Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Astrology for 9/22/2016

September 22, 2016 by Norma

9/22/2016 Thursday by Norma

All systems go, full speed ahead! Mercury has turned around and you no longer need to handle matters from the past. A powerful source of information pours knowledge into your mind, giving you the tools you require for success. Underground excavation succeeds. Digging a hole to China? You’ll get there! Drilling for oil? It’s a gusher. Secrets are revealed that solve problems. Chatty companions drive you up the tree, but you’re so happy it doesn’t matter. As the day progresses, workaholics get a break and transform into charming companions. Ashley Montague said, “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them but that they seize us.” What’s good today? Pretty much everything, provided you don’t press your political views on others. Smile and step away from those who do.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!

Examining Cause and Effect

September 22, 2016September 21, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

How can it be that we’ve had so little result? Well it isn’t true that we’ve had no result. We have had temporary happiness. We’ve all had that. Probably we feel pretty good right now. Probably we felt all right when we got up this morning. But we feel differently every day, and really every moment. And sometimes we are even afraid to think that we’re really happy, because we know that right behind that happiness, right behind that, is another mood change. And you know that it’s not lasting.

How we can have managed to continue in such an effortful way? How is it that we maintain this extreme effortfulness? And what’s the answer? What should we do? First of all, we have to begin to cultivate some understanding. According to the Buddha’s teaching, every condition that we experience in our lives, including the most subtle inner conditions, that is to say, our own impressions and feelings and subtle inner posturing—that very, very subtle stuff that seems so wispy, seems to change all the time with every catalyst that appears in our lives—from that kind of subtle condition to the most seemingly permanent, gross, outer condition, such as the house we live in, the nation that we live in, the community that we live in, the world that we live in, the Buddha teaches us that every one of those conditions that we experience actually arises through the interdependence of cause and effect relationships. Every condition with no exception. Even the condition of how you appear physically. Now, of course you have some control in that matter. You can diet and become thin. You can put on makeup and become better looking. You can take off makeup and become either better or worse looking depending on how well you apply makeup. You can gain weight. You can do different kinds of juggling in order to make yourself appear more attractive through wearing different clothing, or what have you. But there are some things about which it seems that we have no control. For instance, the genetic tendency of our body to be in a certain way. Some people are shorter than others; some are taller. Some have a tendency towards a more squat body form; and others have a tendency towards a very lanky body form. These things seem to be beyond our control. We can look at our parents and our grandparents, and it seems as though we have the same genetic structure as them. It seems as though we have not much control over that. But, according to the Buddha, even such things as those that appear to be handed to us from the time of our birth, even such things as genetic predisposition, these are the result of karma.

What are the conditions of living? Do we live in a beautiful house? Do we live in a happy and harmonious family situation? Do we own property? Are we impoverished? What are the conditions of our lives? It seems we have control over some of them. There are many books out now that tell us we can all become millionaires through a certain amount of effort if you follow this very simple ten point program starting with the investment of a few thousand dollars. And for some people I’m sure that kind of program has worked. And yet, there are some conditions in our lives that are seemingly unbeatable.

For instance, what if, personality-wise, we don’t seem to have that certain mindset that permits us to engage in that kind of activity? And then again, what if we don’t want to? Some feel chronically defeated and have always felt so, and they never take aggressive moves towards gaining whatever it is that they want. But other people seem to have to do nothing and happiness comes to them, or prosperity comes to them. There are so many conditions in our lives that seem controllable and they’re mixed in with conditions that seem uncontrollable. How are we to understand that?

Well, the Buddha teaches us that we have at best a very partial, very minimal understanding of cause and effect relationships. It’s actually quite minimal. And the reason why is that there is very little cause and effect unfolding that we can actually see. The Buddha tells us that we’ve lived many more than one lifetime. Therefore, if we’ve lived a hundred years already, we have only one tiny, tiny window of time in which to judge our experience. But that window of time actually has a very exacting beginning and a very exacting ending; and it’s very difficult to understand what has come before and what will come after. There are certain elements that we can view within that window of time, and we can gain some understanding. It has been my experience that usually as people mature and as they become older, they have gained enough life experience not to make certain kinds of mistakes again and again and again. Now, in some cases I think it might be that we’re just too tired and old to make those mistakes again and again and again. But in other cases I think there’s a true learning that has actually occurred, and I’m really not sure what the proportions are.

The Problem

September 21, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

What is the problem? Why is it that we cannot really find happiness on any permanent basis? Well, there are many different reasons for that. One of those reasons is that, as Lord Buddha teaches, nothing in the life of a sentient being is permanent. Literally, the life of a sentient being is like a waterfall rushing down a mountain. The scenario always changes; the scene always changes. And the life itself is rushing very quickly, begun and then over. Life is impermanent. Everything about our lives is impermanent. Even the cornerstones of our lives,the things that we pin our hopes on, such as family, such as relationships, and such as possessions. Even possessions that seem very solid like a car. A car is very hard. You go and hit your car and it’s very solid. We might think that this car is going to be the one that makes me happy. But, as you know, three or four years into ownership that car is going to begin to abandon to you. And that is always the case. And it’s the same with relationships. Relationships change. And the same relationship, no matter how wonderful and fulfilling it can be, is completely dependent on our own receptivity and our own moods. And they change constantly. The interactions between people are constantly being modified by many different things including cause and effect relationships that we ourselves instigate. Everything in life is like a moving, dynamic tapestry, always weaving and inter-weaving, constant interdependently arising cause and effect relationships. Everything is moving and impermanent in our lives. Therefore, it’s so hard to find a core of stability, so difficult to find any kind of lasting permanent happiness. Still we hunger for happiness, and we engage constantly in activities that we think will bring us happiness.

Astrology for 9/21/2016

September 21, 2016 by Norma

9/21/2016 Wednesday by Norma

A bit of news leaves you so stimulated that you can’t wait to spread it around and learn more! Speak your piece and don’t allow yourself to be distracted by the back and forth that ensues, it’s a time waster. Keep talking and you’ll be silenced emphatically and maybe rudely. (“A little silence, please!”). Anonymous said, “I’ve learned that I don’t make many mistakes with my mouth shut.” This is a great day to follow specific instructions, to be as diplomatic as possible with everyone, to wrap up old matters and to spend special time with those who mean the most to you.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!

The Wish for Happiness

September 20, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An example of our misguided search for happiness might be something like a story that I’ve heard here more than once with students who come to me for consultation or just to talk to me for awhile. They say well I don’t know what to do about my tendencies in, perhaps, relationships. In relationships it seems that I act a certain habitual way. It seems that I become attracted to people of the opposite sex who are not appropriate for me. They are not compatible with me. And under those circumstances, for a period of time, I generally feel a great attraction and then ultimately become very unhappy. Or perhaps in a relationship I cannot assert myself. I habitually act like an underdog or an underling, and I cannot achieve any real happiness in relationships. Or perhaps in relationships I habitually come on strong in the beginning and then after awhile I turn off and feel very much out of touch with the meaning of the relationship.

Whatever it is, I’ve had many students, many times during the course of my speaking with students, students will come to me I don’t understand this habitual tendency that I have. I don’t understand how it is that I continually engage in the same patterns. We all understand patterns. We all have patterns within our lives. And we don’t understand why it is that we often perpetuate patterns that bring us unhappiness, patterns that have never worked out before. So why should they this time? They continually bring us some disappointment. Why is it that we do that? Perhaps we think that maybe we don’t really want to be happy.

I don’t think that’s the case. According to the Buddha’s teaching, everyone wishes to be happy. Across the board, everyone wishes to be happy. But we all have these inner messages that we’re playing to ourselves. Like perhaps we think we’ll be the happiest if we’re unhappy, because we deserve to be unhappy in some strange way. Or perhaps we think that we’ll be the happiest if we can act unhappy so that others will comfort us, and that’s really want we want. Or perhaps we feel that if we act misguided enough, eventually someone will come forth with the answer for us. We have all kinds of hidden inner agendas that we play over and over again. And we should never mistake that the one thing we all have in common, no matter what our condition is, and no matter what our habits are, is that we wish to be happy. And we wish it deeply. We wish it very much.

Astrology for 9/20/2016

September 20, 2016 by Norma

9/20/2016 Tuesday by Norma

The Taurus moon urges you to “stop and smell the roses,” but this you should not do. Buy roses if you wish- Luther Burbank said, “Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” -but don’t sit around smelling them just yet, your energy is better spent finalizing matters. Details, details, details! Obstacles and blockages are slowly losing their ability to trip you up. If your energetic bouts have been interspersed with times of exhaustion, things are changing and dependable strength is returning. A sneaky force that’s been letting the air out of your tires is leaving! What’s good today? A partnership that’s growing, enthusiasm for the future and wrapping up things from the past.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!

Are We Misguided?

September 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The one thing that all sentient beings have in common—or I should say one of the main things that all sentient beings have in common, but particularly the one thing that makes us all related, inter-related, kind of like brothers and sisters under the skin—is that we all in our own fashion wish to be happy. If you examine the content of your life and what you’ve done and not done up until this point, you’ll find that just about everything that you’ve engaged in up until this point has been in some regard an attempt at being happy. Unfortunately that attempt at happiness is only sometimes successful; and sometimes it’s extremely misguided. Actually, we might have a better idea as to what happiness is all about than someone who has a strong habit of harmfulness toward others, or perhaps extreme selfishness; even someone like a person who is chronically a criminal. Perhaps someone who is a thief, or even a murderer. A good example might be the recent capture of a man who was a serial murderer. Believe it or not, even such an extreme condition like that is a misguided attempt to be happy. Of course, it’s extremely misguided. And the one thing that we might have in common with such a one as that is that we are both trying to be happy. That’s really hard to understand though, isn’t it? Because we can’t think how it would be possible to be happy by really harming others in such a bizarre and brutal way as that man apparently did. We can’t understand what he would be thinking of. How could he think like that? How could he think that being harmful and hateful towards others could possibly bring happiness?

Of course, it’s hard to say because we don’t have the man here. We can’t examine his mind; and we can’t really assume that we would know what he was thinking. But we could take at least a theoretical guess, a theoretical leap at understanding. Possibly in this man’s mind, he thought the control or power that he achieved over others through that kind of brutality, would make him happy—the feeling of controlling others, the feeling of supremacy, the feeling of the ability to dictate the conditions of some other person’s life. Possibly in some twisted way he thought that that would make him feel happier. Perhaps he didn’t even use the word happy. Perhaps he felt an exhilaration of power. Perhaps he felt an excitement about the continuation or fulfillment of some crazy compulsion. It’s really hard for us to understand because we don’t act like that. But we do throughout the course of our lives demonstrate certain activities that we ourselves don’t understand. Sometimes we’ll watch ourselves act completely out of character. Or even if we are within character, and that means predictable, we’ll watch ourselves move through certain cyclic changes within our lives in which we predictably act the same, but it predictably brings no good result.

Astrology for 9/19/2016

September 19, 2016 by Norma

9/19/2016 Monday by Norma

Multiple opportunities appear today, and the question is which one to take? Travel is in the picture, complicated by many small projects that must be completed before you can go. Make a list and zip around checking things off; failure to do this generates irritability. Alice Paul said, “Once you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.” Physical strength is an asset today and speed is on your side. No need to think things over, in fact thinking will just be a drag on your energy. A partner wants to help and your job is to dole out tasks instead of doing them all yourself. What’s good? Partnership is wonderful, shopping is excellent and health matters are constantly improving.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!

Spiritual Maturity

September 18, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”

When we first enter onto the Bodhisattva path, we are thinking that maybe we are doing this because we’ve always wanted to be a good person. We have all kinds of mixed motivations. Maybe we never got enough approval when we grew up. Maybe mama was always telling us that we were never going to amount to very much, or something like that. Maybe dad was always telling us that we have to live our lives in a certain way in order to meet with his approval. Maybe our society has taught us that if we don’t attain certain things we are a “n’er do well.”

For whatever reason, when we first meet with the Bodhisattva path, we think that we are going to make something good of ourselves. We are going to approve of ourselves, finally. We are going to be good people. We fall in love with the romance of being saintly. But ultimately, the life of a Bodhisattva has not one thing to do with that, nothing to do with that. The purpose, the intention, the planning of a Bodhisattva is not according to that. The planning of the Bodhisattva is based on logic and reason. Since we have met with the ideal of the Bodhisattva, this is the time for the beginning students, or the student who has been a practitioner for some while, to really determine for oneself what the true meaning of the Bodhisattva ideal actually is—to see the reasonableness of it, to see the logic of it. To understand that to do anything else is to walk through one’s life as a child, mindlessly, just grabbing and playing and having “la la” land in your head. The life of a spiritually mature Bodhisattva is a life of understanding, a life of clarity, a life of reasonableness, a life in which that spiritual participant thinks in full equations, which ordinary people simply do not do.

Now, having learned these virtuous patterns, these virtuous habits, these virtuous actions, and understanding that this is what results in happiness, and not grabbing in an egocentric way, the spiritually mature Bodhisattva begins to plan, and begins to understand also, that according to the Buddha’s teaching, all sentient beings are in that same condition of revolving hopelessly in samsara. Not understanding what the components of happiness are and what brings relief from suffering. Not understanding as well, what intensifies suffering and makes it much worse. Sentient beings literally are revolving in samsara helplessly, like bees flying around in a jar, not understanding how to get out, just bumping, bumping, bumping on all the sides.

Having looked at that, having looked at the suffering of the world, having seen that in places all over the world there is hunger, there is war. There is disease, old age, sickness and death constantly claiming even those on the seen realms where there is less suffering than in many of the other realms. And, according to the Buddha, we are taught that in the unseen realms, all sentient beings are suffering horribly. They have no understanding really of what makes the cessation of suffering. Having met with the path and understood all these things, and then understanding as well the Buddha’s teachings, then we make an intelligent choice. “I and all sentient beings have been wandering helplessly and hopelessly in samsara, not understanding the cause of my suffering, not understanding the cause of the suffering of other, not understanding the causes of happiness for myself and others. Now I have come to this place of choice, intelligence, clarity and responsibility. Therefore, having seen the truth and understanding that there is an end to suffering, I will practice for the sake of sentient beings.” This is the choice that the spiritually mature Bodhisattva brings—to practice temporarily by bringing happiness and relief to those that they can in any way possible. And then to practice ultimate or extraordinary Bodhicitta, which is to bring the ultimate happiness, the ultimate joy of the revelation of the path to others so that they too might attain ultimate happiness. The spiritually mature Bodhisattva chooses to give others the method by which they can end their suffering and gain happiness, the method of clarity that teaches that virtuous seeds bring virtuous and joyful results, and nonvirtuous seeds bring nonvirtuous and negative results. Understanding that, I myself will be a guide and a light to benefit others through their confusion. The prayer of the Bodhisattva is that we would live and exist as a Bodhisattva long enough to be the one to watch the very last of them cross over through the doors of liberation into freedom. That is my prayer and that should be the prayer of each and every one of us, that we would be the last and would be able to see every single sentient being cross the ocean of suffering into freedom.

Astrology for 9/18/2016

September 18, 2016 by Norma

9/18/2016 Sunday by Norma

Your job is to smile as your savior charges around straightening up your messes. Don’t get bossy; you’d do it yourself if you could, and you haven’t. Step aside. Physical and intellectual strength combine nicely, guaranteeing favorable outcomes today. If it’s you who leaps in to save someone, great, do so! Elsewhere, clear thinking is reconfiguring an old equation, coming up with a better solution. September 22 is the day to put your new plan into action. Erich Heller said, “Be careful how you interpret the world:It is like that.” This is a good day for love, for a diplomatic approach to something you’ve handled poorly in the past, and for a new way of looking at the world.

The astrology post affects each person differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!