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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “How Buddhists Think”

The fourth “Noble Truth” taught by the Buddha was “The Eight-fold Path.” In our Mahayana tradition, this is condensed into “Knowledge” and “Wisdom.” Knowledge is not facts we can know and collect. Rather, it is the awareness of all cause-and-effect relationships and their function as the building blocks of cyclic existence, or samsara.

The Buddha had omniscience. When looking at a sentient being, he could see all the cause-and-effect relationships that brought that being to the present moment. If he were here now looking at you, he could discern all the generosity, all the accumulated virtuous actions that make it possible for you to hear these teachings. He could also see all the obstacles that have prevented you from being a Buddha. He would have a panoramic view of all your accumulated non-virtue and egocentric fixation, knowing not only the facts of your life, but also understanding how the causes and effects were interdependently related. This is knowledge in the Buddha’s view, and it is the only really valuable knowledge.

The Buddha also had complete wisdom. Contrary to ordinary understanding, this wisdom is not related to any accumulation of facts. It is the natural awakened state, the awareness of the primordial empty Nature. It is the awareness of emptiness, the understanding of “Suchness.”

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

I remember I went through a process quite naturally even before I found Buddhism. I was sitting in front of a stream meditating, and I meditated very deeply on my essential nature—this nature that is without discrimination, beginningless and yet completely fulfilled, both empty and full, beyond any kind of discrimination whatsoever. I meditated very deeply on that. Then I found that I couldn’t tell where I ended and where the water began. It was almost a psychological “Ah ha!” but so much deeper, like “I am that also.” Well, you can’t even call it “I.” It’s suchness, and it’s everywhere. Then I started expanding that to other living things—people and bugs and any phenomenal reality that appears external. I knew the nature that I am is just as easily that. I knew blacks and whites are the same, that my culture and your culture are the same, that this and that are the same.

Memorizing that kind of understanding is a deadening experience, because something inside of you is hidden and unchanged and unmoved, and something outside of you has been laid on top of it—bash-to-fit, paint-to-match religion. That’s what that is.

We do a lot of that with religion. I don’t believe it’s the fault of religion. I think if you listen to the original teachers of almost any religion, it’s good stuff. We are the ones who do not know how to practice religion. If we understand the Buddha’s teaching, which is such a living, dynamic, eternal, present thing, it is as alive in this world today as it was when it was first brought into this world. But if we practice it today, not with the energy of recognition of intimate association, not happening in this present moment, but happening 2,500 years ago, it’s not going to work. It has to be living for you today. It has to be alive for you today. Otherwise you’ll say, “That religion was brought into the world 2,500 years ago. Things are different now.” Well, yes, so? Liberation is not different now. The faults of cyclic existence are not different now. Nothing that matters is different now. All the rules still apply. It’s just that we don’t understand them on a deep level, because we haven’t invested in feeling and knowing in intimate association with these truths. We are simply playing church.

How to understand that your faith is alive? Try being alive in your faith. The ball’s in your court, and you’re not going to get away from that. You cannot change the religion and think that it’s going to suit your needs, because then you’re doing something else entirely. You’ve already decided what it’s going to look like and how you’re going to act. You’re on a track that is unbendable, unmovable, unadaptable, and you’re going to bend things around you to fit. You cannot do that to the world any more than you can do that to yourself. Bash-to-fit and paint-to-match doesn’t work.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved

 

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

It is difficult when we love one person especially. Might as well poison yourself, grief comes. Love all beings equally, you will never be alone. There is nothing outside your own heart that will make you truly happy. Without training our hearts to love altruistically we will never recognize love. The door of heart opens from within.

Why do I say this? Because I love you. You, you.

Why do people doubt the motivation and truth of love? Because they cannot feel it. They cannot imagine it. To some, love is the enemy; the proof that all sentient beings are equal. One ego is nothing.

In truth without altruistic love we are not truly alive. This is the mark of a human life! Our capacity. Oh, Father Sun, Sister Moon kindly bless us and our Mama Earth at this time of change, deciding and endurance. Prayer needed.

May wind come as a caress. May rain gently cleanse and nurture. May the sun show his wisdom. May all sentient beings be happy.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying a Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

What is the missing link? What causes us to shunt ourselves off in that direction and create a scenario whereby we either don’t relate deeply to our path or it cannot nourish us, or we find ourselves feeling dead inside? How does that happen? One of the things that you have to remember—and it’s really important to think about—is that it is more and more prevalent in modern society to not see some of the natural currents of life. This is particularly true in our country with our level of technology and all the civilizing factors that have come together to make us what we are.

For instance, here we are so technologically advanced and removed from certain natural occurrences that we rarely have the opportunity to see the beginning of life carried all the way through to the end of life. Unless we ourselves have had a baby and daddy went into the birth-giving room and mommy had a mirror—unless we do that—birth to us is a mystery. We do not see what birth looks like. We have pictures of it. We may have seen a movie, but the direct sensual experience of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling, we have not experienced. Even those of us who are parents are somehow absent from this experience because many people do not have a real direct experience of their own birth-giving. They go to sleep during it or they’re drugged or something like that.

Neither do we have an experience of dying. When we die, we will have that experience; but until then, it’s hidden from us. We have no way to prepare ourselves for the reality of death in our society. We have no way to understand what is gained and what is lost during a life. Watching someone die is an interesting experience because you can see that everything material is left behind. You have a sense, once that consciousness has left the body, has moved on, that there is a really distinct difference between what the body is like at the door of death—even if it was unconscious—and what it’s like after consciousness has actually left. It’s quite different. Any of us who have seen loved ones immediately after their death will know this. You know that there is nothing in there, unless you’re completely out to lunch, which I also have seen! But you can see that something essential has left and that everything material has been left behind. It’s such an eye-opener, particularly if the person who has died is not very old. Perhaps they were still at the point in their life where they took a great deal of pride in their body or thought of themselves as being very vital. You might remember different things about the person. You might remember that the person didn’t like their figure, felt that they were too fat. Maybe you know that during the person’s life they obsessed about this. They felt really bad about being fat and they tried to do things about it without success. Then you see that person die. When the consciousness leaves, you realize that everything they struggled with doesn’t matter. Whether that body was fat or skinny, it didn’t go with them.

An understanding of how superficial such a struggle is occurs when you naturally see the rhythms of life and death. Do you see what I’m saying? There is a natural understanding that no one else can teach you. You have to see it yourself.

To understand what we are, it’s also good to see a number of babies being born. Babies are different when they are born. Hospital nurses who care for babies right after they’re born can tell you this for sure. Babies are not blank slates. Some babies are very aggressive and very active, and you can tell that they have tiny, little, confrontational personalities already. They’re just that way. And then other babies are just wide-eyed and open. They’re like little jelly fish. My two sons have always been polar opposites—from the first moment they were born. A mother who has had more than one child can tell you that’s how it is.

Many of us are completely separated from these natural events, yet they teach us very profound things about how to approach spirituality. Even the story about the Buddha indicates this. At first the Buddha was prevented by his father from seeing the suffering of old age, sickness and death. After having witnessed these sufferings, he found the strength to go on in his path because of compassion, because of the deeply felt recognition that occurred to him on some subtle level. That’s a metaphor for the problem of our society. What a display Lord Buddha gave us when he showed us that, because on several different levels we are prevented from seeing suffering by our society.

We take dead bodies away and put make-up on them. (Can you believe that? I want all my make-up on my body before I die. I do not want someone to put it on after I’m dead. All of you can remember this? That is not the time for a face lift.) On an internal level, because of these subtle messages that we get, we do not come in contact easily with any real internal processes. We avoid them in the same way we are taught to avoid them externally. We’re told, “Don’t go there, it’s not safe. Just don’t go there!”

We are told not to approach things in a really intimate way. Now in the story about Lord Buddha’s life, when he saw the suffering, it bothered him, hurt him, upset him, scared him and shocked him, and he had to—oh my—go through transformation, that “T” word that scares us so much. Transformation is related to change, the other word that really scares us. So, yes, he had to go through all of that, but what was the result? The result was he became deeply empowered and was able to make some very difficult choices.

He decided not to live an ordinary life in which he was extremely happy. He was a prince with all the blessings. He loved his family. He had a beautiful and devoted wife, and they were very close, very intimate. He had a beautiful newborn child and was not a distant or absent or unconnected parent. He loved his greater family as well, his father and mother—the king and queen. But for the first time he saw the suffering of old age, sickness and death, and it moved him to his core and enabled him to make choices that are very difficult. He came to the point of deep knowing within himself, that if he wanted to really love his wife and his baby, he had to find the way to liberation for their sake. The phrase “for their sake” became real to him. It’s not real to us.

 

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Marrying a Spiritual Life with Western Culture”

How does our culture affect our sense of personal practice, our sense of taking refuge? How does it connect with all of that? We find ourselves in a difficult situation. We are really limited, and we can’t see where the limitation is coming from. We don’t know how deep we can quest or search, and how profoundly we can make the connection between the external environment, between the ordinary view, and our deepest, most intimate spiritual nature. We feel somewhat limited in knowing how we can make that connection.

Let’s look again at some very important factors. Think of how we follow religion in our country. For the most part, here in the West, we believe religion is one of the many things that you should have in order to live a moral life. It’s part of the palette of a moral life, but it may not be the basis of a moral life. This is kind of interesting, isn’t it? Many of the people who are deeply religious, according to our society’s capacity, have adapted their religion from their upbringing. Somehow they got the message that in order to be part of that big, successful, materialistic picture you have to maintain a certain status quo concerning moral, ethical and spiritual issues. It isn’t your heart. No, you wouldn’t want that, because that’s that flaky stuff. It’s really hard to have all that you’re supposed to have if this religious thing is so in your heart that it is your heart, that it speaks to you every minute, that all of your decisions are based on what you know to be true spiritually. There’s not much chance that you’re going to be the big accumulator your parents hoped you would be if you go like that. So religion is tamed. It becomes insipid. It becomes a thing that we do as part of the whole picture of who we are, but it does not really nourish us in the way that we want it to. And we end up blaming the religion or the minister or the teacher or the prayers or something. In America, our religious spiritual picture is not empowered. It is not deepened, not in the way that would set us on fire. I don’t mean this in a fanatical way. I mean this in a way where we are never very far from what feels like spiritual truth, from what we know to be good, from what we know to be deep and meaningful. It is very difficult for us to maintain that kind of spirituality in this culture.

We are told, for instance, that in order to be a good person you have to do a certain amount of church-going. That church-going idea is deadly. It’s really the antithesis of a spiritual path. And I find that here as well. Our Sangha also plays church. Whenever I see one of us do church-going, I don’t know what to do. That church-going thing drives me nuts! When we come here, on the proper days—Sunday, during retreats and maybe for a midweek class—we think, “Well I’m here. It’s Sunday and I’m fulfilling my spiritual obligation.” We have that church expression: We look all spiritual and fulfilled and we say the nice things. Going to church in that way is deadening and disempowering. It’s a very destructive way to approach our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is something that requires no church. It requires no temple. It is an ongoing, internal, profound experience to which we have to marry. We shouldn’t marry simply because we’ve come of age, which many of us do, but because we are truly wed in our hearts and our minds with a deeper kind of friendship and understanding regarding our spiritual path than we’ve ever known before.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved

 

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche on Mediation, reprinted here with permission from Palyul Ling International:

The Bodhicitta we can generate right now, however vast, is beneficial. In the future, when one attains Enlightenment, according to the vastness of that Bodhicitta, that many sentient beings can benefit and liberate themselves from the sufferings of Samsara. Right now we cannot really perceive all that fruition, but if we continue to practice, then in the future we will realize it as a direct perception.
Buddha Amitabha, for example, ultimately achieved that kind of result from his generation of Bodhicitta and his accumulation over many countless years of practices of commitments and aspiration prayers. So even as the Amitabha Buddha achieved Enlightenment over a long time based on aspiration prayers and the commitment to benefit all sentient beings, so we as practitioners must constantly apply the practice of the six perfections to benefit all other beings.

The Buddha Amitabha did not just do these aspiration prayers once or twice, or make this kind of commitment just one or two times. It was over many aeons that he practiced these aspirations and commitments, such that whoever hears the Amitabha’s name and does supplication prayers to Amitabha, they will instantly be born in his pure land. If one has single-pointed devotion to Amitabha Buddha and one carries through all of these supplication prayers, then even oneself as an ordinary person with an afflicted mind can be reborn in his pure land. It is all because of Amitabha Buddha’s special aspiration prayers. So although there are countless Buddhafields, the Amitabha Buddha’s pure land is very special because of these reasons.

We all could also achieve that kind of completion when we attain Enlightenment if we continue on the path and carry through our practices, generating Bodhicitta in as vast a way as possible. So we should not lose courage, thinking, “Oh, I cannot do it. I could never attain that kind of Enlightenment.” It is not good to lose one’s courage like that. Think instead that all these past Enlightened Beings, all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, they also attained Enlightenment and ultimate realization by beginning the same as us, standard beings, and if they could attain Enlightenment, we can also attain that same kind of realization.

So today, though there is much that has been taught, if one can just try to keep in one’s mind to have one hundred percent devotion to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and if one will train one’s mind by generating Bodhicitta and carry though the practices, then one can definitely have this kind of fruition. We can all do aspiration prayers, that in the future we can all attain Enlightenment within one mandala through these Great Perfection (“Dzogchen”) meditations. Just as in the past such great Great Perfection (“Dzogchen”) realized masters like Garab Dorje and Shri Singha and so forth attained Enlightenment through these Great Perfection (“Dzogchen”) practices, similarly we can also have that aspiration prayer to attain Enlightenment.

For a short Amitabha Practice by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo click here.

Download PDF of Prayer

Prayer to Guru Rinpoche to Remove Obstacles

DÜ SUM SANGYE GURU RINPOCHE

Precious Teacher, the embodiment of all Buddhas of the Three Times:

NGÖ DRUB KÜN DAG DE WA CHEN PO’I ZHAB

To your lotus feet of Great Bliss, possessor of all spiritual attainments,

BAR CHED KÜN SEL DÜD DÜL DRAG PO TSAL

Clarifier of all obstacles, Düd¬dül Dragpo Tsal,

SÖL WA DEB SO JIN GYI LAB TU SÖL

I pray that you will grant me your blessings.

CHI NANG SANG WA’I BAR CHED ZHI WA DANG

Pacify all outer, inner and secret obstacles, and

SAM PA LHUN GYI DRUB PAR JIN GYI LOB

Grant blessings that all my wishes may be spontaneously accomplished.

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG

A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life

by Shantideva

Chapter One: Benefits of the Awakening Mind

#5

Just as a flash of lightning on a dark cloudy night

For an instant brightly illuminates all,

Likewise in this world, through the might of Buddha,

A wholesome thought rarely and briefly appears.

#25

This intention to benefit all beings,

Which does not arise in others even for their own sake,

Is an extraordinary jewel of the mind,

And its birth is an unprecedented wonder.

Stupas

An excerpt from a teaching by H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche at Kunzang Palyul Choling in Sedona, Arizona on May 14, 2003. Tulku Sang-ngag is a renowned Stupa Builder and Vajrayana master. In addition to the many stupas he has helped to build and consecrate in the US, Kunzang Palyul Choling was very fortunate to have Tulku Sang Nang guide the construction of the Amitabha Stupa, to consecrate it, and to teach on the meaning of a stupa to the Sangha.

The enlightened mind of the Buddha

Before offering this Dharma teaching on the meaning of the stupa, I would like first to offer homage to the Three Jewels – the Supreme and Unsurpassed Guide, the Buddha; the teachings that the Buddha taught, the Holy Dharma; and the followers of the teaching, the Sangha. I offer homage to those three. And then to the Unsurpassed Guide, my personal teacher, who is the embodiment of all of those three in one single form. I am offering this teaching on the meaning of a stupa in accord with Jetsunma’s wishes.

That which is known as a stupa is called a “chorten” in Tibetan. A chorten means a receptacle of offerings. A stupa actually represents an outward expression of the Buddha’s enlightened body, speech and mind. First of all, we have the Buddha’s mind. The Buddha’s mind is such that it is non-composite phenomena. It has neither shape nor color, but it is all knowing. It is cognizant and lucid and yet you cannot identify it as being anything whatsoever. The Buddha’s mind is unelaborated cognizance.

In order to address the predicament that all sentient beings find themselves in, to tame those beings and bring them on the path to enlightenment, the Buddha has manifested in two specific forms in an effortless manner. In a non-artificial and natural manner, he manifests in two types of bodies. That state of the pure potentiality of enlightenment, that is the state of being a Buddha, is something, which is beyond any kind of representation. It is beyond having color or a shape or a size or any kind of form. That authentic state of enlightenment, which is yet to manifest, is the genuine stupa. It is the genuine stupa of basic space, “cho kyi ying,” which means the sphere of Dharma, the sphere of pure potential. That is what is known as the authentic stupa before the onset of manifestation. It is the potentiality. It is the actual state of enlightenment that we are talking about before it is actually manifest.

The state of basic space, the Dharmadhatu, manifests a display of appearances, which are spontaneously present, complete, and perfect. Because that basic space is an unhindered display of dynamic energy, a variety of stupas manifest in the four directions in order to benefit beings.

The state of the Buddha’s mind is such that it has the 32 qualities of enlightenment. They are the ten powers and the ten states of fearlessness and so on. Those 32 qualities of the enlightened mind of the Buddha manifest outwardly as the 32 characteristics of a physical stupa. They are actually a physical representation of those internal qualities of the Buddha’s mind.

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche called “Meditation”

The samsaric sufferings we experience are the result of non-virtuous actions of the body, speech and mind. For example, if somebody performed a negative action, such as killing, for instance, then the result based on that action, the reaction or its ripening Karma, is for the person’s life to shorten. And in the next lifetime he may be born in the hell realms where he has to suffer the result of the Karma he created. Similarly, if someone thinks that in this lifetime they could obtain material possessions by stealing or robbing, like a rat who steals all kinds of grains, such stealing ultimately ripens its fruit so that in the next lifetime, or maybe in this lifetime, this person may actually not have enough wealth and become very poor. Even the physical body’s negative actions, such as sexual misconduct, have negative results. This can be that within one’s lifetime, or in the next lifetime, one’s family will not be in harmony and will suffer quarrels and fighting. Similarly there are four negativities of speech, which are known as lies, interferences, harsh words and gossip. From these are certain negative results that one experiences, such that whatever one tries to tell, people will not believe. Even when one tries to say something beneficial it will seem like one is trying to harm somebody. Likewise with the three negative mental actions: Greediness, thoughts of harming others and wrong views. Based on these, one will not have success whatever one tries to do in this lifetime or in future lifetimes, one will experience a lot of harm from other beings, one will be unable to remain together with one’s masters, teachers or good friends and so on. These are examples of the ripening of negative actions.

So understanding all these causes and conditions are based on the actions of our body, speech and mind, we should then try to abandon all the ten negative actions and try to train ourselves so that our mindstream flows with the spiritual path. Then one can practice and accumulate all the virtuous activities. The teachings say that if one follows the worldly aspect of the Dharma practice, with good or positive behaviors, that naturally turns into a spiritual path through which one can have peace and happiness. In this way, with our bodies, speech and mind, in whatever conditions of life, it is very important to try to benefit others and have loving kindness toward everybody.