Teachings | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Cultivating Selfless Compassion: Looking Beyond the Symptoms of Suffering

March 5, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

When you develop the mind of compassion, you have to be careful how you develop that mind. If you examine yourself profoundly and honestly – and you have to be willing to be very honest with yourself – you may find that your goal is not really to benefit all sentient beings, but to be a kind person. There are worlds and universes of difference between these two goals. One is selfless: you truly wish to be of benefit to all sentient beings. The other is heading in the right direction, but ultimately it is not selfless because you wish that you could be a kind person. I hope that you can hear the difference between these two ideas. There are worlds of difference between them.

How does one cultivate the selfless goal and not fall unconsciously into the trap of ending up with the second goal? A good way to begin is to open our eyes and truly understand the nature of suffering. Why is there suffering in the world? Why is there suffering in the worlds unseen? If we don’t examine this idea, we might take what we see at face value. We might look at people in poor parts of town and say, “Oh they’re suffering because they’re poor.” We might look at people in different countries around the world and say, “Oh, they’re suffering because they’re hungry.” We might look at people in different situations and think we understand the nature of their suffering. But we’re looking at the symptom of their suffering. We’re looking at the fact that they are suffering, but we do still not understand why.

If we see that they are suffering – that some people are poor, some people are hungry, some people are old, some people are sick, and some people are dying — and do not probe to understand the reason for their suffering, we might fall into the trap of trying to do something about those apparent issues. There’s nothing wrong with doing something about those issues. In fact I hope you do, because human kindness – exemplary and virtuous human kindness – has to be part of this world, it has to be part of the activity that you, as Bodhisattvas, are involved in. But if you stop there, you will never succeed, because if you try to cure the symptom of suffering without going to the cause, it’s impossible. The suffering will simply pop up in new and different ways.

Mixing Milk With Water: Cultivating Qualities on the Path

March 3, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Often when people begin practicing Buddhism it feels fresh and wonderful. But our expectations may be unreasonable. Often I hear that folks can’t “feel” devotion or compassion. Neither of these are a “feeling.” They are both method. Same with Emptiness. If we could “feel” it, it would not be emptiness, but some sort of contrivance. We seem to want to imagine it all, think about what it must be, rather than to see primordial nature just as it is. No amount of talk or even study can make that happen. We can discuss Guru Devotion with hearts as cold as ice. We can want to be “good” without ever being generous and kind. We can want to be anything that sounds great without doing the work, and then we are lost. That is very much like reading fitness books and dreaming of a fabulous new body without ever leaving the sofa and eating like a pig.

There is no bodhicitta without human compassion, as that is the display of it. There is no Guru Devotion without respect and view. And Guru Devotion is not a “feeling” but is based on a clear comprehension that the mind of the Guru and our own must mix like milk with water. This precludes judgment and hate, or putting down other Vajra bros and sistas because the mind of the Guru is as vast and clear as space. If we are hateful we are dishonoring the Vajra Master, who teaches us differently than that. If we do not take the trouble to master the qualities of the Three Roots we have broken samaya. No numbers of mantra repetitions will ever make up for quality and depth. No vow ever taken will ever make up for the absence of actually fulfilling that vow. If you are mean spirited, selfish and filled with arrogance you are not what you profess to be. And that is raw truth. Silly rabbit! Tricks are for kids!!!

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG!

Cultivating Compassion: Understanding the Suffering of Others

March 2, 2016 by Holly

This is an excerpt from A Vow of Love: Living an Extraordinary Life of Compassion

by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In a superficial way the idea of compassion can seem very simple, and we might make the mistake of thinking that we understand it. But if we study compassion deeply, eventually we will come to understand that the ultimate view of compassion is enlightenment itself. It is the natural, primordial wisdom state itself. That’s why compassion isn’t truly known until we reach supreme enlightenment.

Compassion is the foundation of the Buddhist path. Without it, like any house that does not have a firm foundation, the house will crumble. It will not stand. One’s motivation to practice must be compassion. If your motivation is not compassion, it will be very difficult to firmly stick to the commitment to practice and meditate every day. I feel for those who say, “I’d really like to practice. I would really like to have a time in my life everyday to meditate, and yet I don’t have the discipline. I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the commitment.” If you have the right motivation, if you want to do this solely and purely from the point of view of compassion, you will find the time and you will find the commitment and you will find a way to do it. For those who have tried to meditate everyday or be consistent in their practice, if they can’t do it, my feeling is somehow the foundation of compassion isn’t strong enough.

If we could make the idea of compassion so strong that it becomes a burning fire consuming our hearts, until we are nothing but a flame. If the need to benefit others becomes so strong that it’s irresistible. If the understanding that others are suffering so unbearably in realms that we cannot even see, let alone the realms we can, that we cannot rest until we find a way to be of some lasting benefit to them. If these things can truly become part of our minds, we will find the strength to practice.

How do you find the strength to breathe? “Well,” you say, “that’s easy. Breathing is a reflex. I have to breathe. If I don’t breathe, I die.” What if you could cultivate the understanding that all sentient beings are filled with suffering that is inconceivable in its magnitude and that there are non-physical realms of existence we are not even aware of, filled with suffering? What if you could cultivate this understanding so deeply that, because of your realization, compassion and profound generosity became as much a reflex as breathing? That is possible.

“Well,” you say, “I don’t have that kind of understanding. I’m just not like that. I can’t make myself really buy into that.” Let me comfort you with this awareness. Unless you are supremely enlightened you are not born with that perfect understanding. No one is. No one is born with enough understanding of the suffering of others, and an affinity with the idea of compassion, to create that perfect discipline naturally. That understanding comes only through its cultivation, and we must cultivate that understanding consistently every day.

Nothing Will Stop Us: Love Is Stronger Than Prophecy

March 1, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

This is the final excerpt from a teaching on Compassion by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.

I have listened to some of the teachings on Buddhist cosmology, and heard the prophecy that there will be a time when there is no Buddha in this world – no teaching, no help, and no light. When things will be so dark there will be nothing, no hope. As a Buddhist I am supposed to believe this teaching, and I try. But I refuse to accept it, I won’t accept it, and if that makes me a bad Buddhist, then I am. But rather than think in a prideful way that I refuse to accept this teaching, I hope instead to cultivate an endless amount of energy to continue to practice for the benefit of others, no matter what the odds are. To consider that it is worthwhile if even one person can be benefited.

I wish we would all think in this way – that nothing will stop us. I find it necessary to believe that compassion is the strongest power anywhere, that love is stronger than prophecy. Believing this, we must continue as we are. Every day we must be stronger and continue in a more determined way.

When I see those of you who have taken ordination, I think you are the hope of the world. If you can remain emanating in the world always, even after attaining supreme realization, if your love is that strong that you change the prophecies, we have hope.

I also think of those who are newly starting, and those of you who are intermediate, and those of you who are choosing whatever particular path you choose. If you use the Buddha’s understanding, and come to a point of profound commitment and practice – if you consider love is your life, so that it will increase throughout every future incarnation – then you, too, are the hope of the world.

We must take this vocation very seriously. I don’t mean we have to walk around like somber people, with a terrible, woeful expression on our faces, or that we never get to have any fun anymore. It’s not like that. But our sense of joy is the kind of joy that is born of the mind of compassion, the kind of joy that appears in the mind with the commitment to benefit beings at any cost, the kind of joy that knows there is an antidote to suffering. That kind of joy is stronger than human joy and human sadness, because those things come and go, day to day, up and down, in and out.

I suggest you choose to live a lasting life of love, rather than one that is impermanent and superficial. In doing so, come to know something that doesn’t vary. Know something that grows from a tiny seed into a profound sense of bliss, which, as it grows, produces the kind of realization that can let you at last be someone who can truly help sentient beings with the right medicine.

You are at a crossroads in time now. Tremendous opportunities are coming your way. They have come your way. You are at a point very rare in cyclic existence. It is now possible for you to make this choice. It was not possible before. You should take this time very seriously, and consider deeply whether you will cultivate the mind of compassion every moment from now on for the rest of your life, and in all future lives to come, knowing that this is the only end to suffering.

Letting Go of “Cool”

February 29, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Excerpt from a teaching on Compassion by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Somehow you have found yourself in this fortunate, amazing position where this feast of possibility is laid before you. How did you come to this point? How is it possible that you have this option? You must have done something right in the past, and I suggest that you now build on it. If you don’t cultivate the mind of extraordinary compassion and such a burning love that compassion is the most important force in your life, then the natural inclinations of a mind filled with desire will overcome you. This is Kaliyuga, the age of degeneration, and that’s how it is. You must practice and cultivate that mind of compassion, of love, so thoroughly that you are moved to the core by even the faint possibility that you might achieve liberation in order to benefit beings. You think of nothing else. You must cultivate that until you burn with it. Don’t be afraid of that kind of love.

In the West we are taught, “Be cool. Hey, I’m an intellectual, I don’t think like that. I’m kind of special.” That’s what we’re taught, that’s our value system. That is the same value system we will take to our graves, and only the selfishness of that kind of idea will survive, not the intelligence. There is one thing that will survive this life, and will create the karma for your next life. It is the purity of your mind and the degree of love that you have accomplished. This will be the determining factor for how you will return time and time again in a form that will benefit beings until someday there is no more suffering.

What Can You Do?

February 28, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching on Compassion by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

There are many Dharma practitioners who practice for many years, go on retreat, and even take ordination. Then at some point, some karmic switch flips in their minds and suddenly they’re finished with Dharma! They don’t want to do Dharma anymore. They’re on to something else. We may think that’s strange, but it has happened, especially to Westerners. It’s not uncommon for a Westerner to practice Dharma sincerely and then flip tracks, and go back into a very ordinary kind of life. That need not happen to you. But it could. You should face that possibility.

The antidote for that event is to cultivate compassion in your mind every day. If you move along the path of Buddhadharma and become overworked by it, thinking, “I just can’t practice that many hours a day. I cannot do this activity that propagates the Dharma anymore. It’s just too much.” If you become dry inside, if you think you just can’t go on, there’s only one way that that could happen to you. You have forgotten the suffering of others.

You must cultivate the memory that even in this visible world where beings can be seen, there is suffering that you cannot comprehend. You must think that there are children being abused everywhere, that there is starvation and poverty. You must think about the terrible diseases that afflict the body, speech and mind. You must think about the horrible things that come along with suffering, and the depth of suffering that exists, even in the realms that you can witness. If you think about that everyday, more about that than you do about yourself, you will not fall off the path of Dharma. When you become weak, when you waiver, that is when you forget. That is when you think the path is all about you. It’s when you forget that you are practicing for their sake, and that you are practicing also to liberate your mind so that you can be of benefit to others.

A non-Buddhist practitioner might say, “I’ve got another idea. Why don’t I do what I know how to do best. I’ll go out and make some money, and then I’ll feed everybody. I can do that.”

I’ll tell you a story about when I went to India. In our innocence, we thought, “Let’s go see Bombay; this is really going to be great.” So we got in a taxi and we went through the streets of Bombay thinking that we were going to see the India on the postcards. What I saw were streets so filled with sickness – leprosy, deformity, unbelievable poverty – that I couldn’t see anything else. I know there were beautiful buildings. I know there was beautiful scenery, but I couldn’t see those things.

Every time the taxi stopped, people with only part of a limb and open sores of leprosy would stick their arms in the car and beg. Mothers would hold up their babies that they had done something to, saying, “Help us, help us.” So I started passing out dollar bills to everyone. I soon realized I was in deep trouble as I only had a limited amount of money, but that didn’t stop me.

I was traumatized by this. I was crying to the depth of my heart, because I had known that suffering existed, but I was used to my brand of suffering. I had never seen anything like this. I continued to pass out dollar bills, and finally the taxi driver stopped. He turned around and said, “Lady, don’t do this anymore. What is one dollar going to do for these people? Maybe they’ll eat today. What will you do for them tomorrow? And if you give out one dollar to everyone you see, there are so many people like them in India, you couldn’t help them all.” His saying that shocked me; he was right. Even if I could manage to become wealthy, I couldn’t feed the world. And hunger is only one kind of suffering. How can you help the other kinds of suffering? This kind of ordinary compassion ultimately does no good.

Why are those people suffering in India, and why were you born here in the West where things are relatively comfortable? Why are there animals and why are there humans? Why are there other realms of existence? Why is there so much suffering in one place, and much less suffering in another place? It is because of karma. That is the reason for all of this. Yet there is a cure for negative karma, which is the kind of karma that causes suffering. Ultimately, it is the only cure that will work. That cure is the eradication of hatred, greed and ignorance from the mindstreams of sentient beings. And the root of hatred, greed and ignorance is desire.

This doesn’t mean if we see starving people we shouldn’t feed them, that we should immediately teach them the Dharma. That, of course, won’t work. We have to be skillful. If people are hungry, we feed them first, and then we teach them. But your job now is to do neither. You might not have money, and you might not have the ability to teach just yet. But you can do something. You can practice Dharma in such a way that you, yourself, become free of hatred, greed and ignorance. You can practice so that you can liberate your mind from cyclic existence for one reason and one reason only: that after liberating your mind, you can emanate in a form that will continue to benefit beings. You can liberate your mind from desire to such a degree that you have only one hope, and that hope is that you will be born again and again in a form that will bring this antidote to other suffering beings. That’s what you can do.

Why All the Focus on Suffering?

February 26, 2016February 26, 2016 by Holly

An excerpt from a teaching on Compassion by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

You may ask, “Why do I have to think about suffering? Why is it that the Buddha talks about suffering and nobody else does? Why is it that today’s New Age thinkers are saying, ‘I want to be me. I want to be free,’ and the Buddha is still talking about suffering after thousands and thousands of years?” It is because the Buddha has a teaching that is very logical and very real.

If we want to exit a room, but there is a chair between us and the door, we have a number of choices. We can say that the chair is not there. We can pretend that the chair is not an obstacle to our passing through the room and that it’s not important. Or we can notice that the chair is there and get on with our journey by walking around it. That is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching. The Buddha doesn’t stop at saying, “There is suffering.” The Buddha follows that by saying, “There is a way out of suffering.” And that’s the ticket. You cannot motivate yourself to follow the path out of suffering until you generate the commitment through the realization of suffering. You can’t make yourself walk around the chair to get to the door until you face the fact that the chair is blocking your way. You have to look at the chair.

It isn’t only about walking around a chair so that you can get to the other side of the room, so that you can get out the door. There’s more to it than that. You must understand that your commitment is two-fold. In order to become the deepened practitioner that you must be, to really sink your teeth into the Buddhadharma, you must have compassion for others that is so strong and so extraordinary it will nourish you even when you are dry.

Nourished by Compassion

February 24, 2016 by Holly

A Vow of Love:

Living an extraordinary life

of Compassion

By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Why Compassion?

I would like to talk about a subject that is of the utmost importance to everyone. The subject is compassion.

You may think, “Oh, I know all about compassion. I’ve been a Dharma practitioner for a long time. I’ve had many teachings about compassion.” Or you might think, “I’m a person with a good heart. I try not to do any harm, and I try to help people. Therefore, I know about compassion.” If we hold these ideas in our heart, we have already lost precious opportunities, and will continue to lose more, because the cultivation of compassion in the heart and mind is an ongoing process.

Even if you come into this world with a compassionate ideal you must still cultivate the idea of compassion as though it were the first time you ever thought of it. Due to intense spiritual practice in the past, you may have been born into this lifetime with the idea that you want to be of benefit to sentient beings. Yet still you must cultivate the idea of compassion everyday, as though it were a delicate orchid that could die in an unnatural environment. Until we are supremely enlightened, we have obscurations of our mind that will fight against the idea of compassion.

There is no one on this earth, unless they are supremely realized, who has the purified mind of compassion. If you have been meditating for many years, and think compassion is a baby subject and you’re far beyond that, or if you think because you’ve practiced for a long time, compassion is just one of the beginner studies, and now you’d like to get on to the mystical or the “higher” Dzogchen teachings, then I think you’re making a mistake. I hope that you will relax your mind and come to the point where you commit to studying compassion deeply and profoundly, as though it were your mother. You should have that kind of intimate relationship with the idea of compassion. You should seek to be taught by it. You should seek to be suckled by the mind of compassion. You should seek to be nourished in that way.

The Wedding Cake: Stages of the Path

February 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Yesterday a new student asked the following question, “What is the difference between Mahayana and Vajrayana?” She had studied for six years from books. This question can take years to answer! So I apologize for giving the quick cereal box top version.

There are three main levels of Lord Buddha’s teachings. They can be thought of as a “wedding cake” shape, if you will.

The first Level was the first teaching, Theravadin. It is based square on the Vinaya structure, relates to purity and no-harm. It is the basis for all further turning of the “Wheel of Dharma.”

The next layer of the cake would be Mahayana, or “Great Vehicle” and is associated with the Bodhisattva vow, along with refuge in the Three Jewels, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Now, in the Vinaya, to purify, one gender must not touch opposite sex, handle money, has many laws. In Mahayana, the same laws apply but are modified by the Bodhisattva vow. In that vow one cultivates Bodhicitta, compassion. So a monk could theoretically touch a woman to give aid, medicine, food, comfort, support. And as Bodhisattvas in training, vow to liberate and care for all sentient beings. Through ordinary and ultimate kindness. In Mahayana we dedicate all our merit, practice, efforts to all beings, thinking of them as our own kind mothers in all lives. And we help all we can.

Vajrayana is like the top level if the wedding cake. It is a very profound and mystical level. And within that there are preliminary, generation stage, and lastly completion stage practice. Preliminary is Ngundro, generation is of the three Roots of practice: Lama, yidam, and khandro with protectors. The completion stages are Tsa-lung, Togyal and Trek Chod. These are the practices that can deliver Liberation in one lifetime.

Now here is the thing. These wedding cake layers cannot be separated, or the whole thing falls down. Theravadin, Mahayana and Vajrayana are totally and completely inseparable. If not the case, there is no stability in the practice. One sustains the other and is it’s very foundation! It’s support. So the Vinaya supports and gives rise to, through purification, the Mahayana Bodhisattva level, with additional vows. The top layer is totally depending on the other layers and they cannot be separated. Vajrayana requires the practice of giving rise to Bodhicitta because the yidams, the Three Roots, are the very display of Bodhicitta in the world! They are not ordinary and come from the play, the dance of the Buddha nature in phenomena. Each and every yidam or meditational deity is not separate from Bodhicitta, never could be, or it could not be a display of the Buddha.

We must learn to accept the feast of the whole cake as it is. We cannot pick the easy part, the one we like best to feel smart. We cannot change the cake. We can change the flavor, the color, to suit our culture, but not the layer cake!

And what is at the top? The union, Yab/Yum. Wisdom and compassion; emptiness and method. Or empty primordial nature couples with display/samaya in that union, we are liberated! EH MA HO!

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG!

Compassion in Action: Bodhicitta in Real Life

February 21, 2016 by Holly

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

Everything that you do should have meaning. It’s important that your life be understood as a vehicle for practice. It’s the only thing that is meaningful: to make this life, which is so rich in opportunity, a vehicle by which you can come to benefit beings. This is the development of aspirational Bodhicitta. Every time you do something good, use that opportunity to dedicate it to the liberation of all beings. If you pat a little child on the head and it makes them smile, that’s a good thing. So you must think, “I dedicate the virtue of this action to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings.” If you give money to somebody, pray, “I dedicate the virtue of this act to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings.” You should continue like that in everything that you do. Make up your own prayer. You don’t have to use mine. Dedicate everything that you do so that it might go on, and grow, and be of use to benefit beings. Wean yourself from empty activity, activity that is useless and meaningless. Wean yourself from the need for ‘feel-good’ junk. Learn how to live a life in which your only concern is to liberate beings from the causes of suffering, because doing this is the only thing you can really feel good about. You aspire constantly through these prayers. You really train yourself to do this, and it should never stop.

After you are stable on the path of aspirational compassion, you have to think about concrete or practical compassion. You don’t forget aspirational compassion, saying, “Oh, I did that for a little while when I was a younger practitioner.” You should never stop. Never. I will never stop, and you should never stop. That’s not baby stuff. That’s the real stuff. Then you expand this to include practical compassion.

First you have to decide that the Buddha was right. You look at the Buddha’s teachings and you say, “If he’s right, then I have to think of some practical way to eliminate hatred, greed and ignorance from the world and from the mindstreams of myself and all sentient beings.”

Based on that you begin, and your practice should be deep and true. If you choose to be a Buddhist, the path is laid out, and the path is secure. It goes all the way to supreme realization. If you choose not to be a Buddhist, you still have to find a way to live a life of practical compassion, based on the goal of rooting hatred, greed and ignorance out of the mindstreams of yourself and all sentient beings. You should think that reciting many prayers on a regular basis for others could be of use. You should think activities that cause you to realize the emptiness of self-nature and therefore eliminate desire from your own mindstream would be of benefit. And that, finally, free of desire, when you are truly awake, as the Buddha said, you can go on to benefit others. You should be determined to liberate your own mind, and you should pray every day that you will return in whatever form necessary in order to liberate the minds of all sentient beings.