Month: September 2018

An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
You should think of the Buddha’s teaching as a philosophy that you can follow according to your capability. You don’t need to look or act a certain way. Basically, what you’re learning is cause and effect. You learn that there are ten virtuous activities that bring about Realization, if they are done frequently and consistently. These are: 1.) Composition––the creation of prayers or stories which increase others’ faith. 2.) Offering––even a simple butterlamp, offered daily to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha creates causes for Buddhahood at some future time. 3.) Generosity and kindness to others, even at the expense of your own comfort; you are one, and they are many. 4.) Attentiveness to the teachings––sometimes difficult when you want to go outside or fall asleep. 5.) Recitation––of prayers, practices, and mantras. 6.) Memorization––of the teachings and instructions for practice. 7.) Teaching––appropriate to do only when we are ready. 8.) Praying. 9.) Contemplation––of the teachings you receive. 10.) Meditation.
First we receive training about how to perform these activities; then we practice them the best we can. Some people will spend a whole week contemplating the teaching I’m now giving; others won’t think about it until they come back for another teaching. But they come back! And there is virtue in that.
The ball is in your court. Your progress will depend on how hard you work, how well you take hold of your mind, how much you demand of yourself, how courageous and honest you are, and how much true generosity you develop. Accordingly, you will pacify the obstacles that keep you from achieving the Awakening to your own primordial Wisdom Nature.
Until you do this, you will wander helplessly in the six realms of cyclic existence. It would take weeks to give a thorough traditional teaching on these realms, but the purpose here is only to explain how Buddhists think.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
To download the complete teaching, click here and scroll down to How Buddhists Think

 

Boundless Treasury of Blessings is now available on Amazon in paperback and kindle versions. This forward prepared by Khenpo Pem Sheri Sherpa:

NAMO GURU DEWA DAKI YE

​​​​​​It is a great blessing and honor to have an opportunity to give a short introduction about Her Eminence Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo and her noble activities. 

Her Eminence Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo is a Western reincarnation of a Bodhisattva who practices Secret Mantrayana and is spreading the Buddha’s doctrine in the West in a way that is accessible to Westerners. I have known her since 1996, when His Holiness Pema Norbu Rinpoche enthroned her at Namdroling Monastery in Bylakuppe, India. She is the founder of Kunzang Odsal Palyul Changchub Chöling(KPC), which is located in Poolesville, MD, USA. In this Dharma center, there is 24/7 prayer, group practice, recitation, and other spiritual and community activities; and it is open for the public as well. 

In order to understand who Jetsunma is and what KPC is we must know a brief historical introduction to Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The founder of Buddhism, Buddha Shakyamuni was born in Lumbini grove in Nepal, the son of King Sudhodana and Queen Maya Devi. His early life was spent in palatial luxury, and he excelled in all the pursuits of his time, both academic and athletic. Slowly he began to doubt the validity of his worldly life. At the age of 29, he renounced his worldly life, and left the palace. After six years of unwavering meditation, at the age 35, he attained enlightenment.

Through his infinite compassion, Buddha started to teach, but his teaching was so vast and profound that it was broadly divided into three categories or levels which are now known as the Hinayana School, Mahayana School, and the Vajrayana or Secret Mantrayana School, which uses a variety of skillful methods to bring about that same vast and profound realization in a relatively short time. These different traditions were gradually propagated all over India, Nepal, and many other Asiancountries. The  Buddha’s teachings are still unbroken today. The Hinayanateachings have been preserved in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in Southeast Asia. The Mahayana teachings have been preserved in China, Japan, and Korea; and the Vajrayana teachings have been preserved mainly in Tibet, Bhutan, and the Himalayan part of Nepal. 

Tibet was doubly fortunate. Not only was it one of the few countries in which Vajrayana continued to be practiced, it was also the only one in which the full range of teaching, from all three traditions, was transmitted and preserved. 

Over the centuries these many strands of the Buddha’s teaching have been handed down from master to students, as demonstrated by the lineage holder. Today there are four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Of these four main schools, the Nyingma school was the very first Buddhist school in Tibet. It was establishedaround the eighth century and is known as the old-translation school. The Kagyu, Shakya, and Gelug schools came after the tenth century and are called new-translation schools. 

The first Nyingma school masters were mainly the Indian masters Shantarakshita, Vimalamitra and Padmasambhava, whom the Tibetans refer to as Guru Rinpoche, the precious Master. These masters handed the teachings down through fully realized Tibetan masters such as Longchen, Jigme Lingpa, Mipham Rinpoche and others. Within the Nyingma lineage, there are also six mother monasteries: Palyul,Kathog, Shechen, Dzogchen, Mindroling, and Dorje Drag. 

Palyul was founded by Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab, the elder brother of the previous Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo. The lineage was passed down from Rigdzin KunzangSherab to Pema Lhundrup Gyatso and Drubwang Pema Norbu Rinpoche throughtwelve Palyul lineage holders to His Holiness Karma Kuchen Rinpoche and Her Eminence Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo. All the teachings have been passed down unbroken from master to students until the present master. 

Her Eminence Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo is none other than an emanation of the great yogini Mandarava who was the consort of Guru Padmasambhava. Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo is a Bodhisattva who has boundless love and compassion toward all sentient beings. A Bodhisattva is one who has bodhichitta (the mind of enlightenment), one who has transcended samsara. To be a genuine Buddhist practitioner, you must go through a traditional system. First, you must take refuge in front of the Three Jewels, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and also, in Vajrayana, in front of the root master (the guru). After that we also need to arousethe Bodhichitta. Without Bodhichitta we cannot possibly attain the ultimate goal of complete enlightenment. Then in the path of Dzogchen, Bodhicitta must be aroused because it is the only doorway to Dzogchen. In essence, all Dzogchenpractice is guru yoga practice. It is a special, powerful, skillful means for accomplishing this path and attaining the siddhis, spiritual accomplishments. Just practicing only guru yoga will directly destroy dualistic thoughts.  Then one canrest in the unaltered natural state of awareness (rigpa) itself. 

I think Western people are very good at analyzing and researching the reason to practice, but in order to accomplish the practice itself, one must have a good master who can show the methods of skillful means and confer blessings. That could be the reason that the Bodhisattva, Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo, came in Western form to teach Western people in their own language. 

I wish and pray that this book will bring immense benefit to all the Western people as well as whoever sees it, reads it, contemplates it, and meditates on it. May all sentient beings be free from the ocean of suffering. May all sentient beings attain complete enlightenment in this very life. 

 

May Bodhichitta, precious and sublime, 

Arise where it has not yet come to be;

And where it has arisen may it never fail 

But grow and flourish ever more and more. 

 

Khenpo Pem Tsheri Sherpa 

Namdroling Monastery

 

From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

How do phenomena express themselves as they do? Each sentient being, within its own nature and even within the form in which it arises, contains an essential seed or drop that is the nature of mind itself. Just as all things emanate from Nature and can be understood as the spontaneous arising of that Nature—all phenomena that you as an individual perceive, including your individuality, can be considered the emanation or activity arising from that same mind-drop or essential seed.

Correct view describes that natural drop as being neither small nor big but both and neither. Since this Nature is indivisible, the only difference must be in perception. Literally everything you see is a reflection of your karma as it formulates itself into the perceptions of the five senses. The more you try to contrive understanding with the five senses, the more you try to “nail down” your perceptions, the more confused your perception will be. Data that are based on a system of logic organized by the five senses—cannot give you true wisdom of the realization of the uncontrived Nature.

Since the five senses will always support the ego, they can be considered demonic in their influence. In their enlightened state, however, they can be considered the five celestial wisdoms: they are the components of the activities and qualities of the Buddha Nature itself. They are the five underlying blissful expanses, completely one with emptiness. They are the celestial opportunities, the celestial messengers by which miraculous activity can enter into the world of samsara in order to benefit beings. They are five goddesses or dakinis even though, used as they are, they are five whores.

Within each of us is blissful mind expanse. All spontaneous activity occurs directly and inseparably from that expanse. The dakinis are depicted as distributors, upholders of the fruit of one’s karma. Does this mean that there are dakinis who are separate from you, who are doing something to you? No. It is through the perceptions of the five senses in their unenlightened state that one’s punishments are meted out. There is no one outside of you who causes your suffering.

Karma is completely implemented through the perceptions of the five senses, which survive in some form from life to life. Even though your nose, ears, and brain are gone, the underlying karmic pattern remains to reactivate itself in other incarnations. However, you now feel a totally self-contained involvement with everything you experience. You honestly feel that you suffer because you are too tired, because you have insufficient food or money, because your body hurts. The five senses create these incorrect perceptions.

“How,” you may ask, “can I free myself of these demons, these witches who cause me suffering?” You must want to be free. Unfortunately, you do not. Oh yes, all sentient beings want to be happy, and you are trying to be happy. But you compulsively believe that you can be happy by resolving the scenarios presented by these five senses. These scenarios are not measured and apportioned. Their essential form is not something that can be balanced. The only recourse is to strive to perceive True Nature, renounce the affliction of these five witches, and take refuge in the five celestial wisdoms and the five-natured blissful expanse of emptiness.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo