An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999
You’ve heard this so many times in Buddhism: watch your mind. That is an indication to give rise to a state of recognition, the ability to discriminate the nature of phenomena. When we begin to practice in such a way that we can get a little spaciousness in between the assumption of self-nature as inherently real and the reaction to the tree, there is a natural pause that develops. It’s a very small pause, but as you continue to practice, it will grow. That moment of spaciousness will grow. Then you are empowered to do something that you couldn’t do any other way, and that is to get ready to start dealing with your emotions and seeing them for the empty phenomena they actually are.
You know, we have all kinds of techniques for dealing with our emotions. We take Prozac, we go to therapy, we drink – self-medication – we suppress our emotions. Some of us are just champs at that. We repress our emotions, or we divert them. We divert them into something else entirely, and then we’re completely crazy. There are all kinds of different ways to deal with our emotions, but one way to deal with your emotions, if you’re really going to practice this path and you’re really going to treasure this idea of recognition and treasure this idea of practicing mindfulness, you’ve got to watch the mind. You have to watch; you have to perceive the nature of experience, perceive the nature of appearance, perceive the nature of phenomena.
Instead of suppressing emotion, diverting emotion, glossing over emotion, the thing to do here is to practice when we are very relaxed so that when we are in a highly emotional state we can begin to insert that same wedge, that same bit of spaciousness. It’s not that you judge yourself harshly and say, “God, I’m just such a terrible person. I’m just so angry all the time. I hate that about myself!” I actually have a student that does that to herself. “I just hate that about myself!” Well, that’s a solution, isn’t it? “I just hate that about myself.” Instead of doing that, you can simply observe. Observe like a mind that is calm like a lake. You’re observing. That’s all you’re doing. You don’t need to do anything else. Watch yourself in the equation. Watch yourself clinging to the idea of self-nature as being inherently real. Watch yourself assuming that everything else is out there, and watch yourself react to, with hope, fear or neutrality, everything. Watch yourself also go into that emotional state which is really only the elaboration of that original equation. That’s all it is. It’s just an elaboration of the original equation. We think our emotions are us; they’re so precious because we areour feelings, and that’s what makes us unique. That is bull hockey. I don’t know how better to say that.
Instead we have to begin to realize what these emotions are. They are just the continuation or elaboration of that original equation: ego-clinging reactiveness, that equation is simply a more elaborate form. In order to insert the spaciousness that is required, what we have to do is find a way to observe. Even when you’re getting ready to kick the dog and throw the kid through the wall, technically speaking it’s very, very hard when you’re in that state to do much about it. Once you’re there, just wait for it to go away. That’s all you can do. Once you’re there, it’s very difficult, but even if in that aroused, inflamed state we are able to observe ourselves, that is the unique capacity of human beings. Won’t you use it? It’s what distinguishes you from the rest. If there’s anything that makes you special, that’s it: the ability to put that spacious moment in there through observing the reaction. We can just say, “That’s just like me. Yeah, that’s just like me. I do that.” And then maybe questioning oneself later on and understanding, “Well, I do that because I’m protecting my turf; I’m protecting my space; I’m not wanting to change anything; I’m wanting to be powerful and right, so I need to put everybody else down.”
Whatever it is, simply observe, just observe, and you’ll find out that if you do that as consistently, deliberately, honestly, truly and deeply as you can, that after a while – and it doesn’t come immediately, so please don’t look for immediate results necessarily – there will be a spacious moment. It might be just a little moment between you and your reaction, but eventually in your practice, by practicing Dharma, by using generation and completion stage methods, you will be able to recognize. In that spaciousness, you can begin to recognize the emptiness of both the ego and that which affects it. But it takes a combination of things. It takes the ability to practice Dharma the way that our teachers teach us in generating oneself as the deity and practicing completion stage practice, but it also takes this deliberate, walking, waking mindfulness. This is part of the path.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
