The Bliss You Want

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Longing for the Guru

We’re all sleeping until we reach supreme enlightenment, but most beings are really sleeping in a very profound way. In that coma, they are not even able to say, “I want.” They merely act out in different ways. While we are still asleep and until we achieve supreme realization, the fact that you are reading the teachings, is the evidence that you have felt that longing. You should find it within you and relate to it purely. You should encourage it because it is a dynamo of energy you can use to really touch the nature that you are seeking, the bliss that you want — the union between the student and the teacher.

You are so ashamed to feel that feeling directly, because you’re so macho, you’re so tough, or you’re so cool or you’re so advanced. You are so ashamed to feel that feeling that you want to say, “Oh, the longing for the Teacher is only me longing for my own nature.” Well, yes, it is that, but you should face directly the longing for the Teacher on the deepest level. You should not be ashamed of that. You were ashamed of it as a child and you were taught not to feel it and so you made a lot of mistakes. You should not be ashamed of that now.

I have that longing. It is so strong that I cannot imagine another longing like it. I live with that longing constantly. I use that longing to provide the means to accomplish Dharma and kindness for all sentient beings. I realize that the truest longing is the longing for the Guru. It’s the longing for my Teacher, for the Guru on all of the different levels, on the apparent level as well as the deepest, most primordial level. And I realize that I will only find that longing satisfied so long as I try to live the qualities that are my Guru.

So, if I were to turn away from students saying, “Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m tired.” Or, “I’m lonely doing this. I don’t want to do this anymore.” If I were to do that, I would never find my Guru. I would never be with my Guru, because those are the qualities of my Guru. My Guru never leaves me. He cannot turn his face from me. And so, that being the case, if I were to turn my face away from anyone that had hopes of me, it would be hopeless. I would never find the Guru. The longing would never be satisfied, because I would have turned my face away.

You must begin to practice in such a way that the face of the Teacher is understood in everything that you do. No matter what you experience, whether it is loss or having, joy or sadness, life or death, sickness or health, poverty or wealth, whatever you experience, you should think that everything is a blessing from the Root Guru.

The Root Guru has given you this blessing because you can use any situation to practice. You should never question that the blessing is good. You should practice understanding the mind that sees the difference between poverty and wealth. You should practice understanding who the taster is. You should practice understanding what desire is. You should practice understanding that all things have the same taste.

If you practice faithfully in that way, then you will never be separate from the Guru. See the Guru in everything. Everything you touch, everything you taste, everything you smell, everything you wear, everything you say, your life, every experience, both internal and external, is the Guru. This is the Guru at play and at work. You are constantly in a blissful union with the Guru, if you use every life situation to practice and understand that all things are a blessing from the Guru.

You will never be able to practice that way if you do not go back to the original longing, because you need that longing as a motivator. You need that longing to help you willingly approach that kind of marriage. You need that longing to help you approach that kind of meaningful and blissful union. It’s of the utmost importance. Think about this teaching and try to get it right.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology for 01/07/2018

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01/07/2018 Sunday by Jampal & Wangmo

Theme: The critical mind

With the Moon square Saturn today you might feel a bit isolated and out of touch with your feelings. In the words of Billy Joel: ‘They’re sharing a drink we call loneliness but its better than drinking alone.’ We’re not encouraging you to drink! It’s only one day and it will pass. Contemplate the impermanence of all phenomena. Re-focus on the aspects that are working well today. ‘Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the while I am being carried across the sky by beautiful clouds.’~ Ojibway proverb

 

The Original Longing

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Longing for the Guru

There are three different levels on which you can recognize your Teacher. One is an extremely poor level — a common and ordinary level. One is an intermediate level in which you see that the teacher holds the teachings purely and gives the teachings purely and you really admire and feel a great respect for the Teacher. That is still only an intermediate level of recognition. The deepest and supreme level of recognition is recognizing the Teacher not as a person but rather, as a door to liberation, as your own nature.

This supreme level recognizes the Teacher as one’s mind, as the miraculous intention of the Buddha, appearing in a manifest way in order to benefit beings. It recognizes the Teacher as that original longing that was felt to know that nature, to recognize the Teacher as the answer, to recognize primordial wisdom itself in some incarnate form. In this way your own relationship to the path becomes not an ordinary thing, but a very profound and mystical thing, a thing of truth, a thing able to bring about awakening.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology for 01/06/2018

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01/06/2018 Saturday

Theme: Communicating the big picture

As Mercury continues in Sagittarius the big picture is emphasized. It’s just a case of thinking before you speak. There is a zing in the air and new ideas can abound today. There is a futuristic quality to your ideas. Long-term planning will give long-life to your ideas. Emotionally you are more grounded and connect well to others today. ‘You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it’.~Robin Williams

Actions and Their Consequences: From “Naked Awareness” by Karma Chagme

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The following is respectfully quoted from “Naked Awareness” by Karma Chagme with commentary by Gyaltrul Rinpoche:

Homage to Avalokitesvara!

A rough explanation of actions and their consequences has been presented in the preliminaries to the instructions on the profound practical teachings of Avalokitesvara, but it is difficult to gain from that more than a practical understanding. Precise comprehension of actions and their consequences is not achieved until one has accomplished great single-pointedness. Until there arises the realization of the “one taste appearing in numerous ways,” the subtlety of actions and their consequences is not discerned. Thus, the Kagyu masters of the past prayed, “Bless me that I may discern the subtlety of actions and their consequences.” For us, all felicity and adversity and all joys and sorrows of birth and death and so forth are dominated by our karma.

–“Great single pointedness” is the state of samadhi that arises due to investigating the nature of awareness, rigpa. The “one taste appearing in numerous ways” is a specific realization which is also called the “realization of the sole bindhu.” What is this one taste that appears in numerous ways? It is the single nature of all samsara and nirvana. It is seeing all phenomena simultaneously as being of one taste and one nature.

Spiritual success and mundane success all really stem from the merit you have accumulated in the past due to virtuous activity. Without merit, even if you give tens of millions of dollars towards a particular end, you won’t have the success you are aiming for. It really comes down to your own previous actions. So it’s important not to blame our lack of success on someone else when we experience failure or disappointment. Rather we must recognize that if we want to have success, we need to plant the seeds of virtue. If we want to avoid misfortune, then we need to avoid the source, which is nonvirtue. In the meantime, instead of blaming others for our failures, we must identify our own limitations and shortcomings and dispel them.–

The Chapter on the Cycle of Existence of Birth and Death states:

Wherever one is born in the three realms,
That birth is dominated by karma.
Karma, too, is something committed in the past.
Death as well is dominated by karma.
When the time comes for birth and death,
The gods gradually fall from the heavens.
Despite their great miraculous powers, they are powerless to remain.

–You can’t give someone else either good karma or bad karma, any more than you can give them virtue or nonvirtue. These are things that we accumulate and commit for ourselves. Whether we die in the womb, have a short life or a long life, these are the result of our karma.

Even great gods, such as Indra and Brahma, with their extraordinary powers, are powerless when the karma that propelled them into their present existence is exhausted. The reason for the precept not take refuge in mundane gods such as these is that they, like ourselves, are still entrapped in this cycle of existence. Since they have not liberated themselves, it would be difficult for them to liberate anyone else, so they are not suitable objects of ultimate refuge. Moreover, if you take refuge in, or absolutely entrust yourself to, other beings who are subject to the five poisons, you really have a problem, because they can’t release you from something they are not free of themselves. So this precept is truly for your own sake.

Some mundane gods may actually be great bodhisattvas, or even emanations of the buddhas appearing in the form of Indra, Brahma, and so forth. Nevertheless, it is generally good counsel not to take ultimate refuge in any of them, for it is difficult to discern which ones are actually bodhisattvas or emanations of Buddhas. In a way, we don’t really need to worry about this. we don’t have much, if any, direct contact with such gods anyway.–

Astrology for 01/05/2018

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01/05/2018 Friday by Jampal & Wangmo

Theme: Service with a dollop of patience

With the Moon in Virgo its an opportunity to serve! How will you do that today? With Jupiter conjunct mars there’s still a lot of energy expansion activity. One side-effect is overdoing it. Don’t forget to stop at the water station during the marathon. It’s not a day to trust your emotions because emotional misunderstandings abound today. On the plus side there is overall potential for harmony. ‘Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions’~H.H. Dalai Lama

Astrology for 01/04/2018

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01/04/2018 Thursday by Jampal & Wangmo

Theme: Unceasing activity

After a time of heightened emotion and activity it’s time to climb a mountain! That’s because there is little time for pause because of all the planetary activity right now. You are being stretched and individual needs do not take priority. There is a balance between facing reality and wishing it were otherwise. Good friendships and creative solutions assist. ‘When I look down at the flowing river, I fully realize the running nature of all flux.’~Milarepa

With Loving Concern

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Turning Adversity Into Felicity

The result of poverty and not having enough is due, according to the Buddha’s teachings, to not having been particularly generous or forthcoming in our support or caring for others in the past, perhaps even before this lifetime.  So we might look at our lives now with a sense of honesty.  Is that the case now?  Perhaps it’s also the case now, and we just haven’t thought of it that way.  Or perhaps if we really look in our heart of hearts we might discover that there is a certain dark corner in there somewhere that has a strong element of selfishness and lack of giving.  We might see it sneak out every now and then.  Maybe not all the time, but it’s in there.  Or we might discover that perhaps in our past, in our deep past, we have been less than generous.

So, in order to create the causes of having plenty, to open the doors and liberate the conditions under which support and wealth and prosperity would come to us, we would create the causes, by transforming our minds through practice into that which is supremely generous.  If we have only $5 to our name, a good idea is to give maybe 50¢ of that, maybe a dollar of that, to somebody who doesn’t have 50¢ or a dollar.   If you have nothing, I’m sure you can get it together to have enough to place a simple candle on the altar and make prayers that the merit generated by offering this light would help all sentient beings see their way through the darkness.  A small offering like that and prayers to benefit sentient beings begins the process of creating the causes by which our suffering or lack begins to change, and as well our minds begin to transform into that which is filled with kindness.  We begin to create the habit of caring for others, of kindness.

The idea is that we proceed with confidence in the teachings and in the teacher who has given them to us.  That’s how you have faith in the Guru—not by making some bland statement with no depth, not by faking your way through samsara, not by controlling your mind with positive thoughts so that delusion only increases and you have no idea what you are perceiving—but instead by creating the causes through acts of generosity.

On the other hand, if we have experienced great disappointment in love, let’s say, the first thing that we think is, “Oh, now I’ve lost my boyfriend, or girlfriend or whatever, so I have to do everything I can to get them back.”  Grasp, grasp, grasp!  And when that doesn’t work—it doesn’t, you know—then what you do is you make prayers to the Guru: “Oh please, oh please, oh please!”  And we hope and pray that the lotto will come for us on the romantic level.  And then we even think stupid thoughts like, “Oh, please deliver him or her to me now!  Along with the check, put him in the mailbox.  I’ll pick him up tomorrow.”  You know that’s the kind of thinking that we have.  It’s like magical thinking, but that’s a different religion.  That’s not our religion.

In our religion, if that had happened, we would look for the causes.  What are the causes of such a loss?  Perhaps I have not been kind and loving.  I’ll tell you how it is, if no love is given, no love will be received.  It’s like that.  If we do not invest in generosity and caring and loving concern and regard for others in an unselfish way, there will not be a great deal of love forthcoming freely into our lives because we have not created the causes.  We have not held up our part of the bargain.  And so we begin, therefore, to create the causes: a real concern, a real interest in the welfare and well being of others.  Not just the one you want back.  That’s easy.  Others, all others, with kindness and love and generosity coming forth from our hearts.  That’s the investment that’s needed here, that we ourselves would be responsible for not abandoning and leaving without comfort, loved ones and friends, not just the one we want, but all our loved ones and friends.  And then take it further than that.  Not only our friends and loved ones, but also our not-so-friendly friends, maybe the people we don’t have much concern for, maybe even our enemies.  A loving concern for them is what’s required here.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology for 01/03/2018

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01/03/2018 Wednesday by Jampal & Wangmo

Theme:  Deep change and… don’t forget recreation time 

As the Sun approaches Pluto during the next week, you will have to fully engage in what you do. Some practical items need repair now. Power struggles with others abound. Stay out of unfamiliar neighborhoods if possible. Pride is strong with the Moon in Leo for the next two days. Keep a check on your inner deva, and enjoy some recreation with friends. An African proverb says, ‘Do not try to fight a lion if you are not one yourself.’

Astrology for 02/02/2018

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02/02/2018 Tuesday by Jampal & Wangmo

Theme: rebelliousness, inspiration and sociability 

Change the world today! Or just kick back and imagine doing it. Be social or meditative-both are supported by the planetary energies. There may be some emotional upset in your interactions, but it requires a deep patient response. There are always lessons learned from both positive and more challenging interactions. Change within ourselves can manifest in change in the world. As Mahatma Ghandi said: “We must become the change we wish to see in the world.”

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