Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Power of Ngondro

January 22, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “Natural Liberation” by Padmasambhava:

OM VARJASATTVA SAMAYAM ANUPĀLAYA VAJRASATTVA TVENOPATISTHA DRDHO ME BHAVA SUTOSYO ME BHAVA SUPOSYO ME BHAVA ANURAKTO ME BHAVA SARVA SIDDHIM ME PRAYACCHA SARVA KARMASU CA ME CITTAM ŚRĪYAM KURU HŪM HA HA HA HA HOH BHAGAVAN SARVATATHĀGATA VAJRA MĀ ME MUŃCA VAJRA BHAVA MAHĀSAMAYA SATTVA ĀH

This is an extremely important practice. It’s dealt with quite concisely here, but more more elaborate instruction can be found in other teachings on the preliminary practices. This practice is of very tangible benefit. There are other teachings on Atiyoga and so forth that we may consider more esoteric or advanced, but it’s questionable how deeply benefited we can be by those and how much we can truly enter into experience of the Great Perfection. Here, though, is something of practical benefit. If you are familiar with this practice, it’s good to share it with others who may be beginners. By such a practice as this, the two types of obscurations can be purified. Once all of your obscurations have been completely purified, you are a buddha; and that means you have realized the Great Perfection.

Due to ignorance, delusion and stupidity,
I have transgressed my samayas, and they have degenerated.
O spiritual mentor, protector, protect me!
Glorious Lord Vajradhara,
Merciful being of great compassion,
Lord of the world, protect us!
Please cleanse and purify the whole mass
Of sins, obscurations, faults, downfalls, and taints.
By this virtue, may I now
Swiftly actualize Vajrasattva
And quickly bring every sentient being
Without exception to that state.
O Vajrasattva, may we become exactly
Like your form, with your retinue, life span, pure realm,
And with your supreme , excellent signs.

OFFERING THE MANDALA

Once you have begun purifying the two types of obscurations, there is the task of accumulating the two collections of merit and of knowledge for one’s own benefit and the benefit of others. The welfare of others is accomplished in the realization of the Rūpakāya, or form embodiment, of the Buddha; and it is toward accomplishing that end that one offers the mandala.

OM VAJRA BHŪMI ĀH HUM
The basis becomes the powerful golden ground.
OM VAJRA REKHE ĀH HŪM
On the periphery is a surrounding jeweled iron fence.
In the center is the supreme king of mountains,
Majestic in its composition from the five kinds of precious substances.
Lovely in shape, beautiful, and delightful to behold,
Seven golden mountains are surrounded by seven concentric seas.
In the east is the continent Videha, in the south, Jambudvipa,
The west is adorned by Godàniya,
And in the north is the great Uttarakuru;
With the eight sub-continents of Deha and Videha,
Cāmara and Aparacāmara,
Śāthā and Uttaramantrina,
Kurava and Kaurava,
The sun, moon, Rāhu and kālāgni,
And this bounty of wealth and enjoyments of gods and humans
I offer to the precious spiritual mentor and his retinue.
Out of compassion, please accept this for the sake of the world.

The First and Only Constructed Wetlands In Maryland

January 21, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Did you know that since 1988, KPC has processed all of its wastewater (5 million gallons!) through a groundbreaking Constructed Wetlands Project, the first of its kind in the Chesapeake Bay estuary? Built by the monks and nuns and members themselves, we haven’t used a drop of chemicals, nor released an ounce of sewage in over 25 years.

Wow.

We are very proud of our commitment to environmental responsibility and the example we set and the experience we bring to the community, as evidenced by this little-known environmental victory.

The system has run successfully for over 25 years and now it needs some maintenance. Solids have built up that need to be removed, and invasive plant species are crowding out the aquatic plants we’ve planted and maintained to clarify the wastewater before release. It’s going to be costly ($33,000) and it needs to be done before the frost hits, so there is an urgency.

We have launched a campaign on Indiegogo, called Get your s**t together: Brown Is The New Green, to raise money for the maintenance. The success of the campaign relies on spreading the word about this innovative and environmentally responsible project to the widest possible audience. Please follow the link. Read the message. And then pass it on to everyone you ever knew. Like it, share it, forward it, tweet it, blog it, text it, post it, stand on the corner and hand out leaflets. However you can, spread the word. That is how we will succeed.

Thank you for your help with this very important project.

John Darrin on behalf of KPC

Heart Samaya

January 20, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

We’ve talked about the commitment made by the teacher when accepting a new student. What about the commitment by the student to the teacher, the samaya between the student and the teacher? What is that all about? There must be some kind of reciprocal relationship. Obviously the teacher cannot insist on the student’s progress without the student’s willingness. The student has to be willing to follow Lord Buddha’s teachings, has to be willing to accept the objects of refuge as their true refuge from the sufferings of samsara. So there is a reciprocal commitment that is required.

It is extremely important that the teacher maintain their ethical and moral responsibility to the student. That is to say, the teacher honors the student and thinks of the student with such high regard and such respect that actually it is said that a pure teacher will consider the student to be worth more than their own safety or comfort. In a sense, they hold the student up in the same way that a parent holds up their child, not necessarily as superior, but as vitally important and cared for. Any of you who have been parents know that in a dangerous situation, before you think of your own safety, if you have that bonding and love with your child, you’ll think about the safety of the child first. That is always the case. And when the mother hears the cry of her baby child for food, she doesn’t say, “I am not ready to feed you now. It’s not convenient for me to feed you now. I have no wish to feed you now.” Instead, the mother wants to answer the child’s call as though the mother were filled with milk and the child were very hungry. It is very instinctive and very natural.

So the relationship occurs in that way on the teacher’s side of the fence. Now what about the student, what is the student’s part in the equation?

Well, there are certain teachings and certain rules that one must follow, but I don’t like to think of them as merely following dogmatic rules. I like to think of this samaya, or this commitment, as a samaya of the heart. Something that is deep and profound, instead of like a cheap and gaudy display. It doesn’t burn hot like paper, quick and then gone. It burns deep and slow like good strong hardwood or even better, good strong coal-something that burns hot for a long time, steadily without interruption. This is how the relationship between the Guru and disciple should be.

When the student learns about the samaya they are keeping with the teacher, they should hold that samaya not so much as a duty and responsibility but more as a jewel, just as the teacher holds the student as a jewel. So that relationship then is considered precious, valuable, from the heart. Not a methodical thing, not a thing done by rote, not a thing done blindly without any understanding, but a deep and pervasive samaya or commitment that is a heart connection that ultimately enhances the practice and the level of accomplishment that comes from practicing Guru Yoga.

When the Teacher Meets the Student

January 19, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Guru Yoga is a very important, very fundamental aspect of the practice of Vajrayana. When a student and a teacher come together, following in the footsteps of Guru Rinpoche as he taught, the relationship between the student and the teacher is upheld by the teacher in a very profound way. Once the teacher accepts the student as their very own and takes them into their heart and actually into their body, speech and mind, it is the teacher’s commitment to bring blessings and benefit to that student, not only in this lifetime but in every future lifetime.

The student then becomes extremely important to the teacher, in that the teacher, upon accepting the student fully once that relationship has been established, promises to return lifetime after lifetime in whatever form is necessary in order to be of benefit to that student. So there is a heart commitment or heart “samaya.” When the teacher looks into the face of the student, the teacher says to the student or thinks to the student in their heart and in their mind, “I will not abandon you. I will not abandon you to remain alone in cyclic existence.”

So, the commitment is that the teacher promises to see the student through until supreme realization. This then becomes a “samaya,” or commitment, that lasts life after life, from life to death, from life to death, from life to death. Again and again and again this relationship returns. There are many stories about how lamas, recognizing their students or seeing their students from the time before, whatever that time might be, feel great joy at seeing the face of the student again, tremendous joy, as though seeing and having the opportunity to nurture their beloved child once more. And this is a very beautiful and happy thing.

The Nature of Kaliyuga

January 18, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Vajrayana and Kaliyuga”

It used to be that one could learn something of the Buddha’s teaching – for instance, a beginning philosophy, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, and some of the Buddha’s basic teachings – but one could not receive teachings on the meaning of Vajrayana, and certainly one would not come across teachings on the nature of mind. This is a very recent occurrence. They are still thought of as secret, even though now, because this is the time of Kaliyuga, the time of great degeneration, these teachings are in fact widespread.

There is a tremendous blessing in their being widespread. If they were not widespread, we, who are born in America, would have no access to them. So we are truly blessed by having them. But there is also a tremendous difficulty with their being widespread, and that is that there are many practitioners that I have seen who have heard rich and profound teachings and have not utilized them whatsoever. It is like seeds tossed into a field: Sometimes they fall on rocks, and sometimes they fall on fertile ground. Different students have different capacities, and the teachings are often not measured out according to what capacity each student has. Then, of course, there are those students who come into a teaching situation and have no idea what that situation is and innocently are not aware of the gift that they’ve been given or how to use it or how to keep samaya.

So, there are obstacles and there are drawbacks. The teaching itself becomes diluted to some degree if it is given out and it is not utilized. When I say diluted, I don’t mean that the teachings change, I don’t mean that the tantra that we’re being taught from the books, when the lamas come, is somehow different from what was taught before. It isn’t different at all. It’s still the same exact teaching; but the quality of empowerment, the quality of impact, the quality of our deepening, is changed in this time. Again, that has a good side and a bad side. Since the teaching is passed out in this more casual way, it has attached to it the karma of practitioners who sincerely practice in order to attain enlightenment, and it also has the karma attached to it of students who do not utilize the teaching. In this way there is negativity there.

On the other hand, there would be no other way for sentient beings to hear the teachings. Furthermore, this is the time of Kaliyuga. And while Kaliyuga works against us, it also works for us, particularly when it comes to Vajrayana, in that of all the teachings that the Buddha has ever taught, of all the spiritual teachings that are available of any kind, Vajrayana teachings are the most perfectly suited for this time of Kaliyuga. This time of Kaliyuga is extremely contracted. Karma is thick. It isn’t spread out and dispersed over a great, long field. Rather, it is drawn in. It is a time of contraction, and karma ripens much more quickly than it used to ripen. This is not because you’re in Vajrayana but because this is the time for that. Experience is much more condensed; phenomena are much more condensed;time is much morecondensed. You can look at your life; you can walk outside and see that this is not the same world from just a hundred years ago. It was much broader and spread apart. This is a result of the condensed quality of Kaliyuga, which will continue, and experience will become more compacted and more condensed, not less.

Under these conditions, Vajrayana can actually do the most good in two ways, which is an amazing thought. One way is that we can see cause and effect relationships more readily. We are suffering and we are suffering just enough to help us be convinced that suffering is a reality, therefore we are willing to practice. We realize the benefit of practice because we truly do wish to attain enlightenment. In a better time, in a smoother time, in a time when there are rolling green hills around us and not much to do except to get old, when things are just more spread out and life is perhaps longer and more relaxed, under these conditions it’s hard for us to imagine why we should get up the gumption to practice. We just think we should sort of go with the flow.

So, in this regard, Kaliyuga is very compatible with Vajrayana.

Propagating the Dharma

January 17, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Vajrayana and Kaliyuga”

Besides making it possible for the teachings to be readily available to all who wish them, Kaliyuga is valuable in another way: Namely, one can practice in a way that is extremely condensed.One can learn the philosophy of the nature of mind, as the Buddha taught in his first teachings, and the philosophy of samsara and really understand how all of this is. And one can also generate oneself as the deity, which is a very condensed way to generate merit. It isn’t the same as merely learning and then doing no more harm. It doesn’t have the same passive quality. One generates oneself as the deity, one utilizes the mantra, and one visualizes the seed syllable. These are all extremely condensed manifestations of primordial wisdom and of certain aspects and qualities of that wisdom in display form.

These two different kinds of condensed activity coming together produce an enormous amount of merit. Karma ripens more quickly; it ripens in a condensed way, more deeply and more richly. What can happen because of that is that we can create, through our practice, windows of spaciousness, windows of opportunity to perceive the primordial wisdom state much more easily than we ever could in a different time or by utilizing a different practice. It is a most perfect opportunity and a most perfect time; and it is also a very difficult time.

If we are irresponsible about the teachings, that is to say, if we hear teachings about the nature of mind and do not utilize them, that also ripens in a very condensed way, and it ripens very quickly. If we hear teachings about the nature of mind and do not respond to them but allow them to lie fallow, the karma of those teachings lying fallow only increases, and increases rapidly. So basically, we are in a position of tremendous responsibility. The responsibility is for us to utilize these teachings, to utilize them effectively, so that we can attain supreme realization in order to be of benefit to beings. We also have a tremendous responsibility to uphold the teachings. We should consider ourselves, then, upholders of the teaching, propagators of the Dharma.

How does one propagate the Dharma? One doesn’t have to be a teacher to propagate the Dharma, or somebody that distributes books. One propagates the Dharma when one practices the Dharma because one holds it and utilizes it and does not allow it to remain fallow.

What Do You Reach For?

January 15, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

There are three different levels on which you can recognize your Teacher. One is an extremely poor level, a common, ordinary level. One is an intermediate level in which you see that the teacher holds the teachings purely and gives the teachings purely and you really admire the Teacher and feel great respect for the Teacher. That, however, is only an intermediate level of recognition.

The deepest and supreme level of recognition is recognizing the Teacher not as a person, but rather, as a door to liberation, as one’s own nature. This supreme level recognizes the Teacher as one’s mind, recognizes the Teacher as the miraculous intention of the Buddha, appearing in a manifest way in order to benefit beings. It recognizes the Teacher as that original longing, the longing to know that nature, to recognize the Teacher as the answer, to recognize the Teacher and primordial wisdom itself in some incarnate form, in the same way that your own relationship to the path becomes not an ordinary thing, but a very profound and mystical thing, a thing of truth, a thing able to bring about awakening.

The relationship with the Teacher is especially difficult for Westerners. We have lots of training on authority figures, we have lots of training on mothers and fathers, but we have no training on to how to deal with this longing. The way we have dealt with it in the past has hurt us. It has brought us a great deal of pain and suffering. It has made us act in ways that we do not understand. We are people who had a particular karma and it did not quite fit in with the karma of the society in which we were brought up. If that were not so, then more of the society in which we were brought up would be able to approach the idea of awakening, would be able to approach the idea of having a Teacher in order to follow a supreme path in order to achieve the great awakening.

So, if we can reprogram ourselves by looking back at that original longing and understanding its depth, understanding the ways in which we compensated and forgiving ourselves and confessing the lack of recognition, we will then be able to establish a relationship with the Teacher, the path, the Buddha and with the meditational deities that we practice. If we can establish that relationship anew in that way, the quality of the path that we practice will be completely different. The quality of the experience that we have will be completely different. We will feel healed, and the need for that healing is very sharp and very strong.

It’s my job to watch over my students. Some of you spend 75 percent of your energy blaming yourself for the way you are. Some of you spend a lot of energy trying to act out things that will never bear fruit concerning the Dharma and concerning your Teacher. Some of you spend 75 percent of your energy trying to pretend that you don’t feel or trying to take issue with one thing or another so you don’t have to feel that longing.

I look at you and I have a sense of how you’re managing that longing. It’s like you come so far and you’re right here, almost to my heart, and then you turn away. Some of you stand in the background and look from afar, look hungry, peek out from behind the door, close the door again, stand back there and be hungry for some more. Then you open the door and do like that. Each one of you has a particular and peculiar different way that you deal with this, but you are all living with this.

You were born with the longing to awaken. You were born with a longing to know your own nature, to taste that nature. You were born with a longing and a homing instinct to find your Teacher. You were born with a longing to find a pure path and there were no words like that when you grew up.

You compensated by substituting other things and trying to make them the object of your longing. You made lots of mistakes because of it. That’s not the point, though. There is nothing you can do in one lifetime that is as meaningful a miscalculation as simply reaching for that nature and trying to find it in something small. That is the biggest miscalculation that any of us can make and we do it constantly. That’s what keeps us revolving endlessly in cyclic existence.

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Longing for the Guru”

Every Experience Is a Blessing

January 13, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

We’re all sleeping until we reach supreme enlightenment, but most are really sleeping in a very profound way. In that coma, they are not even able to say, “I want”. They merely act out, and they act out in different ways.

While we are still asleep and until we achieve supreme realization, the fact that you are here listening to teachings is the evidence to know that you have felt that longing. You should find it and relate to it purely. You should encourage it in that it is a dynamo of energy by which to really touch the nature that you are seeking, that the bliss that you want, the union between the student and the teacher.

But you are so ashamed to feel that feeling directly, because you’re so macho, you’re so tough, or you’re so cool or you’re so advanced. You are so ashamed to feel that feeling that you want to say, “Oh, the longing for the Teacher is only me longing for my own nature”. Well, yes, it is that, but you should face directly the longing for the teacher on the deepest level. You should not be ashamed of that. You were ashamed of it as a child and you were taught not to feel it and this longing created a lot of mistakes for you. You should not be ashamed of that now.

I have that longing. I have it, it is the strongest longing, I cannot imagine another longing like it. I live with that longing constantly. I use that longing to provide the means by which I can accomplish Dharma, or I can accomplish kindness for all sentient beings. I realize that the true longing is the longing for the Guru, it’s the longing for my Teacher, for the Guru on all of the different levels, on the apparent level as well as the deepest, most primordial level. And I realize that I will only find that longing satisfied so long as I try to live the qualities that are my Guru.

So, if I were to turn away from students and say, “Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m tired,” or, “I’m lonely doing this. I don’t want to do this anymore.” If I were to do that, I would never find my Guru. I would never be with my Guru, because those are the qualities of my Guru. My Guru never leaves me. He cannot turn his face from me. And so, that being the case, if I were to turn my face away from anyone that had hopes of me, it would be hopeless. I would never find the Guru. The longing would never be satisfied, because I would have turned my face away.

You must begin to practice in such a way that the face of the Teacher is understood in everything that you do. No matter what you experience, whether it is loss or whether it is having, whether it is joy or whether it is sadness, whether it is life or it is death, whether it is sickness or health, poverty or wealth, whatever you experience, you should think that everything you experience is a blessing from the root Guru.

Finding Our Way Home

January 12, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

By the time you have grown and begun to find your path, you have already lost yourself somewhere. You don’t understand yourself any more. You have already done things for which you do not forgive yourself. You have already substituted something else for the longing that you felt. You have already substituted something else for your Teacher. In having done that, it is difficult to find your way home. It is difficult to reach what was originally very pure in your mind. It is difficult to rebirth what was very pure and tender inside of you.

And now, you can’t just say, “Oh, I found it at last. The longing is finished. I found what I’m looking for. I found my path, but in the meantime, I’ve been promiscuous and I don’t forgive myself or I’ve become tough, or numb or I’ve become materialistic.”

What happens is that because you see what’s in front of you, it’s so precious and it’s just what you’ve been waiting for, instead of being able to just grab it and eat it, what we do, then, is try to deal instead with the numbness or the hardness or the promiscuity or the materialism. Because we have become used to this feeling of longing, the longing remains, and we are not able to truly be one with the path and with a Teacher.

We’ve forgotten how to satisfy ourselves. We’ve forgotten how to do anything except blame ourselves and be angry. We make lots of mistakes, compulsively make mistakes. We do not follow the path purely and with a full heart. You have to ask yourself: Is the person who says I’ve got to get my Three Roots practice done today, is that the same person, who, as a child, was waiting for something, was just hungry for something? It’s not the same person. We feel differently now than we did back then and we don’t know how to get back to that original place of purity. We feel something is amiss when we think we’ve found our path because we feel anger, guilt and we feel dirty. We feel different, impure. Then we try to approach the Teacher and the teaching and the path itself in an impure way, because we believe that we are somehow impure.

Having longed for the taste of our own nature for such a long time, now when we look at the Teacher and the teaching, we see it as something altogether different. We see the Teacher as a human being, and we try to get close to a human being. Why do we do that? We do that because we spent our whole lives trying to fit that longing into an acceptable picture, and now we’re trying to do the same thing.

We are afraid to long. We are afraid to experience the depth of that longing and instead, we try to get close to the person. We are afraid to experience the bliss of the union between the meditator, the meditating mind and the nature that is meditated on. The bliss of that union is so strong and we are afraid to experience it. So instead, we long for some kind of union with the person who is our Teacher at this time. It is even common to feel a strong sexual urging for our Teacher. It doesn’t matter if the Teacher is the same sex. Students can have dreams and they will have strong sexual urgings for the Teacher. If you think of the Teacher as a mother or father figure, or an authority figure, or a therapist that you come to with your ordinary stuff, there will never be satisfaction, because that isn’t the truth. That is not the nature of the Teacher. That longing has once again been diverted into a way that you understand. It becomes a perpetuation of the suffering that you had as a child where the longing was not understood, where it was diverted and where it could not be satisfied.

So, the feeling of longing is mistaken. The longing is for union, not for sexual behavior. It is misunderstood. And what generally happens is a feeling of rejection, because the Teacher does not comply with our wishes. There is a feeling of guilt. There is a feeling of wondering what’s wrong with you. There’s a feeling of a lack of acceptance of yourself. There’s a feeling of a lack of confidence, a feeling that you are somehow impure in your motivation. The longing sometimes becomes so strong that one is unable to practice.

You want the Teacher to hold you and love you, or you want the Teacher to be with you as a friend. You are unable to practice because you are so busy watching how your Teacher acts towards you. Does he or she smile at me? Does he or she hold my hand when I’m lonely? Does he or she notice when I’m ailing? Does he or she come after me when I’ve strayed? You’re so busy noticing that that you do not practice. The practice is the caring for you. The practicing is the coming after you when you have strayed. The practice is the taking you home into that acceptance and awakening to that nature. The teachings that you receive are the relationship with the Teacher. They are the fruits the Teacher brings to you. If you are longing for union with the Teacher, when the Teacher teaches you from his or her mind, and offers you the essence of what they know, that is the union, far more so than any physical friendship could ever be. There is nothing more intimate than that.

Yet, we continue to not understand. We continue to divert the longing, not accept ourselves and blame ourselves. We continue to create a bad relationship with our Teacher. If we understood what was happening, we would run to the teacher, run to the path, run to the experience of being on the path and of practicing in order to achieve enlightenment with open arms and with an open heart. But instead, we are doing these other things that do not accomplish the awakening that we wish.

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Longing for the Guru”

Logic and Relative View

January 11, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Perception”

The Buddha never really bothered to address cosmological questions. It is true that in the Vajrayana tradition there is a cosmological history that is given, but to my understanding that history does not teach us how the original assumption came about. This cosmology speaks of the absolute void, and it says that from the void came movement. In the way that it is spoken of, one understands that the void is the totality of form and formless as one. They are the same. They must both be contained in the void because form came from the void. Emptiness and fullness are the same taste, the same essence, and the nature is pregnant with all potential. In the state that is called the void there is non-distinction. Form and formless are not distinguishable from one another; they are the same. They are the same taste.

However, we do not perceive form and formless to be the same. Neither do we experience the clear luminous nature that is our own true nature and is also the nature of all phenomena. Why don’t we experience that?

We don’t experience that because we are involved in consciousness. We are involved in taste; we are involved in feeling; we are involved in subtle and gross perception. And this process, this entire process of elaboration and exaggeration that extends from every single perception that we have, is so elaborate it extends, seemingly, forever. We are so involved and so tremendously tripped up by and so compelled to compute instantly, because consciousness deals with relativity and specific perception and specific computation. We are compelled to be involved in that. We do not, then, perceive the true nature.

When you compute in the way that I have described, as quickly and as compulsively as you do, while you are utilizing these experiences which are a function of the assumption of self, there is no space to perceive that nature.The nature hasn’t gone away, nor has the void disappeared. The void isn’t something that used to be back there in time out of mind and now it’s not here anymore because everything developed. This is how we think, isn’t it? We think in terms of relativity. That space, that emptiness, that voidness is the same. It remains. It is steadfast. It is unchanging. It is as close as it has ever been and as far as it can ever be. Close because voidness is the nature. Far away because we cannot see it, not even for an instant, due to the functions which are based on an assumption of self-nature.

What conclusions can we draw from this? Perhaps we can think that there is a tremendous amount of intelligence and logic in the Buddha’s teaching when he taught that the relative view, the relative world view, does, in fact, exist. You, in fact, exist. The world exists. Relative view exists. Yet, the nature that is your nature, that is the nature of all phenomena, that is the nature of the world, that is the same nature of both form and formless, that nature is the true nature. One cannot say that because you perceive yourself to be real and your experiences to be real that one can then deny the truth of your primordial wisdom nature, the nature that is really you.