Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Who’s the Captain of Your Ship?

September 27, 2021 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Essence of Devotion”

The reasons for practice of refuge are known if you understand anything about the horror of cyclic existence. You look outside and see the suffering. You look at the way you are conducting yourself and the way your life is set up and the cause and effect relationships you’ve got going here, and you realize it’s just dumb, fruitless, pointless. There is no future in this. It’s a dead end. At that point the mind turns. That turning is the first step of practicing refuge. What does it turn toward? What does it actually turn toward?

Again, you’ve just looked out the window and you’ve looked at yourself, and the first realization is something like, “I don’t know what to do now. I don’t really know what to do. I know that something is terribly wrong, but I don’t know how to get out of this. I don’t know how to leave the party.” There is a piece of you that understands that you must leave the party. Part of you still wants to be there. Part of you likes to play. Part of you likes to dress up. Part of you likes to be unconscious of the eventuality of your own discomfort—suffering, death, old age, those things—and of the suffering of others. We want to be kind of barefoot and ignorant. Part of us wants that sleep, but another part of us, a stronger part of us, a more certain part of us, understands, “…not enough. It is not enough. I’m hungry. They are hungry. This is stupid.” Part of us gets that.

That first turning is the first indication, the first movement, that is required in practicing refuge. We have to stay kind of absorbed in that turning. That turning should be practiced every day. These very thoughts, these very leaving the party thoughts, should be practiced every day. That’s called turning the mind toward Dharma.

Now we have to look for a way out. How to leave the party? The clue is, once again, the first thing we’ve noticed—the suffering and the trickiness and the seductiveness of samsaric existence, or the cycle of death and rebirth. The cycle of death and rebirth must be addressed. That’s where the suffering is. How do we get out of that? We look at the others suffering. We look at ourselves suffering. We look at how foolish we can be and we think, “What is the method?”

Ah ha! That is the answer! We need a method. The answer to that is to look toward those who have actually found the way out of cyclic existence. In other words, if you want to cross an ocean (and we’re talking about the ocean of suffering, the ocean of death and rebirth, the ocean of samsaric existence),,if you want to cross the ocean of suffering, of course you want to look for a boat. The boat is the method, isn’t it? The boat is the method. Well, wouldn’t you look for a boat? You’re about to cross an ocean. There are no planes. We don’t have planes. You want to look for a boat, right? You’re not going to try to swim it, are you? Swimming it is like saying, “I’d like to be spiritual so I’m just going to be spiritual in my own way and I’ll do my own thing because I’m a really cool guy and I know how to do my own thing.” That’s like saying, “Oh great! I’m going to cross the ocean of suffering. Here I go!” Dive in. How long do you think you’re going to last? A little while, but not very long. Not very long, and the problem with that method is that you often don’t even realize when you’re drowning.

So what we need to do is we need to look for a boat. No, not a boat. We need to look for a ship. In fact, if you’re like me, you’re practical and you really want to protect your hide. You do not wish to cross the ocean of suffering in a rowboat, something weak and puny. Neither do you wish to cross the ocean of suffering in a boat that has not been proven seaworthy—a very important fact, really an important fact. If I were to cross an ocean I would want to know that the boat I am in has crossed an ocean many times and is in good repair. And it’s pure, just in the way it was when it was originally capable of crossing an ocean. We want to know that it’s made it back and forth. This is proven. We know we can make it. Also, if you knew that you were crossing an ocean of suffering with, let’s say, the engineer of the boat, or, let’s say, the guy that swabs the decks… Wouldn’t you be a little nervous? I’d be real nervous! I want to cross the ocean of suffering with the most experienced captain, the one who has crossed the ocean of suffering many times successfully, and returned for me. That’s who I want to cross with. I want the big ship. I want the best ship. I want to know that the captain has crossed.

So in this way we look for the most excellent method, that has proven again and again and again, to produce enlightenment, to produce realization. Not an imaginary enlightenment or realization but the one with appropriate signs, the signs that are repeatable, reportable and visible. Such as the signs that our teachers give us at the times of their death, proof of their realization, and even the signs they give us in their activities during the time of their life. Only enlightened minds can provide enlightened compassionate results.

A Prayer For Everyone: Prayer To Be Reborn In Dewachen Video

December 11, 2020 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo composed the following song to offer blessings and comfort to all who are sick or facing death, animals as well as humans, all beings. This video has been created so the prayer can be easily shared.

“If you want to give something for Christmas, give them this music. Even if they’re not dying. But especially if they are close to the end. It’s free. Nothing to worry about. No one is taking you for a ride. It’s just love.”

The video features the prayer followed by a short teaching from Jetsunma on how it can be used.

The Prayer To Be Reborn In Dewachen is a traditional Buddhist prayer to prepare for the time of death.

Commentary on the Bodhisattva Vow: HH Penor Rinpoche – Our Kind Parents

December 25, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is adapted from an oral commentary given by His Holiness in conjunction with a ceremony wherein he bestowed the bodhisattva vow upon a gathering of disciples at Namdroling in Bozeman, Montana, November 1999:

[The second way to adjust one’s intention in order to be in harmony with the special feature of this instruction is through] developing attraction to enlightenment. According to this tradition, what leads one to develop an attraction to enlightenment is the cultivation of love for all beings, which begins by contemplating the suffering of cyclic existence and then cultivating repulsion and weariness [toward that existence].

Think about all living beings that at some time or another, throughout the course of innumerable past lifetimes, have been your own kind father or mother. Consider how a mother will anything for her child–even give her own life, without hesitation. Consider how all living beings have been that kind to you at some time in the past–not just once, but countless times, in countless different circumstances and situations over the course of countless lifetimes since beginningless time. Consider also that to not think carefully about repaying this kindness, and thereby to go through your life without the intention to truly benefit parent sentient beings, and so to actually ignore them, is truly shameless.

Many people in the West may think, “Wait a minute! My parents were not very kind to me. In fact, we are not even close, and I don’t even like them, so why should I feel that I need to repay their kindness now?” If that is what you think, then take a moment to think about how you acquired your body. Is it not due to the kindness of your parents that you have your precious human body? From the time your consciousness entered the union of your father’s seed and your mother’s egg, your mother carried you in her own body. Her body nurtured you as you grew within it. Then with pain and difficulty she gave birth to you. Her kindness did not just stop there: for many years she cared for you and lovingly fed, cleaned, clothed, and wiped you; she provided shelter and cared for you when you were sick, and thus she protected you and looked out for you constantly. If you think you don’t need to repay the kindness of your parents, just remind yourself of those events, which you were the recipient of time and time again.

If that still does not change your attitude, so that you still do not understand the kindness your parents showed you, then think about your body, the gift of your body, which is who you are; your parents gave you that. Because your parents showed you the great kindness of giving you your body, your precious life, here you are. Sure you had the causes for your precious human rebirth, but without parents you wouldn’t have your body. And if you didn’t have your body, you wouldn’t be able to receive these vows.

In our present state of ignorance, we have an inability to recognize that all beings have been our parents in the past, and we certainly don’t know what the particular situations and circumstances of those lifetimes were. Nonetheless, it is certain that we have had countless sentient beings as our parents over and over again in countless past lives. The truth is, at the present time we just do not recognize that.

Imagine you are on the bank of a river with your mother and suddenly she falls in and is being carried away by the rushing water. There you stand on the bank, watching that happen. What would you do? Would you do something to try to save her, such as throw out a rope? Or would your turn your back and walk away rather than risk your own life? Would you be concerned for her, or would your concern be only for yourself? The intention of hearers and solitary realizers can be likened to the later case, while the intention of Mahayana practitioners can be likened to the former. While it is important to develop attraction toward peace, you should never, for any reason, be attracted to the quiescence of the hearers and solitary realizers.

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche Heart Teaching from Palyul Ling

December 24, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche offered this teaching prior to doing a Ganachakra Puja for Jetsunma’s long life at New York Palyul Retreat Center in 2005.

Today is the 15th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar. Jetsunma has some sickness or obstacle, so we are doing this Rigdzin Dupa Ganachakra Puja for her. Some of Jetsunma’s students here requested this puja.

I met Jetsunma a long time ago. I examined her for a while, and then recognized her as the incarnation of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab’s sister known as Ahkön Lhamo. Ahkön Lhamo, the sister of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab lived near the Palyul monastery in a nunnery, which is in front of the monastery, and then in a place called Trong Mar, which means Red Valley. It is called Red Valley because there were lots of nuns. Ahkön Lhamo used to give teachings there to the nuns who wore red robes, filling the small valley, so that is why the place is called Trong Mar, the Red Valley. Since then there has always been a nunnery there. Even these days there are still about 200 nuns there.

I recognized her and then at KPC a long time back we did an enthronement ceremony. Before I met her, she was giving the teaching on generating bodhicitta. Just among her disciples, there are 2-3 at all hours of the day and night trying to meditate on bodhicitta. And she carries on Dharma activity in accordance with the other activities.

Since I named her in that way, there are lots of people in America who are jealous and have all sorts of problems with it. That kind of jealousy doesn’t harm her; it harms the person who is jealous. Many people also try to complain and say things to me. Although people ask me many questions about that, I don’t have to humiliate myself, because I am a Palyul Throneholder, and I have my own rights regarding what I need to recognize. Of course I cannot tell lies, but what I need to do, I’ll do.

Most of the other Nyingma schools just believe whatever I say, and especially all the Palyul traditions or Palyul monasteries. Of course they believe me 100%. There isn’t just one Palyul Monastery. There are hundreds and thousands, and in all those monasteries there are a hundred monks or a thousand monks, and all of them respect whatever I command. There is nobody who says, “This is right or this is not.” But in America because of jealousy, some people say certain things, but there is no meaning. In general America is a strange country. Sometimes it is said that, “In your tradition there are mostly male teachers, and there aren’t any female teachers.” And then Jetsunma is appointed and then again they are jealous and say something else.

Since we are human beings of course it is possible to make mistakes. There is no one who just sits there like an enlightened Buddha. Just because one doesn’t understand or makes a little mistake or does something, then you start complaining.

Jetsunma is a good and perfect teacher. I don’t think she is deceiving anybody. And among Jetsunma’s students, there are a whole bunch of monks and nuns, and she disciplines them all. There is nobody else among women in America who could do that. She is good and special. It is good for everybody to know that she is also one of the Palyul tulkus. These days she is getting older and she has all sorts of sickness. So for her longevity of life, we are doing this Ganachakra Puja.

It’s not just Jetsunma. In America there are many other females and males who are incarnated ones. But the problem is that the nature of Americans is to have so much pride. With the recognition, the pride and ego develop so much that in the end it is difficult to benefit. As a practitioner and as a bodhisattva family, then naturally one should be humble and peaceful and loyal to the practice. Developing pride doesn’t really help anybody. When it is said that you are good or something special, then their pride or ego develops. If that happens, then it is more harmful than beneficial. For those who are noble beings, receiving all these teachings and doing the Dharma practice can benefit other beings. Otherwise thinking that, “Oh, I’m something very special,” is like having a horn on your head and walking around. It doesn’t help anything.

Anyhow, today we are doing this Ganachakra Puja for the longevity of her life. Thank you.

The Nature of the Guru

February 18, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The Lama gives us not only a way to have single-pointed concentration, but the Lama also offers their own accomplishment. When one practices the Guru Yoga really deeply, whether it be in the Guru Yoga in Ngndro, or Shower of Blessings, or in any of the pujas that have Guru Rinpoche as the main focal point or Guru Rinpoche and consort as the main focal point, we should think thatthis is the way to practice Guru Yoga. And in each one of those practices, whichever it is, we understand nondual nature. That’s what we’re working on.

We see the arising from the nature of emptiness appearing in a real, but insubstantial gossamer-like light form, first as the seed syllable, and then as the Guru. We are telling ourselves our own story, because it is we also who have arisen from emptiness. It is our nature that is indeed also the seed syllable. Ultimately we are the same nature as the Guru. By the power of the Guru’s accomplishment, through their many lifetimes of amazing practice, many lifetimes of looking out after sentient beings and accomplishing the needs of sentient beings and liberating sentient beings, they offer themselves and their accomplishment in that way to be the very door to liberation. And so we should think of our teachers in that way—that we are in a burning house, no other way to get out except that one door. Boy, would you ever be devoted to that door. That door would be on your mind if your house were burning, and there were no other way to get out, wouldn’t it? And that’s how we should think. We should think that here we are in samsara. This is indeed the time of Kaliyuga. We have, at best, as many habitual tendencies guaranteed to bring us suffering as we do to bring us happiness. At best. 50/50. And that is so unusual. We tend to make ourselves more unhappy than we do happy. So we are in this burning house and we look to the teacher to provide the door to liberation.

So when we give rise to that devotion, it’s not to the person Guru. It’s not to that person. It doesn’t matter if you like what they’re wearing or how they smell or what they look like or how they walk or anything like that. It doesn’t matter. That’s just the stuff you do in regular life. So you can just sweep it over. Instead you think, “This one has appeared and will appear throughout time out of mind until all suffering has ended, until samsara is emptied, as the door to liberation. What kind of dope am I that I wouldn’t walk through it?” It’s that kind of fervent regard. Think of it that way—more than like-dislike, that kind of judgment, but rather, fervent regard.

We rely on the accomplishment of our teachers. If our teachers had not accomplished any Dharma, how would they be of any use to us? So we expect it of them and we rely on them to guide us in the way of Dharma. Sometimes it pisses us off. We’d rather go on vacation. We’d rather have a little more fun. I mean, it’s Sunday afternoon, isn’t it? And we have all kinds of reasons why we should maybe do something else. But we come back. There is my friend.

If this teacher can bother to appear again and again for no reason other than to liberate sentient beings as my Guru has, then I can at least be here. I can at least come half way, come full with devotion. When we are in the presence of our own Root Guru and we have that connection and we have the history and karma of the Guru having ripened our mind in some way in the past, that ripening will surely come again. With faith and devotion and practice, it will surely come again. And so we have that kind of faith. We know in our hearts and our minds that we can rely on this one for that kind of help.

True Refuge

February 8, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Dharma and Buddhist teachers should unite in giving, and support each other. A true Dharma teacher will unceasingly give to other people and to one another, support. Any Dharma is good if it is pure in intention.

If we develop a good heart, we will progress to true compassion and awaken Bodhicitta. This is the way of the Buddha’s method.

Buddhism in any form is precious. And the forms are many, all lovely and useful. And can lead to Enlightenment. It is taught that VajrayanaIs the quickest and most profound. But I think Buddhism works. Period. And all types are profound.

My leadership is Nyingma, Palyul.All my effort goes to Palyul, and serving the poor as well as animals who need it. Many need help, and refuge.

The trick is keeping the ego in check. Because you sit under a tree does not make you Buddha. Being true refuge does, and the seed is your primordial nature. Unborn and spontaneously complete. You cannot contrive primordial nature. It is as it is. Pristine. And your accomplishment is as as it is and also cannot be contrived. Or maybe briefly, but only to dummies. It all comes out eventually. My advice: stick with Palyul, and wait upon His Holiness. His Holiness Penor Rinpoche and His Holiness Karma Kuchen. Stay pure. Honor the Boddhicitta before all.

The Morning After…

February 5, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Essence of Devotion”

Let’s say that you have suddenly woken up at the party. And you looked outside and you saw this horror—horror that people that you love and respect and know are doing their very best, are trying so hard, are not able to make themselves happy. And you see the suffering. You see hunger. You see poverty. Read the paper, it’s all there—hunger, poverty, sickness, diseases that we can’t cure, and more coming every day. So many different kinds of horrible suffering! Let’s say at the party you woke up and you saw that. And then suddenly you looked at yourself and you thought, “Why am I dressed like this! I look more stupid than I can possibly imagine! This is stupid!” And you realize that you put so much effort into this, beating yourself up and getting the right connections and going to the party, and getting there in time, having a good time. You realize you’ve spent so much energy on that and you feel like… I hate to use this example but, let’s say you ate a couple of tablespoons of nice warm mayonnaise. Bleh. That kind of cloying feeling in your mouth. Isn’t that disgusting? That’s how you’d feel. That’s how you’d feel. You look at yourself, and you look at what’s going on, and you look at the suffering out there and you look at the silly amusement—the silly things that hook us, that make us respond, the ridiculous things that make up our particular individual kind of party—and suddenly you feel like you’re sick of it.

There’s a feeling once you study the suffering of sentient beings and the horror of cyclic existence. It becomes a little bit nauseating, sickening in your mouth. You’ve been eating it your whole life, sickening. You look at yourself go through cycle after cycle of unfulfilling or sometimes negative bad relationships and you just wonder when you’re going to get the big picture, when you’re going to wise up. It suddenly seems like your own lust and your own neediness are kind of like a little sickening. Maybe not all the way yet, but not so cool.

Suddenly you look at yourself and you realize that you’re kind of like a kid, just wearing clothes that are inappropriate. It reminds me of what little kids do. My daughter is not here so I can talk about her again. Sometimes she likes to play dress up, you know. She’s goes into a closet and pulls out everything that doesn’t match and all of the funny clothes that young people think are very dramatic. We took her out for dinner with her friend last night and what they wanted to wear was a funny-looking skirt and blouse that didn’t match, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and pants underneath it. It was just a very strange outfit. At this party you kind of look like that. You know, we look at ourselves and we go, “Who put this on me? How did this happen?” It’s that kind of feeling.

So at that point one needs to build on that first inkling of reality, that first inkling of renunciation. That first inkling is precious. It’s like the first taste of pure water in your mouth. Let’s say you are a person who, for your whole life, has had nothing to eat or drink other than, let’s say, salt water, sugar water, nasty foods, warm mayonnaise, things like that that just don’t feel good in your mouth, and suddenly someone gives you just a bit of this precious, sweetest, coolest water to drink—mountain water, pure mountain water. How delicious would that be! Cool and sweet in a natural way. Your mouth maybe can’t even take it in. You’re used to that other stuff and you can’t even take it in, but something inside of you says, “Yes. Yes. This is it!”

Understanding the Four Thoughts

January 19, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Relationship with the Lama in Vajrayana”

In the beginning of every Buddhist teaching, , before one actually begins any of the deeper practices, there is one practice that is called the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind.

The idea is to think of the mind as having the potential, like the earth, to raise the flower of enlightenment. Any field that you look at, unless it’s been poisoned in some way, has the potential to grow within it the crop of your choice – in this case, the crop of enlightenment. But before you actually begin to grow that crop, you have to cultivate the earth. You have to plow it and water it and fertilize it. You have to take care of it. The mind is very much like that. Even though it has the potential for enlightenment, because of our dualistic thinking, and because from time-out-of-mind until this point, we have been involved with the delusion of ego as being the central factor, and with the survival idea that is associated with that, we haven’t had time to really adopt the idea of enlightenment as being the primary focus. And therefore, we haven’t had time to prepare our minds for that idea.

You may consider that this is true for you even though it isn’t pleasant to think about. It isn’t pleasant to think that we’ve spent so much time only on survival. But it’s probably true. And you’re not the only person on the earth for whom this is true. It’s true for so many of us that it’s normal.

You might try to determine whether or not that is true for you personally, and you might be able to honestly and sincerely look back on your life and see that it is true. But if you can’t do that, then you might think of this as evidential. You might think whether, first of all, you have found a path that you are certain leads to supreme enlightenment. And the way you can ascertain that is by looking around and seeing whether in the past, or even in the present, it has produced, and continues to produce, enlightenment that is visible, predictable and reportable.

If you have found such a path, then are you able to maintain that path with diligence? That means, are you able to maintain that path in such a way that you don’t get that on-again-off-again cyclic involvement that so many people in meditation do? Are you able to remain firm? When you find this path, and it becomes a central focus in your life, in times of both joy and fear, is this path always the answer to your problems? But most of all, you should look to see whether you are certain enough about this path to have it be your source of refuge. Is it the thing you turn to? And do you consistently practice it everyday? If all these factors have been met, then your mind has been turned.

For 99.9% of the human beings on this earth, not only have they not found a path that always leads to supreme enlightenment, but once they do find it, they’re on-again-off-again. And even when they’re on-again, their true source of refuge seems to be the ordinary human addictions that we all have like material goods, or trying to find things in an ordinary way that make you feel up like mood manipulation, relationships, physical safety. These things are our addictions, and these are what we consider to be our sources of refuge.

So for 99.9% of all the people on the earth, the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind are extraordinarily useful. And even a dyed-in-the-wool Buddhist, a person who has taken ordination, who has been a practicing Buddhist all their lives, and whose first teaching was the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind, still even for that person, I personally recommend that they practice the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind continually, from now until the end of this incarnation. Maybe having it be the last thing you think of before you die.

Karma: Virtual Reality

December 29, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

When you’re practicing to accomplish pure view, you realize that for you, the teacher is the appearance in the world of a method or a path, a means by which one can enter the door of liberation. This is what makes the teacher precious. The teacher can connect you with the path, can explain the path, can ripen and deepen the mind so that one can practice on the path, and is a spiritual facilitator of a very high caliber. Their activity is extraordinary, or beyond what is normally found in samsara. So you begin, in pure view, to recognize the teacher as being representative of your own true face, the ground of being that is your inherent primordial wisdom nature—that nature which is free of contrivance, free of distinction, completely empty yet completely fulfilled and spontaneously complete. You begin to understand that this teacher is a representation of that nature in the world. The teacher provides the path, the means, the method, the ability to practice, and connects you with that in a very extraordinary way.

Once you’ve determined that, the teacher becomes for you the appearance of the Buddha nature in the world, the appearance of the method or the path in the world, the appearance of the fruition or the accomplishment in the world, the appearance of your own true face in the world. Once the teacher becomes that for you, then to take an opposite viewpoint and to determine a difference of opinion is not a sin or a nonvirtue. It simply argues with what you have already determined for yourself. It’s almost like walking three steps forward and two steps back in your Dharma practice. It’s not that you should become brain dead and that you’re not supposed to have an opinion, but there’s a fine line there that has to be travelled, and it’s pretty difficult to understand what that line is. Now on the one hand you are, and have been raised to be, a person who has a mind that thinks, and you have the ability to connect cause and effect yourself. Hopefully on the path you are developing that clarity of mind more and more and more. Yet here you find a situation where you have also stated clearly “I have found my teacher. Here is this vajra master that I have taken teachings from. That vajra master has facilitated me on the path of Dharma. So how is it that I feel like I have a different opinion at the same time that I have said this is the ultimate, this is the face of the Buddha, this is the Buddhas’ wisdom? How do I negotiate that? What’s that look like for me? I mean, how do I do that?”

Well, let’s stop and think for a moment in a way that might be beneficial. Don’t answer that question right now, but keep it simmering. We’re cooking up some Thanksgiving dinner here. We’re keeping it simmering. Here’s the gravy. It’s simmering on low boil. So now we’re back with the turkey in the oven. But don’t forget, the gravy is still on the boil. You’ve got to keep watching that one! O.K., now, withdraw from that, but still think about answering that question.

Now think about this: You’ve noticed haven’t you, I’m sure you have, that throughout our lives we tend to repeat certain habitual tendencies again and again and again. Can we all agree on that? We have seen certain habitual tendencies. We have seen certain patterns, certain habits. It really depends on how old you are, how convinced you are of this. The older you are, the more time you’ve had to see these things repeat again and again and again. While you’re still young, you think, “Well I’ve only done this two or three times! Who says there’s going to be a fourth, fifth and seventy-fourth!” But by the time you get to be maybe midlife where I am, you’re going, “I’ve seen this movie before!! I have seen this movie before!” And you realize that these habitual tendencies kind of repeat themselves again and again and again, deeply ingrained.

And then if you’re the kind of person who is really insightful, you realize that you project these habitual tendencies onto the circumstances of your life, and without realizing it, will very much control situations and people in your life according to your preconceived notions and according to your habitual tendencies. A difficult situation where you may recognize this is, let’s say, a child that grows up in a house where the child is not given any dignity or any respect and the child feels not loved or abused in some way. So the child develops a certain understanding about that —I am not worthy or I am not lovable—and then goes out into their lives and tends to project some of the same information on others. Others might be perfectly willing to love, be perfectly willing to just do the best they can, not always perfect of course, but to do the best they can, loving them. And yet this person is unable to accept that love and sees the same outcome pretty much all the time and actually is engaged in that outcome. So that’s one situation.

Another situation is, for instance, that of a cat. A cat is actually so strongly habituated towards killing it seems instinctive. From the Dharma point of view, we understand this to be habitual tendency reinforced many many times, life after life, a karmic kind of situation. The cat will be reborn, and even if there is nothing to kill, if you throw a ball of yarn across the room, the cat will go after it. You know what happens when a cat sees flies against the window. If a fly is bumping against the window, the cat will go after that. Anything that scuttles, the cat is after it and their eyes get really big. Have you ever seen a cat look out the window at a bird feeder? Have you ever seen that? The cat makes these horribles noises like “I want those hamburgers! Give me those hamburgers!!” For them it’s like McDonalds in the sky. These animals are so strongly habituated towards killing, that even though they come into this life as a cute little fluffy kitty, those little ears and the little tail and those little feet, still and all, they are killers. They are habituated towards that and the first chance they get, any stimulation, any stimulation, such as the rolling of the ball of yarn across the floor, they will interpret as the hunter and hunted scenario.

Did you know that we do the same thing? We do exactly the same thing. We are so deeply habituated in our own particular tendencies, whatever they are, that we project in the same way onto external stimulation. If we have deeply habituated ideas, sometimes they are bordering on the obsessive and compulsive. Maybe not even bordering, maybe all the way in that country! Pay the toll, we’re in! What happens is once we are strongly habituated into habit, we interpret all stimulation outside as something that keys us into our habitual tendency. So what I find as a teacher and a female, for instance, is that many people interpret me as their mother. They think of me as being the authority figure, someone they have to answer to in that way. They can’t be bad around me. A lot of times the students will… I mean it’s one thing to have your Dharma manners going when you see the teacher—you hold that in respect, and that’s a really good thing—but what I found is that I can walk into a party and kill it, just like that! Because my students suddenly stop functioning. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my mother said ‘dust the living room.’ So I’d be dusting the living room, having fun, thinking about other things, like boys or whatever, and dusting and carrying on. My mother came into the room and I’d suddenly start moving fast! It reminds me a little bit of that.

And sometimes some of my students are habituated towards authority figures in a certain way, and since I must exude some kind of authority, they look at me and interact in the same way with me that they do with other authority figures. So there is this “has to be good girl, good boy or whatever, routine” and the blaming of the teacher and making all of those “I’m mad at you authority figures” kind of scenarios going on. There are all kinds of different gigs, You know what your gig is with authority. Everybody has one. And so they project that onto the teacher. But you see, what’s really happening there is you’re looking at your own habitual tendency—the way that your mind works, the way that it intersects with the time and space grid in front of you, and how you play with your own habitual tendency. What you’re really seeing there is kind of like a bounce-back phenomena that’s actually taking place within your own mindstream.

There is nothing external happening. There is nothing beyond you that is happening. There’s just nothing out there that determines your fate. You’re looking at a kind of almost internal bubble, or a virtual situation in a certain way. You can learn a lot from that kind of virtual reality situation. It’s almost a virtual internal situation that’s happening there.

Incalculable Blessings for All

December 27, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Today I thought to share with you the Prayer Wheels of KPC. Having seen them in India I fell in love with Stupas and Prayer Wheels and determined to contact a Lama who is a specialist in the necessary steps. My students became well trained in compiling and stuffing them.

These Prayer Wheels are well kept, and filled with every conceivable Vajrayana mantra. All Lamas there blessed and sealed them. Hooray!

Here they are! Glorious.

There is method here, no ordinary artist can make one. They are to spin clockwise, and circumambulated clockwise (this is me demonstrating.) As many thousands have done over the years:

We have many testimonies that the Prayer Wheels and Stupas have healed so many. Many blessings. I invite all people suffering from illness, including cancer, mental illness, HIV-Aids to make a pilgrimage here to heal and receive blessings, as well as joining our 27 year, unbroken Prayer Vigil.

Here is the main Stupa, we have several here in Poolesville, Maryland and two in Sedona which are much loved by the community:

I am happy to have offered this blessing to the people of the world, and all worlds.