Teachings | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Rejoicing

November 6, 2015 by Holly

[Adapted from an oral commentary given by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche in conjunction with a ceremony wherein he bestowed the bodhisattva vow upon a gathering of disciples at Namdroling in Bozeman, Montana, November 1999. —Ed.]

Consider all ordinary virtue, which is virtue accumulated by ordinary individuals, and all stainless virtue, which is virtue accumulated by buddhas and bodhisattvas. Ordinary virtue, also called tainted virtue, is virtue accumulated with [the stain of] passions. Consider all virtue and constantly rejoice. For instance, if you see that someone has made an offering of a hundred butter lamps, you may think, “How beautiful those butter lamps are! What a wonderful offering!” Perhaps you too may hope to make such an offering. Rather than be jealous that someone else has made the offering, rejoice in the virtue and merit of the person who presented it, and you too will receive the same results of that merit and virtue. Rejoicing is the antidote for having jealousy, especially having jealousy toward others and the virtue they are able to accumulate.

From “THE PATH of the Bodhisattva: A Collection of the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva and Related Prayers” with a commentary by Kyabje Pema Norbu Rinpoche on the Prayer for Excellent Conduct

Compiled under the direction of Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche Vimala Publishing 2008

Wisdom Merit

November 5, 2015 by Holly

General offerings please the senses. Imagine those offerings to be vast and inconceivable. However, if you were to [attempt to] compare the outer offerings with a single particle of the realms of buddhas and the quality of offerings made in the minds of enlightened ones, [you would find that comparison] to be beyond the scope of your imagination. That is why it is so important while presenting offerings to try to connect with the ultimate nature of offering, which is mental and not just material. Material offerings you make are supports for your mental or imagined offerings, which should be as inconceivably vast and wondrous as you are capable of manifesting. The actual offerings you use as a support should also be the best substances you are able to offer. At least they must not be old, dirty, or leftover substances; they must be suitable supports for the basis of virtue. The pure material offerings you make will be the support for the continual manifestation of inexhaustible offerings that will remain until samsara is emptied.

There is a well-known story of an accomplished practitioner named Jowo Ben. One day Jowo Ben made a very beautiful, clean, and pure offering on his altar. As he sat and looked at his offering, he thought, “What is it that makes this offering I’ve made here today excellent?” Then he remembered his sponsor was coming to visit that day, and he realized he had made the beautiful offering in order to impress his sponsor. He jumped up, picked up a handful of dirt, and threw it on the altar, saying he should give up all attachment and fixation on worldly concerns. Other lamas, on hearing what Jowo Ben had done, proclaimed his offering of throwing dirt on his altar to have been the purest of offerings, because Jowo Ben had finally cleared his mind of attachment and aversion.

When offerings are made, they are rendered pure and excellent by a mind free from attachment and aversion to the ordinary, material aspect of the offerings—and they must be made with a mind that is also free from avarice. Don’t think you can throw dirt on your altar and think that will benefit you. You must adjust your mind. If your mind is free from attachment or fixation and aversion, then whatever you do will be right. If your mind is not adjusted and your intentions are impure, then no matter how beautiful and magnificent the offering is, it will be insignificant. If you present all offerings, whether abundant or meager, with fervent devotion from the core of your heart, that will produce profoundly amazing results.

In order to be free from the suffering of existence, the mind must be free from dualistic fixation. In freedom from duality, everything is inherently pure. Just imagine all the wonderful offerings that are made that are free from duality: pure water possessing the eight qualities, garlands of flowers, incense, light, superior perfume, celestial food, musical instruments, fine garments, beautiful umbrellas, canopies, victory banners, the sun, the moon—the finest and best of everything is offered. Consider those as offerings arranged in a magnificent array equal in size to Mt. Meru. Furthermore, know that those offerings are pure and free from duality. For example, if you were to pick a flower and think, “Oh, this is such a beautiful flower; I want to offer it,” but then you also think, “My flower is more beautiful than the others,” and you offer it with that dualistic thought, then that offering would be defiled by your dualistic fixation. On the other hand, if you focus on the pure nature of the offerings and present them with pure devotion, you will make offerings that are pure or free from dualistic fixation. Recite the verses of the branch for offering, and make the most excellent, immeasurable offering you are capable of with the enlightened attitude [bodhicitta], faith, and pure devotion.

It is important to understand that presenting offerings is the antidote for [having] desire. Offerings are not made to the Three Jewels because they are considered to be poverty-stricken and in need of receiving from their disciples; offerings are made to accumulate merit. By making offerings with actual material substances, we accumulate ordinary conceptual merit; by using the mind to manifest immeasurable offerings, we accumulate nonconceptual wisdom merit.

Compiled under the direction of Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche Vimala Publishing 2008

Recipe for Results

October 5, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

As long as the idea of self exists, self will experience other with either attraction, or repulsion. There is no other way to experience other. Whether it’s subtle or not, even if you are a proponent of New Age philosophy, and are supposed to love everybody and have unconditional positive regard towards others, if you could really examine your mind with determination, courage, innocence and willingness, you would discover that you are either attracted to or repulsed by everything you see, no matter how you gloss it over. No matter what you say, the karma is still forming. That is how the consequences of one’s life actually manifest: through that constant inter-reactive relationship, through that interplay, through attraction and repulsion, through desire. That’s how it’s possible for you to be born. That’s how it’s possible for you to do things you feel uncontrollably forced to do.

Even if we are so convinced that we know all of these teachings, don’t we still get into trouble? Don’t we find that we react to circumstances in a way that is not skillful? Don’t we, in fact, on an on-going basis make everything worse? I mean, it’s true, if we are honest with ourselves. Every time we react, we make things worse. Even when we can’t see that we’ve made things worse, I’m telling you this is the truth: we are constantly compounding the karma of our own minds. Even if in retrospect, we could see that we should have been loving, and we should have been kind and good, blah, blah, blah, blah, still, we are compulsive about it. We are what we are. We are ‘feeling junkies.’ We are hooked on sensual experience. And we react to it.

What then is the answer? If all of this is true, and desire is the foundation of all suffering, then what if the Buddha is right? What if all of suffering comes from the belief in self-nature? Will it do to pacify our minds with positive thinking? Will it do to walk around with the idea or the New Age philosophy saying, “Oh, I’m already enlightened because I understand I am the creator, or one.” I’d have to say you’re talking about two selves there. You’re talking about ‘creator’ and ‘I,’ and so long as there is distinction, so long as there is the belief in self-nature, you still have desire. You still have attraction and repulsion. You still have hope and fear. You haven’t gone yet into a deep and profound understanding of the emptiness of self-nature. Of course, we have to do that through meditation. There is no ordinary language or ordinary experience that will teach us that profound understanding.

The best thing to do, actually, is to find a qualified teacher who can begin to help you, not only in terms of giving you the words – the verbal teachings – but also some kind of virtuous or valuable energy transmission. On the Vajrayana path, that is done through the transmission of the lineage. The teachings on the nature of emptiness, the teachings on the generation-stage practices, all of the different teachings that we receive here, are passed down through a lineage. That lineage originates in the mind of enlightenment, in the primordial state. It then is transmitted to us. It doesn’t stop there. The minute we receive an empowerment, we’re not going to instantly become enlightened. I wish it were that easy, but it is not. At that point, we are qualified to practice, and it is through the practice and our meditation – with the help of the transmission of the lineage – that we will achieve results.

About Self

October 4, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

A teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love Series

What is the root cause that goes underneath and beyond the thinking and reckoning of the human mind? What is so ancient that it has existed for time out of mind, even before you could think? What is so old that you were born with the certainty you too will die? In order to uncover these mysteries, you need to examine the idea of suffering. Once you can answer these questions, you are free to explore the path of enlightenment. According to the Buddha’s teaching, the real cause for suffering is the belief in, and clinging to, self-nature as being inherently real. And here is a little bit that is so embarrassingly superficial, you could call it the Kellogg’s cereal box-top version of the nature of mind. Anyway, having made my apology and legal disclaimers, I will continue!

For the very idea of self to arise there has to be a division in which there appears to be a separation between self and other. In other words, the mind arises in such a way that it becomes divided at that time. In order for that division to exist in any form, even the most subtle form, that which considers itself to be self, with the impetus to divide, must begin to gather data around itself. In order to be a self, self has to be distinguishable from other. Different discriminating thoughts begin to form, and self begins to clothe itself.

Once self begins to clothe itself, a tension arises. There is a need to maintain self in order to distinguish self from other, because if at any moment self drops the conceptualizations that surround it, self becomes indistinguishable from other, and there is only suchness. Therefore, the idea of survival becomes important. With survival comes the idea of clinging. With clinging, comes desire. If there is self, then, there is other, and there must be cause and effect. It is at this level that cause and effect arises. In the natural state, the uncontrived state, there is no cause and effect.

The moment there is the consideration of self-nature, the reality of cause and effect, or karma begins immediately to appear in the most profound way. From that point on, karma is very, very real. We should not kid ourselves, thinking that we can talk our way out of cause and effect. It is real. Self then, in order to become distinguishable from other, must have a kind of inter-reactive relationship. In order to maintain the idea of self, there has to be the distinction of self. There has to be an idea to formulate self more and more firmly, to form ideas around self. The only way to do that is to react for or against other. Self has to have something to bounce off of. That is the way the idea of self is formed.

A State of Recognition, Not Neurosis

September 12, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

As human beings, some of the greatest downfalls and difficulties are the constant messages and self-imposed kinds of structures or ideas regarding how we should be and shouldn’t be. When we fail to come up to these standards and these ideals, the guilt that we have is so profound that it stops us dead in our tracks and we feel worthless and a whole, neurotic scenario begins about worthlessness. It is absolutely the opposite from the kind of practice that we want to do. We may think that as spiritual people we should feel like nothing, be humble. Try to understand it a little differently.

If you’re walking around superimposing an idea on yourself and you’re feeling worthless and guilty and like nothing, that’s not really spiritual. One is supposed to be in a state of Recognition, not in a state of neurosis. So this guilt, which results from having all these ideas of how we ‘should be’ in this materialistic society, and the feeling that we are criminal if we don’t measure up to these ideas, is very much all-pervasive. Witness how it is as a mother; when you have small children. You know what it’s like when you develop that cord between yourself and your child where they become little satellites. They’re out there, but there’s this little cord, this connection, between the mother and the child so that if the child is no longer in your sight, as a mother, you react to that. That pulls the cord. There is a big feeling of, “Oh, I have got to take care of my child, and I have to make sure my child is safe. I have to supervise my child.” If for one moment we respond differently to it or perhaps not quickly enough, or if there’s a moment of confusion, we immediately think of ourselves as criminals, and we immediately think the first thing to do is hide that. Then we carry around this block of guilt and criminal feelings that make us act out in certain ways that are unfortunate.

Training the mind to constantly be in a state of offering, to constantly be in a state of more and more increasing Recognition is a way to circumvent the criminalizing-guilt neuroses. To be able to gain a deeper recognition of the nature of phenomena, of what is sacred and what is ordinary, what is meaningful and should be gathered and what should be abandoned; to gain a better recognition of the faults of cyclic existence, and be able to distinguish between a diamond and a piece of glass — to train oneself in that way moves us out of that realm of being ego in the center of our own mandala, constantly being good or bad, blaming, judging, being hopeful or fearful — that constant neurotic scenario that ultimately, when you really look at it, is what we call ‘us.’ In training the mind to a deeper Recognition as an extension to one’s practice, and to practice constantly as we move around, is an antidote that is extremely powerful.

In terms of thinking about how our minds work, did you ever try to just sit down and just still the mind, just kind of relax and go blank? Did you ever try to do that? To try to get your mind to do that is like screaming at a monkey in a cage to stop jumping up and down. What do you think is going to happen? The monkey is going to go even crazier. So in practicing in the way that I’ve described, constantly offering and not clinging, (therefore applying the antidote to clinging), constantly moving deeper and deeper into a state of better Recognition rather than deeper and deeper into ego-clinging, self-cherishing and neurosis, what happens is that it actually calms the mind. It’s like it begins to apply the remedy or the medicine that makes our mind change from something that is inflamed to something that is much more relaxed so that our minds actually begin to change. That happens in our sit-down practice, and that also happens in our mindfulness as we walk around.

Practice With Every Breath

September 4, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

As practitioners we think, “Oh, I love all this stuff you’re telling me and it’s all very nice and everything, but what I’d really like is a nature of mind teaching. What I’d really like is some Dzogchen! Don’t start me with the basics. Give me that high stuff.” We think that, and then, sadly, pitifully, really, what happens is that we get this incredible Dzogchen teaching about the nature of mind, and it becomes to us something else that we, I, the ego, have collected. Something as precious as a view of the nature of our Buddhahood, of the nature of our mind becomes just another thing that we hold; that I, the ego, holds. It becomes something I have, and it makes me even greater because I have those teachings, and you don’t.

If we allow ourselves to practice in that way, by simply wanting that teaching and not requiring the recognition, not making ourselves go through the steps, we are dishonoring the Dharma. Instead of collecting great teachings from great teachers, it would behoove us to look in the mirror, to observe our own phenomena. In order to discriminate between what is extraordinary and what is ordinary, what is enlightened activity and what is samsaric activity. In order to develop this mindfulness, we have to learn to discriminate the world of phenomena. We have to learn to discriminate appearances. That never happens magically.

The terrible and painful mistake that we make is to think that eventually if we do our practice there’s going to be an experience. We think that one day we’ll do our practice, and suddenly our aura will get big, or we’ll have some kind of AHA! “There it is! Enlightenment!” and we’ll be magically changed. We even fantasize about this. You know that you do. You fantasize about other people seeing how enlightened you are. You fantasize about how honored you will be when they “get” where you’re coming from. You’re not alone, don’t worry.

This kind of idea is completely the opposite of the kind of discrimination regarding the world of appearances. In waiting for enlightenment to come to us, we’re actually practicing duality. In waiting for enlightenment to come to us, in waiting for that moment when the hallelujah chorus starts, we are actually saying, “I, ego, I am waiting for that to come to me.” So in that state it will never happen. In that state there is no such event. There simply cannot be because there is no discrimination and no mindfulness — no mindfulness of the world of appearances. In order to engage in giving rise to recognition of the empty nature of phenomena, you have to work at it. To do the practice and just wait for this recognition is inappropriate. It should be practiced with every breath. It should be practiced with every moment of our lives, and not just our spare moments.

Practicing Recognition

September 3, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

As a teacher, sometimes I’ve had the opportunity to bring a student to task, to say, “Look, you’re all spaced out. You’re working hard, you’re going through the motions, but you’re not practicing. There’s no inner practice happening here.” The first thing that the student will do is get defensive, and the reason why they’ll get defensive is because they’re dancing as fast as they can. A student will look at me and say, “Well, what the hell do you want? I’m dancing as fast as I can. In the way that I understand, I’m working real hard.” I won’t argue that with you, not for a minute. You’re right. You’re dancing as fast as you can; you’re working really hard; but the difference is you are not practicing recognition. Even if you spend two hours a day practicing and then you leave it to go live the rest of your life, that is still a state of non-recognition, and you are not truly practicing.

What is required here is a deeper understanding, a deeper awareness, and a more profound grasp of the realities that we are facing. Once again, our habitual pattern is to say, “Oh, this person is doing this and that person is doing that and that makes this person like this and that person like that.” but the way to practice is to understand that these things we see are the all-pervasive faults of cyclic existence; this person that you’re seeing is like a bee in a jar, just hitting the glass, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. Does the bee know what’s going on? The bee is trying to fly. The bee is trying to do what bees know how to do, but being in a glass jar, like samsara, all it can do is bash its head against the glass. There’s no way for that bee to figure its way out. That is the condition of samsaric beings, and awakening to that recognition is really the only way that we can give rise to the bodhicitta, give rise to compassion. Otherwise we are simply acting compassionate, which means, “I am the star of the show.” We are still in that deeply deluded state. We’re just acting differently, but acting is still acting.

Paying Homage

September 2, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Seven Limb Puja: Viewing the Guru by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

Since we find that we are, in fact, in the presence of the primordial Guru at every single moment, what is the posture that we should take? You should refer to the practice called the Seven Limb Puja. The Seven Limb Puja appears in many different practices in slightly different variations, but it has certain common denominators, and these should be studied and looked at as a guide of how one should practice now that one is coming to understand that the eyes of the Guru are our eyes; that the heart of the Guru is our heart; that in our nature, that is the nature. That is the nature, and we are indistinguishable in our nature from that.

Practicing in that way we should think like this. First of all, in the face of the Guru, knowing that the face of the Guru is always with us, we should practice paying homage constantly. Constantly paying homage to the Guru, this will antidote our pride, our ego, that habit that says, “Oh, well, look at that! The Guru has faults. He or she must be human.” And, of course, that is the statement that keeps you from practicing pure devotion and pure surrender, and the same statement that prevents you from achieving realization. So this is the antidote that helps you to give rise to that spiritual posture that makes it possible for you recognize the nature of the Guruas the absolute non-dual display of emptiness and luminosity; and to give rise to profound devotion at last, rather than the superficial stuff that we’ve been passing out as devotion.

We practice paying homage. We pay homage to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas; the Lamas are in that number. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are all represented in the Lama. We should think that we pay homage to the Buddhas because they have crossed the ocean of suffering. Therefore, they are capable of captaining us across the ocean of suffering. So we pay homage with that kind of regard, as though we needed to cross an ocean of suffering and the trip is scary and long and hazardous and difficult and so a qualified captain is required. Otherwise, we can’t make it. So that is the kind of recognition of the superior quality of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, of the Lama. Recognize every moment, this is a vajra command, that when we think of ourselves in our samsaric state and then we think of the Guru, we should think that the Guru is like a precious diamond, beyond compare, because the Guru is capable of helping us cross the ocean of suffering. We cannot do that ourselves. That will antidote the kind of pride that we have when we try to put ourselves above everything, in subtle or gross ways, whatever it happens to be.

The Two Eyes of Your Practice

September 1, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

Guru Rinpoche himself said, “I will appear as your Root Guru,” and that appearance is to be recognized. It demands to be recognized. One of the reasons why I harp so much on reciting the Seven line Prayer is because the Seven line Prayer is a prayer, the blessing of which creates the capability of seeing the Guru in all things, and of following the Guru and of practicing in such a way as to discriminate that absolute nature. The nature of that prayer is to begin to awaken our inner psychic channels and to bless our psychic channels and winds and fluids in such a way that everything within us that is the Buddhanature begins to awaken. That’s the power of that prayer, and it is done through the practice of recognizing and discriminating what is extraordinary. In order to provide for that kind of recognition, we have to put a lot more effort into that aspect of our practice than we have up until now.

Maybe I am giving you the impression that it’s all about Guru Rinpoche. For me it is, but maybe that’s because I’m lucky enough to have had enough teachings to have an understanding of Guru Rinpoche’s nature. When we talk about the nature of the Guru, we are talking about the perfect mating of wisdom and compassion, of emptiness and appearance. When you see the image of Guru Rinpoche, you always see that staff crooked in his arm, and that is the symbol of his consort. It indicates that the Lama is never separate from his consort, and the meaning of that is the non-duality and union of emptiness and appearance, of wisdom and compassion, or bodhicitta. That is the meaning of that union of Lama and consort. So Guru Rinpoche is always seen that way. We are to understand from that, then, that His nature is the perfect union of wisdom and bodhicitta, of the view of emptiness and the understanding of the display of appearances. That is Guru Rinpoche’s nature.

That being the case, we have to find a way to not only recognize the physical form of the Guru, the picture that looks like Guru Rinpoche or the picture that looks like your teacher. We really have to get past that and go into a deeper sense of trying to awaken and potentiate our own meditation, our own understanding, of the nature of emptiness and of the nature of appearances. We have to begin to potentiate and practice and meditate in such a way that we see wisdom and compassion as being like the two eyes of our practice.

Click here for a teaching on the Seven Line Prayer and audio files of Jetsunma chanting the Seven Line Prayer.

The Silent Chant

August 31, 2015 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995

We are talking about the Lama as being our own precious nature. Someday when we die and all the elements fall away, what will arise naturally is the natural state, free of contrivance. And they say for the practitioner there is realization, simply because, the practitioner that has meditated properly will recognize that natural uncontrived state as the very primordial mother from which they have sprung. And like a child who has been separated from his mother for a while runs to the mother with happiness and joy, and practically rips open his heart, and sits on the mother’s lap and doesn’t wish to separate from the mother at all — like that, if we are meditators, we will run to that nature. We will recognize with fervent regard, but so much more than that. I don’t even have the words.

Here in our lives, due to the force of our fortunate meritorious karma that we have accumulated in the past, when here in this life, that same uncontrived nature, that same pristine quality appears in samsara to speak to us, to see us with its eyes, to hold our hand, to teach us how to practice, and how to recognize in our practice, we’re drunk, light in the head, stupid. We can’t care, we can’t get it together. Our minds are just weak that way. And yet, even with all of that, even with all of our terrible practice, we are still hoping that when we die and those elements that make up our samsaric existence begin to disintegrate and fall away that somehow, magically, we will recognize the primordial wisdom nature. Boy, are you thinking like Peter Pan! That’s what I call magical thinking. The only way it is going to happen is if we can begin to recognize that nature now. And the only proper way to recognize the nature of the Guru is to simultaneously recognize our own nature as well, and to know that they are indistinguishable.

It is not possible for us to look at the Guru and find fault, because that would mean that we are acting with samsaric intention, with samsaric mind, and the result is samsara. There is no practice there. That is nothing. You do that all the time. You do that every moment. That’s not practice. But if we think and practice in the way that I’ve just discussed with you, then instead, when we see the Guru we see literally the face of salvation. We see literally: “I am that. That I am.” Even though, of course you can’t say “I.” “I” separates us, but in the beginning, we have the intention of understanding: that is the nature that is my nature also.

And so inside — instead of judgment, hatred, greed, ignorance, jealousy, pride — there is a soundless chant that says, “Holy holy holy.” and that is the practice.