Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

A Treasury of Wisdom and Blessing

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The following are some teachings from other Lineages:

Terton Sogyal Rinpoche: On Ignorance

Surely one of the most heart-breaking aspects of our lives is that we cannot recognize the fundamental cause of our suffering. Isn’t it curious how we can not detect ignorance at work? But, you see, this lack of awareness is exactly what ignorance, ‘ma rigpa’ in Tibetan, is.

For full teaching go to: http://www.rigpa.org/en/teachings/extracts-of-articles-and-publications/more-articles-and-publications-/view-and-wrong-view.html

From Khenchen Palden Sherab: Cause and Effect

Now we shall explore the third attitude, the cause and effect system. This is also known as the understanding of the system of the cause and effect. Everything really depends upon the cause and effect system. The law of cause and effect is always working. If a cause and condition are present, there will definitely be a result. Results must come from their causes and conditions. Right causes and conditions produce right results or effects. This never alters. This always operates. If we don’t have the right causes and conditions, there will not be right results no matter how much we hope or expect them. If we have the right causes and conditions, definitely the right results will come. It is inevitable. Even if we say we don’t want them, the results will definitely show up. Inwardly everything is like this also.  Positive inward causes and conditions bring positive inward results. Negative inward causes and  conditions bring negative inward results. Mixed positive and negative inward causes and conditions bring mixed inward results or effects. Knowledge of the cause and effect system is very important in Buddhism. Karma is the name of this system. You are the one who gets the results of your own causes and conditions. You are the producer of your own causes and conditions; you are therefore the producer of your own effects. Whatever you do, the results will come to you. By understanding this system, we can learn the importance of having more positive attitudes. Reduce your negative activities, and learn more positive activities. This is the lesson of this line of the text.Cause and effect are inevitable.

For the full teaching go to: http://pbc-tn.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/NgondroCommentary.pdf

From Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche: Cause and Effect

The third ordinary foundation practice is the truth of karma, cause and effect. Unfortunately, many deluded people believe that although death may be a very harrowing experience, after it has occurred, one is then completely free. Some believe that once you’re dead, things are all taken care of for you, as if somebody picks you up and puts you in a very enjoyable place where there are all kinds of pleasant entertainments. Other people believe that after death there is nothing, all experience just abruptly ends. There’s no good or evil, it’s just ashes to ashes and that’s that. Of course, such attitudes are the epitome of ignorance, and reveal a total lack of wisdom. It is utter delusion to believe that there will be no suffering, only pure enjoyment awaiting you after death. It is grievous that people do not realize that we are experiencing this life and its various conditions because of our conduct in previous lives.

Sometimes we think that once we are dead we will experience a very magical realm, and that even if we face suffering we’ll have the ability to immediately transform it. But how could this possibly be done? We should use our intelligence and other abilities now, while we have time, to see through our delusions. For instance, if it’s winter and you want it to be summer, no matter how much you long for the seasons to change, you are powerless to do anything about it. And if you are sick and want to be healthy again, you can’t just miraculously cure yourself. All suffering and experiences of the phenomenal world are caused by our habitual patterns and our karmic accumulations, and these are the materials with which you must work.

Furthermore, when somebody says that nothing exists after death, that you are free of suffering because you’re dead and it’s all finished, that is a very ignorant attitude. It’s something like standing before a blazing fire and telling somebody that if they close their eyes and jump into it, it’ll be okay. This will of course just make the situation worse. It’s a simple refusal to acknowledge reality, a wishful desire to escape the order of things. But it doesn’t change anything. It will only make reality that much more difficult to face. It’s also akin to playing around on the edge of a cliff, believing you won’t fall off. But then, once you’ve fallen, and you’re in midair, it’s completely useless to say to yourself, “Oh no, I hope I land softly.” No matter how much wishful thinking you do at that point, it won’t help you at all.

For the full teaching go to: http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/dha/dha03.php

Contemplating this Precious Opportunity by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso given at Kunzang Palyul Choling on Ngondro:

The Four Thoughts that turn the mind from samsara are very important.  Our minds are distracted by this world.  We practice a little bit, and then get distracted, thinking life is good — eating pizza in the restaurant, going to the beach on weekends, and enjoying ourselves.  It is really nice.  One could have a very happy life with one’s family, and eating, and experiencing all those happy experiences.  At the end of life, if one could not have the continuation of that kind of happiness in the next lifetime and many future lifetimes, one may get a little upset and think, “I should have done something.  I have just been going to the beach, the mountains, camping, bungee jumping, and all that.  I’ve spent my time doing all that, but I really didn’t do anything.”  Then all one’s karma ripens.  Whether you believe in karma or not, understand it or not, it doesn’t matter.  Whether you are a Christian or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Jew or a Muslim, in cyclic existence, karma is the life process.  It is the nature of cyclic existence itself.  So that nature ripens to everybody.  Everyone experiences that.  After death, if one has to bear all different kinds of suffering, then one may experience some regret.

This is how one has a very happy life.  You can have entertainment, but at the same time have a kind of entertainment which really makes sense, which you can carry with you.  On weekends, you could come here and participate in a tsog offering or a puja or some kind of a practice.  While you are doing the practice, you may experience some minor problems with your knees or sitting or doing prostrations, but still you are bearing some karma and having some purification.  After all, you could have something you can really carry with you after death.  It is as the Buddha, who is fully enlightened, has explained.  Jetsunma has also explained all this a number of times.  The important thing to realize here is that this precious human birth is one in which one could really become involved in practice, in which one could become involved with the Dharma teachings, in which one could really become involved in Dharma activities.  If one could really have some time to apply to practice, then this becomes a precious human birth.

First Noble Truth

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by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a Teaching called “How Buddhists Think”

The Buddha’s first teaching dealt with what is now called “The Four Noble Truths.”  This is the basis for everything he taught later.  If it is not understood, then Buddhism will not be understood.

The Buddha taught that cyclic existence, the entire cycle of death and rebirth with all its phenomena, is pervaded by suffering.  If you disagree with that, just look at a newspaper.  Most people’s lives are affected by war, by hunger, by old age; we will all experience sickness and death.  Other forms of sentient life have similar suffering, and it also pervades their lives.

The Buddha does not deny that some happiness exists.  Is there not joy in the drug-like process of falling in love, in loving relationships, in the birth of a child, in acquiring wealth, in seeing and having beautiful things, in enjoying nature and simply feeling good on a good day?

But there is a form of suffering that we all share: every joy has a point of termination.   The Buddha taught that all things are impermanent.  Short-term loves break our hearts when they fail to endure.  Then we revert to our habitual loneliness, anger, and unhappiness.  Even life-long loves and marriages end in separation.

The bottom-line cause of suffering, the Buddha taught, is desire.  And what causes desire to arise?  At a point so unimaginably long ago that it’s called “time out of mind,” there arose the idea of self-nature as inherently real and as separate from “other.”  This fixation on the duality of subject and object is the persistent skeletal structure for all experience.  Until you achieve realization, all the experiences you have derive from this misperception.

Copyright ©  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Bodhisattva Vow

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The following is the Bodhisattva Vow Ceremony as recited daily at Palyul Ling in New York, from the Nam Cho Daily Practice:

Gaining the Attention of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas Prior to Taking the Bodhisattva Vow

All buddhas who reside in the ten directions, transcendent accomplished conquerors,

All great bodhisattvas who dwell on the tenth bhumi, and

All gurus, great vajra holders–

Please turn your attention towards me!

Taking Refuge Prior to Taking the Bodhisattva Vow

Until the heart of enlightenment is realized,

I take refuge in all the buddhas.

In the dharma and the and the assembly

Of bodhisattvas, similarly I go for refuge!

Recite three times

Taking the Actual Bodhisattva Vow

Just as the sugatas of the past

Have aroused the awakened mind of bodhicitta,

And trained in the way of the bodhisattvas

To gradually accomplish the stages of development,

Similarly, for the benefit and purpose of beings,

By awakening the bodhicitta

And training in the conduct of the bodhisattvas,

I shall gradually practice the levels of training.

Rejoicing in Having Taken the Bodhisattva Vow for the Sake of All Sentient Beings

Today my life has become meaningful;

The meaning of this human existence is now realized.

Today I am reborn in the family of the buddhas

And have become an heir of the enlightened ones!

Now, no matter what occurs hereafter,

My activities will be in conscientious accordance with my family,

And I shall never engage in conduct that could

Possibly sully this faultless noble family!

Like a blind man finding a precious jewel

From amidst a heap of refuse,

Similarly, this occasion is such

That today I have given rise to the awakened mind.

Today, before all of my objects of refuge,

All beings and all those who have gone beyond,

I call to bear witness as guests of this occasion,

Where all devas, titans, and other join together to rejoice!

The precious, supreme bodhicitta:

If unborn, may it arise;

If generated, may it never diminish;

And may it remain ever-increasing!

Never without bodhicitta,

Absorbed in the conduct of the awakened ones,

And being held fast by all of the buddhas,

May all demonic activities be fully abandoned!

May all the bodhisattvas

Accomplish their altruistic intention to fulfill the needs of beings!

Whatever intention these protectors may have,

May it be realized for the purpose of those beings!

May all sentient beings be endowed with bliss!

May all the lower realms be permanently empty!

May all the bodhisattvas, on whatever stage they abide,

Fully accomplish all their aspirations!

Training the Mind

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The following is from a twitter conversation between Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and one of her followers:

Questioner:

Yet peace must begin with self: smrti, samadhi, prajna. Paradox or universal elegance?
I mean, am I missing something, or isn’t this dynamic at the very core of engaged Buddhism in the 21st century?

Jetsunma:

Yes, I do think you are missing something.  There are outer, inner, and secret views. Outer we must practice altruism. Inwardly one must practice Buddhism for the sake of Liberating all beings ultimately. Secretly, one must awaken Bodhicitta, and understand  that all appearances are fundamentally empty of self nature, there is no object or subject. Yet we are operating with relative view and there is suffering to be healed. Our very nature is Buddha, and that is the Bodhicitta. We must actively engage yet be fully aware of emptiness, and train the mind.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Karma and Purification on the Path

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

I personally know a story about a young lady who took robes of ordination as an Ani years ago. Deep habitual tendencies caused her to fall off her path and break the vows very seriously, more than once. As a lay woman she continued the pattern, there was so much rage in her, the events seemed neurotic, obsessive. She was determined to ruin her Teacher, as she imagined the downfall was her Teacher’s fault. The breakage seemed to spiral and worsen until she lost friends, and suffered terribly, as did the ones she attacked. It was a terrible mess! But she went to other Lamas and asked for advice, and to become their student. All told her she must return to her own Tsawei Lama and make amends.

How terribly difficult when so much damage to so many had been done. But she persisted. Correcting lies, doing purifying practice, applying the proper antidotes. She went to retreat and was welcomed and treated kindly. Her Guru had already taken her back. Except for one elder Lama who, when she served tea, poured it on the ground and said “you may not serve me!” as he himself had witnessed what she’d done personally, and had known the effect on all. She accepted and bowed low, wondering why everyone didn’t treat her just the same. But it was through that Lama’s activity she was instantly able to see the depth of her betrayal and was able to make confession without leaving out any details at all. She was given kind instruction from His Holiness Palyul Karma Kuchen Rinpoche and is now taking advanced teachings, much happier and her mind continues to be freed from the imprisonment of the cycle of hatred, greed and ignorance. Stage by stage she grows more free!

She repeatedly asked why she was so compelled, so intensely obsessed with harming her Teacher and Dharma. The answer, repeatedly, was a real kicker. In past lives she had made up her own path and convinced (skillfully) others to follow and practice what she taught. So in this life, although she is skillful and brilliant, it was impossible for her to keep the robes of the Buddha or to follow the path of Buddhism nicely or purely. It will take time to repair, but she is diligently applying herself. She was instructed to tell truth always and make an unshakable commitment to never behave that way again.

There is always a way to purify mistakes, but so much better to never make them in the first place. To try to teach a made-up path that causes downfall for others results in great mental instability and even insanity. Emotional equilibrium is lost. And it continues into future lives. Suffering of others is experienced by the false teacher. You will always know them by their current lives and experience. Sadly, still ignorant, they cannot see it for themselves. Karma is real, if you believe it or not. And you are experiencing it right now, and will continue until Supreme Enlightenment.

One more thing. I am so proud of her. And love her so deeply, she is a miracle.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Cause and Effect: Examining Circumstances

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso on Ngondro, given at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

There is not one single sentient being who wishes to suffer.  That is very obvious.  Even scary animals, ghosts, and evil spirits don’t really mean to harm anybody.  They are in search of some kind of happiness.  They are looking for some kind of peace.  An evil spirit or consciousness wanders here and there and creates some kind of problem for someone.  Then that person becomes possessed by the evil spirit and there are lots of disturbances, all due to the search for happiness, but without knowing what the actual cause of happiness is.  How can one really have actual happiness?  How can one really have a peaceful life?  How can one have a happier life?  One has to understand the actual cause.  Due to ignorance, all sentient beings do not know that. Each and every sentient being wishes for happiness, but not knowing the cause of happiness, all kinds of karma, actions, thoughts, and afflicted mind, arise and worldly things are done which result in problems and suffering.

I think that Americans really don’t like to hear about suffering in the teachings.  You like to hear only about having a happy and prosperous life, about enjoyment.  You are always trying to find some kind of modern technology, some different way of doing things, because you are really trying to find happiness.  Maybe if I climb a mountain, I can enjoy life more.  Or no, maybe I’ll go bungee jumping!  That may be more enjoyable and will bring some happiness.  In that way, everybody is trying each and every thing just to experience happiness, just to experience some kind of peaceful mind. There are so many religions, so many masters, so many yogis who have appeared. When a Hindu teacher comes, then everybody goes there and listens to the yogi teaching about prana, some kind of breathing, some kind of meditation, because they think,  “If I go to this teacher, maybe I can get some kind of solution so that I can be happier.  Maybe I can have some kind of path.  Maybe I can really get something so that I can maintain a happier life.”

So everyone does whatever we do 24 hours a day. And whatever we are doing, whatever we talk to people about, it’s all in search of peace and happiness.  Not knowing the actual cause of happiness, one thinks something else may help, so one creates all kinds of karma, causing problems which ripen for oneself.  It is like a reflection, or an echo when you shout in a cave.  The same ego shouts back to you.  When you look in the mirror and make a face, the image makes the same face back at you.  In the same way, the actions one has done to other sentient beings, ripen back.  This is the cause of samsara, or cyclic existence.  Whatever peace or happiness is attained is very temporary and limited.  While worldly peace and happiness is temporary and of short duration, at the same time, one experiences lots and lots of difficulties, lots and lots of problems. One experiences suffering and struggles very hard before one can have a little bit of peace and happiness.

So experience one’s own life and others’ lives.  Sit aside and watch the universe, watch sentient beings. Watch how all these sentient beings fare.  Everything is the result of one’s own karma or whatever action one has done.  In this way, when one thinks about the suffering of sentient beings, then one could think, “How can I really apply some kind of method or practice so that I can become fully perfected, so that I may not have any more suffering—no miserable life, no birth, no death, no sickness, no old age?  How can I get rid of all this?”  There is a teaching which explains how one can really enter into a very strong practice, a practice which would produce results very fast, a practice which may have a very special skill, a special technique, so that one can have realization in this lifetime.  If one could really generate Bodhicitta or Awakening Mind, then one would feel like he really needs to get enlightened.

Generating the Motivation

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso given at Kunzang Palyul Choling on Ngondro:

Motherly sentient beings are spread throughout this universe.  As much as space has expanded, so sentient beings are extended throughout space.  We cannot perceive the edge of space, and in the same way, we cannot perceive the numbers of sentient beings.  Visualize the countless sentient beings that exist in this universe, and in the thousands and millions of other universes, which are also filled up with thousands and millions, countless, sentient beings.  Visualize and understand all sentient beings as one’s mother. And taking them as one’s mother, then generate compassion, realizing and experiencing the suffering of all sentient beings—all the different kinds of suffering, all the different kinds of obstacles, all the miserable lives.  Experience all these for oneself.  If one really tries to experience that, there is no way that one cannot generate compassion. You must generate compassion for all motherly sentient beings.  When you have compassion, then you really want to know how to help all these sentient beings. “How can I benefit these sentient beings?  I need some kind of energy, some kind of power.  I need all the qualities whereby I can benefit all sentient beings so that they can be liberated from cyclic existence, from the suffering of samsara.

When one has this strong desire to benefit sentient beings, then there is a way, a possibility, that one can give rise to the Bodhicitta, or the Awakening Mind. One thinks, “Now I need to get some kind of realization.  I really need some kind of power or energy or noble qualities or omniscient mind.  I really need to get enlightenment.  Otherwise how can I benefit all these sentient beings?  How can I help them?  How can I liberate them from cyclic existence?”

Invitation

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The following is an invitation offered to participants of the Palyul Ling Retreat in upstate New York:

After the wonderful experience of being in New York at Kyabje Penor Rinpoche’s center with our precious Palyul family, many people wish the summer would last. If you are one of these, Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and the sangha of Kunzang Palyul Choling joyfully invite you to come visit our center and continue your practice experience.

We would like to share our lovely temple enriched with the blessings of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche’s first Rinchen Terzod outside of Tibet, and all the supports for Dharma practice. We have teaching and meditation rooms – open 24 hours a day for prayers, and a continuous prayer vigil around-the-clock.

If you like the outdoors, you can walk freely in our 72-acre peace park and enjoy the 15 Stupas that grace the property there. One of them contains precious relics of Terton Migyur Dorje, a gift from His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, who consecrated the Stupa. Many people have experienced tremendous healing from circumambulating the Migyur Dorje Stupa with faith. For those of you with the transmission, we also have a private Tsa-Lung hut on the property and weekly practices there.

You will be welcomed by our large ordained Sangha – many of whom you know – and who uphold the practice calendar with daily tsog, and frequent group practices. All of this we’d like to share with you so that you may deepen your practice and fulfill your deepest wishes for enlightenment in this lifetime.

We hope you will visit soon!

www.tara.org

Easy to Understand Direction on Practicing Dharma

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The following is an excerpt from the magazine Palyul Times:

Dearest disciples,

This is a talk on dharma, always bear in mind. We havenothing else then the concern for this and next life. The most crucial is to be concerned for the next life lest we will astray into the boundless realm of samsara and undergo bottomless sufferings. The triple Gem is the only protector which can save us from that. So it is very imperative, first of all, to generate enthusiastic devotion in the Triple Gem and then to properly put into practice what to take on and what to give up. Do not essentially concert, without any sense of contentment, in achieving the hard-to-accomplish wealth and pleasures for this life. Bascially, supplicate the Triple Gem. To depend on an authentic master is of utmost consequence, and whatever the spiritual master says has to put into practice. The difficulty of obtaining the precious human life endowed with freedoms and riches, uncertainty of life, the infallibility of cause and effect, the imperfection of cyclic existence and virtue of liberation — as explained in the outer Preliminary Practice by the master, train your mind with these four senses of reversing mind from the cyclic existence. Unless we have genereted the sense of renunciation from the world of samsara, we will not become any perfect but the apparition of the dharma practitioner. Until we attain enlightenment, we have to contemplate on the four senses of reversing mind from cyclic existence. If we practice thus, we can be able to merge our mind with the dharma. The essential foundation of Mahayana Buddhism is to generate the mind of attaining enlightenment, Bodhicitta. If generated, that alone will do, if not all is ruined. Bodhicitta has to be free from any bias or secterianism or else it will not become ideal. First, we have to generate bodhicitta towards our own beloved mother and subsequently, at all times, generate towards immeasurable sentient beings until unbearable sense of compassion is aroused in us. If, now, we constantly practice the twofold bodhicitta of aspiring and practical, diligently pefect in the six transcendent paths and meditate on the emptiness that is an aspect of ultimate bodhicitta; eventually and progressively the twofold obscurations along with intrinsic tendencies will be cleansed and the realization of ultimate bodhicitta will dawn. At that time, we can broadly benefit untold numbers of beings. The specific inner preliminaries are as such: taking refuge in the Triple Gem with deep respect and longing, and thinking that ‘whatever happens or suffering may overcome me, I rely upon you’; generation of Bodhicitta has to base on considering all beings as mothers and appreciating their infinite kindness, the practice of Vajrasattva that cleanses all obscurations of self and others, mandala offering, the method of accumulating merits for self and others; and Guru Yoga that bestows immediate blessings– to appreciably complete these practices and to make sure that our three doors (body, speech, and mind) blend with the dharma, is of utmost significance. Of course, we are untainted and liberated since the beginning-less of time, the outer existence is the pure realm, all the males and females are deities; however, we are bonded by the attachment to ‘I’ due to ignorance and perverted point of view. Thus, we perceive everything as impure and wrongly indulge in them, constantly falling victim to unending sufferings. Buddhas, due to their spontaneous and intense compassion, manifest into male and female peaceful wisdom deities, male and female wrathful deities, as the Lord in union with consort and so forth. All these are for the imperfect beings to realize and perk up. Visualization of their outer existence as the blissful sphere, all the beings inside as wisdom deities, all sounds as the resounding of mantras, all conceptual thoughts as the enlightened mind or wisdom, also to visualize the emergence and merging of the rays from the mantras and wisdom of concentration at the heart, to see everything as the supreme excellence existing from the beginning-less of time, to merge into the expanse of emptiness in order the perfection not be sanitized by attachment, to arise again as the wisdom deity with one face and two arms– all these practices of generation completion phases have to be put into practice, by all, as the daily routine in order to finally the level of Primordial Buddha, Samantabhadra. In addition, for realization of the ultimate point of view generate devotion towards the perfect master bearing him in your mind as equal to the unblemished Buddha. And then receive instructions on mindfulness (Shamatha) and, in stages, the instructions on directly revealing the special insight (Vipashyana). Be able to actualize realization on the naked awareness, and diligently practice without being dissipated the point of view until you accomplish the four visions (of Dzogchen). If you practice thusly, without the slightest qualm, you wil attain the perfect Buddha-hood in one lifetime. Due to intense distraction, if you are not able to accomplish this despite your ardent diligence, then it is impossible, if truth be told, to realize the ultimate meaning. So, try to accomplish as I told you and be of utmost advantage for your own sake.

Although, I, the lowly one, deprived of any quality or accomplishment of special abandonment and realization, have written this being unable to turn away from my disciples’ request for an easy-to-understand direction on practicing the dharma.
Patrul Padma Norbu

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