The Guru’s Three-Part Empowerment

The most important part of the practice of Guru Yoga is when we receive the threefold empowerment from the guru. We receive the white light from the Guru’s head to our head to purify our body. We receive the red light from the Guru’s throat to our throat to purify and empower our speech. We receive the blue light from the Guru’s heart to our heart to purify and empower our mind. We should be receiving these empowerments 24 hours a day. Every time our mind has a little space, we should train ourselves to remember to receive the nectar of the Guru’s blessing. Instead, we walk around saying, “I’m lonely. I need my space. I need to go out and do stuff. I need to spend some money.” And we whine and carry on in samsara. And yet every minute this amazing phenomenal connection is available.

We should develop the habit of constantly keeping that connection. Whenever we have a moment, we should recite the Seven Line Prayer and ask for the guru’s blessing. And then we have it –boom, boom, boom—because when we ask, it is always given. There is never a time that when we ask, that it is not given. It may happen that we can’t receive the blessing sometimes. But we just keep trying. It’s simply our habit, and habits can change.

This is prayer without ceasing. This is constant prayer. This is a personal version of what we’re trying to do here at KPC by having our 24-hour prayer vigil, with someone practicing all the time. It is developing a constant awareness of our non-duality with the guru.

As we practice, the experience deepens. When we do our sit-down practice, the empowerments become easier to receive. We will find that we can go deeper and deeper and deeper. Then when we receive that three-part empowerment, our mind will be mixed with the guru and all the blessings will be present.  But be careful: Pride will stop the blessing.

So we wire up. We take refuge and are anchored in our confidence. We know, “This is my guru; I am unshaken.  This is the method; I am unbroken.  This is the result that I am going toward.” We maintain that connection constantly. Any time we have a moment, we recall our root guru appearing as Guru Rinpoche and receive the empowerments, mixing our mind with the guru’s mind. That’s the way to awaken to non-duality. That’s the way to awaken to our nature. When we mix our mind with the guru’s, we are deeply empowered with the bodhicitta. We can hear the calls of the suffering ones. They will fill our ears.

When we take this empowerment and we mix our mind with the nectar of the Three Precious Jewels, then we can pray. We can see ourselves as the same as the guru in nature, not in a prideful sense. Having received the blessing of the guru and of all the masters of the lineage, we are now able to pray.  We can ease the suffering of sentient beings.  Why?  Because we have the merit of our lineage. Now we can take within us the suffering of sentient beings because we can handle it. We have the power of the vajra masters.  That is our joy, our bliss, our ecstasy. We are never separate from them.

So prayer comes when we are in a state of awakening–when the bodhicitta that is the nectar of the guru’s mind is mixed inseparably with our own mind. Then we can pray: we can speak with the authority of the bodhicitta, in the way of the bodhicitta.

Do you hear the sense of potency I am trying to describe?  It is a sense of being fully mixed with the nectar of bodhicitta, fully aware that our nature is the bodhicitta. It is the bodhicitta that benefits sentient beings. When we are aware that we are the bodhicitta, it is this that we send to others. That is the power of the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas.

When we are that bodhicitta, we can awaken the bodhicitta in others just by looking at them. I know from experience that when His Holiness Penor Rinpoche looked at my heart, my heart was his and it opened. He recognized the bodhicitta in me, and I practiced to mix my mind with his. And therefore it was done. And that’s the potency of prayer. Now I can pray.

There is no room for pride in prayer—just simple gratitude for receiving the blessing of the guru in a humble way, with confidence in that blessing. Because of that blessing, we can pray. Now we have the bodhicitta; now we are the bodhicitta. And that is the potency and power upon which we rely.

The Buddhadharma is with us every minute. It’s a path, a way of life. And it is the true method to achieve the precious awakening. When we know that other beings are suffering so terribly, and we have found this jewel and it is in our hands and this nectar is given freely, I ask you: Why not learn to pray?

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

For the Benefit of Beings

During my Enthronement, I was in meditation the whole time. I was really annoyed at the flashes and the sounds from the news reporters. Any flashes like that, I felt wrath, “This is so sacred, there shouldn’t be any modern shit here.” And yet His Holiness was kind enough to let that happen so that modern people could see it.

The ceremony itself went off perfectly, but it hit like a bomb. When it was over, there were certain things I had to do, but all I wanted to do was just go be quiet. I didn’t want to go out to dinner, I just wanted to go be quiet. But His Holiness leaned over and said, “You don’t get to do that.” You never get to do what you want again! “You’re in jail” Gyaltrul Rinpoche said. That’s how it turned out.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Meaning of Lineage Empowerment: Full Length Video Teaching

The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

 

Empowerment comes directly from the stainless compassion of Guru Rinpoche himself. Allow yourself to be changed and ripened by this gift of compassion.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Flawless Captain

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Nothing referred to as “precisely” or “exactly” is anything other than conceptual proliferation.  These subtleties can only be truly understood with Guru-disciple transmission, maturing mind with Empowerment, directly. It is necessary to receive pointing-out instruction from an awakened “Sublime Being,” fully qualified. Too much talk about emptiness or primordial view is no good, misleading. All such talk leads to concepts, one becomes deluded.

The problem is this: After direct transmission, empowerment, and instruction, one must experience empty nature for oneself. If one talks or preaches endlessly about emptiness, there is no direct experience, the secret transmission is lost. If one adheres to such false talk, putting trust in such false teaching, they will be lost, like blind leading blind. To cross the ocean of suffering, one must have a perfect ship (method) and a flawless captain (Guru Buddha) who has crossed many times.

This teaching is without the stain of pride, and in the spirit of loving kindness, may we all accomplish.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Lineage and Transmission

I truly feel it is arrogant to change the Dharma to make up your own, or to say “this is what he meant.” The worst is “the Buddha never taught”.

So where does Buddhism come from? Ask those arhats that held his teachings perfectly in their minds. Shariputra, Ananda, etc then wrote the Buddhas teaching for all. Ananda had a particularly clear mind for perfect recall. His mind was pure, undefiled by ordinary existence.

As with Guru Padmasambava, also called the second emanation of Buddha, the teachings were preserved perfectly. Guru Padmasambava brought a host of peerless translators also realized and with excellent training to do the job. Tantras from India, Pali Cannon, and what was useful from Bon, Tibetan Shaman, was considered as well.

Then at the times Guru Padmasambava was with Yeshe Tsogyel and Mandarava both, Tantric Treasures were hidden for future times. They were hidden in a mystical way so that it was certain that the right Terton (revealer) would appear at the exact right time. Guru Padmasambava was able to predict the rebirth of every Terton, where they would be found. Some revelations were hidden in the sky, some hidden in water, some in rock, others in mountains, and some were passed to the Terton of the future directly in a vision!

Terton Migure Dorje was one such Terton. He died very young. Yet as a child he saw Guru Rinpoche dancing in the sky while giving the entire Nam Cho Terma Cycle which we now practice in Palyul. Among the heart students of Terton Migure Dorje were my predecessor, Genyenma Ahkon Lhamo and Palyul’s first Throneholder the great Vidyadhara Kunzang Sherab. All revelations from Nam Cho have been strictly passed down in Palyul from Guru to disciple in a Stainless unbroken chain, so no blessings were lost.

It is from the Nam Cho Cycle from Terton Migure Dorje that I will train to confer. If my predecessor was heart student of Terton Rinpoche, and my earlier predecessor was the Consort of Guru Padmasambava, then with training I feel it would be a gift if I could make that circle of blessing complete. I intend to do so, for the sake of sentient beings!

Oddly, my personal practice happens to be the Chime Tsok Dik which is the Tantra from the glorious accomplishment of Immortality, the rainbow body. That was Mandarava and Guru Padmasambava’s intimate practice. It was later revealed by His Holiness Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, who Himself practiced With his Consort (SangYum.) But it connects directly to the venerable practice of Guru Padmasambava and Lacham Mandarava! EMAHO! Oddly, decades ago I dreamed that I flew through the eyes of a baby Dudjom Rinpoche, and through His eyes I saw the cosmos, and space. It was there I knew I’d find freedom!

Lastly, my great gift was to receive the Empowerment for the practice two times from Kyabje His Holiness Penor Rinpoche who got it from His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche five times and from His Eminence Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche two times. See how it works, this karma, this cause and result? It all comes back home. Perfectly!

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and Empowerment

In late October of 2010, after repeated requests by many devoted students, Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo agreed to begin formal training in offering empowerments, or wangs.  In so doing, Jetsunma is offering an incalculable blessing to Western students. She has said in her teachings that she was born in Brooklyn, as a woman, for a particular purpose – to display to Western students, especially female students, that enlightenment is possible for all, that it transcends culture and gender, that it is not the exclusive product of some exotic foreign culture.

Jetsunma, born Alyce Zeoli, was the first Western Woman to be recognized as a Tulku, or incarnate Lama, and formally enthroned. His Holiness Pedma Norbu Rinpoche, the 11th Throneholder of Palyul, and at that time the Supreme Head of all Nyingmapa, His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Dzongnang Rinpoche all agreed that Alyce Zeoli was indeed the reincarnation of Genyenma Akhon Lhamo, the sister of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab, the First Throneholder of the Palyul lineage. In 1988, during the first bestowal of the Rinchen Terzod in the West, she was enthroned as a Lineage Holder of  Palyul by His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche.

During her enthronement ceremony His Holiness made the following statement:

What is her responsibility at this point, as a tulku, is that she is responsible for propagating the Dharma and for being of benefit to sentient beings, and she has no other responsibility but that. See video of the Enthronement Ceremony here

By enthroning Jetsunma as a Lineage Holder, His Holiness Pedma Norbu Rinpoche was declaring that students could have total confidence in her qualifications. In the following excerpt from Great Perfection Buddha in the Palm of the Hand, Gyaltrul Rinpoche describes the significance of this title:

Otherwise, any lama whose name appears in any of Guru Rinpoche’s prophecies, who is a designated lineage or terma holder, or who is the owner of a dharma transmission, can be relied upon straight away. Such a lama is a supreme lama to receive dzogchen transmissions from. – Great Perfection Buddha in the Palm of the Hand, page 44, Yeshe Melong Publications, 1992

In 2005 His Holiness referred to his recognition of Jetsunma at his New York Retreat:

Jetsunma, a long time ago, I met with her, I examined her for a while, and found her to be the incarnation of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab’s sister known as Ahkon Lhamo….Jetsunma is a good and perfect teacher. I don’t think that she is deceiving anybody. Among Jetsunma’s students there are a whole bunch of monks and nuns and all of them are disciplined by her. What other woman in America could do that? There is nobody else. She is good and special.   See video of His Holiness’s comments here.

 

At the time of her recognition and enthronement, Jetsunma had not received any formal training in Buddhism. She has, since that time, received extensive empowerments, lungs and teachings both in India and at her center, Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC) in Maryland, from many Great Masters.

She also had an opportunity to receive the entire transmission for the Rinchen Terdzod directly from His Holiness, all of the empowerments, all of the pith essential pointing out instructions and commentaries that are found in that precious terma treasury, and she received it in a way that an elderly lama would receive it, an elderly Tibetan lama.  And so she had this opportunity to completely internalize all of those blessings, which is very extraordinary. His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok See video of this commentary here

Jetsunma has therefore gathered all the necessary requirements to offer empowerment, the wangs, the lungs, the pith instructions, she has accumulated millions of mantras and accomplished the practices, has been recognized and enthroned as a Lineage Holder and carries the blessings of her teachers.

Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, born in a “barbarian” land (according to the Buddhist teachings a “barbarian land” is one where the Dharma does not exist,) as a woman, growing up without the supports of the tradition, without formal training, yet through the profound accomplishments of her past lives was able to give rise to the Dharma from her own mind, to the point where her teacher, His Holiness Pedma Norbu Rinpoche, traveled across oceans and continents to find her and establish the Palyul Lineage in that same, once barbarian land.

Having overcome the lack of formal training in the traditions of her Lineage through diligent practice and study, Jetsunma is now, in response to the devotion of her students, undertaking a new level of training.

Jetsunma had her students send a letter to the current Throneholder of Palyul, His Holiness Karma Kuchen Rinpoche informing him of their request for Jetsunma to begin offering wangs and her intention to begin training. Word was received today that His Holiness Karma Kuchen was surprised by this communication, replying it was “unusual for him to be told.”  He was surprised we felt the need to inform him. At enthronement the Tulku is given all the blessings of the Lineage, at that time the Tulku may upon training, immediately give empowerment.

When visiting KPC on his last visit to the US, His Holiness Karma Kuchen referred to His Holiness Pedma Norbu Rinpoche’s recognition in the following way:

As you all know how this center started, the late His Holiness Tulku Pedma Norbu Rinpoche, a Palyul Throneholder and Tulku, with the intention to spread the Buddha Dharma and especially the Secret Mantrayana Teaching, he recognized Jetsunma as the incarnation of Ahkon Lhamo, who was the sister of Rigzin Kunzang Sherab, the founder of the Palyul Lineage. See video of this commentary  here

Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo is continuing to fulfill the wishes of her root teacher by undertaking this new training. May those with faith in the profound Buddha Dharma rejoice!

May any merit or virtue generated by this account be devoted to the swift liberation of every suffering being, and to the long life, strong health and enduring happiness of Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.

I confess any faults or errors in this account are purely my own, through the limitations of my poor view and ordinary understanding.

Thubten Sonam Dolma

 

Can A Woman Give Empowerment?

An Announcement from Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

I have some great news! When Lama Lobsang comes to KPC, he will teach me to give empowerment from Nam Cho Cycle!  This has been in the works for some time and I look forward to that. I will then travel more.  His Holiness Penor Rinpoche set this up before his Parinirvana, and I have the strong aspiration to fulfill HIS wishes! His Holiness Penor Rinpoche said, “What better source than Guru Rinpoche’s YUM?

I will give the Guru empowerments first. Then the Dakini! And then accomplish more. So exciting, when he comes I will begin the training. Paljor will help with translation. I will never be a speed-reader, though.

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