Tibetan Buddhist Altar » Refuge

I Choose Enlightenment

Jetsunma — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:30:30 +0000

An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

People ask: “In your tradition, is Buddha like God?” No, Buddha is not like God. “Is Guru Rinpoche God?” No, Guru Rinpoche is not God. “Well, what do you call God in your tradition?” We don’t call anything God. There are gods, but they are not the goal. Westerners try to find a way around that, saying something like, “All right, then what is the goal?” I tell them, “Enlightenment.” They reply, “Okay, then Enlightenment is God.” No, it’s not. The goal is not anything as personalized and externalized as that. There is no “other.” The moment we are caught up in “self and other,” we have lost the essential Nature. We are fixated, stuck in duality.

This is about Awakening, which is the pacification of such fixation. You must understand the fundamental distinction between Buddhism and Western thinking––whether you are considering beginning the Path or are already a practioner. You must understand this difference, so that you will know what your true objects of refuge are.

The statement “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, and I take refuge in the Sangha” is an essential element throughout your practice of the Buddha’s teaching. What does this statement mean? It means you have looked at the faults of cyclic existence, and you have seen that it produces no real happiness. You have learned that the Buddha said there is a cessation of suffering, this cessation is Enlightenment, and it is also the cessation of desire. So you have decided to go for Enlightenment. That means you have to really understand the faults of cyclic existence––even if these ideas are difficult to swallow. It’s like taking a medicine that tastes bad until you get used to it. It is like that in the beginning.

Having decided to take this medicine, you look at those who deliver it. We look to the Buddha, and this includes all those who have attained Buddhahood, not just the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. We look to the Dharma, which is the revelation or teaching brought forth from the mind of Enlightenment. And we look to the Sangha, the spiritual community to which we belong. It is the Sangha who are responsible for treasuring and propagating the teachings.

In the Vajrayana tradition, we also say, “I take refuge in the Lama,” who is considered representative of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Without the Lamas, you would not hear the Buddha’s teachings. And without the Lamas, there would be no Sangha.

When you say you take refuge in all of these, what you are saying is: “I choose Enlightenment. I choose the cessation of suffering.” You move away from the faults of cyclic existence, and you remain focused on the ultimate goal.

In a deeper sense, however, you must understand that you are ultimately taking refuge in Enlightenment itself. You must understand it as both the Path and the intrinsic Nature. So you are taking refuge in the Nature of your own mind. If you understand this thoroughly, you can never be duped. But you do have to work very diligently and with discipline towards the goal.

The method is very technical, very involved. It isn’t easy because it must cut through aeons of compulsive absorption in self-nature. It must cut like a knife! It must be powerful––and it is powerful. You have to think of Dharma that way. The technology has to be strong––and real. You can’t just talk about it. There is work to be done!

Although it is strong, the technology is very flexible. You need not be afraid. You will not be forced to go any deeper than you want to go. You have the right to practice gently. You will still be accumulating causes for a future incarnation as a human with these auspicious conditions, and then you will be able to practice well and dilligently.

There are people who only do very small, very gentle practice. And that’s fine. There is a large tradition of that in the Buddha Dharma. There are also people who are more deeply involved, though in a mediocre way. They practice an hour or so a day. They do a good job, and they’re faithful, and that’s it. Then there are people who practice many hours each day. They continually try to propagate the Teaching, and they work very hard. So you have a choice. You can determine the level of your involvement.

To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

Refuge and Bodhicitta

Jetsunma — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:12:04 +0000

The following are the Refuge, Bodhicitta, and Accumulation of Merit verses from the Long Chen Nying Gi Thig Le La’i Rigdzin Dupa;i Tshog Chöd Zhug:

Refuge

NAMO DAG DANG THA YE SEM CHEN KÜN

NAMO I and all the endless sentient beings,

CHOG SUM NGO WO LAMA DANG

The Lama, identity of the three precious ones, and

RIGDZIN GYATSHO’I KYIL KHOR LA

The mandala of ocean-like knowledge-holders, to you

NYING NE DED PE KYAB SU CHI

I go for refuge with faith from the heart. (Repeat 3 times)

Bodhicitta

HO RIGDZIN KYIL KHOR DIR ZHUG NE

HO I enter into this mandala of knowledge-holders; then

PHA MA DRO DRUG SEM CHEN KÜN

Father, mother and all the beings of the six realms,

TSHED MED NYING JE DRÖL WA’I CHIR

In order to protect them with boundless compassion

MÖN JUG DÖN DAM JANG SEM KYED

I develop the aspiring, acting and absolute Enlightened Mind. (Repeat 3X)

Accumulation of Merit

HO CHU LE CHU WUR JI ZHIN DU

HO As water bubbles from water,

YESHE YING LE TRÜL PA’I LHAR

Divinities manifest from the space of Primordial Wisdom,

NGÖN SUM RIG PE CHAG TSHAL LO

To you I pay homage by directly realizing the Dharmata.

NYAM NANG GONG PHEL CHÖD PA BÜL

I offer the development of the experiences.

RIG PA TSHED PHEB NGANG DU SHAG

I confess in the state of perfection of awareness.

CHÖ NYID ZED LA JE YI RANG

I rejoice over the dissolution of phenomena in the Dharmata.

PHO CHEN LONG NE CHÖ KHOR KOR

Turn the Dharma wheel from the expanse of the Great Transference.

JA LÜ CHEN POR ZHUG SÖL DEB

I pray you to remain in the Great Rainbow Body.

GE TSHOG ZHÖN NU BUM KUR NGO

I dedicate the accumulation of merit for the achievement of the youthful vase-body.

DZA HUNG BAM HO TSHOG ZHING NAM RANG LA THIM PAR GYUR

The field of refuge dissolves into oneself.

It’s Decision Time: Who Are You? Full Length Video Teaching

Jetsunma — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:05:19 +0000

The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in Sedona, Arizona:

While the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas offer the feast of Dharma and beg us to eat, we hold our egos and samsara on the thornes of our hearts instead. We are begged to adhere to the teachings of the Buddha and take real refuge, binding our hearts to the Three Jewels.

Safety from Harm

Jetsunma — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:06:20 +0000

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

Hello! Hearing that my friends are worried, I’d like to say that I am already in a safe secure place and surrounded by friends. I’ve gone underground as “U.S. vs. Cassidy” was dismissed. I don’t know how long I must hide.

But I think of all women, and what we are forced to endure, and I cry for us all. We must continue to support each other, and advocate for woman’s rights and freedom from abuse. We must change the laws and therefore change the world. All beings are equal in nature and we have the right to defend ourselves.

I’ll be moving again soon. This is a way to be safe while the wheels of justice move forward, and strong women are upheld according to their contributions and gifts. Not destroyed for their strength by men with no respect and no love. My Lineage will support me, and women’s advocates as well. My tears are for those women who have no one. Please look for advocacy groups. You have a right to your own life free of fear and cruelty! And a right to live in peace.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved

A Place of Refuge

Jetsunma — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:30:03 +0000

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

Tashi Delek! I have been invited to take refuge in retreat land in New York by Palyul,where I can do retreat. William L Cassidy will be free. My family and I, land and accomplishment are now unsafe. Palyulis my faith, life and conviction His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, His Holiness Karma Kuchen, His Holiness Ngawang Tenzin, and Muksang Rinpoche have been kind to me. I will go underground for safety while Cassidy is loose.

OM TARE TUTARE TURE PUNYE PUSHTIM AH YOU PUSHTIM KURU YE SOHA

Planting Your Dharma Garden: Full Length Video Teaching

Jetsunma — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:31:44 +0000

The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

In a beautiful, concise introduction to the Vajrayana path, Jetsunma describes how the 5 senses delude us, and how we mut begin taking refuge in something unseen that seems illugical Ngondro offers the method of purifying these senses, so that slowly, we awaken from ignorance into bliss.

Nam Cho Ngondro: Refuge Instruction Khenpo Tenzin Norgay

Jetsunma — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:11:16 +0000

The following is a full length video recording of a teaching on Nam Cho Ngondro Refuge given by Khenpo Tenzin Norgay at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

Video streaming by Ustream

What is “Refuge?” from a commentary by Venerable Gyaltrul Rinpoche

Jetsunma — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:13:51 +0000

The following is an excerpt from Great Perfection Buddha in the Palm of the Hand a commentary by Gyaltrul Rinpoche:

The reason for taking refuge is based on the awareness of the precious human rebirth, on the awareness that, having attained the precious human rebirth, to waste it will be just like returning empty-handed from a land of precious jewels. Keeping that in mind, you must recognize that you need some kind of guide, some kind of help, someone or something that will teach you, show you, how to make use of your precious opportunity. This someone or something is the three jewels of refuge.

As I have mentioned, one should not take refuge in or rely upon the external form, the body of the lama or the actual presence of the Buddha. If that were important, then we would all be in trouble because the Buddha is long gone now and the lama will also pass. Even though the Buddha and all the great teachers of the past are no longer in this world, there are still buddhists. Buddhism lives on because refuge isn’t taken in the body, the form, of a teacher; it’s taken in the qualities that are actualized in that particular embodiment.

The enlightened body has specific attributes, indicated by specific physical characteristics. You must learn what those attributes are. There are many different teachings on the subject of the enlightened body. For example, the fact that a buddha or a deity has one face symbolizes the dharmakaya, the great bindhu that is the one nature of reality, or truth. Two arms symbolize method and wisdom in non-dual union. When you take refuge in the sangha you take refuge in the qualities the sangha represents, not the bodies of the sangha members. When you take refuge in the dharma you aren’t taking refuge in the paper and ink, in the pages that the dharma is written on; you’re taking refuge in what the words express, in the quality and essence of the teaching. Whatever your dharma practice may be, on whatever level, it is in the meaning of the dharma that you take refuge.

If you intend to study with a spiritual teacher, that teacher should be an embodiment of the qualities of the three jewels of refuge, and you should know what those qualities are. If you take refuge in an ordinary person who lacks a higher level of realization, who, in his ignorance, mixes traditions to create something new — maybe mixing hinduism and buddhism, throwing in a little christianity or taoism, making a little garbage container — then you will find yourself in trouble. It won’t be beneficial to you; it will harm you and everyone else involved. And you shouldn’t become such a teacher, because you won’t be a suitable object of refuge. If you are not a lama, a qualified spiritual teacher, then you are sangha. Since the sangha is one of the three jewels, it is important that you also be clean and pure.

When Obstacles Arise

Jetsunma — Sun, 15 May 2011 12:30:37 +0000

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Entering the Path”

The thing to do when entering the path, in order to take responsibility and to stabilize your mind and your practice, is to begin to accumulate merit in a consistent and intelligent way. That doesn’t mean talk about it. That doesn’t mean dress up for it, like, “I’m a Dharma practitioner and the first thing I need are coral beads because that’s what she has.” People do think like that when they come to the path, and it’s a little silly. Just back off from that.

Think to yourself, “How can I accumulate virtue and merit? How can I stabilize my mind and my practice through providing the causes and the nourishment that I need?” You could for once be your own friend! Just for once give yourself the food, the nourishment, the fuel that you need. The way to do that is to accumulate virtue and merit through acts of generosity, through contemplation, through study, through providing a way for others to hear Dharma, through making offerings, through kindness, through following the instructions of your teacher. Your teacher has given you methods to accumulate merit and virtue, so do them consistently in a calm and relaxed way. In this way, your first moving onto the path will be relatively painless.

One of the things that students experience when they first come onto the path is hidden body karma. You see, it’s already there. Can you understand that concept? You already have this body karma. It will ripen anyway at some point. Better that it should ripen under the guidance and tutelage of your teacher and of the path.

Let’s say that you have some body karma near the surface of your mind. Sometimes a person will come to the path and literally catch the flu or a disease, cut themselves, or maybe even break a leg, something like that. I’ve seen that happen. Usually it’s not a big deal, but I’ve seen it happen. The thing to do then is to immediately turn the mind, in a relaxed way, toward accumulating virtue and merit rather than freaking out. Most people freak out. “I went to Dharma, and I broke my leg! Screech!” That’s their intelligent response. Hey, you would have broken the leg anyway, maybe both legs, but at least you had some merit going there. So who knows what could have happened? The intelligent thing to do is to thank Guru Rinpoche for this blessing—a benign ripening that indicates to you what the condition of your present cause-and-effect relationships actually are—and for having been given the tool to work through this. So you begin to practice and accumulate merit.

Some people come to the path and they seem really, really nice. You think, “Isn’t that a nice person! Such a nice person!” And then they’re on the path maybe six months, and suddenly it’s like they grow fangs and turn into something completely different. And you wonder whatever happened to that nice, easygoing person. They turn into something that looks like Freddy Krueger or something, I don’t know. You know who Freddy Krueger is? He’s that really scary guy. So they turn into somebody really, really horrible. Why is that ? Right underneath the surface of their mind, there was sort of a bag or a ball of ripening non-virtue that was going to come to the surface anyway.

It might have come in dribs and drabs and made them just periodically mean throughout the rest of their life, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Or who knows? They might have put themself in a very wonderful situation and maybe – here’s a hypothetical situation – gotten married and then turned into the nightmare on Elm Street. Who knows what could have happened? Who knows how it might have ripened? But sometimes it happens that a deep disturbance in the mind will simply come to the surface, and for a while, that person will not seem like themselves at all.

What do you think needs to happen then? If a big obstacle comes to the surface and ripens when you first meet the path, you can see how endangered you are, can’t you? That’s a terrible danger because if you’re sick and your mind become disturbed, there’s no telling what you’ll do. You have seen yourselves react in unpredictable ways. You think you know yourselves. Then you’re faced with a situation in which you act completely unpredictably due to your emotions being really roused up. We all think we know how we’re going to act, but then we see ourselves when we really get an emotional head of steam going. We often act differently than we think we might have acted.

Well, if you have that kind of mental ripening when you first come to the path, that’s the most dangerous obstacle of all because the mind changes. Being of clear mind and clear thought coming to the path, you might say, “Yes, I have earned this. This is the method. I wish to abandon samsara. I wish to do this for the sake of sentient beings.” It sounds like pretty decent, logical and sound thinking to me. Then when the obstacle hits, your mind might be in a completely different place, and you might say, “I don’t have to. I don’t want to. I won’t!” Your mind just changes, and a part of you that you hardly ever relate to, that you mostly suppress, comes out and takes over. I’ve seen it happen. It will simply take over. What should you do at that point? Once an obstacle like that has begun to ripen, it’s very, very, very hard, particularly in the beginning when you’re an infant on the path and unable to really utilize all the tools.

But I say to you that the best thing to do at that time is to take refuge in the Guru, in the Buddha, in the Dharma and in the Sangha with all your heart. Take refuge. In your own mind say, “These are impure qualities. Samsara is not perfect. Therefore I take refuge and wish to be free.” Just like that. Hold on to that. Don’t let go of that. It is precious and important and necessary.

Respecting the Three Jewels

Jetsunma — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:30:36 +0000

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Keeping Heart Samaya”

When we examine the student’s responsibility in the teacher/student relationship, we have to think like this: First of all, according to the teaching, the lama, as the spiritual teacher or spiritual master, is the condensed essence of the external and most familiar objects of refuge–the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. So, regarding the student’s samaya or commitment to the teacher, there are three aspects of commitment.

As the lama is the condensed essence of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the first commitment is to honor and uphold the Buddha’s teachings. That is to say that if we are practicing the Buddhadharma, we should never disrespect the Buddhist prayers and the Buddhist text. We love and respect them as the Buddha’s own speech, the Buddha’s own speech emanation. We should never throw them around or put them under our seats or step on them or treat them as though they were any like other object in samsara, like a rag or something. We should never treat any objects that are representative of the objects of refuge like that, such as statues, Dharma texts, and images of the Buddhas.

It’s not that Buddhists have a superficial, external, worship of images. It is not like that. This rule or practice is meant to develop discrimination in the student’s mind so that the student can discriminate between what is precious and extraordinary and what is ordinary. Ordinary things are things that arise in samsara and result in samsara, even things that we need, like enough water to live on. Water is in the world, you can get it from the world and it results in the satisfaction of worldly thirst. Water is not the same as Dharma. Dharma arises from the mind of enlightenment, results in enlightenment and is not ordinary. Water will support my life temporarily, so it is impermanent. If I drink a glass of water and then don’t drink any more, I will last four or five days. But even though it may be necessary for me to drink that water in order to stay alive long enough to read the Buddha’s teaching, I won’t forget the teaching because it is extraordinary and does not arise from samsara.

This commitment not only supports my life temporarily and in this moment, but it also provides a path or a method by which I can accomplish Dharma, by which I can enter into the door of liberation and be free. This is a miracle. This is a treasure that doesn’t only last one life or one moment or four days. Life after life after life this treasure lasts,. So these things are held up as extraordinary. Part of the student’s commitment to the student/teacher relationship is to honor this external object of refuge–the Buddha image, to honor the Buddha’s presence in the world, to propagate the teaching, to hold it up and protect it.