Teachings

Everything Counts

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From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

No two people experience anything exactly alike, ever. It’s almost as if we see through different-colored glasses. Even the same person can experience the same event quite differently on different days. Something that bugs the potatoes out of you one day will roll right off your back the next. This is due to the ripening of your karma at the time. It ripens in slightly different ways at every moment, creating a different inner experience. A tapestry is being woven, interdependently arising. Your mind is not the same today as it was yesterday, because different karma has ripened. The threads of the tapestry are different, but your ego-clinging makes it seem the same.

Some indigenous peoples do not use the word “karma” but acknowledge that if you take something from Mother Earth, you must return something. For instance, American Indians believe that you may cut down a tree because you need the wood, provided you repay or replenish the earth. If you don’t, there is a hole that nature or Mother Earth must fill. Additionally, the imbalance you cause in the environment will be played out somehow in your life—in mind or in body, but especially in your spirit.

This idea is very similar to the concept of karma. Had we grown up with the belief that cause and effect cannot be altered, that this is a universal law that, whether we are caught or not, there will sooner or later be a payback for every situation—we would have an entirely different culture. We would not have damaged the ecological system, while disregarding the consequences. Though concern is growing, we still abuse the environment and our natural wealth. We constantly make deals promoting personal gain. This is not wrong unless we take from others with no regard for their welfare. But we applaud business deals that benefit us and hurt others. Getting ahead is the American way. “That’s politics,” or “That’s business,” we say. We have learned to condone selfishness, totally disregarding its impact on our minds.

As we “learn” that for some things there is no payback, a poison gradually infiltrates our mindstreams. Many powerful people profess traditional religious beliefs yet complacently engage in graft, bribery, obstruction of justice, embezzlement, and lying. Believe me, if the first people to cut down a rain forest (or to bring a species close to extinction) had been struck by lightning, there would be no ecological problem today. If the earth had opened up and swallowed the owners and operators, there would be no problem with strip mining. But the payback is often slow in coming. We remain unskilled in connecting causes with their inexorable effects.

Suppose you go to a party at someone’s house and see some perfume samples. You think: “They have lots of these, so I’ll just take one. It’s no big deal. Surely if I asked, they would give it to me.” Later you go to a grocery store and think: “Gee, I’d really like one of those cookies. Just one, because if I buy the whole pack, I might get fat.” Then you notice a pack that is broken open. “Well,” you think, “it’s already open, so I’ll just slip one little cookie out. The store can’t sell them now, anyway. They have a budget to cover that.” Even if no one misses the perfume or the cookie, you have changed in your mindstream. The change is subtle. But you have changed. And if you continue to act that way, your mind will become hard. It must—because something inside of you knows what is right and what is wrong. Something inside you is very moral. There is a sensitivity to things balancing out. It may not be the part that you can listen to, but karma, the potential for karma, the reality of karma, the interaction of karma—exists in the mindstream of every sentient being.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Deepening on the Path: The Importance of “Caring”

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called, “Bringing Virtue into Life”

If your eyes are open at all, you have seen that you have often boxed your own ears, that you have often hurt yourself by engaging in non-virtuous activity that has brought you suffering.  Maybe you’ve had time to see a little bit of that.  But I’ll tell you that according to the Buddha’s teaching, and this is the truth, every bit of non-virtuous behavior that you have engaged in will bring about unhappiness. So it’s not logical to engage in non-virtuous behavior and that includes the lesser non-virtuous behaviors.  The big ones like killing, we can get that.  Killing, stealing, that sort of thing, but what about simple selfishness?  What about judgment of others?  What about just not giving a big flip?  Not caring?  What about reading the newspaper and thinking “Wow millions of people are starving over there.  Too bad.”  You don’t think that’s a non-virtue?  That’s how we read the paper, every day.  Of course that’s a non-virtue. We’re not caring.  We’re not praying for them.  We’re not sending them anything.  We’re not doing anything to help.

The Buddha also taught us that virtuous behavior brings about happiness, but we have exactly the opposite idea.  Most of us don’t like to practice, for instance.  We don’t like to sit down and practice.  Who likes to sit down for two hours at a stretch?  I don’t know about you, but I get fanny fatigue big time.  Two hours at a stretch.  That is not how I want to spend the day.  So we think like that.  We think “Oh, you know, if I sit down today and practice for two hours, I’m really going to suffer!”  So we have this weird idea that virtuous activity like practice is going to bring about unhappiness, and it’s because of our lack of understanding.  What we don’t realize is that yes, while we have maybe the antsy-ness or the fanny fatigue or whatever it is that we get, ultimately that two hours of practice will ripen. And when it ripens it will be like a precious jewel within your life.  At some point there will be an event or a change or a lift or a gift or something that you very much need in your life. It will appear as though out of nowhere. and it can be directly traced to previous virtuous behavior.

The Buddha also teaches us that if we offer even something, if we’re very poor and all we have is something simple like a candle or a butter lamp. If we offer only that, placing it on an altar and with a full and generous heart visualize it as being everything that we have, everything that we could ever have and offer it to the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha and particularly to the Lama as the representative of all three, then let that merit be used to benefit sentient beings.  What we don’t realize is that while that took some time out of our busy day, yes, and we did have to prepare a butter lamp or light the candle or whatever hardship we had to engage, still we have created unbelievable happiness for ourselves. Actually, the Buddha has taught that if we could manage to make that offering with complete and total absorption in the expanse of that generosity, then we would be reborn eventually in unmovable samadhi, complete happiness, because we are engaging in the kind of activity that creates the habitual tendency of supreme generosity.

We are taught also to make offerings of our body, speech and mind.  For instance, we visualize that our body becomes like food and we offer our bodies.  Of course, we don’t cut off pieces of ourselves.  Nobody would want to eat that anyway, I don’t think. But we do visualize our body as being transformed into this nectar that nourishes all sentient beings, and without holding on to ourselves, we offer ourselves in that way. So we offer our bodies to benefit sentient beings.  We offer our speech to benefit sentient beings.  We practice so that what comes out of our mouth will be of benefit to others, such as mantra or teaching about Dharma or some spiritual advice.  We try very hard to give our speech to benefit sentient beings. And we offer our minds as well to benefit sentient beings.  We make that offering. The way that we practice that offering is by no longer using our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish nonvirtue. Instead we use our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish virtue for the sake of sentient beings. That is the true meaning of offering our body, our speech and our mind.

Many practitioners unfortunately say that.  They say “I offer my body, speech and mind” and they make all kinds of grand gestures but, boy, when it comes down to the clinch, they ain’t offering nothing, and that’s the truth.  Not a thing.  It isn’t happening.  So we, as Dharma practitioners, have to learn how to practice more deeply than that in order to assimilate the causes for true happiness.  It is that kind of virtuous activity that we have to engage in.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

The Illusion of Power

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue into Life”

A lot of people play the power game of trying to gain power and domination over other people simply because they feel if they can control others it will make them happy.  They will be powerful.  They will be shielded from hurt because they are dominant. Others are weaker than them and they don’t care whether they hurt the people under them or not.  They do whatever they want to do in order to make themselves happy.  That’s what people do.  What they don’t realize is that in every conceivable sense they are making themselves more and more unhappy. That kind of power over others will never produce happiness. In some future time that very person who is such a power monger will be the most powerless of sentient beings.  Think about the helpless little creatures that are kept in cages in pet shops to be sold to who knows.  Think about the helpless little creatures that are kept in laboratories to be tested on for who knows what purpose.  That kind of helplessness.  So we are talking about curable suffering and unhappiness and we bring it on ourselves through cause and effect relationships. This is one of the teachings that the Buddha has given us that is very, very logical, and we can see small examples of it within our lives.  If we engage in non-virtuous behavior, it will produce unhappiness.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

 

 

Generating the Deity

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Chenrezig

From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

As you generate yourself as a Buddha or Bodhisattva, reciting mantras and devotional prayers, your mind arises as a pure form. This is different from the ordinary mind that struggles to wake up each morning, dragging along its ego-clinging baggage or karma and looking for happiness in futile ways. This pure form is an expression of pure cognition, free of conceptualization and limitation. It is pure awareness, a state of pure luminosity. The deity we generate is an expression of that pure state. All phenomena are understood to be the deity’s body, voice, and activity. Thus, phenomena cease being something we grasp.

Generation-stage and completion-stage practice disassemble the entire time-and-space grid, disassemble the moment itself. You dissolve into emptiness and purify all things into their natural state. Thus, the mind relaxes from the tension that is gathered around “I,” and it becomes possible to reconstruct the moment naturally through the creation of the mandala and through allowing the mind to arise as the deity. This great skill is accomplished when the entire process becomes effortless.

“How,” you may ask, “can it be effortless? The mandala, the whole process, seems very complicated.” Actually, it is less complicated than what you are currently perceiving. You have a mandala going right now. Look around you. You sit on a world that sits in a galaxy that sits in a universe, and it is all lit up. How do you ever manage to conceive it? And on top of that, you pay your electric bill, call people on the phone, feed your pets and yourself. You enter a metal thing that flies through the air from one place to another. It is an extremely complicated mandala. In addition, you are constantly moving through a chain of lives in six major realms in a completely un-predictable pattern.

The generation of the deity is far easier. It is natural and spontaneous because it is not built on the assumption of ego. It is not constructed of tension because the deity is understood to be real but insubstantial. It is understood to be that which does not need to be constantly maintained. The tension of survival associated with desire and egocentricity is not there. With the continuation of this practice and the skill developed through good concentration and an effortless effort, all perception is purified. The five senses are not given their lead. They are not permitted to feed back information that satisfies the need of self to be self. They are purified by the mind naturally arising as the deity. The karma of endless cycles of birth and death is purified at last.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Coming Home

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From The Spiritual Path:  A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Many people don’t like to be challenged. We want our religion to fit nicely into our lives. No untrimmed edges, everything nice. Don’t rock the boat. We want our practice to be conventional—and convenient. But do not expect “nice” in your relationship with your Root Guru. Hope and pray that you get ripped open and rearranged. It should sometimes feel like a train is running over your head. The door opens from the inside. Open the door of your mind, the door of your heart, the door of your devotion. Deepen. To the extent you can allow that to happen, accomplishment occurs.

The Lama should change your life. If you do not wish to change, you are in the wrong religion. So far, what you have given rise to in this life is samsaric, and you must break its hold. You wish to attain realization.  Think of yourself as a Volkswagen entering a repair shop. Somehow, you’re supposed to emerge as something that can circle the earth flying. Isn’t that quite a change? But you have to be hungry for it. You have to let it happen. It’s called surrender. And it’s total or nothing.

The Lama should interfere with you. This is also unpleasant news for Westerners. We have convenient, reassuring rules about who can solve our problems, who has access to our lives: parents, psychologists, lawyers, accountants, lovers, family, and so on. But what I’m saying is that you should pray for the Lama to come and upset your life. Expect to have holes poked in it. Expect it to change.

Why should the Lama have the ability to enter your life? What we see, what looks like a person, is only a display. If you are letting a person into your life, you are not practicing Guru Yoga. You should not let an “ordinary” person into your life. But when you understand the nature of the Lama, you realize the Lama to be the condensed essence of all the objects of refuge. The very fabric, the nature of the Lama arises from the mind of Enlightenment. When you practice Guru Yoga, you must also understand that the Lama is none other than your own true face, the nectar of your realization. The Lama is the precious awakening. So you are inviting the precious reality of awakening, the Precious Buddha Nature, that Nature which is beyond acceptance and rejection. You are inviting that nectar to fill your cup.

How many minutes a day should you spend in devotional yoga to the Guru? Can there be too many? Might you go crazy? No. If you spend every waking and sleeping moment with the Lama enthroned upon the lotus of your heart or seated above the crown of your head with your heart and mind in the posture of adoration, love, longing, taking refuge, calm abiding—it is not too much. This is because you are relying on something that is not of the world. It is not samsaric.

You should try to develop a personal relationship with the Guru, but not with his or her personality. Whenever you see or experience something good or beautiful, offer it to the Lama for the sake of sentient beings. “May all sentient beings come to know the nourishment of finding and experiencing complete non-duality with the Guru.” Not only do you include the Lama in every aspect of your life; you dedicate that practice so others will find their teacher. In that way, your connection with your teacher becomes strengthened.

The Lama should be part of everything, everything. You should always follow your Teacher’s instruction, always rely on his/her guidance. When you receive a beautiful gift, mentally offer it to the Lama for the sake of sentient beings. “By the merit of this offering, may all sentient beings be drawn to the Lama’s presence and see the Lama as the ultimate refuge.” Offer the food that you eat: “May all sentient beings feast on the great compassionate intention of the Guru.” As you do this, your food becomes a ritual substance that awakens the Bodhicitta that brings you closer to enlightenment. It becomes holy stuff. It becomes part of your life in the most profound and amazing sense. Guru Yoga becomes the most precious jewel in your life. Everything becomes joyful. Everything becomes a big YES, a big outward-moving experience. There is a lack of contraction in your psychology. And on a deeper level, everything in samsara is transformed into the path. This practice, I can tell you from my heart, is a feedback loop. It is never an energy that merely goes out. It comes back a million fold. The more you become absorbed in your Guru Yoga practice, the happier, the more nourished you will be. The feeling is that of strength, of calm, of coming home.

From the depth of my heart I pray, gathering together whatever virtue I have accumulated, in the three times. This I offer to the Supreme Lord, Guru Padmasambava. May you all, every sentient being, attain the bliss of non-duality, and joyfully awaken to see the true face, the Great Lord of Light, the Root Guru. Lord Guru, rest upon the lotus of our hearts, that we may at last know happiness.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

What the World Needs Now…

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

Many of us remember a song recorded by I think- Dionne Warwick called “What the World Needs Now” (is Love Sweet Love) many years ago. The song is now thought of as “pretty”, but too old to be current. And  Ms. Warwick’s voice – wow.

These days, everybody is “hip” and “cool” and too “chill” or “real” to be warm, and loving, to have a tender and generous heart. Instead we think we must be tough to get by. Why is that? When did kindness and compassion, respect for others go out of style? I feel it is good to examine ourselves with true honesty and pure intention. No one can afford to stop growing, and self-honesty is the way to go.

When people are hard and unable to open up it is mostly due to fear and ego protection. We are afraid of being hurt, rejected, and disrespected. So warmth is seen as weakness and vulnerability. It isn’t. Quite the opposite. Strong people can afford to serve others, to bow down and wash the feet of others. That takes a true “warrior for love,“ a true inspiration for humankind.

Most of us talk tough sometimes, and tough love is sometimes needed. Not that often, though, and not for long. If you want to do that, however, you are bound by ethics to take the time to truly study where this person is coming from. What they have been conditioned by. In other words you must learn about them, and reach a point of empathy. The old Native American adage- “Walk a mile in their shoes” before we give ourselves permission to be tough with them. You don’t know, we don’t know, what open wounds we are seeing. Also it is no good to advise others or have authority over them if you do not love them and tolerate their coping methods and their pain. Maybe we think the person deserves our rage. Let me let you in on a secret: we are all the same nature and none of us deserve hatred. None. Even to be born human we are worthy. As are all sentient beings who are unable to ask for kindness.

It is up to us to demonstrate and put into play our capabilities and our contribution. To gather a controllable circle of “yes Sirs” is not love, strength, power, goodness, or anything like that. It is false. It is not love and not power. It is blatant fear and the need to dominate others. We were not made to dominate. No sentient being is. We were meant to love and live together in harmony. Let’s do it together!

OM MANI PEDME HUNG

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA

©Jetsunma Ahkön Norbu Lhamo

The Law of Gravity and Karma: The Seed and the Fruit

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue Into Life”

Denial, in my opinion, is much worse than how fast our lives go.  If we have even a meager life span of sixty years, if we really got it, if we really understood cause and effect, we would probably be motivated to start practicing early; and by the time that we were sixty and ready to die, we’d have something accomplished.  We would have prepared for our next rebirth.  But we don’t do that because we cannot connect the dots.  We wait.

I think about the young people that I know, and even the young people that are very close to me.  They have the idea that they have all the time in the world.  I know because I used to have that idea.  All the time in the world.  It’s like Friday night.  You’ve got the whole weekend so party hearty.  It’s really like that.  We really have this idea.  So when we’re young we do not begin our practice. And then when we’re not so young, when we move into real adulthood, we still are in denial.  I tell you when we’re finished being young, the next stage is to pretend that we’re young.  That’s the next thing that we do. And then after pretending that we’re young doesn’t work, we imagine that we’re young.  It’s sort of like that. We keep pushing off the inevitable, which is that moment when we get that life is really passing and something must be done.

This kind of narcotic quality that is part and parcel of samsaric existence is the real enemy here.  It is the real enemy. It causes us to think very strangely, in an odd way, a way that is not productive and is not protective and beneficial toward ourselves.  We are not being our own best friends in other words.  So what happens is we are deluded, we are stuck. We stay without any understanding.  We simply cannot commit to practice.  We have this Scarlet O’Hara kind of idea, that tomorrow is soon enough.  Tomorrow everything will be fine. So we find ourselves in something of a bind.

A person who has not been able to practice these thoughts that turn the mind toward Dharma is in the most trouble because they can’t move to the next step. That’s the next thought that turns the mind towards Dharma, and it’s a very simple one.  It’s actually very logical.  It’s about as logical as the law of gravity seems to be, and the law of gravity seems to be pretty logical.  Drop it and it goes down…every time that I’ve seen.  Show me something different, but every time I’ve seen it.  The law of gravity is kind of logical.  , I don’t know the physics of it, but, basically it means that this is heavier than the air that it displaces so it’s going down. And the earth will pull it down because of the magnetic quality that the motion of the earth produces.  So we understand that this is very logical.

But there is another logical truth that we are missing completely. It’s just as logical, equally as logical, but again we’re playing the game of forever young, never gonna die and always deluded.  That’s the game we’re playing. And here’s the truth that is logical, the truth that we’re missing that is so simple.  If you think about it, you know it’s true and it’s this:  Non-virtuous behavior, such as killing, stealing, adultery, judgment, lack of kindness, lack of generosity, harming others, lying, these kinds of activities bring about unhappiness, every time.  There is no case in which you can engage in nonvirtuous behavior in order to produce happy results.  It will never happen.  It will never happen. In the same way that apple seeds will not grow orange trees, it simply doesn’t happen.

Nonvirtuous behavior, negative behavior, will always, every time, bring unhappiness. The funny thing is we always engage in nonvirtuous activity in order to bring us happiness.  That’s what we think we’re doing.  We lie about somebody else so that, let’s see… Here’s a good example:  Let’s say that I have a boyfriend and my boyfriend loves two women.  I’m one of them.  So I might, in order to bring about my own happiness, lie about that other woman and say “Oh, she’s no good. You don’t want her.  She’s no good.”  I might lie about that other woman so I can have this boyfriend.  I’m thinking that this lie is going to bring me happiness.  It’s never going to happen.  It’s never going to happen, because eventually what’s going to happen is this: Someday you’re going to want something very much.  Someday you’re going to be completely and totally entitled to something, and that person will be able to keep it from you.  You see?  It may not happen in this lifetime.  It may not happen in the next lifetime.  It could happen 10,000 lifetimes from now, where you couldn’t possibly remember, but it will make you unhappy.  Eventually it will make you unhappy.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Spiritual Fidelity

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HH Penor Rinpoche & Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
HH Penor Rinpoche & Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Buddha taught that one of the most heinous crimes one can commit from the spiritual point of view is to proclaim oneself to be more advanced or spiritually competent than is actually the case.  Why that is is a very involved subject, but to understand it is to better understand spiritual fidelity.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, cyclic existence is unbearable because it is pervaded with suffering.  Even the happiness that there is within cyclic existence is temporary.  And so we suffer from impermanence and cling to all manner of experiences.  This fixation on maintaining a permanent, continuing ego-self in order to feel safe causes all suffering.  According to the Buddha, self-nature is not inherently real.  Our true nature is the primordial wisdom state, which is free of all conceptualization, including the perception of self-nature.  It is clear, luminous and innately wakeful.  It is not empty and dark in the way we would think of nothingness, but it is simply aware with a non-specific awareness or wakefulness.  This is our nature — not the ego-self that we conceive ourselves to be.

According to this view, there is no being who is greater than another.  Even in the case of lamas who sit on thrones giving spiritual teachings, if they are truly realized, they do not consider themselves to be greater beings than anyone else.  In fact, their realization comes from realizing the sameness of all phenomena and the equality of all that lives.  Thus to think of oneself as being more advanced or greater than others is a falsehood.  Yet many people do have this idea.  And when they come here, they say, “You must know who I am and why I’m here.  I know I have a special mission.”  People have even written to me from across the country, asking me to recognize them as a tulku.  In the first place, I don’t have the authority to recognize anyone.  And even if I did, I would never recognize someone who asked for it.  Never.  In fact, I would pay the least attention to such a person.

Why?  According to the Buddha, the goal is not to become a greater or vaster ego.  The goal is to realize the primordial wisdom state, which is the same inherent nature in all sentient beings.  Anything that we build on top of that is false and actually takes us in exactly the opposite direction from the Buddha’s teaching.  True nature is innate.  It cannot be grown.  It will never be bigger or smaller than it is now.  It will never change, and therefore it cannot be manipulated.

So when people come here feeling that they have an honored place or a special mission, they are only contributing to the size and rigidity of their egos, and they must simply wait it out.  As a woman I know in Tennessee once said, “If it doesn’t come out in the wash, it will in the rinse.”  What you’re going to do, you’re going to do.  And if it is in accordance with the Buddha’s teaching, you will achieve realization.

The Mahayana path cultivates the desire to benefit beings and eventually leads out of the very self-absorption that causes the desire for special recognition.  Consider yourself merely a function of the Buddha’s kindness.  If you are transforming your life into being a vehicle by which sentient beings are benefitted, you really can’t be concentrating on the idea that “I’m helping you,” because then the “I” will become very inflated and the “you” will become dependent.  To prevent such obstacles, we must think about the inherent equality of all that lives — although our egos have various appearances, our nature is the same.  Thus we are completely equal, and anything but kindness is a waste of time.

According to the Buddha, we should apply the antidotes that purify our mindstream and perception and lead to enlightenment.  What are those things?  They are the things that we call meritorious activity: generosity, recitation, contemplation, meditation, prayer, offering, studying and teaching.  Over time, these activities will loosen the mind’s tight fixation on ego and one will spontaneously view the natural state.  Ultimately one will remain stable in that state, awake as the Buddha is awake.

The Buddha never said, “I am God.”  Nor did he say, “I am the Son of God.”  Or even, “I am here to help you.”  All he said was, “I am awake.”  Our job is to awaken to our true nature, and that is what we do.  Quickly?  Probably not, although with diligent practice, the Vajrayana vehicle can lead to enlightenment in one lifetime, or three, or seven.

Each of us walks through the door of liberation alone.  Each of us is absolutely responsible for our own awakening.  So to come to a teacher and say, “Please recognize me,” or “Please enlighten me,” is a little silly.  One should be humble.  One should study.  One should practice.  And however long it takes is however long it takes.

Students come to me and they ask to know the secret of the universe.  Here is the secret of the universe: work hard.  There is no other secret.  To attain the precious awakening one should purify the mindstream; one should make one’s life a vehicle for generosity.

Always think more of the welfare of others than your own.  Be honest.  Be courageous.  Look yourself square in the eye and get the big picture.  All sentient beings are the same.  They are equal.  There are no special cases.  All of us must cease this fixation on self-absorption in order to realize the natural state.

There is no excuse for not starting now.  If you think you’re not ready, get ready.  No one is ready.  If you think you’re not kind, get kind.  It’s a discipline to think of something greater than one’s own self-absorption.  Start small, with 10 seconds of pure generosity, caring only for the welfare of others.  When you get 10 seconds, move on to 12.  In a couple of weeks, try 30 seconds.  Then go for a minute; that’s a year’s worth of work.  Pretty soon you’ll be thinking an hour.  And after a while it will become a habitual tendency.

If you find yourself backsliding, don’t be surprised.  That’s the nature of samsaric existence.  Be patient with yourself; do the best you can, give yourself a break and don’t let yourself get away with murder.  Those are my three cardinal rules for following the Path.

In closing, let me connect this with spiritual fidelity.  One is true to oneself when one is honest, when one faces that one is a samsaric being involved in cyclic existence and is no longer shocked or ashamed or surprised at that.  So it is.  This is where we start.  But you should start with honesty, courage and responsibility.  You are responsible for the humility that you have within your mind, the honesty and devotion you have toward the Three Precious Jewels, which are the very display of enlightenment itself.  Apply discipline and work hard.  Be worthy and be true.  This is spiritual fidelity.

©Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Pitfalls and Excuses

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seed2

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

It is difficult in our world to practice regularly, with firm resolve. Some people say, “I’d really like to do that, but I don’t have the discipline, the commitment.” But if you are motivated by compassion, you will find the time and the way to do it. What if you are just too tired? Well, how do you find the strength to breathe when you are totally exhausted? You do it automatically, don’t you? What if you could understand, through a process of deep cultivation, that innumerable sentient beings are constantly in pain, that they go through endless rounds of torment, that there are non- physical realms of existence filled with unimaginable suffering? What if, because of this realization, compassion and profound generosity became so much a part of you that they were an automatic reflex, like breathing? Then there would not be a moment in which you did not practice with the utmost compassion. You would never think only of yourself and your needs, pursuing temporary gratification.

In order to become a deepened practitioner, you must have compassion for all others—so strong, so extraordinary that it will nourish you even when you feel “dry.” Unfortunately, some people practice for years, perhaps taking both retreat and ordination; then, suddenly, some karmic switch flips in their minds. They decide not to “do” Dharma anymore. They move on to other things. This is not uncommon for Westerners. It need not happen to you, but you should face the fact that it could. You could become dry inside. If so, you must face the cause: You have forgotten them.

If an extraordinary, burning love is not the most important force in your life, the natural inclination of a mind still influenced by desire will be to reassert itself at some point. This sounds harsh, but it is true. This is a time of increasing degeneracy. You must practice and cultivate this mind of love so thoroughly that you are moved to the core even at the faint possibility of achieving liberation in order to benefit beings. Do not be afraid of that kind of love. In the West, we learn to be cool, rational and detached. We value this highly. When we go to the grave, however, only the selfishness of this ideal will survive, not the intelligence. What will also survive and create the circumstances of your next lifeis the purity of your mind and heart, the degree of love you have accomplished. And if your love is so strong that you return even after attaining liberation, you are the hope of the world.

If you have the love to make a commitment to benefit beings at any cost, a sense of joy is born in the mind. This joy is stronger than ordinary human joy. It begins as a tiny seed but eventually grows to become a profound sense of bliss.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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