Vajrayana | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Nature of Kaliyuga

January 18, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Vajrayana and Kaliyuga”

It used to be that one could learn something of the Buddha’s teaching – for instance, a beginning philosophy, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, and some of the Buddha’s basic teachings – but one could not receive teachings on the meaning of Vajrayana, and certainly one would not come across teachings on the nature of mind. This is a very recent occurrence. They are still thought of as secret, even though now, because this is the time of Kaliyuga, the time of great degeneration, these teachings are in fact widespread.

There is a tremendous blessing in their being widespread. If they were not widespread, we, who are born in America, would have no access to them. So we are truly blessed by having them. But there is also a tremendous difficulty with their being widespread, and that is that there are many practitioners that I have seen who have heard rich and profound teachings and have not utilized them whatsoever. It is like seeds tossed into a field: Sometimes they fall on rocks, and sometimes they fall on fertile ground. Different students have different capacities, and the teachings are often not measured out according to what capacity each student has. Then, of course, there are those students who come into a teaching situation and have no idea what that situation is and innocently are not aware of the gift that they’ve been given or how to use it or how to keep samaya.

So, there are obstacles and there are drawbacks. The teaching itself becomes diluted to some degree if it is given out and it is not utilized. When I say diluted, I don’t mean that the teachings change, I don’t mean that the tantra that we’re being taught from the books, when the lamas come, is somehow different from what was taught before. It isn’t different at all. It’s still the same exact teaching; but the quality of empowerment, the quality of impact, the quality of our deepening, is changed in this time. Again, that has a good side and a bad side. Since the teaching is passed out in this more casual way, it has attached to it the karma of practitioners who sincerely practice in order to attain enlightenment, and it also has the karma attached to it of students who do not utilize the teaching. In this way there is negativity there.

On the other hand, there would be no other way for sentient beings to hear the teachings. Furthermore, this is the time of Kaliyuga. And while Kaliyuga works against us, it also works for us, particularly when it comes to Vajrayana, in that of all the teachings that the Buddha has ever taught, of all the spiritual teachings that are available of any kind, Vajrayana teachings are the most perfectly suited for this time of Kaliyuga. This time of Kaliyuga is extremely contracted. Karma is thick. It isn’t spread out and dispersed over a great, long field. Rather, it is drawn in. It is a time of contraction, and karma ripens much more quickly than it used to ripen. This is not because you’re in Vajrayana but because this is the time for that. Experience is much more condensed; phenomena are much more condensed;time is much morecondensed. You can look at your life; you can walk outside and see that this is not the same world from just a hundred years ago. It was much broader and spread apart. This is a result of the condensed quality of Kaliyuga, which will continue, and experience will become more compacted and more condensed, not less.

Under these conditions, Vajrayana can actually do the most good in two ways, which is an amazing thought. One way is that we can see cause and effect relationships more readily. We are suffering and we are suffering just enough to help us be convinced that suffering is a reality, therefore we are willing to practice. We realize the benefit of practice because we truly do wish to attain enlightenment. In a better time, in a smoother time, in a time when there are rolling green hills around us and not much to do except to get old, when things are just more spread out and life is perhaps longer and more relaxed, under these conditions it’s hard for us to imagine why we should get up the gumption to practice. We just think we should sort of go with the flow.

So, in this regard, Kaliyuga is very compatible with Vajrayana.

Offering Oneself

October 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

In our Ngöndro practice we find the practice of offering oneself, the practice of generosity. It’s called the practice of Chöd. Chöd can very easily be practiced constantly. The practice of Chöd is based on eliminating ego-clinging through transforming oneself into that which is beneficial to all sentient beings and offering oneself. In Chöd there is actually a visualization where you see all your different elements separated into piles: skin and bones and muscles and fat and eyeballs and stuff like that. All of that stuff is put into little piles and you cook it all up and you offer it up to the Buddhas. And you’re thinking, “That’s kind of an interesting little practice there, isn’t it? Whoa, dude!” But just remember that this is meant to antidote our ego-clinging because as we walk through our lives, we are all about ‘what can you do for me, and what do I want?’ Remember, as we’re walking through our lives as ordinary sentient beings, our mantra is “Gimme gimme gimme, I want I want I want I want.” So this kind of practice is meant to antidote that.

The very habit that we have of assuming self-nature to be inherently real and reacting with hope/fear, want/not-want to our environment and the things in it constantly perpetuates itself! So, we are taught instead that, wanting to make oneself useful in some way, wanting to be of benefit and awakening compassion, one way to practice that is by offering the self, offering self-nature, and transforming it into something that is useful to sentient beings.

So how can we do that as we’re walking around? Try to remember that we’re practicing Recognition. Here’s a great way to think about it. Have you heard about the guy who recently had a cadaver’s hand sewn onto his arm, and it’s working? Now those of you that have heard about that, what did you think about that? You probably said, “Ugh!” I mean, it sounds amazing in one way, doesn’t it, that somebody who didn’t have a hand now has a hand, but it’s not his hand. So when we think about it, that’s kind of gnarly, right? Just think about it: you know what your hand looks like. You’ve seen it your whole life. It changes, but it’s your beloved hand. It’s so recognizable. It has a certain shape, and it feels a certain way. Well, now suppose you had an unmatched set, and one of them was not your hand. Think how you’d feel. This kind of clinging is so automatic that until we hear something like that, we don’t even know we do it. It is the very basis for our recognizing one another and ourselves as selves.

We grow attached to the shape of our face, the shape of our head. Even if we don’t like the shape of our face and the shape of our head, we grow attached to it because it is us, (we think), and so it constantly perpetuates that idea of self-nature being inherently real. It constantly perpetuates that ego-clinging. Our bodies are, for us, something that we have to protect. Even if you think that you’re very brave and not afraid of being hurt, or not afraid of even losing your life, I say to you, baloney! I’ll start chopping, and you tell me when to stop. We protect our bodies. If anything scary comes around us, we react, “Aaaggh!” And if we can’t protect ourselves any other way, we protect our head because that’s the part that keeps us going — we think. So we have this automatic clinging. Any sense of recognition of oneself as self is a clinging kind of phenomenon.

To antidote that, we practice Chöd, separating all the parts. When you’re done separating all the parts, you can ask yourself, “Well, what part am I? The skin or the bones or the fat or the muscle or the brains or the tongue or the eyeballs? Which part am I?” Of course, we begin to learn that that question is not answerable because ‘I,’ or self-nature, is simply a concept. It’s simply a concept.

How can we practice this as we walk around through our lives? Well, one way to do that is to develop the habit of when it is you notice yourself…do you notice yourself? You notice yourself constantly! It’s all you notice. We notice our hands; we notice the position that we’re in; we constantly move to be in a different position, don’t we? We think, “Do I want my hand like this or like that?” We are constantly doing that. It’s a constant phenomenon.

Suppose we were to develop the habit of considering the hand. “Well, this one matches that one. I like that.” But what if we were to consider our hands in a different way? Instead of thinking, “This hand is mine and it looks like this,” think, “How can this hand be of benefit to sentient beings? What use is this hand?” Consider it. You can develop a sense of Recognition of the true nature of our body parts. You can think to yourself, “Do you know what I like best about me? I really like my eyes.” I like your eyes too, but I like my eyes, and so when I think about that, I think, “Oh, you know, wherever I go, I have these eyes, and they can see. That’s really cool. And other people can see me.” And I can work those eyes, can’t I? And that’s really something. All we know is that our sight, our eyes, are part of us: that is us. We cling to that. Suppose we were able to understand our eyes in a different way. Supposing when we think of our eyes and how wonderful the capacity to see is, or how amazing it is that we can express ourselves with our eyes, we can offer that entire scenario, that entire experience, to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas for the benefit of sentient beings. Your relationship to your own body parts, your own eyes, for instance, your own hand, becomes different. Rather than thinking, “These are my brown eyes and I have great brown eyes,” or “This is my right hand and it’s a great hand” — rather than thinking like that as an extension of our ego, we can develop the habit of offering the whole phenomenon of sight, the whole relationship to our different body parts, by evaluating how it is that these eyes can benefit sentient beings, and how it is that we can offer them.

The Point: Pith Teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

July 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

“Calling the Tsewei Lama from afar” does not mean asking for gifts and wishes fulfilled. It’s about devotion and faith. I mostly get requests for favors. Of course I will try to fulfill anyone’s wish. But Buddhists should also practice and learn so they can help themselves. That’s the point, as there may not always be a Lama to call on.

The Basis of Vajrayana

July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Tools to Deepen Your Practice”

Today I would like to discuss the depth at which one practices. That is to say, how to avoid practicing in a superficial way where there is no mental or emotional investment. That’s really not the ideal kind of practice. It’s a little bit like watching TV, or listening to the radio, or something like that where you do it with half-a-mind, you know, and the rest of the time, of course, the mind is involved with other things. And so, we’ve all heard that we don’t want that to happen, that we want the mind to be gentled and stilled but yet we have a hard time understanding that really the key to that is the depth, the level, and the absorption with which we practice. That depth or that absorption is called the Dakini’s breath. That is actually what makes one’s practice relevant, delicious and sweet, meaningful and nourishing. Without that depth and that level of absorption, it’s very difficult to practice in any way that is more profound than say, recitation by rote. So that’s the effort that we want to make. In order to do that, I would like to explain things a little differently, perhaps a little more deeply than you may be used to.

One of the things that I would like to mention is that in Tantrayana, or the path of Vajrayana (which is the same thing), which is where we are now, you could say that the Path has two eyes or two legs, two supports. Another way to say it would be that the Path can be distilled to its essential nature in two words: wisdom and compassion. In fact one sees in many of the thangkas, the traditional paintings that are all around, pictures of a female and male in union, two lamas as consorts in union. And of course having ordinary minds and being used to billboards and stuff like that, we think “Oh, what is this?” But we shouldn’t look at those pictures with an ordinary mind because they have a profound meaning. The meaning of the union between lama and consort is the union of wisdom and compassion, the union of emptiness and method. The union of emptiness and method is the perfect balance, the perfect ship by which to cross the ocean of suffering. It’s the perfect vehicle. And of course, first we should understand what it means. Wisdom and compassion or emptiness and method. . . What does it really mean?

Well the meaning is this. First of all, wisdom is something that you cannot arrive at by accumulating facts, because facts are phenomenal. They are believed to be self-existing. They are part of samsara, even if they are very smart facts. Even if they are PhD-style facts! Even if they’re MD-style! No matter how many facts you know, you can never accumulate wisdom through the accumulation of facts, or what we would call the accumulation of knowledge. It’s not to say that the accumulation of knowledge is not necessary. If that were the case, then none of us would need training. We would simply sit and do our best at meditating.

Of course facts are necessary. It is necessary for us in our practice to understand how it is that the preceding lamas and excellent practitioners accumulated merit and how they accumulated tremendous achievement. It’s tremendously helpful to know facts, for instance, about the great lamas and the great saints and the Buddhas that have come in this time, and in other times, in order to understand with our ordinary minds what it is about them, how they come to be. In fact, to some degree, our ordinary minds do require satisfaction. And that’s where Vajrayana is ideal, because Vajrayana gives us ‘mental food.’ We have visualization. We have mantra recitation. We have the absorption in emptiness and then the springing from emptiness as the deity; and then the vajra confidence and the vajra pride. It’s busy work! Sometimes when people who are used to just sitting quietly and doing whatever it is they do, you know, when they have that habit of just sitting quietly, and there is a part of Vajrayana Buddhism in which you do sitting meditation; but if students only have that experience, they come here and they say, “Well, my mind is not calm. I’m reciting all this stuff and I’m really stressed because I can hardly pronounce it. And the tunes—forget about it. And so there!” And of course the response to that is, “Well really in Vajrayana the task is not to calm the mind. The task is to awaken to the emptiness of all nature,to awaken to emptiness, that is, to perceive emptiness.”

Viewing the Spiritual Master

July 11, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “Treasury of Precious Qualities” by Longchen Yeshe Dorje and Jigme Lingpa as translated by Padmakara Translation Group:

Spiritual masters have already accomplished their own aim. It is now their task to labor for the sake of others. It is important to understand that their various activities are displayed as appropriate to the inclinations and feelings of different beings and are the inconceivable operation of enlightened activities. Bearing this in mind, one should refrain from misinterpreting them. The siddhas of India like Saraha appeared for the most part as social outcasts. They adopted the way of life that was conventionally disreputable and lived without concern for purity or impurity, getting their livelihood as menials of the lowest caste or as “sinful” hunters and fishermen–living in the humblest way possible. But since their minds were undeluded, their actions were never wrong. We, by contrast, are as deluded as if we were under the power of hallucinogenic drugs. If we have not gained freedom through the three doors of perfect liberation, and have not realized the infinite purity of all phenomena, ascribe defects to our teacher, we commit an immeasurable fault. Bhikshu Sunakshatra committed to memory the entire twelve collections of the teachings, but, overpowered by his wrong views, he regarded as perfidious and underhand the actions of Buddha Shakyamuni himself, who was utterly without fault and possessed of every excellence. We should take all this to mind and confess and repair the slightest fluctuation in our faith.

True Purity

May 10, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Let’s say you have become satisfied with an idea of what a practitioner should be. You are quiet, meek, gentle, and ever so passive. You attempt to be pure by never adorning your face, hair or body. You do what you think is right. Fine. But what if you stop there? What if you allow days, weeks, years, your whole life to pass by with no true sense of the need to eradicate hatred, greed and ignorance from your mindstream? What if you have no real understanding of the emptiness of phenomena? No true perception of the nature of mind? What have you really accomplished? What is yours to carry with you? How will you enter the afterlife state, the bardo? Will you not see as you have always seen? Will you not see the events within the bardo state as external phenomena? Will you not be excited, afraid? Will you not still be lost in the delusion of self and other?

On the Vajrayana path, true purity, true virtue is central and precious. Even one moment of true perception of the nature of mind is the only conceivable virtue. If you merely live according to the rules, you will definitely have merit. But in terms of the value of your own nature, your own mind, you will not have the purification that leads to true perception. The Vajrayana path is unique in its perspective on this. It adopts the morality and rules of the Hinayana path, as well as the Mahayana perspective of compassion and purity, yet it goes further into the understanding that true perception is the thing of value—the diamond.

The goal of the Vajrayana path is to realize the nature of mind. The nature of mind is absolute compassion. At that primordial-wisdom level, there is no good or bad. There is clear, uncontrived, pure, self-luminous nature. Primordial mind is unborn, yet perfectly complete. It is unmarked, un-measured by time or space. It is self-arising. True virtue is not a way of acting. Nor is it a way of thinking—as most people understand thought. There is only one real virtue: the realization of primordial mind. Naturally arising within that realization is a deep and abiding compassion—a compassion that is capable of manifesting in any form necessary in order to bring true benefit to beings.

Please understand that primordial mind itself is not filled with hatred, greed and ignorance. This is simply not possible. The mind is forever pure. It is unchanging. It cannot be defiled in any way. What then is the problem? Where is the defilement? Not in mind itself, but in perception. The real value of practicing on the Vajrayana path is that you are involved in a system by means of which your mind can arise with all the pure qualities of the Buddha. Think, for instance, of Buddha Vajrasattva. This is the practice of a Buddha who is the perfect union of wisdom and compassion. He represents that phase of mind as it first moves into manifestation from the primordial level. The pristine connection between the primordial nature of mind and its transition into an activity phase is not separate from that basic nature.

Generating the Deity

April 17, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

As you generate yourself as a Buddha or Bodhisattva, reciting mantras and devotional prayers, your mind arises as a pure form. This is different from the ordinary mind that struggles to wake up each morning, dragging along its ego-clinging baggage or karma and looking for happiness in futile ways. This pure form is an expression of pure cognition, free of conceptualization and limitation. It is pure awareness, a state of pure luminosity. The deity we generate is an expression of that pure state. All phenomena are understood to be the deity’s body, voice, and activity. Thus, phenomena cease being something we grasp.

Generation-stage and completion-stage practice disassemble the entire time-and-space grid, disassemble the moment itself. You dissolve into emptiness and purify all things into their natural state. Thus, the mind relaxes from the tension that is gathered around “I,” and it becomes possible to reconstruct the moment naturally through the creation of the mandala and through allowing the mind to arise as the deity. This great skill is accomplished when the entire process becomes effortless.

“How,” you may ask, “can it be effortless? The mandala, the whole process, seems very complicated.” Actually, it is less complicated than what you are currently perceiving. You have a mandala going right now. Look around you. You sit on a world that sits in a galaxy that sits in a universe, and it is all lit up. How do you ever manage to conceive it? And on top of that, you pay your electric bill, call people on the phone, feed your pets and yourself. You enter a metal thing that flies through the air from one place to another. It is an extremely complicated mandala. In addition, you are constantly moving through a chain of lives in six major realms in a completely un-predictable pattern.

The generation of the deity is far easier. It is natural and spontaneous because it is not built on the assumption of ego. It is not constructed of tension because the deity is understood to be real but insubstantial. It is understood to be that which does not need to be constantly maintained. The tension of survival associated with desire and egocentricity is not there. With the continuation of this practice and the skill developed through good concentration and an effortless effort, all perception is purified. The five senses are not given their lead. They are not permitted to feed back information that satisfies the need of self to be self. They are purified by the mind naturally arising as the deity. The karma of endless cycles of birth and death is purified at last.

Descend With the View While Ascending With the Conduct: from Dakini Teachings

March 27, 2016 by anisonam

The following is an excerpt from Dakini Teachings: A Collection of Padmasambava’s Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal

Master Padma said: Some people call themselves tantric practitioners and engage in crude behavior, but that is not the actions of a tantrika.

Mahayana means to cherish all sentient beings with impartial compassion.

It will not suffice to claim oneself a trantric practitioner and then refrain from adopting what is virtuous and not avoiding or shunning evil deeds. It is essential for all tantric practitioners to cultivate great compassion in their being.

Without giving rise to compassion in your being you will turn into a non-Buddhist with wrong views, even though you may claim to be a practitioner of Secret Mantra.

Master Padma said: Secret Mantra is Mahayana. Mahayana means to benefit others.

In order to benefit others you must attain the three kayas of fruition. In order to attain the three kayas you must gather the two accumulations. In order to gather the two accumulations you must train in bodhicitta. You must practice the paths of development and completion as a unity.

In any case, a trantrika who lacks bodhicitta is totally unsuited and does not practice Mahayana.

Master Padma said: Secret Mantra and the philosophical vehicle (Mantrayana) are spoken of as two, but ultimately are one. If you lack the view or the conduct you will stray into be a shravaka. So descend with the view while ascending with the conduct. It is most essential to practice these two as a unity. This is my oral instruction.

SAMAYA

Nourished by Compassion

February 24, 2016 by Holly

A Vow of Love:

Living an extraordinary life

of Compassion

By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Why Compassion?

I would like to talk about a subject that is of the utmost importance to everyone. The subject is compassion.

You may think, “Oh, I know all about compassion. I’ve been a Dharma practitioner for a long time. I’ve had many teachings about compassion.” Or you might think, “I’m a person with a good heart. I try not to do any harm, and I try to help people. Therefore, I know about compassion.” If we hold these ideas in our heart, we have already lost precious opportunities, and will continue to lose more, because the cultivation of compassion in the heart and mind is an ongoing process.

Even if you come into this world with a compassionate ideal you must still cultivate the idea of compassion as though it were the first time you ever thought of it. Due to intense spiritual practice in the past, you may have been born into this lifetime with the idea that you want to be of benefit to sentient beings. Yet still you must cultivate the idea of compassion everyday, as though it were a delicate orchid that could die in an unnatural environment. Until we are supremely enlightened, we have obscurations of our mind that will fight against the idea of compassion.

There is no one on this earth, unless they are supremely realized, who has the purified mind of compassion. If you have been meditating for many years, and think compassion is a baby subject and you’re far beyond that, or if you think because you’ve practiced for a long time, compassion is just one of the beginner studies, and now you’d like to get on to the mystical or the “higher” Dzogchen teachings, then I think you’re making a mistake. I hope that you will relax your mind and come to the point where you commit to studying compassion deeply and profoundly, as though it were your mother. You should have that kind of intimate relationship with the idea of compassion. You should seek to be taught by it. You should seek to be suckled by the mind of compassion. You should seek to be nourished in that way.

The Wedding Cake: Stages of the Path

February 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Yesterday a new student asked the following question, “What is the difference between Mahayana and Vajrayana?” She had studied for six years from books. This question can take years to answer! So I apologize for giving the quick cereal box top version.

There are three main levels of Lord Buddha’s teachings. They can be thought of as a “wedding cake” shape, if you will.

The first Level was the first teaching, Theravadin. It is based square on the Vinaya structure, relates to purity and no-harm. It is the basis for all further turning of the “Wheel of Dharma.”

The next layer of the cake would be Mahayana, or “Great Vehicle” and is associated with the Bodhisattva vow, along with refuge in the Three Jewels, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Now, in the Vinaya, to purify, one gender must not touch opposite sex, handle money, has many laws. In Mahayana, the same laws apply but are modified by the Bodhisattva vow. In that vow one cultivates Bodhicitta, compassion. So a monk could theoretically touch a woman to give aid, medicine, food, comfort, support. And as Bodhisattvas in training, vow to liberate and care for all sentient beings. Through ordinary and ultimate kindness. In Mahayana we dedicate all our merit, practice, efforts to all beings, thinking of them as our own kind mothers in all lives. And we help all we can.

Vajrayana is like the top level if the wedding cake. It is a very profound and mystical level. And within that there are preliminary, generation stage, and lastly completion stage practice. Preliminary is Ngundro, generation is of the three Roots of practice: Lama, yidam, and khandro with protectors. The completion stages are Tsa-lung, Togyal and Trek Chod. These are the practices that can deliver Liberation in one lifetime.

Now here is the thing. These wedding cake layers cannot be separated, or the whole thing falls down. Theravadin, Mahayana and Vajrayana are totally and completely inseparable. If not the case, there is no stability in the practice. One sustains the other and is it’s very foundation! It’s support. So the Vinaya supports and gives rise to, through purification, the Mahayana Bodhisattva level, with additional vows. The top layer is totally depending on the other layers and they cannot be separated. Vajrayana requires the practice of giving rise to Bodhicitta because the yidams, the Three Roots, are the very display of Bodhicitta in the world! They are not ordinary and come from the play, the dance of the Buddha nature in phenomena. Each and every yidam or meditational deity is not separate from Bodhicitta, never could be, or it could not be a display of the Buddha.

We must learn to accept the feast of the whole cake as it is. We cannot pick the easy part, the one we like best to feel smart. We cannot change the cake. We can change the flavor, the color, to suit our culture, but not the layer cake!

And what is at the top? The union, Yab/Yum. Wisdom and compassion; emptiness and method. Or empty primordial nature couples with display/samaya in that union, we are liberated! EH MA HO!

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG!