The Test

An excerpt from a teaching called The Dharma of Technology by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

You should come to respect the root of Dharma, which is bodhicitta or compassion, as the most profound teaching at whatever level you are practicing.  You should come to understand that if you accomplish only that, then you have a right to wear your robes and you have a right to call yourself a Buddhist.  But it is by far the most difficult of all of the vows. You have to think about compassion like this.

If you can pass this test, then you have accomplished Dharma, even if you don’t know how to do a single mudra or ring a bell, even if you don’t have any arms or legs to do it.  Here is the test.  Ask yourself,  “If Lord Buddha Amitabha came to me right now, giving me an opportunity and saying, ‘I’m going to make you a deal.  You could take on all the suffering of all the six realms, every bit of suffering that every sentient being carries, meaning that you have to take on and absorb all the causes of their suffering – hatred, greed and ignorance, desire.  I can give you that, and you could take all of that onto yourself and absorb it completely so that you will suffer endlessly in the most extreme, horrible way until time has run out and in doing that there would be no more suffering in the six realms.’”  Would you do it?

When you hear me say this, you are going to say yes.  You get carried away with emotions.  But if Lord Buddha Amitabha really appeared to you, red and sitting on his lotus, and he really said that to you and he showed you the condensed suffering of all the six realms and you knew that the six realms of cyclic existence appear to be like an endless ocean, and have been going on for uncountable eons, then if you had to accept all that suffering onto yourself, knowing that your mind had to change from the nice thing that you think it is now into a monster filled with hatred, greed and ignorance from all the six realms, but in doing that all of the six realms would be emptied, would you do it?   If you were shown this horrible poison of suffering, this cauldron, this endless sea of suffering and Lord Buddha said to you, “Eat it for their sake and become for an uncountable amount of eons a horrible thing suffering in agony for their sake.”  Would you do it?  Would you open your mouth and start eating?  More than that, would you be happy about it?  Would you be able to do that?

You should try it sometime.  You should test yourself in that way by really thinking that it is possible.  Would you take on every bit of the suffering?  Would you become so grossly misshapen and ugly because of the grossness of all of that suffering?  Would you become so unrecognizable to what you are now?  Would you be willing to do that, knowing that as a result there would be nothing in the six realms of cyclic existence except for you?  There would be nothing.  There would be no more suffering.  The karma of all of those minds, uncountable minds would be purified so that they were free of desire, free of all karma.  Would you bite the big one?

If you think that you would do that, then you know less about yourself than you think.  But to accomplish Dharma you have to get to that point where you would gladly, joyfully, willingly start to eat an ocean of suffering for their sake.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved