Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Astrology for 2/28/2016

February 28, 2016 by Norma

2/28/2016 Sunday by Norma

Multiple slow-moving and far-reaching goals are coming to fruition now. Work projects are steadily improving in scope and outcome, as are spiritual projects. The trick is not to mix the two or they will obstruct each other. This means you must consider which realm you’re playing in at all times. Visionary projects succeed unless you start applying strict standards, feasibility studies, to them. Oscar Wilde said, “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” Likewise, material and financial projects work out well unless you apply dream standards to them. Put in real fence posts, not imaginary ones! What’s good today? Friends, groups, a future that is shaping up the way you prefer and improvements in health.

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

Astrology for 2/27/2016

February 27, 2016 by Norma

2/27/2016 Saturday by Norma

The sun travels close to Neptune, reflecting the urge to lie on the couch watching tv, create a masterpiece or engage in escapist activity. It’s possible to pull inward and do some major thinking that leads to an “aha” moment if you spend time in contemplation. Emotional stability is the gift of this day. Your intuitive thinking allows you to solve problems you didn’t know you had. Oprah Winfrey said, “Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests.” What’s good today? Escape, the healing of health problems, happy times with friends and creative energy.

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

Why All the Focus on Suffering?

February 26, 2016February 26, 2016 by Holly

An excerpt from a teaching on Compassion by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

You may ask, “Why do I have to think about suffering? Why is it that the Buddha talks about suffering and nobody else does? Why is it that today’s New Age thinkers are saying, ‘I want to be me. I want to be free,’ and the Buddha is still talking about suffering after thousands and thousands of years?” It is because the Buddha has a teaching that is very logical and very real.

If we want to exit a room, but there is a chair between us and the door, we have a number of choices. We can say that the chair is not there. We can pretend that the chair is not an obstacle to our passing through the room and that it’s not important. Or we can notice that the chair is there and get on with our journey by walking around it. That is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching. The Buddha doesn’t stop at saying, “There is suffering.” The Buddha follows that by saying, “There is a way out of suffering.” And that’s the ticket. You cannot motivate yourself to follow the path out of suffering until you generate the commitment through the realization of suffering. You can’t make yourself walk around the chair to get to the door until you face the fact that the chair is blocking your way. You have to look at the chair.

It isn’t only about walking around a chair so that you can get to the other side of the room, so that you can get out the door. There’s more to it than that. You must understand that your commitment is two-fold. In order to become the deepened practitioner that you must be, to really sink your teeth into the Buddhadharma, you must have compassion for others that is so strong and so extraordinary it will nourish you even when you are dry.

The Treasure of Bodhicitta: What Does Enter the Bardo

February 26, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

The vow of refuge—taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha—is a vow that one must renew every lifetime, but the power of the Bodhisattva Vow is so strong that the power and potency of that vow lives from lifetime to lifetime. If you have taken that vow, you have that vow from now until you cross through the door of liberation into nirvana. And you must pray every day that you will be guided, in this life and in every future life, to meet with the means by which you will be able to practice this great compassion.

Now everything about your life must seem different. The prejudices you had before, about different peoples and different races and different religions and so forth, how can they make sense now? You had ideas about how this person is better than that person because of the class that they’re in, or how one person is superior because of their superior intellect. Having tasted one moment of Bodhicitta you realize that a superior intellect is a fools’ toy in a fools’ world, unless it can be used to bring about that pure absorption. Everything changes, and slowly, slowly so do you. So even if you are that person who begins practicing the Bodhisattvas’ path by saying “I dedicate myself to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings” (dull, bored and quick) that’s not going to last for long. Accept yourself the way you are. If that’s where you’re starting, start there. It’s a simple truth. Just do it, and don’t make such a big deal about it. That’s a good mantra. Om don’t make a big deal hung phet. Just don’t make a big deal about it. Just start where you are. Gradually over time this will stop and you’ll begin to feel that catch in your throat, that movement, that change that begins to happen.

Of course, there are different ways of beginning practice, different places that each one of you start at, but the rules fundamentally are the same. They are the same. One requires mental discipline in order to truly practice the Bodhicitta. Practice the contemplations. Practice daily mindfulness, and then, in the practice of the repetition of the vow of the Bodhicitta, begin to remain absorbed in this idea, in the reality of the Bodhicitta. Remain absorbed in the stability of mind that one experiences when one is not busy manipulating and grasping. This is real progress on the path, real progress, much more so than talking the dharma talk and walking the dharma walk and doing the dharma routine. Developing a good heart at last. This is real result, and it is lasting.

You won’t be able to take your dharma talk and your dharma rap and your dharma scene and your dharma clothes and your dharma deadly do-rights, or anything that you have accomplished in this lifetime, into the next rebirth. You will not be able to take any of that into the bardo. But a good heart and vajra compassion? Yes, you’ll take that into the next life. And it is one of the main causes for the conditions of your next rebirth. This is valuable. This is your treasure, this heart of the Bodhisattva. It is the first step to a truly happy life.

Astrology for 2/26/2016

February 26, 2016 by Norma

2/26/2016 Friday by Norma

A surprising event generating indecisiveness comes early in the day. If you feel shocked use your brain, think things over and the situation will stabilize for you. Don’t be influenced by group thinking. Clarence Darrow said, “To think is to differ.” If you rush off impulsively or take action in a rash manner, things go poorly. You can be the voice of reason or calm a distressed person today. Elsewhere, friends are wonderful and groups are great. A sense of tiredness and the urge to escape reality are all-pervasive, don’t take them as a sign that something’s wrong with you. Join your friends and have a good time.

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

For Their Sake

February 25, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Your Treasure is Heart”

There is nothing about you that inherently goes towards non-lovingness or lack of concern for others. You are actually the Bodhichitta in your essence, but it is your habitual tendency, karmic cause and effect relationships that bring about habitual tendency, and the weight of that karma that weighs down on one side. Now we’re looking to balance the scales and this kind of meditation changes your habitual tendency so that you find the next time you want to take that Bodhisattva Vow in the context of your practice, magically you’re feeling different. It’s not really an emotional thing, but somewhere inside you sense, you feel, that something has changed. Number one, you have the good feeling of really having invested a great deal of your time in this discipline of meditation for the sake of others. And number two, most importantly, your habitual tendency is starting to change. So next time you say “I dedicate myself to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings,” you’ll find that as you say that, there’s a catch in your voice and your heart, almost like, “Oh, is it real? Do I feel it? Yes, it’s there.” You’ll know that it’s beginning to take hold in your heart. And when you really feel that deeply, you’ll begin to feel the benefit and happiness associated with this practice.

Now don’t get off on that and get lost in “Oh I’m so happy! Now I’m a great Bodhisattva! Now I can look like a saint! Take out a pint of blood, I’m looking too robust!” Don’t get lost in the concept. Only continue,, continue with the practice for the sake of sentient beings. Do not get lost in the circus. Remember, make it always about them. Ultimately you will come to understand, in maturity in your practice, that your own enlightenment and the enlightenment of others is nondual and equal in weight. Equal in weight. And here’s the real reason why. Even though there are so many more other sentient beings than you or I who are wandering in samsara, one can only bring about temporary or relative benefit as a human being. One cannot bring about extraordinary or ultimate benefit until one actually achieves realization. It is for that reason we are so dedicated to bringing about our own liberation for their sake.

Astrology for 2/25/2015

February 25, 2016 by Norma

2/25/2016 Thursday by Norma

Do not pass up a social opportunity today, you will have a wonderful time with friends. An opportunity involving a partnership or group is available, which you will miss if you mope around feeling sorry for yourself. E. Jean Carroll said, “If Joan of Arc could turn the tide of an entire war before her
eighteenth birthday, you can get out of bed!” If you are involved in the entertainment industry this is your time as people are looking for distraction. Keep talking about problems and watch your audience slip away while you’re not looking. Inspiration goes farther than hard facts now. Doctors and medical cures are favorable. Be aware that a prodigious effort is going on behind the scenes. Watch for hidden agendas, and be aware that positive change is taking place.

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

Nourished by Compassion

February 24, 2016 by Holly

A Vow of Love:

Living an extraordinary life

of Compassion

By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Why Compassion?

I would like to talk about a subject that is of the utmost importance to everyone. The subject is compassion.

You may think, “Oh, I know all about compassion. I’ve been a Dharma practitioner for a long time. I’ve had many teachings about compassion.” Or you might think, “I’m a person with a good heart. I try not to do any harm, and I try to help people. Therefore, I know about compassion.” If we hold these ideas in our heart, we have already lost precious opportunities, and will continue to lose more, because the cultivation of compassion in the heart and mind is an ongoing process.

Even if you come into this world with a compassionate ideal you must still cultivate the idea of compassion as though it were the first time you ever thought of it. Due to intense spiritual practice in the past, you may have been born into this lifetime with the idea that you want to be of benefit to sentient beings. Yet still you must cultivate the idea of compassion everyday, as though it were a delicate orchid that could die in an unnatural environment. Until we are supremely enlightened, we have obscurations of our mind that will fight against the idea of compassion.

There is no one on this earth, unless they are supremely realized, who has the purified mind of compassion. If you have been meditating for many years, and think compassion is a baby subject and you’re far beyond that, or if you think because you’ve practiced for a long time, compassion is just one of the beginner studies, and now you’d like to get on to the mystical or the “higher” Dzogchen teachings, then I think you’re making a mistake. I hope that you will relax your mind and come to the point where you commit to studying compassion deeply and profoundly, as though it were your mother. You should have that kind of intimate relationship with the idea of compassion. You should seek to be taught by it. You should seek to be suckled by the mind of compassion. You should seek to be nourished in that way.

Astrology for 2/24/2016

February 24, 2016 by Norma

2/24/2016 Wednesday by Norma

If you’re still feeling a little picked on and want to escape, the Pisces sun is doing his job of ratcheting up sensitivity to the nail biting level. Voltaire said, “The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.” Continue to direct your sensitivity outward rather than inward, and you just might be the person who saves a desperate person, finds a cure for a terrible disease, or creates brilliant art, music or poetry. Spend time near water and look for inspiration in the world around you. Friends are good-hearted and generous with information that solves a problem.
Listen to everything and develop your intuitive ability.

The astrology post affects everyone differently, depending on individual horoscopes. Look to see which area of your life is affected by this message.

Astrology for 2/23/2016

February 23, 2016 by Norma

2/23/2016 Tuesday by Norma

Working hard, tending to details and doing your best to help others is highlighted today. News from afar is upsetting, but you can’t do anything about the situation so set it aside. A policy decision or command from on high is excellent and favorably impacts your interests. A Monopoly card says “Bank error in your favor, collect $200,” and you can! Avoid the tendency to feel victimized or sabotage yourself by sleeping through an important meeting, insulting a benefactor or generally focusing on what’s wrong. If you begin a statement with the words, “I’m upset by how this affects me,” back off and don’t say it. Friends are wonderful, groups are great and work is surprisingly fun today.

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