spaciousness

Mindfulness: Letting Go of Reaction

December 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Stabilizing the Mind”

If you can get to a place of natural awareness, you can remain mindful in a way that isn’t really describable in words. You can begin to sense a little bit of space between the calm, natural awareness and the reaction that you have quite automatically, instantaneously. It’s really necessary to develop the skill of sensing that little bit of space, because your tendency is to run off and react to every thought that you have. Just look at what you’re doing in your mind right now. What are your thoughts? You’re reacting. Everything is a reaction, and you’re floating on it. You’re up and down with it all the time.

If you can just begin to sense a little bit of space between that natural awareness and the reaction, you can begin to have the skill to not be so at the mercy of the conceptual proliferations of your mind. That little bit of space is exactly what you need to begin to disengage the ego, to begin to disengage desire. You need space in your mind to meditate even on the problems that desire brings up for you. You have to have some space in your mind to meditate on true nature. You have to have some space in your mind to meditate on emptiness. That kind of space can be developed all the time. If you practice in that way constantly, or at least as often as you are able, to remain mindful, and increase that mindfulness and increase that kind of practice, you’ll find yourself doing it more and more naturally.

But don’t try to keep yourself locked up. That’ll make you crazy. That is not a solution. You make yourself crazy when you say, “I’m not going to be happy now. I’m not going to be unhappy now. I’m not going to follow my mind around the block. I’m not going to do that.” Really, that is not a good solution. If you practice the spaciousness in your mind in the gentle way I have just described, you’ll begin to be able to be more mindful and more aware of the validity of the Buddha’s teaching.

Spaciousness: The Foundation of Practice

December 21, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Stabilizing the Mind”

If you are romantically involved with Dharma, then you have developed no space in your mind and you will be constantly up and down, skating on your own dramatics with no stability in the mind. And you are completely at the mercy of suffering. Where there is no space, there is nowhere to go. There’s no quiet place where you can rest. You are either going to be suffering or feeling exhilarated — an intensity of a different kind. Ultimately it’s all suffering. You’re going to be into the intensity with no spaciousness in your mind. You’ll be stuck there with nowhere to go. You just ride on your emotions. If you have not developed spaciousness in your mind, you are the victim of the highs and lows and the mind’s conceptual proliferations. For example, you’re completely at the mercy of pain. Have you ever had really intense pain? It can make you lose all awareness. It’s unbelievable. You just lose consciousness, and it’s because there’s no space in your mind. Pain is a concept; it’s something in your mind.

You are completely at the mercy of emotionalism of all kind, and you know that of yourself. You follow your emotions constantly. They’ve been high, and they’ve been low. They’ve been big, and they’ve been small. They’ve been in, and they’ve been out. Have your emotions ever made you happy for a long time? Have your emotions ever been dependable companions? They never have if you really think about it.

So if you develop spaciousness, you have at least a fighting chance, if you will excuse the phrase, to begin to practice in such a way that your mind has some potential for liberation. In other words, there’s a little spaciousness in which you can practice. It’s very, very important for you to try to do that. If you develop a little bit of space, you can start building up these bricks of the Buddha’s teaching. You can evaluate the teachings for yourself. From that calm place, from that place behind all of the concepts, you can see that following the mind leads to no happiness. You can see that desire is the cause of suffering. You can sense the potential for enlightenment or at least for disengaging from that phenomenon that you are so involved in. You can sense that there is something behind all of your concepts that’s very profound. You can begin to build the solid blocks that are necessary in order to follow the Buddha’s path until you achieve supreme enlightenment.

June 22, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

According to the Buddha’s teachings, that goal isn’t very far away. It doesn’t even have to be created. One doesn’t create enlightenment you see. Enlightenment cannot be created. The natural state cannot be brought closer or created or uncreated. It simply is not within the realm of that kind of activity. What must happen is we must purify or apply the antidote to certain conditioned responses that we are chronically and continually engaging in in order to develop a kind of spaciousness within our perception or our view, a kind of spaciousness within our mind by which we can truly awaken to the primordial wisdom nature. So what has to be done is very deep.