An excerpt from a teaching called Vajrayana’s Final Hour by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
The tradition we practice here is called Vajrayana. This particular kind of teaching most greatly benefits people who are born in this degenerate aeon. There is something about Vajrayana that seems to burn the candle at both ends. When one practices generation stage practice for example, one does not suppress the compulsion to consider oneself a “self” or ego but rather uses that inclination. There is an energy associated with clinging to oneself as an ego that is a lot like a rubber band. You can try to think of something else, but however much you stretch it, it will always come back to its original shape. That compulsion to consider self-nature as being inherently real is similar to the energy-that causes a rubber band to reform; we have that energy instinctively within our minds.
Vajrayana actually uses that inclination in generation stage practice. There we meditate on Emptiness, on the natural uncontrived primordial state of Emptiness. We consider that all elements of perceptual phenomena are broken into their natural component: sheer luminosity. Meditating on emptiness or shunyata, we then generate the deity using that same energy that causes us to consider self-nature. Generating ourselves as the deity, we generate the pure display having all the pure qualities of the deity. Arising from emptiness, we generate the pristine Nature in such a way as to be a phenomenal thing, a display. It is visible to our eyes and our consciousness. We use the very energy that causes us to cling to self-nature to accomplish realization. Vajrayana has that unique quality. Can you see how it burns the candle at both ends? We use what we have — that fire, that passion, even desire, to accomplish the Primordial Wisdom Nature.
In this time of degeneration, I am taught that there will come a time when there is no teaching in the world that can bring us to enlightenment. There will be no path, no Bodhisattvas that incarnate, and the Buddha will not be present in the world. It will be a time of great darkness and wars. And finally there will be a time of night, of darkness. Immediately after that the next Buddha will appear again.
Now while things are becoming darker and more condensed, one still has a shot. Things are lining up so that if one were to sincerely practice a technology that can lead to enlightenment and that has brought others repeatedly to enlightenment, if one were to practice that with fervent regard, devotion, and faith in a pristine way, then one could achieve the auspicious result — realization during the course of this lifetime, or in the Bardo, or an auspicious rebirth in order to practice purely and perfectly.
© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
