A sacred space for everyone
The following is respectfully quoted from “Compassionate Action” by Chatral Rinpoche:
Chöd means “cut” and is a practice for destroying ego-clinging by offering your body, cut into pieces and converted into pure nectar, as sustenance for the enlightened ones, the hungry ghosts, demons, and other sentient beings. It is traditionally practiced at charnel grounds and cemeteries.
6/28/2016 Tuesday by Norma
Venture forth and you’ll be pushed back; change tactics completely and you’re on the move again. Scattered behavior is a problem today; so many items require your attention that it’s hard to know what to do and when. The urge to dream opposes the need to work, the wish to stay home opposes the pull of the world. Go back and forth between opposites, but decide which is most important and go there. Martin Gardner said, “I am told there is a passage in the Talmud that says: ‘If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there.'” Food and work predominate today, plus a touch of inspired thinking that sends you in a new direction.
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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”
As a part of Ngondro, we have to accomplish 100,000 repetitions of a short version of the Bodhisattva Vow, the Bodhicitta mantra. Do you think to yourself, “Well what’s the goal here? See, I’m trying to be compassionate. O.k. so from now on I’m just going to be nice.” Have you ever tried to make that decision? From now on you’re going to be nice? Have you ever tried to do that? How long did it last? Maybe five minutes if you’re lucky! I think the all-time world record for a woman is 28 days! And that goes for her husband also! So it really can’t be done. You can’t just decide you’re going to be compassionate. And why is that? Because you still have the weight of these ancient habitual tendencies and deluded perceptions.
The Buddha teaches us that what’s needed here is to recite the Bodhicitta mantra at least 100,000 times with the correct absorption, correct mental concentration, mental imaging, and mental visualization, just as you are taught by the Buddha. Don’t make up your own religion now. Don’t do that! Practice what the Buddha has taught you just like the Buddha says, and that will change that. Rather than thinking “Oh, let me see if I can rewrite this religion to make it a little easier,” which you guys have all tried to do, haven’t you? Yes, we know that. So, instead of rewriting the religion, we actually practice it the way that it was given. But we’re thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice, instead of this 100,000 business, why don’t we sort of do it the new way? This is a new age isn’t it? We’ll just think positive all of the time.” Anybody ever tried to think positive all the time? That’s another fun one. The world record for that is also 28 days.
So we have to understand that what’s recommended here is not arbitrary. Some Buddhist person didn’t show up a long time ago and say “Let’s see, when it gets to be about 1996, how are we going to torture these people?” It wasn’t like that at all. These practices are meant to antidote your particular situation. You must understand that these were not given to us by ordinary sentient beings. These were not authored by someone who felt that they had an answer the way many of our New Age wisdoms are. You know, nowadays we hear people coming up with wisdom all the time, all kinds of wisdom.They came up with it two years ago, five years ago—how to dream, how to vision. Everybody’s got some wisdom.
But this stuff that comes from the Buddha is different. What actually occurred here is that the very mind of enlightenment appeared in the world as the perfected Buddha. This was not an ordinary sentient being. This is the Buddha nature appearing in the world in a form that we can see with our eyes. And from the mind of that nature, from the mind of that one, from that, directly from the Buddha nature itself, this antidotal process was given. It’s not the same as some mom and pop wisdom somebody cooked up nowadays. So it’s not going to sound like, “Let’s put a bandaid on an ulcer.” It’s not going to sound like “O.k. you’ve been alive since time out of mind creating lots of nonvirtue. Just think positive. Everything will be fine.” It’s not going to sound like that.
It’s going to sound like what it is. The necessary solution for what ails you according to what you actually are, not according to your over-simplified understanding of yourself. So the Buddha has given a very deep, very extensive, very profound method for a very deep, extensive and profound problem. And there are no shortcuts.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
6/27/2016 Monday by Norma
You’re able to make a quick decision that moves things forward so take prompt action and avoid emotional waffling. Regarding health issues the urge to stick with home remedies is fine, unless your condition can’t be treated at home. Brenda Ueland said, “You can argue with a theologian or a politician, but doctors are sacrosanct. They know; you do not.” Someone is 100% on your side and loves you, to boot. Go with that person. Once the decision has been made, head straight home to the kitchen where the action is. Hard work is rewarded, you’re still fixing things from the past, and people you never heard of love you.
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The following prayer is quoted from “Buddha in the Palm of the Hand” Nam Cho Ngondro:
TSULTRIM TRI DEN PHU CHOG DAM PA DI
This sacred supreme incense, which bears the scent of pure discipline,
TINGZIN NGAG DANG CHAGYE CHIN LAB GYI
By the blessing of mantra and mudra performed in a state of Samadhi,
SANGYE SHING DU PHO TRI NGAD DEN PAI
Is offered to the Realm of the Buddhas. May this aromatic incense
GYALWA GYATSO TSOG NAM NYE GYUR CHIG
Completely please and satisfy the assembly of ocean-like Buddhas!
NAMA SARWA DA TA GA TA BENZAR DUPE PRATITSA PUDZA MEGHA SA MUDRA SA PA RA NA SAMAYA AH HUNG
6/26/2016 Sunday by Norma
You receive information that’s either wrong or incomprehensible, after which you’ll get lost. Have a laugh at yourself, good humor is the gift of the day. Later your thinking deepens and you’re able to understand a mystery. Albert Einstein said, “Look deeply into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” An old love is coming back into the picture, and something you’ve dreamed of is heading your way. The urge to do a bit of travel is strong but it’s better to stay home near the
refrigerator, the stove and the table. That’s where the food is. Ok, you can go to a restaurant. Yes, you must continue to keep an eye on what lurks in the dark. You can respond to what you see, but you won’t see anything if you’re not looking.
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6/25/2016 Saturday by Norma
Things settle down, and relaxation combines with sensitivity to make for a happy day. Stay away from rationality in planning outings, go with your intuition. (“The top of the hill is above everything, but my gut says to head for this clearing.”) Spend time with children, family and household matters today. Artists are creative, physicians and healers are doing excellent work and sensitivity abounds. Listen to music. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Take a music bath once or twice a week, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.” Go for a swim, a sail or run under the sprinklers. Avoid discussions of politics and avoid anyone pressing extreme views. Answer pleasantly, but tell yourself what to do today.
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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”
I came to understand that that is the way it would be. I had to not lie to sentient beings. I could not hold these beings in my arms and say, “Here I am for you. I’ll do anything I can for you,” because it was complete, pardon my French, bullshit. You know, I was lying to them. So I began to think, “Well, if this unlimited luminous, pure, uncontrived nature that is free of suffering could somehow be here, that’s it. That’s it.” But how to do it? How to do it?
At that time I really didn’t have the answers. Honestly, I have to tell you that part of my life was like mountain tops and valleys at the same time, because I really felt the bliss of feeling that I had come to understand the faults of this world and had come to truly reach for and lift my sights to something that was so much purer, so much better. I really felt the bliss of that, and kind of excitement and happiness of being on my way. But the suffering of knowing that you could do nothing but lie to your child… The suffering of knowing that everything that we see looks so good, so colorful and wonderful, and it’s bullshit. It’s a lie. That kind of suffering! It was a very difficult time. Plus the struggle of thinking “I’ve got to find a way!!” And I had no teacher who could give me the way. No teacher at that time had come to my life yet who could say, “All right. Do this and this and this, and that will happen.” So I’m struggling with this and I’m thinking every day, “What can I do?” I mean literally I had gotten myself into such a state that if I could have physically ripped out my heart and handed it to Lord Buddha himself… I didn’t think of Lord Buddha at that time, I forget. It was just that absolute nature. If I could rip out my heart and physically hand it to the absolute nature, I would do it, because I was going crazy, kind of a little crazy. There was this crazy Yogi phenomenon happening, you know? I was a little crazy with this idea. I couldn’t think about anything else. It was weird.
I would sort of reward myself at the end of the day, here on this farm. I would sit down and have a cup of tea and a snack. One day I went out and got some potato chips. I thought I would have some potato chips and a coke. Now I like potato chips, but potato chips don’t like me, so this was a splurge. So I had a potato chip. And then I started thinking about my practice, and thinking about the children, thinking of beings in samsara, thinking about my mouth. Did I give this up or not? I did. The whole thing became so disgusting to me.
So that’s the kind of experience that I had. Many of you will say, “Well, I don’t know if I want to have that kind of experience. Thank you very much.” But I have to say that also in that was a tremendous amount of joy, like nothing I had ever experienced in the world. Greater joy than even my family, which I was very happy with and very much caring for and very close to. Greater joy than anything I could see or touch or eat or smell or anything, because I could feel that here was some noble potential. Maybe it hadn’t been actualized yet, but somewhere was this noble potential, and the excitement of that was really happy. It was a happy and genuine thing, and I really thought that somewhere in here there is going to be the solution for sentient beings.
Here I was—you have to understand the humor of this.Here I am back in Chandler, North Carolina, reinventing the wheel, literally reinventing the eight-spoke wheel because I didn’t realize that Lord Buddha had already done this. I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea. So here I am trying to find the way. I didn’t realize that Lord Buddha at some point made the same decision. He noticed that there was old age, sickness and death and he left to go figure out how to make this better. He took off and tried to make it better. In a way, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. If only I had known, I could have short-circuited that a little bit. I have to tell you, that particular practice, done in that way, from my heart, with very little guidance —especially that nothing was written down so that I had to make it up—was so profound.
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”
Now, during this practice, with our whole body we’re purifying body karma arising from the non-virtuous activity that we have engaged in since time out of mind, when instead of going for refuge, we went for ice cream. So instead, now we are actually using our body, speech and mind—using the body by making prostrations, using the speech by reciting, and using the mind by remaining absorbed and visualizing. Now we are training in the same way that a body builder trains a muscle. He develops and trains that muscle by pumping it and working it and working it. Now we are working to sharpen our focus, not to be simply reactive and discursive the way we are in samsara going towards meaningless goals with no distinction whatsoever. I mean, we’ll follow anything!
Instead of going for meaningless goals that have no meaning whatsoever, instead now we are training body, speech, and mind to be single-pointed for the first time. This is pretty amazing! I mean, think about it. For the first time, single-pointed. I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma and the Sangha. And if you do it with your body, speech and mind, the potency of reciting that 100,000 times is extraordinary! Simply extraordinary! I mean, completing 100,000 repetitions of the refuge mantra and prostrations is an extraordinarily life-changing experience. It’s like stopping the merry-go-round for a minute. If you were born on a merry-go-round and your movement was invisible, and then suddenly you stopped, don’t you think that something inside of you would go, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What’s this? This is new!” And that would be the beginning of a new kind of experience. And it takes the weight of that kind of practice to make that happen.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo. All rights reserved
6/24/2016 Friday by Norma
A group has a brilliant idea, which immediately gets a thumbs down from the boss. Be happy, you are oblivious to hidden factors currently influencing matters. A new direction opens, one that would have been blocked by the previous idea. Things are moving so fast that quick thinking is required: leave for a coffee break and your office is in a different building when you return. Kurt Vonnegut said, “History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.” What’s good today? Brilliant medical advice, wonderful progress on work projects and food. So, work, plan medical treatments and eat!
The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!
