The koi are eating even though it’s cold. they are eating green hair algae. They’re getting ready for their breeding cycle. Soon they will be spawning.
Our friend Dr. Brent, and koi doctor, said that temperature swings are really hard on the koi. And they’ve been having them. They’ve slowed down quite a bit, but they’re riding it out. it’s funny, they are so delicate in some ways, and yet so sturdy. they are remarkable animals. we have a lot more white koi in Mandarava pond this year, and people love them. I don’t know if they’ll be ready to sell by the summer yet. We’ll see.
Good news! The koi are eating tonight. And not just algae. Tonight they’re eating Manda Fu which is primarily wheat germ, which is a big step up from the algae they’ve been eating all winter, or not eating at all. It’s big step for them.
They’re all snuggling up to Student 1 right now, they were hungry. but I also think they missed her, she was close to them.
I would say that in Israel and Iran there is a common denominator- and that is fear. In fact the whole region is infected with fear and they are all in reaction. You can say yes, that someone is a bully and someone is a victim. But what is really happening is people are infected with a fever of fear, and it’s spreading all over the world. Even my students are infected with it. Fear, not reality, that’s not what it is, it’s just fear. Do you understand that?
What you’re seeing is due to the condition of your mind. It’s not that it’s not happening, it’s that you are interpreting it, and that is happening on a mass scale. That reaction is happening globally and it changes the world. That is not a good thing. It is leading to war.
Please, find a way to pull the fear out of you and make it something useful. You are reacting out of fear. You are not thinking. You are not loving. You are reacting out of fear. To the world, I say this.
Her Eminence Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche recently shared with the sangha the prayers she recites each night before bed. Among the many expressions of gratitude, one student’s response gave rise to the conversation below, which Rinpoche has asked to be shared publicly so everyone may benefit from this teaching. Names have been made anonymous for privacy.
Student 1: Thank you, Jetsunma, this is much appreciated. Mom [Student 2] does something like this. She has a list of mantras that Student 3 compiled.
Rinpoche’s attendant: Student 1, are you actually comparing this teaching from Jetsunma to a list that Student 3 compiled?
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: If Student 2 wants to practice Student 3’s Dharma she will end up with Student 3’s mind. It blows me away after all these years you haven’t.
Student 2 certainly does her own thing.
The dysfunctional are leading the dysfunctional and the blind are leading the blind.
Student 3, since when did you become a teacher?
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 2, stop doing the bullshit prayers that Student 3 sent you and do what I said. I am the teacher here, not Student 3. What in the world are you thinking? Student 2, you’ve been doing that bullshit stuff since the beginning. It took effort to get you off the Shower of Blessings and do some real practice.
You need medication and therapy. But you won’t do it. You don’t do anything I tell you to.
So just keep doing blah blah blah or whatever you do, and ignore my prayers. I won’t offer you anymore support and advice or teaching.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 3, who are you to compile and distribute practices for others without the discrimination to know how sick the others are, or the wisdom to present to the students what they need?
Rinpoche’s attendant: Do you all realize you appear unable to discriminate the difference between Dharma and ordinary activity? Practice is not merely a collection of words on a page. There is a reason Dharma is passed from teacher to student, and not just circulated like self help books.
Student 2: Dear Jetsunma,
Student 1 is referring to a list handed out many years ago by the sangha (I do not know who). The list was of what empowerments we were given and what the samaya was on each of the mantras associated with the empowerment.
You are my Teacher and I am totally helpless without You!
Thank You for this beautiful teaching. I am doing this teaching at night and I thank You so very, very much.
Student 3: I am most definitely not a teacher of Dharma, Jetsunma. And I have no idea to what Student 1 is referring, as it had to have been a very long time ago.
I haven’t compiled anything that I can recall since the book I made for myself that was requested for those who travelled to India.
What I have done recently is print KPC’s practices (like Sojong, Chimed Sog Thik, Ratna Lingpa Vajrakilaya, what we’ve been doing in group practice) for three or four of your students who asked if I could print a hard copy for them bc they couldn’t.
May I always remain your student, developing good qualities and virtue, wisdom and discrimination, so that in some future lifetime I may become a qualified teacher worthy of your respect.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 1 portrayed it differently but Student 1 perceives differently. I’m sorry to have bothered you, Student 3.
Student 3: I am grateful for the teaching, Jetsunma. Your blessings come in many forms, in a myriad of ways. Thank you.
Student 1: I’m so sorry, both to you, Jetsunma, and to Student 3, and mom. It’s an old, old list from way back when. I thought Student 3 compiled it, but I must be wrong. I was just happy that mom recites mantra to keep samaya every day. I’ve no doubt she’s doing the mantra you’ve said here now.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: You had better check. I think you’re in crisis Student 1. You’re in bad shape anyway. Do you need your meds upped? You’re spinning.
Student 1: I will check. I just started nearly my full workload at my job without decreasing what I’ve promised to do at the temple. It’s going to take a couple weeks to get a stable schedule, and a regular schedule with the meds. Last week was rough for the chopins and I was also prayer chart caretaker at the same time. I’ll need a couple weeks with the new schedule to get used to it.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: What are temple duties?
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: I knew it. Clearly it’s your meds are off. Can’t you manage it? Do you need a case manager? I mean, we can provide one. Really Student 1, you’ve been through this for years. you know Student 1 if your meds are off you are in danger. First of all you become recalcitrant, then you become an asshole, then your moral conduct is lost, and fourth you don’t even recognize your teacher.
Who are you receiving therapy from? You’re thinking sounds really squirrely again.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 1, how old are you now?
Student 1: Last week I did all the tormas for Losar. Prayer chart caretaker. Prayer shifts. Cleaning. Eggs, though I’m behind on that. If I take myself off the tsa lung team we won’t have enough people, so I’m going to try to do it in less time. It’s manageable, I just have to get back on a schedule.
I fell asleep last night before I had my evening meds.
I’m 58. My therapist is [name redacted].
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: You don’t need to do tsa lung. Take yourself off that.
Wow you’re almost 60 huh? Not a little girl anymore. Why do you still act like one? And you still can’t manage your affairs? Why is that, Student 1? Can you manage your meds, because if not I could put someone on it. I was hoping by now you would be better enough to see to yourself. But, I will take care of you if that’s what you need.
How often do you go to therapy?
Student 1: I go to therapy every Wednesday morning. And no, definitely not a little girl anymore.
If I come off the tsa lung team, the team won’t have enough people. Already too much is on Student 4’s shoulders. One of the team members is injured, and another just had a sharp increase in responsibilities.
People manage with much more than I’m doing. It’s just a new schedule, a lot of change, and we’ve had Losar, two weather events… all within the last few weeks when I’ve started my job.
Rinpoche’s attendant: Her Eminence has taken you off the Tsa Lung team for your own good.
Student 1: Please give me a couple weeks to get on a schedule with everything. If I can’t manage, then maybe tsa lung has to come off. I don’t need to do it, but someone does. People at the temple do a lot more than I do.
I’m actually doing better. Last week I was in much worse shape.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 5, don’t let Student 4 carry everything. Other people need to get involved.
If Student 4 wants to help she can call on the people who have had tsa lung from New York and invite them to come and practice.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Maybe Student 6 and Student 7 can call and ask people to help (with tsa lung)
Student 1: Thank you, Jetsunma. The team’s too small and Student 4 needs help with it.
Student 5: Yes Jetsunma. I’ll talk to Student 4 to get the background and get others to help.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 1, you do what I say – period. Everyone will do what I say, not what Student 1 says. Do you understand that?
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 1, you can stop playing the control games now. You saw where it got Student 8, if you’re still taking in information.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: I also want Student 1 off the Chopin team until she gets her shit together, gets back on her meds properly, and does what I tell her to do. She is no longer a princess here. Or anywhere really if you look at her ragged life.
I’m trying to help her tame her mind but she is like a wild crazed horse, which I am unwilling to ride. That’s up to her to do.
Student 1: Okay, Jetsunma.
Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo Rinpoche: Student 1, what I want you to do is work the program, if you can negotiate your way through to the program. Get your medicines fixed. And get your therapy more frequently.
Student 1: Yes, Jetsunma, I’ll make that my priority.
Our beautiful shubunkin fish have been hanging out in the little “cave/house” we built them. They like it there. it’s sheltering, and I bet it makes them feel a little bit warmer. Their pond is warming up too, but they don’t seem to be as eager to feed.
The koi know spring is springing! they are chowing down, eating veraciously the algae we have been trying to cut down for so long. they won’t get it all, but the interesting part is that they are eating, before the time they should actually be able to eat.
I think they’re getting ready for breeding time, which really is coming up soon. it all depends on weather conditions and water temperature. Last year our spawn happened at the end of April. Chat says a little later. Who knows? Chat knows! Ha ha!
This year we’re gonna do all our breeding and our spawning outside, and our medical care also. We have learned so much! The ones we tenderly cared for and spawned in my Lanai (my entire Lanai) have come to nothing. I don’t even know if there’s a survivor.
The ones we let happen outside have gotten strong and big. Duh. We’ve learned from Mother Nature. Dr. Brent says that’s how it is. They have to build strength in a natural environment. If they can’t make it in a natural environment they weren’t meant to make it. We have managed to harden some of the ones we kept inside. They are doing well though. but we are learning.
The koi are parading! OMG! The pod is in harmony! Dr. Brent said that. It’s like a little dance they do when everything is ok. Now they are all around, like they’re dancing.
The show was short but it was beautiful!
Wait, it is still continuing! I wish you could all see this on Youtube live! I don’t know why we don’t do that.
I hate it when people say there are reasons. They are not reasons. The are obstacles we have to break through.
The koi are actually most visible, most enchanting, at night when the lights are on. That’s why I want to have this online, so people can see them at night when they are the most beautiful. I want to make this all about the people that come to see them and the koi themselves.
The following is a transcript from Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo’s visit to see her teacher, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche in India in 1996. Two YouTube Videos below show the ceremony from which the transcript was taken:
Kata ceremony in India 1996
His Holiness Penor Rinpoche:
This evening we are gathered here today in our monastery, also together with our Washington sangha. On this occasion, I would like to reiterate some information that maybe some of you are not aware of and that is initially, of course, the founder of the great Palyul tradition and the individual who is responsible for the establishing of the original monastery together are the great Vidyadhara Kunzang Sherab, his sister, Genyan Ahkon Lhamo, lived her life at that time. Initially, when I first traveled to the United States and I met Jetsunma, I noticed that she had developed in her mind stream a very great development of the bodhicitta, the awakened mind and that she had taken the vow to work for the welfare of all parent sentient beings according to the meaning of the awakened mind. Dependent upon that she had certain students who were following her example in that the bodhisattva vow was being taken by them and they were making prayers that were ongoing as a vigil for 24 hours throughout the day and night. This was something that was going on for some years without ever stopping. And so, this is what I first came to notice, such a remarkable thing.
At this time, in the Western country, in her situation, it wasn’t really a circumstance whereby she was depending upon a teacher to be trained and that she had been trained and was doing this kind of practice from that point of view of having trained and having learned it from another. But in fact, it was natural. It was a natural practice and a natural development of the bodhicitta, and it seemed to be something very pure and great.
And so to me, I felt quite amazed. And then I thought about it on many occasions after that. I’m not someone who claims to have much experience or any kind of clairvoyant insight at all, but I do have thoughts which come to mind from time to mind and in examining the reoccurrence of my thoughts, I came to realize that she was an individual who was blessed and carrying the same mind stream and prayer as the sister of Kunzang Sherab, Ahkon Lhamo. And so, I recognized her to be the reincarnation of Ahkon Lhamo.
However, because in the West, the concept of tulku, which is “intentional manifestation embodiment” is not something that people are necessarily accustomed to or something that they necessarily would understand. So, realizing that if I sort of suddenly laid out this fact, that it might be something that would be too potent or it would happen too quickly for what people could really understand. I didn’t speak about it for some time.
Generally speaking, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, for the purpose of sentient beings, they manifest in whatever way can bring benefit to others. This is due to the force of their prayers and their compassion. Dependent on that, they will take rebirths that are undetermined and uncertain time and manifest in various ways anywhere and at any time and anyplace. And so, it’s not to say that they don’t manifest in the Western countries. Certainly, they do. But because the tradition of discovering a tulku is not something that is common to the West, then I was not inclined to make a recognition just right away like that, bearing these facts in mind.
And also to make a recognition of a tulku in the West I also came to know is not something that would be disagreeable to the students that was entirely wanted and very agreeable. So, knowing that and finding the right time, upon my return, I did make a formal recognition and I was overseeing the formal enthronement of Kunzang Sherab’s sister, Ahkon Lhamo, as she is. Now, this is not something that you don’t all already know about, but I am reiterating it here on this occasion just to make it very clear.
And now in Washington, D.C. under the guidance of Jetsunma, we have a very strong and well established Palyul dharma center that is a seat for the Palyul lineage and it is being upheld accordingly and this is something that has been established and has been maintained for many years now and so, this is the type of activity that she is conducting for the purpose of the doctrine along with the help of her sangha and the honor of the morality that is maintained by the greater sangha community that surrounds her.
In Washington, Jetsunma teaches to her students and the students maintain the confession practices and other requirements and she also maintains regular teachings to several hundred students who are practicing now under her guidance.
And also, in the countries in the West, right now our center in Washington has the largest ordained community of disciples who have taken the formal vows of lay and novice and full ordination. Of course, there are Western students who have embraced these vows in other centers and in other places, but the largest community is the Palyul Center in Washington under Jetsunma.
Therefore at this time, Jetsunma and several of her students have come here to our monastery, Namdroling, to take a look around and to join us for these few days, so I would like to thank you very much for coming here and taking the time out. And also, of course, I would like to thank you for your effort in establishing the Palyul doctrine, the Nyingma doctrine in general and the greater doctrine of the Buddha in its entirety. I would like to thank Jetsunma and all of her students and also for their efforts they have shown towards attempts to help us achieve a free Tibet. So, thank you very much.
And as it has gone well until now, I also have an expectation that on into the future, that the entire sangha and our sanghas together will maintain this auspicious connection for the benefit of the doctrine and sentient beings and that year by year, this will only increase and that also all of your studies of the Buddhadharma will be most excellent, very stable and always improving.
Today, although I don’t have too much too offer, very humbly, to indicate the special occasion and also with prayers for Jetsunma’s longevity and the longevity of the doctrine, I offer her the white scarf of auspiciousness. And in support for her longevity, I offer her the image of Buddha Amitayus; as a support for her enlightened speech to be ever increasing, I offer her the vajra and bell; and as a support for the enlightened mind the stupa, I offer her the collected works of terton Jetsun Nyingpo; and I offer her the crossed vajra as a seat for her to remain upon to indicate her longevity in this world, and the white conch shell, another brocade, a bolt of brocade. Otherwise, I don’t have too much to offer.
And now, go on about the rest of your journey. Please know that we are always one family, so you must come again and again. The door is always open in that way and that Jetsunma and all of her sangha, I will offer the prayer that you will always be well and that your practice and everything that you wish for will always continue to increase and bear fruit.
JETSUNMA: Please tell His Holiness that his kindness is immeasurable, and tell him and that in this and every future lifetime, I will follow him. I will always do as he has taught me.
