Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Love Like the Sun

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Most people love with a “hook” at the end, better to love like the sun, radiating in all directions.

Why remain angry and disturbed? Watch a tree and it’s attendant breezes. And know that you are loved!

Why argue with the moon? The moon only reflects it’s Master’s lighr. Better to gaze in peaceful contemplation!

Why grasp at the love of a lover? Better to gaze with wonder at the face of the beloved!

Why fight with one’s friend? Better to sit at the stream and talk of gentle things!

From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Buddhism – What’s the Difference?

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Bodhisattvas by Artist Karma Phuntsok
An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhism Differs from Other Religions by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

There are fundamental differences between practicing the Buddha Dharma and practicing other religions.  While it might seem that the right thing to say is that at the bottom of every faith, there is the same truth that we all share, Buddhists don’t quite put it that way.  Buddhists say that no matter what one’s faith is, within each of us is the seed of enlightenment, the Buddha seed.  In that way we are completely, absolutely equal in every measurement.  It means that each one of us, whether human, animal or unseen beings that we cannot see with our physical eyes because they are other dimensional, has the potential for Buddhahood.  Whatever kind of sentient being  – a being with senses, that feels and has consciousness –  in their capacity to reach Buddhahood is exactly the same.  That means that each and every practicing Buddhist should hold every life form in high regard.

Our habitual tendency is to respect people who we are taught to respect.  We respect our teachers and our parents, and our family. And we love the people that we are connected with and so forth, but for the most part we feel somewhat alienated from the rest of the world.  Certainly in America our culture is such that we feel alienated from other cultures.  And so in the Buddha Dharma we begin to break down that kind of divisive separation idea.  We begin to understand that no matter how each person appears, they have exactly the same capacity for realization, for Buddhahood.

And yet in Tibetan Buddhism a teacher sits on a throne.  If we are all equal, why would a teacher sit on a throne, and others sit down below? It has to do with the degree of awakening and the capacity for Bodhicitta – great compassion – having studied it and given rise to it.  And it has to do with one’s past karmic potential and how that has ripened.

For instance, when I first met my guru, he told me, “Oh, you have been reborn as a bodhisattva many many uncountable times.  And so the reason why you know the Dharma without being taught is you have that habit in your mind.  And so now we’ll teach you more, and you’ll know more.”  That was his way of explaining how it is that I am in this position and somebody else might not be.  But the truth of the matter is, even though I appear to be sitting on the throne, and maybe someone else is on death row in a jailhouse, our capacity is exactly equal.  Our level of awakening is not equal, because a person who is awakening, who is giving rise to the great compassion, would not be capable of killing.  They would not have the habit or conceive of it in their mind. It’s not to say that the very same person would not say, “I could just kill my kid today.  She’s driving me nuts!”  or something like that, but that statement is so thin.  It’s utterly meaningless when you realize that there is no habit or propensity for doing harm.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Practical Bodhicitta

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

All of our suffering is brought about because we have desire in our mindstreams.  Having desire, we have attachment and aversion, hope and fear. Examine your own thoughts.  Every one of them is either a thought of hope or a thought of fear.  There isn’t one that doesn’t have as an underlying cause of hope or fear, attraction or aversion.  Every one.  That is the way the mind of duality works.  So all of the experiences that we have, according to the Buddha, are caused by the karma of desire.  Making wishing prayers to return in a form in which you can benefit beings purifies the mind of desire.  You will find that desire rules your mind less and less. Compassion is the great stabilizer of the mind.

Never stop cultivating aspirational Bodhicitta.  While you are practicing aspirational Bodhicitta your mind becomes firm and stabilized.  You are so on fire that you need to practice, in the same way that because you are determined to live, you always remember to breathe.  With that intensity, you should be absolutely determined to accomplish compassion and benefit all beings.  You always remember to practice and be mindful.   Then you begin to practice practical Bodhicitta.

Practical Bodhicitta has two divisions.  It has a lesser and greater division, or personal and a transpersonal division.  Compassion on the personal level is what we call ordinary human kindness.  It is invaluable.  There is never a time in your life that you should not practice ordinary human kindness.  I am sometimes dismayed at people who have a high-fallutin’ idea about compassion and how to practice the Vajrayana path, and they know how to do the proper instrumentation and they can chant and they can do all these wonderful things.  But they aren’t kind to one another.  How you can think of yourself as a real practitioner and not even be nice to the person next to you? How can you be arrogant?

Ordinary human kindness must be constantly practiced.  If you know of someone who is hungry, you should do your best to feed them.  If a starving child were in front of you, wouldn’t you feed him or her?  If someone that you loved really was lonely, wouldn’t you try to help them?  Of course, these are ordinary human kindnesses.  We’re not even perfect in that, are we?  I mean, we let ourselves and our families down.  We let everybody down on a regular basis.  Sometimes ordinary human kindness is impossible to achieve.

Ordinary human kindness is not lesser in its fabric or nature, but it touches less people.  For instance, let’s say you needed a friend. If I were to stay with you for some period of time, we would talk and we would share. Maybe I would teach you to meditate, if I were to discover that you’re the kind of person that would really respond to that.  But if I don’t do that, maybe I’ll have the time to teach a large group of people. Essentially I might be able to benefit many people as opposed to benefiting one person, even though you are very important and precious to me.  Yet even teaching a larger group of people is actually an intermediate level of practice. There are only so many people that can fit in this room and can be taught.

What is the highest level of compassion?  What is the highest level of Bodhicitta?  You have to go back to the Buddha’s teaching to figure this one out.  The Buddha says that all sentient beings are suffering and that there is an end to suffering and that the end to suffering is enlightenment.  That’s the only true end to suffering.  If you fed every one that’s hungry everyday and provided them each with a companion so that they’re never lonely, gave them nice clothes, they still will experience old age, sickness and death.  There’s nothing you can do about that.  And you have no control over how they will be reborn in their next incarnation.  They could come back in a form in which they still suffer.  The only end to suffering is to eradicate the cause of suffering from the mindstream.

The root cause of all suffering is the belief in self-nature as being inherently real. It’s the mother of all-pervasive desire in the mindstream.  The children are hatred, greed and ignorance.  The mind of duality causes us to act in certain ways that create the karma so that our lives manifest in certain ways.  If we suffer from hunger or old age or sickness or death, whatever it is that we suffer from, the root cause for those sufferings is the belief that self-nature is inherently real. How can you possibly uproot all of that from your mindstream?  How can you rid the very seed of suffering from your mindstream?  According to the Buddha, that is to achieve enlightenment.  To help sentient beings remove these causes from their mindstreams, we must ourselves first achieve enlightenment.  The purpose of self, which is to achieve enlightenment, is the same as the purpose of other, which is to achieve enlightenment.  They are the same, in the same way that we are non-dual, these purposes are non-dual.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Daily Wishing Prayers

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series
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Having understood that all sentient beings are suffering, and having cultivated in your mind the aspiration of Bodhicitta, you should make fervent wishing prayers, constant wishing prayers.  My teachers have told me that time and again great Bodhisattvas have been born in India and Tibet and their practice was not that extensive.  They were not very educated in their practice; they were very simple people.  But they were known in their previous incarnation for the heart-felt wishing prayers that they made.  Because of the depth to which they desired to benefit beings, and through the force of their prayers alone, they were reborn in a form in which they could benefit a great many beings.  So those prayers are exquisite.

Wishing prayers are important.  They should be done in the morning and they should be done in the evening. They should be done every moment that you can be mindful of them.  Make fervent prayers in your mind and your heart that you will, in this lifetime, benefit many beings and end their suffering.  And that in all future lifetimes you will be reborn in a form in which you can benefit beings so that they might achieve enlightenment and have their suffering ended.  Make prayers to cultivate in yourself that mind of enlightenment and to cultivate in yourself the pure intention to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit beings. That is the aspirational Bodhicitta, or practice of compassion.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

To What Do You Aspire?

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

In the Vajrayana tradition one contemplates very deeply on certain thoughts before you ever go on to any deeper practice, and these thoughts are called the ‘Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind.’  The idea is that your mind becomes turned in such a way that your intention to practice is firm, like a rock.  If you were wishy-washy about why you should practice meditation, your meditation will be wishy-washy.  There’s no doubt about it.  If you were convinced that your job could bring you more eternal and natural happiness than enlightenment, you would practice your job with greater fervor than you would practice enlightenment.  Therefore you try to turn your mind so that it has a firm foundation, hard as a rock, upon which you can build your practice.

It’s that way with aspirational Bodhicitta.  You have to turn your mind in such a way that you understand the value of compassion and you have to actually ignite your mind.  You have to set it on fire, and that fire has to be stronger and hotter and fiercer than any other feeling or idea that you have.  It has to burn so strongly that you can’t put it out.

In order to practice aspirational Bodhicitta, you must first of all look around you with courage.  Because we Americans, even New Age Americans, don’t like to look around and see that others are suffering.  We hate to think about that.  We think somehow it’s bad to think like that. According to the Buddha, it isn’t bad to think like that.  In fact, you must think like that in order to go on to the next level of practice.  You must look around you and be honest and be courageous. If you don’t see suffering in your life, if you don’t know that the people around you are lonely or getting old or getting sick, that they live with worry and with fear, then what you need to do is go to the library and check out books about other cultures and other forms of life, and see what the rest of the world is like.  Have you ever seen pictures of Calcutta, India?  Have you ever seen pictures of Bangladesh?  Have you ever seen pictures of Africa?  If you don’t believe that suffering exists in the world, you’ll see it there.  Have you ever studied the lives of people who continually do non-virtuous activity? Even though they might look like they’re tough and in control, they are deeply suffering. It behooves you to be courageous enough to examine that.  You should look at other life forms. You should look at animals.  You should look and see how oxen are treated in India.  I speak of India a lot, not because it’s a bad place, but because I’ve been there, and I was shocked.  I had no idea how sheltered Americans are from suffering.  I had no idea until I saw lepers in the street with no limbs and with open sores.

Having studied these things, you will come to understand that there is suffering in the world.  You should cultivate in your heart and mind a feeling of great compassion. You shouldn’t stop until you’ve come to the point that you are on fire and you cannot bear that they are suffering so much.  The Buddha says that we have had so many incarnations in so many different forms that every being you see, every one, has been your mother or your father.    Whether you believe that or not, it’s a great way to think.  Because you look at other beings and see how they are suffering helplessly, with no way to get out of it.  And that they, at one time, had given you birth.  In that way, you can come to love them in a way that you can practice for them.

You should allow yourself to become so filled with the urgency to practice loving that your heart is on fire and there’s no other subject that interests you as much.  Even if it’s uncomfortable; we Americans think we should never be uncomfortable. Sometimes discomfort is very useful.  Be uncomfortable and let yourself ache with the need to practice Bodhicitta.  Cultivate in yourself that urgency and that determination.  You might get to the point where you feel something, and you feel sort of sorry for all sentient beings.  You might think, “Okay, now I’ve got it.  I’ll go on to the next step.”  No, you haven’t got it.  You should cultivate compassion from this moment until you reach supreme enlightenment.

Unless they are supremely enlightened no one is born with the perfect mind of compassion.  I, and everyone I teach and everyone I know, including my teachers, practice aspirational Bodhicitta everyday, reminding ourselves that all sentient beings suffer unbearably and that we find it unbearable to see.  You should continue to cultivate compassion every moment of your life. It will begin to burn in your heart. It’s like love.  It’s beautiful.  You won’t want ever to be without that divine fire in your heart.  It will warm you as no other love can.  It will stabilize your mind as no other practice can.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

The Buddha’s Point of View

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

According to the Buddha’s teaching all sentient beings have experienced suffering and continue to suffer.  We have old age, sickness and death.  We don’t know what to do about them.  We get run over by cars and all kinds of crazy things happen to us on a regular basis. The Buddha teaches us the only way to end suffering is to achieve enlightenment.  Once we achieve enlightenment, the very root causes that produce suffering, the seeds of karma within our mind, are eradicated.

We want to achieve enlightenment in order to attain happiness for all beings.  That is the reason we enter the spiritual path and really pursue it in a determined fashion.  If we were to look past the level of our mind that is constantly developing new and wonderful concepts, we would find that there is a basic primordial natural state.  That natural state, free of conceptualization, that suchness, is the very fabric that is the mother of all phenomena, including your own self.  The natural primordial nature that cannot be described is your nature and it is everyone’s nature and it is the same nature; there is no point at which you can divide it.  When you divide it you start believing in self-nature or the ego structure. At that point, you are not experiencing the primordial state any longer.

The truth of the matter is, there is only that natural state.  It is free of conceptualization, it is self-luminous, it is all-embracing, it is pure, and it remains and will always be undefiled.  That is the natural state.  If we are all one in that way – if that is what truly exists – then it is not possible for us to be separate.  The Bodhisattva’s or the Buddha’s point of view is that I cannot achieve enlightenment without you.  I cannot.  Because that which I truly am is the same as you.  If I separate myself from you, I’ve missed the point somehow.  It is as important for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment and to be free of suffering as it is for me and for you, individually, to accomplish that.

Thus the idea of compassion becomes more than an idea.  It becomes the basis or the foundation of enlightenment.  It becomes the only thing with meaning.  That being the case, we must think about the ways in which compassion or Bodhicitta are practiced.  There are two levels of Bodhicitta.  There is aspirational Bodhicitta or aspirational compassion, and there is practical compassion.

Aspirational Bodhicitta is just as it sounds.  It is the aspiring to compassion, or the wishing for compassionate activity.  You should not think that because it is only wishing it is not precious and valuable.  It is absolutely precious and valuable because it is the kind of contemplation that provides the basis or foundation on which you build your ability to practice practical compassion.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Mind of Compassion

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

What is it about compassion that is so important?  Why do you hear so much about it in the Buddha’s teaching?  From the Mahayana point of view there are two different kinds of compassion, or Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta actually means mind of enlightenment. The mind of compassion – the fully functional, fully awakened mind of compassion – is the same, and not different from, the mind of enlightenment.  You cannot achieve enlightenment without developing the mind of compassion.  You cannot achieve compassion – true compassion, selfless compassion – without moving ever closer to the mind of enlightenment.  Essentially they are the same.

In our language we have two different words for fully awakened compassion and enlightenment, but from the Buddhist perspective when you say Bodhicitta you mean compassion and you also mean enlightenment.  Due to the structure of our language, we actually separate the two.  Yet they cannot be separated.  Compassion and enlightenment can never be separated.  It’s impossible.  The reason why we seek to express the mind of compassion, and why we emphasize it, is to accomplish our own purpose and the purpose of others.  We want to achieve enlightenment.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

The Practice of Loving

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

Compassion is a subject that should be of interest to everyone.  There isn’t one person that should consider themselves exempt from the practice of loving.  We know from our own lives, I’m sure, that the times we have been the happiest are the times that we have loved.  And the times that we have been the most useful are the times that we have been loving.

Compassion is one of the foundational teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, but it is more extensive than the kind of loving we find in our lives. From the Mahayana view, we should seek to love all sentient beings equally.  It is a very interesting point of view, because you would think it more natural to love your husband or your wife, your parents and your children, more than you would love others. Buddhists are taught to honor our parents and to maintain the integrity of family, to not have divorces and go from family to family.  Yet the Buddhist perspective is that all sentient beings are essentially equal, that their needs are equal and that all sentient beings equally desire happiness.  It is useful and beneficial to love everyone and to experience compassion for all beings equally.

We are taught the very reason we love certain people more than others is because in our minds we have the karma of attachment and aversion.  We have hope and fear within our minds, and these things are based on the belief in our own ego structure, the belief that self-nature is inherently real.  Our relationships with others are shadowed by that and take on the flavor of whatever particular energy suits our particular ego.  Because of our ego, we think that we love one person more than we love another.

If we existed somehow miraculously in an egoless state, we would find that all sentient beings are equal and the same nature.  They are that same primordial, natural suchness. Seeing each sentient being as that would help us understand that there is essentially no difference. We are all exactly the same, we all desire happiness and haven’t yet developed the skills to get that happiness.  We are all deserving of love and caring and nurturing and being taught the skills of happiness.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Booboos and the Guru’s Blessing

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An excerpt from a teaching called Viewing the Guru:  The Seven Limb Puja by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

Since we are in the face of the Guru constantly the next posture we should keep ourselves in is beseeching the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and the Lamas to remain.  Where would you be now if suddenly your root Guru disappeared?  You should ask that question of someone who has experienced the horrible, horrible occurrence of knowing the death of their Guru.  There are many students who have actually experienced the death of the Guru.  If you think practice is hard now, you should think what it must be like to go through the pain of knowing that your Guru is no longer in the world.  Then one has to reach even more deeply, and if you think that we are weak now, try to imagine how it would be if we have to reach even more deeply, in a more profound way, into our practice: knowing that the Guru is no longer in the world, knowing that there will not be physical teachings forthcoming.  How can we find the Guru?  It’s very frightening; it’s very scary, to think that there might be a time like that.

On one level we think how awful it would be not to be in the physical presence, the here and now presence, with constant teachings occurring from the Guru in a physical way. But now we should think in a broader sense.  What would it be like if our Gurus had simply attained realization, and then gone on and remained in nirvana?  What if they had attained realization and then never appeared in samsara again?  What would that be like?  Well, that would mean that in samsara there would be no teaching.  There would be no method.  There would be no means by which to accomplish Dharma.  There would only be the means to accomplish non-virtue.  There would be endless suffering that would be constantly compounded every single moment as though it were like a geometric progression — constantly increasing, with no leveling off, with no cessation, with no chance, no opportunity, no change.  Life would be constantly miserable.  All of the poisons: hatred, greed, ignorance, jealousy, pride, war, suffering, all of the results of those would only be ripened.  And there would be no relief, no method by which to accomplish relief.  We can’t even imagine that: no means by which to accomplish virtue.  We can’t even imagine that.  It is so unthinkable that we can’t even imagine that.

And yet, we can’t even give a moment to think how miraculous it is that our Guru has returned to face us in the world in our confusion.  Because we can’t see the Guru in our mind, because we can’t see the Guru in our inner channels, winds and fluids, because we can’t see the Guru in our nature, the Guru then appears to us through the shit and thickness of our stinking delusions and in this face, with this skin, this flesh, appears as the miraculous.  And we don’t even have a minute to request that this never be any different; that it is always the case that the Gurus, the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas will return for the sake of sentient beings.  We never think how miraculous it is, how marvelous it is, how unequalled by any other gift or any other miracle. So concerned with our own superficial lives we have not even a moment to spare to thank the teacher for returning to us.  To thank them.  Think what they did!  They did not pass into nirvana. But it doesn’t mean that they haven’t accomplished their practice.  It doesn’t mean that, in truth, they do not actually spontaneously abide in nirvana now.  But it also means that they appear in the world, under samsaric conditions, for our sake.  And we don’t even have a minute a day to rejoice in that, and request them to remain.  We should contemplate on what it would be like to remain in the world without any source of liberation.  We should constantly be thinking what it would be like if the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas did not enter into samsara for us, did not enter into the world for our sake, did not appear among us, as us, in a form that we could understand, and digest, and empathize with.

We should think what that would be like, and having contemplated on that, realize it would be unthinkably, horribly, worse than any suffering we have ever experienced or could ever imagine experiencing.  Try to imagine what it would be like with no help.  Having thought about that, with that kind of energy, the energy that comes from that, every time we see our teacher, we should think in our mind, “Please remain in the world.  Oh, please, remain in the world.  Oh, please remain in the world.”  We should be thinking like that when we say our teachers long life prayers.  We should think like that constantly, be in the posture of constantly requesting the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, those who have attained realization, to remain within the world; constantly requesting that.

Now, how would you be constantly requesting that?  By expressing, knowing and facing with purity and honesty your dependence upon the Guru for liberation.  A little child lets its need of the mother be known.  A little child has a booboo and brings it to the mother to be kissed, and the mother knows– the mother knows even if the child doesn’t say, “I love you” how much the child needs the mother.  The mother knows; it’s a natural communication that they have.  And when the child says to the mother with total confidence, “I am hungry,” the mother knows.  There are no spoken words of love there, there’s no effusiveness, but the mother knows that the child is utterly and completely dependent.  The mother knows that the child is confident, that the child sees the mother as a fountain of blessing.  The mother knows that the child’s life would be lost without the support of the mother.  And so the mother knows that love.  And when the child is cold, the child goes to the mother and asks to be held, warmed up.  When the child is lonely and afraid, the child goes to the mother and asks to be rocked and loved and sung to.  And even though the child may not say, “I love you, Mother,” still, the mother sees the child’s need and understands the relationship.

If that is so with ordinary mothers and ordinary children, then if we express our need for the Guru, without shame, without pride, without fear of being humble, if we constantly express our need and our appreciation and our confidence in the Guru, then in that way we are also expressing that we wish the Guru to remain.  But if our hearts are hard and we say, “Oh, nice teaching.  Now I’ll go and do what I need to do,” and there is no relationship of that intimate nature, like a mother and a child, then there is no practice.  And there’s the question:  is the love so strong in your heart, is the understanding so profound and so wise, that, in fact, you really do wish the Buddhas to remain in the world?  We don’t know.  There is the question.  And the practice I’ve just given you, the way I’ve just given you to hold your mind and hold yourself, this would be the answer to that.  Think of yourself like a child and the Guru is like your dear, dear mother who gives you everything.  We bring all our booboos, our coldness, our loneliness, our fear, our hunger, our hurt, everything.  These things we bring, because in the face of the primordial empty nature, in the face of luminosity, in the face of the great miraculous Bodhicitta, these things disappear, and all our booboos are kissed.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

The Graceful Movement of Offering

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An excerpt from a teaching called The Seven Limb Puja:  Viewing the Guru by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

In the face of the Guru, which is always, we should always be making offerings.  Do you make offerings when you come to temple?  Nice, but not enough.  Do you make offerings when you put water into the little bowls on your altars in the morning?  Nice, but not enough.  Do you make offerings of the first portions of your food?  Great, but not enough.  We should be making offerings constantly.  But how can we do that?  You think,  “Oh, my hands are busy. I can’t always be making offerings.”  Well, of course, most of the offerings, therefore, are going to be mental offerings.  If we are making mental offerings appropriate to the information that I have just given you, which is that the Guru’s face is indistinguishable from our own nature, and that we are always in the presence of the Guru, then there should never be a moment that we do not make offerings.  Now, what would that look like?  How could you practice that way?

 

In the face of the Guru you must not grasp or cling to anything.

That means, if you smell something and it’s a delicious smell, you offer it immediately, rather than keeping it for yourself. You know how, when we smell food, we go (sniff sound) “Mmm Delicious!  I’m keeping that; that’s mine!  I get that!”   So instead of that, you smell it, you enjoy it, and you offer the nectar of that to the Lama; every smell that you take in that is beautiful;  even the smells that you take in that are not beautiful,  you think of them as being instantly transformed into the very essence of bliss and offer that to the Guru.  Offer everything that you see.

You know how we see things and say, “How beautiful!  Good, I’ll take that!” We walk outside like we own the day.  “Beautiful day!  My eyes are drinking it in! I’m getting this!”  That’s how we enjoy the day.  We eat it, eat it, eat it.  The habit of greed is so strong.  Instead of doing that, remember that you are in the presence of the Guru constantly; that the Guru literally abides within your channels, winds and fluids, within your psychic spiritual inner structure.  That nature which is your nature IS the Guru. So whenever you see something with your eyes that is beautiful, instantly offer your eyes, offer the vision, offer the feeling, offer the pleasure to the Lama, to the holy one who has crossed the ocean of suffering for your sake.  Instantly offer it up.

Eventually, you get into a habit.  At first it’s like,  “I saw that!”  Quick, “Okay, I saw that!  Okay!”   In the beginning we get a little spastic and a little nuts.  But, later on, it becomes a natural, graceful, spontaneous movement.  You actually change the way your perception works. It takes a little time, it takes some practice, but there will come a day when naturally you do not cling to your sight.  Yes, you see; yes, it registers in your brain; yes, your pupils and your irises and all those things work just right, but the difference is that there is a kind of graceful offering up that naturally occurs.  It’s as though you didn’t grab onto everything in front of you.  Eventually it becomes a natural, graceful movement of offering.

Do you remember when you first started practicing Bodhicitta and you didn’t feel like it?   It was like, “Yeah, I’m grateful to all motherly sentient beings.  May they all rest in peace.” in the same tone of voice that you would say, “Rot in hell!”   That’s the kind of thing we did when we first started practicing Bodhicitta and we didn’t have the habit of it. I watched; I saw it.  And then, after a time it became more natural, didn’t it?  It becomes more natural to think kindly, to think of compassion regarding other sentient beings.  It’s like that now with your perception.  You make offerings constantly to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and to the Lama who embodies all the objects of refuge.  Anything that you receive, consistently offer.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t get to keep it.  I mean if it disappears in front of you, I would take that as a sign that somebody wanted it!  Please understand that we are not looking at this in a limited, superficial way!  We know that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas don’t actually need our offerings.  They are content and complete.  They are perfect.  So when we offer to the objects of refuge we are doing so for our sake, not for their sake.  Isn’t that true?  So, of course, you think in that way.  Obviously then, if you make an offering, it probably won’t disappear!  But you never know!

You get in the habit of thinking that whatever you have, “Ultimately belongs to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas.  Ultimately, everything that I own I have given.”  There is this posture that naturally occurs over time of peacefulness and lack of tension regarding personal possessions.  We begin to think that it’s already been offered and therefore, there’s nothing to cling to.  And so, slowly, slowly, over time, we develop that habit and the habit becomes very real.  Our minds become very smooth and more joyful.  It isn’t having that makes us joyful, it’s freedom from the need to have that makes us happy.

Therefore, we make constant offerings because we are constantly in the presence of the Guru and we should think like that.  We should actually think that here, in the presence of the primordial empty nature, non-dual as the display of luminosity, here in the presence of the fundamental Bodhicitta, the miraculous Bodhicitta, the unbelievably potent, pure uncontrived Bodhicitta, it is simply not appropriate to cling and grasp. It becomes filthy and disgusting.

Suppose Guru Rinpoche were sitting right in front of you, and there was some tea or some food put in front of you.  Would you say, “Gimme, gimme?”  I mean, how could you even think of eating with Guru Rinpoche in front of you?  You would offer, “Please take, please, take everything.  Please take everything that I have!  Please eat.  Please let me offer this to you!” You must think that, in fact, that is the case.  That the precious Bodhicitta is always with us, that the Lama is always with us, and so it is never appropriate to grasp; it is never appropriate to keep for ourselves what should naturally be offered.   In this way, we get ourselves into the habit and the grace of constant offering.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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