Now is the time to talk things over with a special person, you have the words and the spirit of cooperation to do so. Express yourself kindly and give the other party time to think it over; an immediate response is not required and not advisable. Wisdom is needed now- the ability to look beyond the immediate issues and see the big picture. If you’re in doubt, seek advice from someone who has been there before. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The young know the rules, but the old know the exceptions.” Give assurance of your affection even if you’re feeling peevish, somebody needs to know you care. What’s good? A cheery sense of humor that cuts through seriousness, reading, talking, going for a walk and staying in the information loop.
The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message is reflected in your life!
In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Teacher is the cornerstone of all practice. The Teacher is everything—the underlying strength and the means by which transmission and understanding occur.
Let us compare the Teacher’s function with the function of various other objects of refuge. All people—not just Buddhists—have such objects. Try for a moment to determine your own. If you think that the accumulation of material wealth is the way to happiness, money has become your guru. The material things you treasure are your guru. If, on the other hand, you choose the beer-and-sports routine, watching ESPN every night until you fall asleep, you have accepted the TV as your guru. It pacifies you. It makes you temporarily happy. You betray yourself: these things are unreliable, impermanent, and deceptive. Yet you put your trust and faith in them. Nothing in our impermanent realm of phenomenal existence can lead to happiness. Nothing—even if it seems ideal, like the perfect job or the perfect relationship in a perfect split-level, with 2.5 perfect children surrounded by a perfect white picket fence. At the moment of death, you are alone.
According to Buddhist teaching, there is a lasting happiness: enlightenment. It is the only end to all forms of suffering, including impermanence. Enlightenment cannot be tainted; it cannot be eaten by moths. It cannot rust; it cannot be destroyed. Enlightenment is the true source of refuge, the only thing that will not allow you to be betrayed. True happiness cannot be taken away. It is permanent and unchanging—the steadfast, stable reality of the enlightened mind. When you achieve enlightenment, what is revealed is your own primordial-wisdom nature. Some people think that they must give birth to enlightenment or that they have to find it. Actually, the primordial-wisdom nature has never left you, nor is it unborn. It remains in the way that a crystal is still a crystal, even though covered by dirt and mud.
Once you accept enlightenment as your goal, you should understand that the Guru is someone who can get you there. What should you look for in a Guru? A Teacher should not be seeking power or personal gain. Your Guru should have profound compassion, profound awareness. Most important, your Teacher should be able to transmit to you a true path. Suppose you go to a psychiatrist who helps you to be happier, more effective. This is very useful, but it is only a temporary way to cope, whereas the Guru offers you supreme enlightenment. This has nothing to do with coping. In fact, it has nothing to do with satisfying the ego.
Do not be fooled by charisma, saying: “I can tell by my feelings. This is the Teacher for me!” Instead, ask: Does this person teach a path that has been proven, time and time again, to stabilize the mind to the extent that miraculous activity can occur? Does this Teacher offer a technology that can stabilize the mind during the death experience? Can this technology result in miraculous signs at the time of passing? Are there indications that others have had success with this path and can now return in an emanation form in order to benefit beings? Look at the people who have practiced before you. Look at their successes or failures. Examine the history of the path, including the accounts of any enlightenment it has produced. At their passing, practitioners may produce miraculous signs: rainless rainbows, sweet scents, the transformation of the body into a rainbow of light, leaving only the hair and nails, the mysterious formation of relics or other unusual substances. On the Vajrayana path, such miraculous signs have been witnessed and recorded by many. People have seen the rainbow body; they have smelled the sweet scents; they have seen these extraordinary events.
The Buddha Himself said that we should use logic in choosing a Teacher or a path. After that, however, you begin to rely on the Teacher for everything. Why? Because you make a god out of your Teacher? Do you lose your brains and become a drone or a bliss ninny? Not at all. We Americans like to think we are unique, important, the best in the world. We think that to be happy, we must develop our individuality, so the idea of following a Guru is unappealing. But a teacher should not be chosen with blind faith or rampant emotion. You should exercise both intelligence and surrender. They are not in conflict. They can coexist very comfortably within the same mind, the same heart.
Note that you do not surrender to a person. It is not about a person. Your Teacher represents the door to liberation, the path that leads to enlightenment. Your relationship with the Guru is the most precious of all relationships. This is you talking to you—and finding out that you are not you at all. This is a glimpse, a taste, of true nature. At last we have arrived at the correct way to understand the Teacher.
Cultivate the precious relationship with your Guru through devotion. Make sure, however, that it really is devotion—not merely the kow-towing to a physical being. Devotion is an understanding of refuge, an understanding of your goal, plus the courage to walk through the door you have chosen. Choose only once, and choose correctly. From then on, allow yourself the grace to love deeply and gently.
You’re feeling happy, chipper and chatty, yet every communication you advance is met with dissent! (“It’s a beautiful day!” “Are you kidding? It’s raining!”). At issue is the currently prevailing grand square that blocks every avenue, like a four-way stop with all red lights. Retrograde Mars brings back old issues, things you thought you’d solved are back for review. Brings to mind the old jingle, “Women’s faults are many, men have only two: everything they say, and everything they do.” The way out lies in happiness, patience and no talking. You can’t be judged for words you don’t say. Do your level best to avoid being a critic, look for the good will in every situation and go shopping. The open door involves purchases, enjoyment of beauty and cheerfulness in spite of everything.
The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message is reflected in your life!
An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999
Another aspect of our Ngöndro practice is purification, the prayers to Vajrasattva. How would it be if we were to sit for maybe an hour and practice the purification and confession of Vajrasattva and accumulate the mantra and then just put our books aside and consider it’s over? That’s it. I confessed. I said all the prayers, the short ones and the long ones, short confession, long confession. Remember, if you practice like that, you never have to revisit it again. It’s a lazy, cop-out way to practice.
Instead, we should think, “I’m deeply involved in the practice of purification and confession which does not stop at the end of my practice.” There are so many ways to practice that kind of purification: by being mindful, by making offerings in the way that I’ve described, by moving into a state of better recognition about what is precious and what is ordinary, and ultimately moving into the state of Recognition of the nature of all phenomena. Automatically one is constantly purifying the senses, constantly purifying one’s intention, which is the very thing that needs purifying even more than everything else. If we practice in that way as we’re walking around, it complements any confessional prayers that we make.
In most of the confessional prayers, if you really read the meaning and content of the prayers, there is talk about broken samaya in the confessional prayers. Nobody really knows what that means. Does that mean you didn’t do your mantra today? Well, maybe on one level it means that, but on a deeper level, it is referring to the state of non-recognition. So in everything that we do, if we continually make offerings, as we continually give rise to a deeper Recognition, then the five senses are being purified constantly. The habit that I’m suggesting you develop will antidote the automatic reaction that is so natural for us, so habitual. Remember, we can insert this way of thinking or this way of practicing because we are human.
I really like animals, but one thing I’ve noticed about animals, even if they are trainable and very smart, they cannot change or alter the way they perceive their environment. They can’t do that. The dog can’t say, “Wait a minute, before I lift that leg, let’s think about the nature of that fire hydrant.” The dog is not capable of this. You are. That is one of the great blessings of being a human being, and yet the habits that we tend to cultivate are the habits that you don’t even need to be a human being to do: that habit of automatically reacting, not taking oneself in hand, not creating any kind of space or a moment where we can Recognize the nature of reality, not making any offerings. We tend to just automatically move through life like an automaton, like a robot.
However, being human, we can develop a little bit of space in our minds to antidote that constant clinging and reactivity, and yet we’re all about collecting things. Well, you know, crows collect things. We’re all about having relationships. Well, even animals can bond for life. We’re all about having children. Well, dogs and cats do that, too. Isn’t it wonderful that here in Dharma practice, if we choose to, if we practice sincerely, we can do that which only humans can do? How amazing!
Peace at last. You can settle down on the couch, put on your favorite slippers, read the newspaper, watch television and relax. Home comforts are appealing along with happy messages to and from others. Adjustments must be made for three more days before you spring into action, but nothing’s stopping you from doing a bit of thinking and relaxing as you do. A discouraging message comes from afar, but in a couple of days the situation will change. It’s time to wait cheerfully and in good spirits for the right time to implement your project. Doug Larson said, “The real secret of patience is to find something to do in the meantime.”
The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message is reflected in your life today!
[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.]
Because of the negative karmic accumulations of sentient beings, from time to time, somewhere in the ten directions, the ten directional buddhas cease to turn the dharma wheel. It is important that we always request that the wheel of dharma be turned, so that beings can always hear the dharma. Requesting the unceasing turning of the dharma wheel is the antidote for [having] delusion. Some people have the attitude, “Oh, dharma teaching is not so important and not of any real benefit to anyone.” Holding such an attitude is exactly why such people are still suffering in cyclic existence. No matter what, we must continuously request that dharma teachings be present in the world in order to dispel delusion in the minds of others.
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
An encounter with a magnetic person leaves you inspired and looking forward to more! A generalized sense of happiness and enthusiasm is palpable, but proceed with care: you may not understand everything that’s required in the current situation. Clarify information and wait at least four days before
taking definitive action, which will give you time to iron out all the kinks. It’s possible to discover a hidden treasure or bring forth a masterpiece of some sort in what you’re doing. Samuel Johnson said, “The future is purchased by the present.” What’s good today? A happy sense of fun, receiving definitive instructions from an authority, enthusiasm and short distance travel.
The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this message reflects your life today!
Energy! You’ve got it! Spend your time zipping around, greeting others, keeping busy and hitting all the important places today. Work hard and notice when tiredness overtakes you- the project is done. The exchange of information is important today, pay attention to the news and to what people have to say. It’s a great day for writers, contracts, horse-trading and deal making. William Wordsworth said, “All of which we behold is full of blessings.” Definitely take time to enjoy life today.
The astrology post affects everyone differently, based on individual horoscopes. Look to see how this
message is reflected in your life today!
The following is a prayer from the Bodhisattva Vow Ceremony as translated in the Nam Cho Daily Practice book from Palyul Ling International:
Prostrate to all the Tathagatas!
Prostrate to Bodhisattva Mahasattva Avalokiteshvara!
OM AH MO GHA SHI LA SAMBHARA SAMBHARA BHARA BHARA MAHASHUD DHA SATO PEMA BHI BHU KHE TE BU DZA DARA DARA SAMANTA AVALOKETE HUNG PHET SOHA (repeat 21 times)
May the Dharma of the perfection of moral self-discipline be thoroughly complete in my and all sentient being’s mind streams!
May all non-virtuous deeds and obstructions arising from discipline broken because of defilements be cleansed and purified!
May there be the fortune of discipline pleasing to the Aryas!
May I be placed in contact with the bliss of liberation not oppressed by defilement.
May proper moral self-discipline be without faults.
May moral self-discipline be possessed purely.
And the perfection of moral self-discipline without hypocrisy be completed!
May I be trained as a follower of all the Jinas,
Completing the conduct of Samantabhadra.
May my conduct of discipline be completely immaculate!
May my moral self-discipline have the sweet essence of being well-kept!
May my conduct always be without damage and without faults!
