An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Turning Adversity Into Felicity
How many times have we seen people expect love, kindness, support, financial prosperity, happiness to be their birthright, to be just given to them, that the world owes them a living? You should give this to me. Well, but you should, really! You should, you know. You should give this to me. That’s how we think. Hopefully, as practitioners with some maturity, we can come to understand that what we are growing here is like a garden. According to the seeds that we plant, according to the way that we cultivate our garden, so, too, will be our lives. That will be the fruit that comes up in our garden.
While we live, while we are engaged in Dharma practice, this is not the time to put on blindfolds and pretend that there are no causes and effects, to think that sort of a blissful kind of nonsensical, magical thinking is in order. We shouldn’t mistake the Guru for a magician. There’s a difference. We shouldn’t think that the Lama is simply an idea, a magic formula. If you smile and are nice to the Guru and make prayers, then you will be happy. No, that’s not the formula that you were taught in Dharma class. That’s the one that you made up. Try to see the difference. In Dharma, you are taught by the Lama that the ball is in your court, that you must create the conditions by which your suffering will end, that literally no one else can do that for you. Even if the Lama were to stay by your side and walk with you, hold your hand, spoon feed you, constantly hold arms around you and make sure you’re warm and help you across the intersection so you don’t get hit by a bus, or whatever—even if that were possible—still it would not be possible for your suffering to be terminated by such a ridiculous relationship. That isn’t how it works.
We are taught in our Dharma teaching that the ball is in our court, that we and only we can create the causes and circumstances necessary for happiness. Method is necessary here. Intelligence is necessary here. Clearsightedness is necessary here. Honesty is necessary here. What is not necessary here is idiot thinking, magical thinking, Peter Pan thinking, stupid thinking. That’s what’s not needed.
Of course, the first thing we do when our magical thinking doesn’t work out is we blame the Lama. Isn’t that great? It’s wonderful to have a religion because you can always blame somebody, but actually in Buddhism that’s not allowed either. You can’t do that because if you do that, then you give your power away. What have you got? If the fault is outside of you, then the cure is outside of you, and you’re in tough shape.
So in our faith and our religion we take responsibility. We try to understand that cause and effect arise together. How do we create the perfect causes by which to bring about happiness? Well, slowly, slowly, a bit at a time, as we learn. It’s a growing thing, and the first thing we have to have is confidence and the second thing is patience, and I’m not even sure if they’re separable. They have to come together. It takes time to create causes. It takes time and it takes growth, and like anything that begins as a little seedling and ends up as a beautiful, blossoming tree, it’s not only the ultimate result of the blossoming tree that is a joy; every step along the way is also a joy. It’s a becoming and growing experience.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
