Teachings | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

What Prayer Supersedes all others?

December 1, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Dharma of Technology by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Compassion is the foundation of Dharma. It is the meaning of Dharma. Without compassion, there is no accomplishment of Dharma and you have to make a fervent prayer, a prayer that supersedes any other prayer that you will ever make. You pray that you will accomplish the extreme great compassion, to put your mind and your heart in such a way that if Lord Buddha Amitabha did come to you and offer you the suffering of the six realms, you would eat it with happiness and with joy. And just before you took your first bite you might say, “Please Lord Buddha, save me. Help.” And then you’d eat.

We are all in a body that has an ego associated with it, a body that is an ego that has an “I” identity. We want to work for our safety. We are very concerned with our safety. So it’s understandable that you might make that prayer, “Please, by the grace of the wisdom of your mind, let the suffering, once I eat it, be transformed.” But you should eat it and not really care whether it works out that way or not. If you could be the only one that suffered and all of the six realms could be liberated, if you could be the very last, the only one left, that should be your greatest joy. If all of the ones that you have hated and judged, the ones that you thought were the thorn in your side, if they could achieve enlightenment before you, that should make you happier than the thought of your own enlightenment. If you can really come to that understanding not in a superficial way, but from the depth of your heart that if Lord Buddha Amitabha would give you this opportunity you would take it in a minute, then you have accomplished Dharma and you are to me the light of the world. You are to me the best student there is. You are a treasure. And I don’t really care if you accomplish anything else about Dharma, because the mind that does not differentiate, the mind that is free of hatred, the mind that has overcome desire associated with the self to the extent that it will take on the suffering of all the worlds, that mind is the liberated mind. That is a jewel. That is the mind that is the wish-fulfilling jewel.

The reason why I am telling you this is because I want you to know as my students, I really want you to understand and have there be no question in your mind what I think Dharma is. I want you to understand what I respect and what I admire. I’ve told before that I see students that are learning the technology of Dharma and some of them hang out with the big lamas and they go for the big empowerments and stuff like that and they remain unloving, unchanged, and full of gossip, full of judgment and I don’t think much of that. I wouldn’t have a student like that.

If my opinion is of any value to you at all, then please understand that to the best of my ability this is what Dharma really is. This is the understanding that I have. To the best of my ability, I understand Dharma to be that love. I am not going to teach you something that will not lead to enlightenment. I don’t claim to have any special powers, but if you have any consideration that I’m your teacher, any faith in me, then hear this. If you accomplish this and do nothing else, you will have accomplished Dharma and basically, that’s really all you’re ever going to learn from me. That’s all I really have for you. I hope that you will consider that precious. There is no other Dharma. There is no other enlightenment besides that. The mind of bodhicitta, that is the supreme goal and there is none superior to that. When you have accomplished that, that’s it. Your mind is liberated from the very causes of suffering and you then are in the position where you can, in turn, liberate minds.

I wish that you would actually use this technique. I wish you could really think about what if Lord Buddha Amitabha came to you and offered you the six realms of suffering. Would you take it? Try to cultivate your mind and gentle your mind and purify your mind to the point where you would gladly, willingly take it and be willing to suffer for an endless amount of time, and be really happy about that. Think that your precious self, the one that you love so much, might be deformed and made gross by that suffering. Think that might happen and still be happy about it. You should think about all the people that drive you crazy and all the people that you hate and try to get to the point where you’re really happy if they make it ahead of you and think that the people that are precious to you, your family, the ones you make such a big deal about, make it in your mind where they are the same, exactly the same as the people that drive you crazy. When you have accomplished that, through whatever means, and generally it happens through kindness and practice just in the way Lord Buddha dictates, then you have accomplished Dharma.

Through the cultivation of your mind to be pure in that way, through a mind like that, through that exalted mind of bodhicitta, you will certainly have the power to appear in an emanation form again and again under all circumstances, in all roles, in strange places, under strange conditions and be able to provide a means to enlightenment to all sentient beings, just through that and nothing else. You don’t even have to be smart to do that. That’s why sometimes I think intelligence is a pitfall. You don’t have to be smart to do that, but you have to be determined to accomplish Dharma.

I hope that you find meaning in this and that you have it clear in your mind what I really cherish and what’s really important to me. I would like it very much if you understood me that well at least because then if you decided that you really wanted to be my student for the duration and learn what I have to teach you, that’s it. That’s all I can teach you. But I can teach you that.

Time To Practice

November 30, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

New students keep saying “Well this is amazing. I’ve been looking for something that’s that deep and that profound and this sounds really good, and as soon as I have time, you know, I’ll get into it. But right now I have children, and I have wife and I have a job and I have a car to support and all these things. So you know, I’m really for you and I hope lots of people become Buddhists and do all this. But right now for me I have to wait. I have to wait for a while. I have to wait ‘til my kids grow up. I have to wait ‘til my car is paid for. Right before I get the next one. And I have to wait for…, I just have to wait, you know, because waiting is what I do.” And so the thought that we have when we’re waiting is that somehow this is all going to work out well. We’ll be exposed to the Buddha’s teachings and we’ll hear something. It’s that magical thinking: It’ll just sort of come together eventually.

Actually, if you really think about it, the Buddha’s teachings are so extensive, so developed, so profound, so deep that they take time to contemplate, to understand, to prepare for, to even build the foundation that causes you to practice foundational preliminary teachings. It takes time. Why? Because you have to change in the process! We’re not in the business of applying bandaids here. It takes time for you to change. Some of you change faster than others. And it takes time to do the practice. The practice is extensive. So, I’m looking around the room now and I’m seeing that most of us are not under 10 years old. Therefore, whether we’re 20, 25, 35, 45, 55, 75 or however old we are, and it seems like there’s a mixture here, you need to start right now. Because there’s not much time.

There are two reasons: First of all the Buddha taught that there is no guarantee as to how long any of us are going to live, and you can’t understand this. For some reason it is beyond human capacity to understand this kind of thing, unless you yourself have been struck with a terrible illness or a terrible accident where you could have died or may still, or unless you’ve seen someone near you just kick off. Once you’ve had that experience you may understand, but before that, it’s very hard to understand what the Buddha has taught. There is no guarantee that you’re going to wake up tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year.

The second reason is the cause and effect relationships that constantly engage our own sea of karma. That sea of karma that is already hooked up and functional within our mindstream is very fluid and it’s constantly being catalyzed by other events. Each one of you most likely has the karma to live for a very long time and also the karma to die quickly. Which one will ripen? Well, that’s up to you, according to how you practice, according to how you live, according to how you determine your mind state because everything you do, everything you think, everything you engage in is an additional cause and effect relationship and an additional catalyst. Everything you do is important.

So for each and every one of us the wisest thing to do is to begin to practice now. You know yourself very well. You know when you tighten up. You know what you need. You know when you get scared. You know when you do your best. You like to think you don’t know and you kind of get limp and act like you need guidance for everything, but in fact you do know. You do know how to take care of yourself if you stop and think about it and engage in some self-honesty. So do whatever it takes to mother yourself through, to nurture yourself through, to get to the point where you can actually practice.

Using the Enemy as Guru

November 29, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Dharma of Technology by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Think about the people in your life. Is there one person that you just can’t stand? I know that you’re a Buddhist, however, there is probably one person in your life that gets your goat every time. If you think there is no such person that you can’t stand, then you don’t know yourself at all. Think about all of the people in of your life and think about whether you can sincerely wish that each one of them gets ahead, has all the happiness, all the approval, all the food, all the money, all the goods, all the joy, all the accomplishment that they could possibly have.

Think about all the people in your life. There is somebody in your life, probably more than one person, who when they get praise or that good old pat on the back from the authority that you’d like to have approval from, you’re not happy about it.

You want all sentient beings to be happy. You want everyone to get ahead. You want everyone to have a new car, lots of food, a great house to live in, everything they could possibly want and then you want them under those circumstances to reach enlightenment even without trying. That’s what you want for all sentient beings. But if you examine yourself, there is at least one person in your life that you really would like to see work for it. And you wouldn’t mind if this person got disciplined heartily along the way. You’d like to see this person get what they really deserve. It may be somebody that you flat out hate. There is always somebody like that.

Take that person and then think of that person next to the person that you love the most in the world, the person whose qualities you think are the purest, the one you’d most like to be like, the person that you really love. Maybe a child or a mate or a teacher or a friend who has given you so much, somebody that has been so kind to you and someone you really feel like you couldn’t make it in this life without. There must be somebody in your life who is such a treasure to you.

Your job, in order to fully accomplish Dharma, is to make that person that drives you crazy the same in your mind as the person who is the real treasure in your life. They have to be the same. And in fact, if the person who drives you crazy to the point that you can’t live with being crazy like that any more, and through the Buddha’s teaching you are able to accomplish loving that person equally with the jewel in your life, then that person is more valuable to you than the one you love easily. That person is your real guru. You have to think about the one person in your life that you would never, under any circumstances, call your guru. That’s the one you use, the one person that you would be embarrassed to have the world know that was teaching you anything. That’s the one you use.

Somehow you have to develop a sense of stability of mind and that is only done through compassion where you understand the equality of those two, because they are equal. They are exactly the same.

Ignorance: From “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” by Gampopa

November 28, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” by Gampopa as translated by Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche:

Ignorance. Those who have more ignorance should contemplate the law of interdependent origination as a remedy. The Rice Seedling Sutra says:

Monks, he who understands the rice stalk can understand the meaning of interdependent origination. Those who know interdependent origination know the Dharma. Those who know the Dharma know the Buddha.

Furthermore,

a) the interdependence of samsara is explained in order and
b) the interdependence of nirvana is explained in reverse order.

1. The first one, interior interdependence with cause. As is said:

Monks, because of this, that is produced. Because this is produced, that is born. This way, by the condition of ignorance, mental formation arise. By the condition of birth, there occur old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, suffering, unhappiness, and distress. Therefore, in this way, this vast aggregate of suffering appears.

This is explained according to the desire realm and according to birth from a mother’s womb.

a) At the very first, there is ignorance, which is the confusion that misunderstands all knowledge.
b) Under the influence of ignorance is the mental formation of the karma called afflicted virtues and nonvirtues. This is called “mental formation conditioned by ignorance.”
c) The seed of that karma is carried by the mind so that is called “consciousness conditioned by mental formation.”
d) By the power of that karma, the mind is fully confused, enters into a mother’s womb, and an embryo and so forth arise. This is called “name and form conditioned by consciousness.”
e) By developing the name and form, all the senses of the eye, ear, and so forth are completed. This is called “six increasing fields conditioned by name and form.”
f) The interaction of the eye organ and so forth, the corresponding object, and the consciousness is called “contact conditioned by the six increasing fields.”
g) Through contact, one experiences the feelings of joy, suffering, or indifference. That is called “feeling conditioned by contact.”
h) When there is feeling, there is joy, attachment, and stronger attachment. That is called “craving conditioned by feeling.”
i) From that attachment, one craves more and more, and wishes to not be separated from the object of attachment. That is called “grasping conditioned by craving.”
j) Through that grasping, karma and existence by body, speech, and mind are again created. That is called “existence conditioned by grasping.”
k) That karma creates the five aggregates (Skt. skandas). That is called “birth conditioned by existence.”
l) After birth, the aggregates which actually exist increase, ripen, and cease. “Ripen” means aging; “cease” means death. That is called “aging and death conditioned by birth.” Due to ignorance, complete attachment, craving, death causes the inner pain called sorrow. That sorrow causes expression in words, called lamentation. When the five consciousnesses experience unhappiness it is called suffering. Bringing that in the mind, that suffering is called “mental unhappiness.” Furthermore, in this way and so forth, the entire afflicted subconsciousness is called “disturbed mind.”

These twelve should be understood in three groups. Ignorance, craving and grasping compromise the afflicting emotions group. Mental formation and existence are the karma group. Consciousness and so forth, all the remaining seven, are grouped as suffering. The Treatise on the Existence of Interdependence says:

The twelve interdependent elements
Should be understood in three groups.
The Sage described interdependence as
Afflicting emotions, karma and suffering.
The first, eight and ninth comprise the afflicting emotions.
The second and tenth comprise karma.
The remaining seven comprise suffering.

The examples of these are ignorance is like one who plants the seed, karma is like the field, consciousness is like the seed, craving is like moisture, name and form are like shoots, the others are like branches, leaves and so forth. If there were no ignorance, then mental formation could not appear. Likewise, without birth, aging and death would not happen. But because there is ignorance, mental formations are fully created. And so forth, when their is birth, aging and death occur.

Ignorance does not think, “I will create mental formation,” and mental formation does not think, “I was created by ignorance.” Likewise birth does not think, “I will create aging and death,” and aging and death do not think, “We were made by birth.” But when there is ignorance, then mental formations appear and manifest. Likewise when there is birth, aging and death appear and manifest. Thus, this is inner interdependence with cause.

The Foundation

November 27, 2016 by Holly

From The Spiritual Path: a Collection of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

To me, compassion is not a feeling at all. It is not an emotion. It is logical. It is meaningful. I find no other excuse for living. If I tried to find another, I would be lost in samsara, a bee buzzing around in a jar.

The format of my life arises from—takes its only meaning from—the fountain of compassionate activity. I can’t think what else one is supposed to do. Anything else is deeply neurotic activity that has no true birth, no foundation, no substance. So I try to give a teaching: If you become a Bodhisattva, you will become happy. But that is just a poor condensation of the truth. A life that is born of compassion—that arises from the breath of compassion, the wind of compassion—is born of the profound essence, knowing itself to be inseparable from the profound essence. The key is to understand yourself as that compassion—your whole life as compassion-ate movement. It is the natural display, the natural order. It is the evidence of Lord Buddha’s blessing. It is YES.

Kindness is universal; it is not a word the Buddha invented. I am a Buddhist because I have found that this is the most useful way to benefit beings. Perhaps you will determine that for yourself. But even if you do not become a Buddhist, you are not off the hook. No matter what religion, path, or teaching you follow, compassion is the way to realization. Whether or not you are a Buddhist, you have a job to do—and that job is to develop a fervent, sincere aspiration to be of true benefit to others. This is the foundation.

Buddhism is based on the ideal of compassion. The Buddha taught that we should cultivate our lives as vehicles to help and benefit all others—not just our own small circle of family and friends. We should increase our compassionate activity until it embraces an ever greater number of beings. We must not be satisfied with concern only for human beings, or even for all the beings we can see in our world.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, there are six realms filled with sentient beings. That which we can see is a relatively small portion of the human and animal realms. But there are non-physical beings of different types who must be seriously considered.

To develop the mind of compassion, you should begin by honestly examining yourself. You may find that your goal is not in fact to benefit all sentient beings, but to be a kind person. There are worlds of difference between these two goals. One is selfless; the other is not. There is still you wishing to be a kind person. You must avoid the trap of using Dharma with the motivation, whether conscious or not, of making yourself a great Bodhisattva, a great helper, a great savior. You need to make the idea of compassion so strong that it becomes a fire consuming your heart.

Star of Your Own Show

November 26, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, July 19, 1989

At the heart of all phenomena, at the heart of all feeling, at the heart of all thought, at the heart of all experience, at the heart of self-nature, at the heart of all things, is the nature of emptiness. Neither self-nature nor phenomena can be considered separate from emptiness. All phenomena are inseparable from emptiness. It is indistinguishable from emptiness. It is the same as emptiness. It arises from emptiness, and it returns to emptiness. At the heart of every single experience, everyone without exception, including the ones that we react to in the various ways that we react, there lies the mother of all phenomena, the heart of emptiness.

From that point of view, since all things arise from emptiness, are the same as emptiness and inseparable from emptiness. All phenomena are the same. For those of you who practice Dorje Phagmo, one of the most outstanding and obvious qualities of Dorje Phagmo is that she cuts attachment to phenomena being one way or another. She relates to phenomena in such a way that all phenomena are the same and she experiences the sameness of all phenomena. In truth all phenomena is the same taste. The analogy that can be used to really get the point home is that, from that point of view, shit is the same as chocolate. They are the same nature, the same essence, the same taste.

Yet, we do not experience them as the same. We want to eat chocolate and we feel repelled, terribly repelled, by shit. We would like to have the chocolate bar, but we would not eat a bowl of shit. That would be very difficult for us to do. One would be delicious and the other would be utterly repulsive. So, if these things have the same nature, what, then, is the difference? The difference, of course, is the perceptual process that we are engaged in.

This perceptual process is both collective and individual. That is to say, there are certain things that groups, such as all human beings, might perceive similarly, not the same, but similarly. There are some phenomena that perhaps would be experienced in a cultural way. One group would experience something in one way and another group might experience it in another way. There are some forms of phenomena that most sentient beings may experience in a certain way. Even within those samenesses and those likenesses, a person within a group actually experiences that phenomena in a very individual way. That individuality cannot be understood because there is not a true communication that can describe how experience happens.

How that occurs, of course, is through the means of karma. Each of us has a certain karmic format. We seem to be programmed in a karmic way. Each of us operates very differently due to our karma. The expression is, “due to the karma of our minds.” This is, of course, according to the ordinary mind, the mind that is experiencing delusion, not the mind of awakening. We have some similar karma, obviously. We’re all sitting in the same room. If we did not have similar karma, we would not be as close as we are. Not only are we sitting in the same room but we see each other quite frequently, we’ll probably see each other for the rest of our lives, with any luck, and we will continue to have a relationship in this way. So we have some similar branches of karma. We live in the same city, we live in the same state, we live in the same nation, and we live on the same Earth at the same time.

Yet, each of us has individual karma. It takes a tremendous amount of similarity, for instance, for all of you to have gotten ordained at the same time. If you could conceive of the tremendous ripening that had to have occurred at that time, you would understand, then, the tremendous bond that you share. It takes a tremendous amount of ripening for us to come together at this time, for all of us, in order to experience a life that is about Dharma. There has to be a tremendous amount of ripening of very pure and virtuous karma in order for that to happen. Yet, even with all of that, we have differences in our karma. The differences are so deep and yet so subtle that one person, who has similar karma with another person, cannot talk to that person and describe exactly what their experience is. No one can communicate exactly what their experience is. Even if you felt that you had thoroughly communicated your experience that would basically be a misunderstanding because the other person could not have understood what you said. They do not have the same karma as you. It is impossible. You could not exactly describe how you experience a small object for instance. If you did, she would hear it in the way that she experiences it. There is no meeting, there is some overlapping, but there isn’t an intimate sameness about our experience.

For this reason, all scientific tools, from this point of view, are utterly useless. A simple thing, such as a thermometer, is useless. If I put it in my mouth and had two people read it they would both say 98.6. But the meaning of their experience, the way in which it was received, what they say, every single piece of what happened in order for that to happen is quite different. The sameness of the karma is indicated by their ability to sit together and have the opportunity to read the thermometer at the same time. But the sameness is not in the experience. It is an illusion that we all live with that makes us think that we all have the same experience.

In a very ordinary way, this accounts for the unbelievable thing that happens when groups of people get together and try to pass along information. It also explains how it is that gossip should be outlawed. All things that are communicated in that way are different. So, in one way, it is best to do as the Buddha does and just shut up for awhile until you get enlightened.

Each of us, then, is totally and completely involved in a perceptual play that we believe to be real. We constantly experience self and other, we constantly experience phenomena surrounding us. We constantly experience thoughts and feelings within our own mind and are constantly involved in reaction. Do we understand how completely and totally individual that is? If we did understand that, we would have a way to understand how artificial the entire construction is and how it is absolutely dependent on one’s karma. How useless it is to try to react or not react in a certain way in order to change things. How useless it is to try and manipulate phenomena in order to get a certain result. We would understand, then, that the only lasting means by which to make change, is to purify one’s karma.

I think of an example of someone, one of my students who is constantly bothered by losing things or having others mishandle things. The only cure to a situation such as that is not what we usually try to do, which is to lay blame or take measures or lock stuff up. The only lasting cure for something like that would be the practice of generosity. The result of the karma of a generous mind is a feeling that is a state free of lack, a state that is without doubt or anger or without the building blocks that cause a situation to occur again and again and again. The karma of a generous mind is such that those kinds of things simply don’t happen. There is more stability in a generous mind. A person who has truly practiced and attained selfless generosity, the experience of such a person will be stable, it will not be challenging in the way that the life of an ego-clinging person is. It will not have the same frustrations. It will not have the constant vacillation between having and not having. The karma of loss will not be there. But we don’t understand this. We constantly revolve in a very tight opera in which we are the stars and all the scenery is created just for us. What we don’t realize is that it’s also created by us, and that no one else is playing.

Agitation: From “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” by Gampopa

November 25, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” by Gampopa as translated by Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche:

First, One should Avoid Distraction. The avoidance of distraction is called solitude, where one is isolated from physical agitation and the mind is isolated from discursive thoughts. Engaging in the Conduct of Bodhisattvas says:

But through solitude of body and mind
No discursive thoughts will occur.

One should understand that isolation from physical agitation is discussed in six topics:

the primary characteristic of agitation
the cause of agitation
the faults of agitation
the primary characteristics of solitude,
the cause of solitude, and
the good qualities of solitude

1. The Primary Characteristic of Agitation is to be scattered because of being in the midst of your children, spouse, retinue, and wealth.

2. The Cause of Agitation is attachment to such sentient beings as children, spouses, retinue, and so forth; attachment to wealth such as food, material things, and so forth; and attachment to fame, praise, and so forth. These things will not bring avoidance of agitation. It is said:

Worldly life is not forsaken because of attachment [to people]
And due to craving for material gain and the like.

3. The Faults of Agitation should be understood generally and particularly. Concerning general agitation, the Sutra Requested with Extreme Sincerity says:

Maitreya, there are twenty different types of defects. What are these twenty? Body is unrestrained, speech is unrestrained, and mind is unrestrained. Gross afflicting emotions are rampant. Even worldly speech is affected. The maras have a chance to triumph. Mindfulness is lacking. Calm abiding and special insight cannot be achieved. And so forth.

In particular, you will not achieve enlightenment with the fault of attachment to sentient beings. The Moon Lamp Sutra says:

One who fully attends sensual objects,
Craves children or spouse, and
Clings to the home that should be rejected
Will not achieve enlightenment at all.

Engaging in the conduct of a Bodhisattva says:

Through being attached to living beings
I am completely obscured from the perfect reality.

Therefore, you should avoid these attachments. As it is said:

It also cannot benefit me
And I cannot benefit it.
Therefore, stay a long distance from this childishness.

The beneficial effects of avoiding this. The Moon Lamp Sutra mentions:

Having renounced attachment to child and spouse,
Being afraid of the home and renouncing it,
The achievement of enlightenment will not be so difficult.

There are also two defects of attachment to wealth and fame. Wealth and fame cannot be held forever and they will create a predicament. Engaging in the Conduct of a Bodhisattva says:

Whatever fame and renown I have amassed
Have no power to accompany me.

Second, it is said:

By the piling up of whatever objects
You are attached to,
Misery a thousandfold will ensue.

4. The Primary Characteristic of Solitude is to be free from these agitations.

5. The Cause of Solitude is to abide in a monastery by yourself. What is a “monastery?” Being in a cemetery, by the forest, cave, or plain. 500 armspans is an earshot. A place which is the distance of an ear-shot from a town is called a monastery. The Treasury of Abhidharma says:

500 armspans is an earshot; that place is called a monastery.

6. The Good Qualities of Solitude. Escaping from agitation and staying in monasteries for the sake of enlightenment and of sentient beings has many good qualities:

it is an excellent offering to the Buddhas
one will renounce samsara, will be from the eight worldly concerns, and will not encourage the afflicting emotions, and
meditative concentration will arise.

a) The First One. Taking seven steps toward a monastery with the motivation to stay there with bodhicitta for the benefit of sentient beings pleases all the Buddhas more than making offerings with the diversity of food, drink, flowers, and so forth. The Moon Lamp Sutra says:

The Victorious One is not honored
By offerings of food and drink,
Or, likewise, of clothes and flowers, incense and garlands.
One will make greater merit by
Taking seven steps toward a monastery
In order to benefit sentient beings
By renouncing evil, composite phenomena.

b) The Second One. Concerning renunciation of samsara, freedom from the eight worldly concerns, and the discouragement of afflicting emotions, that same sutra says:

Likewise, one will renounce all composite phenomena,
One will have no desire for all the worlds,
And afflicting emotions will not increase.

b) The Third One. The principle objective is to increase meditative concentration quickly. The same sutra says:

Be detached from village and city,
Always attend to forest and isolation,
Always be alone like a rhinoceros.
Before long, you will achieve supreme meditative
concentration.

This explains how to remain isolated from physical agitation.

Why Such Effort?

November 23, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

When you come here and you ask yourself what has to be done here, the answer is: It’s not just hanging out being a Buddhist. I don’t really care if you’re Buddhist. I just want you to be liberated. You can call yourself whatever you want. To hang out here and be a Buddhist is probably equal to going to a movie; but to hang out here and really practice and really apply the antidote, now that’s worth something. And that’s the kind of frame of mind you have to be in and think yourself in when you actually approach the path. You can see, however, how confusing it must be. As sentient beings, we can’t understand why it takes such an extraordinary effort. I mean, the other religions are much easier. So why wouldn’t we want to practice that? Because according to the Buddha’s teaching, we are much more complicated than that. We are samsaric beings and we have been for a very long time. We are filled with delusions. Our minds are just jammed with discursive thoughts of all kinds. We are constantly engaging in conceptual proliferations, superstructuring. We cannot relax in our nature and awaken to the primordial state.

This is why it’s so complicated to practice Dharma as we do. These are the kinds of things that people ask: Well, why can’t we get through this easier? And then we want to know, why do we have to do prostrations? Why prostrations? I mean, couldn’t we just be devoted standing up? Well, then you have to ask yourself why you’re asking that question. And you might say “Well, it’s because I don’t like the getting up and down business. It’s too hard. It’s too tiring. It makes my back hurt and I just don’t want to do it.” And so that’s your answer. You get up and down every day—dance the jig, carry on, do all kinds of amazing effortful activity in order to continue in samsara. How many calories do we burn every day? What are we doing when we’re burning those calories? Are we plowing forward towards Dharma? Are we moving through the door of liberation? No. No. No, we are going deeper and deeper into samsara. That is where our effort is involved every single day. So when we ask ourself, “Why does it take such an extraordinary effort?”, then we have to go back ourself. Do we understand what the goal is, what the point is? Until we understand why we’re doing this, and why we’re here… And it isn’t just to hang out.

There is something that actually needs doing in order to attain liberation. Otherwise liberation is not a fact, not a certainty, not a state, not a real goal. It’s simply an idea just like any other idea. Something that’s floating around. It’s just a word, it has no meaning. So instead, depth is required. Repetition is required. Contemplation is required. Thought is required. Attentiveness is required. Determination is required. Understanding is required. You must go into this path more deeply than perhaps you’ve ever done anything else. It doesn’t mean that you have to spend every single moment of every day in the beginning simply contemplating the Buddha’s teachings. I’m not asking you to forget how to catch a cab. That’s not what I’m saying. Or to forget how to cook dinner. But I am saying that we should be aware in the beginning that what we are trying to accomplish is possible, but only if we really understand what it is, what the goal is, and how extraordinary the goal is and therefore how extraordinary the effort must be in order to achieve the goal. Because it must be that extraordinary or you’re just doing something, another something other than the other somethings that you’re already doing.

The Problem With Desire

November 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from an exchange of tweets between Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and one of her followers:

Follower: “How can one beat desire?”

Jetsunma: “Study cause and result, and especially compassion for all. The desire is for everything and it keeps us suffering like a revolving door. No control over any result, bad.”

Follower: “So with desire there can’t be fulfillment?”

Jetsunma: “Exactly. An itch that cannot be scratched. Always returns. And by nature cannot be satisfied. Everything begins and ends.”

You can follow Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on twitter here: https://twitter.com/JALpalyul

Clarifying the Goal

November 21, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

Honestly ask yourself whether there is wisdom in what the Buddha has taught. That, in fact, when it comes time to practice Dharma, to realize the nature of one’s mind, to see it purely and clearly, to wipe away the stain of non-virtuous behavior and discursive thought and ancient habitual tendencies and simple ignorance… Can we really ask ourselves whether there is wisdom in what the Buddha has taught when he said that this is something that needs to be worked at in depth. That there needs to be a great deal of effort in that direction. That, in fact, it really isn’t that useful to have a wonderful, blissful, emotional experience saying that one glorious mantra that you thought would really do the trick, because that’s just another flower in the bouquet of human experiences and emotions. If you have a blissful, marvelous, emotional, contrived experience with that one mantra, it’s really in essence not so very different from the blissful, emotional experience that you have when you do something else really well. Or when you buy a new car, or when you get a new honey, or when you taste a new kind of chocolate, or whatever it happens to be. It becomes then simply another human emotional experience that we contrive to look like, or to be, a certain way, because that’s what most of our experiences actually are. They are contrivances.

In order to really stir the depths of samsara, that is to purify ancient habitual tendencies, well-established habitual tendencies, in order to create the new habitual tendency of virtuous activity, a great deal of depth and effort has to come into that. So many recitations are required. The goal here is not really to have an emotional experience. It is to recite the syllables associated with mantra which are not ordinary in which each and every syllable has a particular extraordinary blessing associated with the mind of enlightenment and serves to actually purify the winds, channels and fluids within one’s psychic nature.

So many repetitions here are the key. And then on top of that, since you thought maybe the way to do this would be to have a beautiful deep and profound experience anyway, you might try being completely absorbed in the mantra that you are reciting. Because you are right about one thing: It is less potent to just say mantra than to really remain absorbed in the visualization that is given to you by the teacher and to remain absorbed in the activity itself. That is much more profound and much deeper. But still and all, even if you are to do it in a way where you’re completely absorbed, where the experience is deep, where it’s profound, where you’re really paying attention, where you’re really developing some clarity of mind, still and all, even with that, it is necessary to make many repetitions.

And the reason why is because there’s a goal here. We are applying an antidote to something specific in order to have a specific result. There’s a difference between reciting mantra for that reason, with that kind of perspective and maybe coming to some teaching or going to church or coming to even a Buddhist temple or hearing what I have to say to you and then simply thinking “Oh now I’ve heard that so therefore I’ve had some of the Buddha’s teachings.” O.K., that’s very good. There’s a difference in the goal orientation, do you see? One of them is simply collecting something, having something, saying you’ve been there—a knot on the belt. You know, it’s something. And the other one is understanding the faults of cyclic existence, the conditions of samsara, the depth of it, the complication of it, and understanding that there is a goal, an extraordinary goal that cannot be reached any way other than to apply the necessary antidote.

That goal of course is enlightenment. That goal of course is what the Buddha experienced when he said, “I am awake.” It is awakening to our primordial nature. It is a condition that is beyond form, beyond formless, beyond samsara, beyond even nirvana. It is an utterly conditionless and natural state and to awaken to that nature, that is the goal.