Through imitation of your true nature, you come to realize your true nature.  You stop thinking about separation, and you stop buying into judgment, and you get out of limitations.  Effective prayer is centering into that Absolute reality that is the core of what you are.”

Living the Practice: Learning to Change

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

Our job then is to get in, to make this faith more than a formalized external thing just like an exoskeleton. The only way to get in is by really understanding it, by really going through the process that empowers you, to see what the truth actually is. For instance, we’re told that cause and effect is for real. Cause and effect should be blatantly obvious to us by this time because most of us here are above five years old. But we don’t get it. Lord Buddha tells us that cause and effect really matter. If you engage in virtuous, loving, generous, kind acts, the results will be love, happiness, fulfillment, higher rebirth, all of these kinds of things. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

But if we don’t go through what it takes to truly understand this on a deep level, we end up approaching even this very visible piece of truth by saying, “Oh this is another thing I have to learn.”  I’ve seen my students do this—from my very oldest to the brand new ones. “From now on I’m going to do good things, because good things will get good results and I’m going to be happy.  Okay. Let’s see now. It’s 7 o’clock in the morning.  I will be out of bed by 7:15. Can I get a good thing done by 7:20?”  This is the way that we think. It’s by rote. A chicken can do this!  A parrot that can be taught to talk can learn these rules. But where is the heart of the parrot?

What if we could hear the Buddha’s teaching and say, “This is an amazing wisdom that has come into the world. The Buddha organizes this wisdom and says to us, ‘Virtuous actions produce excellent results.’”  What if we went through the process of really looking at this? What if we really tried to connect the dots? What if we looked at our own life experience? Yes, it’s hard to do. We know that. The reason it’s hard to do is that in order for you to examine what virtuous conduct looks like and how it relates to result, you have to determine what is virtuous conduct and what is non-virtuous conduct. In order to do that you have to face some terrible truths about yourself—for example, that you don’t always engage in virtuous conduct. The minute we get near that sucker we back off fast. Because isn’t religion supposed to make us feel better?  Well, yes, if it’s an opiate.  Well, yes, if it’s a drug—one of your many drugs.

Religion can be compared more to exercise. When we first start to exercise, especially nowadays, we join a club and  get an outfit. (I have some killer workout outfits, I want you to know.) We get an outfit and everything matches, the socks, the headband. Or else we jock out about it. Maybe everything doesn’t match, but it’s all cool.  And then we get in there, and we don’t work out or exercise because it feels good to lift vast amounts of weight over and over again. Not at first. In fact, at first there’s a lot of pain. You get on those machines, and the next thing you know you can’t move. So starting never feels good, but, afterwards—when you’re in shape and your body is tuned up and you’re strong—you feel great! It’s an organic thing. It benefits all your systems.  It comes up from inside of you. It changes everything about your life. It feels great. But initially, no. Most people stop with that initial stuff, don’t they? The minute it doesn’t feel good, that’s when they stop.

 

We do the same thing with religion. Can you see that?  We go into it with an outfit, and we do it until it’s a little uncomfortable, such as changing something about our lives or seeing something. Then we’re out of there, because we have the “don’t wannas.”  We don’t wanna; it doesn’t feel good.  We think, “I thought this was going to make me happy, and it really doesn’t.  It’s kind of depressing to think about reality.  I don’t want to.”

Now let’s look at a person who moves into making exercise part of their lives. You do it in a more directly related way. You learn something about it. You learn about the physiology of exercise. You learn that there are certain problems your body has that it doesn’t have when you exercise. Well, that’s one thing that will empower you to keep on going: You go for that goal of producing a certain result. Have you ever thought of that in your practice? Producing a certain result, instead of just putting in your time? There is a difference. With exercise we get to a certain point where we just begin to see—because we’re looking inside of ourselves and we’re looking in the mirror—that there is some result. The first time you see a result it can be a life-changing experience, if you work to integrate it into your life.

It’s just exactly like that with religion. Initially, you have to change. Change is not comfortable. We already know this. So initially you change and then after that you begin to connect the dots. You begin to see some cause and effect relationships. You begin to see that virtuous behavior actually does make you feel pretty good, and you explore that. You don’t take it for granted like a big dope. You work it out in your mind—work the numbers, work the equations. What feels good? Does it feel good to be in charge of your own internal progress?  I think so.  It doesn’t feel good to walk through life and just let life hit you like a truck. It feels good to walk through life in my practice, knowing in my heart that I am deeply empowered by this direct intimate relationship to spirituality. I know what kindness tastes like. I can see direct results from certain kinds of behavior patterns, behavior changes. I can see them directly in my mind. I feel comfortable with that. How is it that Tibetan monks have the same restrictions as our ordained and they are so much more comfortable with them? How is it that Tibetan lay people feel so much more comfortable with their lives? It’s because they have some kind of direct experience that makes it sensible and realistic and reasonable to conduct themselves in a certain way.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Turning the Mind

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zakurdayev-framed-mirrors

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

In the preliminary stages of this path, we must engage in a practice called “turning the mind.” What does that mean?  Our minds are fixated on gratification and self-satisfaction, on the idea that “if I dance fast enough, I’m going to get happy somehow.”  The Buddha teaches us to turn our minds to face the facts, rather than continuing this chronic, habitual fixation on delusion.  We must see that cyclic existence is an impermanent, changing process that results in death and rebirth.  And the rebirth takes a form we cannot foresee, a form determined by our karma.  Once we understand this, we must act accordingly.  Realizing that we have a choice, we can act intelligently.

The Buddha has made clear that all our suffering occurs due to habitual fixation on self-nature as inherently real, and the resultant desire.  He also gives us a way to antidote that desire: a clear look at cyclic existence and its faults.  We can see what the faults of cyclic existence are, and we can use this as a medicine, applying it till the end of our incarnation.  Then we can look back on our lives, perhaps at age eighty, and say: “I have spent that time well.”

If we remain fixated on material things (a chicken in our pot, our boat, our color TV), dancing really fast, we may still reach the age of eighty before we die.  But not even a sesame seed, as the teaching says, can we take with us.

If we choose wisely, we will reap the benefits of applying the antidote the Buddha prescribes.  These benefits will come from purifying our mindstream and thereby pacifying our habitual compulsive tendencies.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, every bit of experience you now have is the result of your karma.  Would you like to have a full-life reading about your past lives? Well, let me tell you how you can get one.  Look at yourself now.  Look at your cravings, your selfishness, your sadness.  Look at your happiness, your generosity.  Look deeply at yourself, with honesty and courage.  Look at your appearance, at how you act.  Everything about you is a reflection of your past actions, of cause-and-effect relationships.  So you don’t need to pay someone a hundred dollars to give you a fancy life reading.  Just look in the mirror.

Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Self-absorption Leads to Unhappiness

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An excerpt from a teaching called How to Pray by Being by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The Buddhist path is not a selfish trip. It’s not a self-absorbed trip. In fact, as Buddhist practitioners, we strive to become less and less self-absorbed. Being self-absorbed is the exact opposite of prayer–180 degrees away from it.  But most of us, unfortunately, have the habit of self-absorption, and so we spend most of our lives holding a prayer that is based on samsara. That has no good result. Without exception, self-absorbed people are the unhappiest people on the face of this earth, whether they have money or they don’t. Whether they have a home and a car or they don’t. Whether they live in a simple thatched hut or they live in a mansion, the people that are self absorbed and locked up in their own inner phenomena are the unhappiest people on the face of this earth.

The tragedy is that in our culture we are taught to think more about ourselves than about others. We are taught that if we buy cars and other stuff and maybe line up a few parties and relationships and line up a few fun retreats, we will be happy. That is simply not the case. Happiness never comes from self-absorption. It comes from being concerned about the welfare of other sentient beings.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The Guru’s Three-Part Empowerment

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The most important part of the practice of Guru Yoga is when we receive the threefold empowerment from the guru. We receive the white light from the Guru’s head to our head to purify our body. We receive the red light from the Guru’s throat to our throat to purify and empower our speech. We receive the blue light from the Guru’s heart to our heart to purify and empower our mind. We should be receiving these empowerments 24 hours a day. Every time our mind has a little space, we should train ourselves to remember to receive the nectar of the Guru’s blessing. Instead, we walk around saying, “I’m lonely. I need my space. I need to go out and do stuff. I need to spend some money.” And we whine and carry on in samsara. And yet every minute this amazing phenomenal connection is available.

We should develop the habit of constantly keeping that connection. Whenever we have a moment, we should recite the Seven Line Prayer and ask for the guru’s blessing. And then we have it –boom, boom, boom—because when we ask, it is always given. There is never a time that when we ask, that it is not given. It may happen that we can’t receive the blessing sometimes. But we just keep trying. It’s simply our habit, and habits can change.

This is prayer without ceasing. This is constant prayer. This is a personal version of what we’re trying to do here at KPC by having our 24-hour prayer vigil, with someone practicing all the time. It is developing a constant awareness of our non-duality with the guru.

As we practice, the experience deepens. When we do our sit-down practice, the empowerments become easier to receive. We will find that we can go deeper and deeper and deeper. Then when we receive that three-part empowerment, our mind will be mixed with the guru and all the blessings will be present.  But be careful: Pride will stop the blessing.

So we wire up. We take refuge and are anchored in our confidence. We know, “This is my guru; I am unshaken.  This is the method; I am unbroken.  This is the result that I am going toward.” We maintain that connection constantly. Any time we have a moment, we recall our root guru appearing as Guru Rinpoche and receive the empowerments, mixing our mind with the guru’s mind. That’s the way to awaken to non-duality. That’s the way to awaken to our nature. When we mix our mind with the guru’s, we are deeply empowered with the bodhicitta. We can hear the calls of the suffering ones. They will fill our ears.

When we take this empowerment and we mix our mind with the nectar of the Three Precious Jewels, then we can pray. We can see ourselves as the same as the guru in nature, not in a prideful sense. Having received the blessing of the guru and of all the masters of the lineage, we are now able to pray.  We can ease the suffering of sentient beings.  Why?  Because we have the merit of our lineage. Now we can take within us the suffering of sentient beings because we can handle it. We have the power of the vajra masters.  That is our joy, our bliss, our ecstasy. We are never separate from them.

So prayer comes when we are in a state of awakening–when the bodhicitta that is the nectar of the guru’s mind is mixed inseparably with our own mind. Then we can pray: we can speak with the authority of the bodhicitta, in the way of the bodhicitta.

Do you hear the sense of potency I am trying to describe?  It is a sense of being fully mixed with the nectar of bodhicitta, fully aware that our nature is the bodhicitta. It is the bodhicitta that benefits sentient beings. When we are aware that we are the bodhicitta, it is this that we send to others. That is the power of the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas.

When we are that bodhicitta, we can awaken the bodhicitta in others just by looking at them. I know from experience that when His Holiness Penor Rinpoche looked at my heart, my heart was his and it opened. He recognized the bodhicitta in me, and I practiced to mix my mind with his. And therefore it was done. And that’s the potency of prayer. Now I can pray.

There is no room for pride in prayer—just simple gratitude for receiving the blessing of the guru in a humble way, with confidence in that blessing. Because of that blessing, we can pray. Now we have the bodhicitta; now we are the bodhicitta. And that is the potency and power upon which we rely.

The Buddhadharma is with us every minute. It’s a path, a way of life. And it is the true method to achieve the precious awakening. When we know that other beings are suffering so terribly, and we have found this jewel and it is in our hands and this nectar is given freely, I ask you: Why not learn to pray?

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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