This Is Your Temple

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Bringing Virtue Into Life”

When you give money to the temple, do it because you need to, not because we need you to.  Do it because you understand that you are the one that needs to practice the generosity.  That’s your medicine.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that your root guru or your lama is the one that needs the temple.  It’s completely false.  It is not the lama that needs the temple.  It’s the students that practice there.  This is not my temple in Poolesville, Maryland.  This is your temple in Poolesville, Maryland.  You should take pride in its cleanliness.  You should take pride in its prosperity.  It should embarrass you when the bills are not paid here.  It should embarrass you when things are not going well at the temple—when there is not enough participation, when we can’t find someone to cut the grass—because this is your temple.  This is your house.  Spiritually, you live here.  This is for you.  If you could just get that one small truth and take responsibility for your practice whether it’s the karma yoga of engaging in protecting your temple, propagating the teachings, making this place firm, pure and safe for others to come and practice, or whether it’s the meditational yoga of actually engaging in sit-down practice in order to benefit sentient beings, or both.  Hopefully you’re doing both, because that’s what is needed.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Astrology for 4/27/2016

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4/27/2016 Wednesday by Norma

Things have settled down somewhat and you are free to engage in business and do a bit of shopping. Stability reigns, today, even though the tendency to use an outdated playbook persists. Be aware that your best thinking is behind you, for the time being. It won’t be easy to relinquish the mindset you have settled into, but being aware opens possibilities. Arthur Block said, “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking,” neatly summing up the current situation. What’s good today? Early action that stabilizes finances, running errands, engaging in daily tasks, expressing your love, and
successfully appealing to authority figures.

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

Astrology for 4/26/2016

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4/26/2017 Tuesday by Norma

Zippy action characterizes the day, so get moving! Travel is favored, either physical or mental- go somewhere or expand your mind through learning. Happiness lies in both directions. Prior strategies don’t work, it’s a different time! Harry Fosdick said, “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.” Shelve policies unless they prove their worth in the situation at hand. It’s time to be nimble and quick to act. Love is in the picture, accomplishment is possible, but you must find a new way to move through life. Have you repeated stories 45 times, using ideas that worked 25 years ago? Enough! A burst of energy envelops your life as soon as you change.

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

Bodhicitta: The Great Mother

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

New science theory wonders if space and time might be the same stuff. I don’t think that is exactly right, but close. So many theories being toyed with right now, that when “membranes” bump together that bump is a “big bang,” that there are infinite “bubble” universes all in the same place. That probable realities spin off with each choice we make. (Karma?) That where we sit is empty space, mostly, with atoms, and other nearly impossible to see particles. The rest of everything we see is mostly space with particles.

Another theory: what if when we space out, sleep, or forget where we are sometimes (just daydreaming) we may actually be focused on another reality. Hmm. Of course, that would mean brain is not consciousness, which is more. They are finding particles move in and out this dimension, and that black holes exist everywhere! Tiny and massive ones. So when we look at the stars and see galaxies, suns etc, we mostly see energy, same vibe as our eyes pick up. They look like what we think we know. But science always comes up needing a new theory. What if it all looks as it does because our own five senses came up with the very tools and measurements to prove themselves right? What if perception and consciousness became part of the equation? Like, all the empty space and speeding particles were exactly in the space we think we occupy? What if the macrocosm is the microcosm? What if looking “out” is delusion? What if all we see is our own perception? And what if that conscious/awareness perception is warped by thinking habitually, that it is all “out there” due to the scientific tools we created to see exactly that?

Okay, now, what if all consciousness could suddenly blink off. And there was no perception happening? Like a tree falling down with nothing and no one to perceive it would not make a sound. If there were no consciousness or perception, it would be unborn space, empty- but perfectly complete when there is perception and awareness.

We are one nature; that nature displays as we see it. We cannot be separated, but we can be duped by our own learned awareness, and so we have been, all this time. We are space. Our “vibration” is light, all-pervasive love. In Buddhism we call that Bodhicitta, the display of emptiness, the wisdom of Empty nature and its display. Bodhicitta, the great Mother of us all. We are that also. Buddha. But we are dreaming, and will someday awaken to view the primordial ground of being without the many gorgeous veils she dances with! Pure view. EH MA HO!

© Jetsunma Ahkön Norbu Lhamo

Eyes Wide Open

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

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.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Astrology for 4/25/2016

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4/25/2016 Monday by Norma

Leaders continue to plug away, managing costs, feeling cheerful and generally ignoring the hub-bub around them. It’s time to raise your gaze, remove the finger from your personal dike, and see what the world is doing! Things are sizzling! Foreign matters are churning, religious and spiritual factions are coalescing, and cheerful individuals have great ideas. William Feather said, “The secret of inspiration: tens of thousands of people have mastered problems as difficult as those that now baffle you.” Examine your issues from multiple perspectives and choose a new solution. Doesn’t work? Try another. The very first step? Consider that your answer may not be THE answer. Multiple distractions are an issue: choose one thing to work on and you’ll be fine. This is a great day for magnetic love, happiness and hard-charging activity.

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

Astrology for 4/24/2016

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4/24/2016 Sunday by Norma

News from afar is highlighted and foreign things and people are an issue. Everything’s happening so fast that you won’t know what to do until a slowdown occurs. Express your opinion and listen to others but take no concrete action until you’re certain you have all the facts. Political and religious leaders are backtracking and re-evaluating prior policies. Lewis Carroll said, “Why sometimes I’ve believed six impossible things before breakfast!” Pleasantly, men are serene in the face of uncertainty, happy in love and willing to tolerate those who are winded by all the excitement. Avoid work today, you’ll have to do it again. Go shopping, relax with your loved ones and engage in spirited conversation as you try to figure out what is going on.

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

Compassion – The Foundation of the Path

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An excerpt from the Vow of Love Series by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In a superficial way the idea of compassion can seem very simple, and we might make the mistake of thinking that we understand it. But if we study compassion deeply, eventually we will come to understand that the ultimate view of compassion is enlightenment itself. It is the natural, primordial wisdom state itself. That’s why compassion isn’t truly known until we reach supreme enlightenment.

Compassion is the foundation of the Buddhist path. Without it, like any house that does not have a firm foundation, the house will crumble. It will not stand. One’s motivation to practice must be compassion. If your motivation is not compassion, it will be very difficult to firmly stick to the commitment to practice and meditate every day. I feel for those who say, “I’d really like to practice. I would really like to have a time in my life everyday to meditate, and yet I don’t have the discipline. I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the commitment.”  If you have the right motivation, if you want to do this solely and purely from the point of view of compassion, you will find the time and you will find the commitment and you will find a way to do it. For those who have tried to meditate everyday or be consistent in their practice, if they can’t do it, my feeling is somehow the foundation of compassion isn’t strong enough.

If we could make the idea of compassion so strong that it becomes a burning fire consuming our hearts, until we are nothing but a flame. If the need to benefit others becomes so strong that it’s irresistible. If the understanding that others are suffering so unbearably in realms that we cannot even see, let alone the realms we can, that we cannot rest until we find a way to be of some lasting benefit to them. If these things can truly become part of our minds, we will find the strength to practice.

How do you find the strength to breathe? “Well,” you say, “that’s easy. Breathing is a reflex. I have to breathe. If I don’t breathe, I die.” What if you could cultivate the understanding that all sentient beings are filled with suffering that is inconceivable in its magnitude and that there are non-physical realms of existence we are not even aware of, filled with suffering? What if you could cultivate this understanding so deeply that, because of your realization, compassion and profound generosity became as much a reflex as breathing?  That is possible.

“Well,” you say, “I don’t have that kind of understanding. I’m just not like that. I can’t make myself really buy into that.” Let me comfort you with this awareness. Unless you are supremely enlightened you are not born with that perfect understanding. No one is. No one is born with enough understanding of the suffering of others, and an affinity with the idea of compassion, to create that perfect discipline naturally. That understanding comes only through its cultivation, and we must cultivate that understanding consistently every day.

Astrology for 4/23/2016

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4/23/2016 Saturday by Norma

Assertive people’s wings are being clipped right and left, and troublemakers are in trouble. Someone is letting the air out of the tires of street drag racers. If you have bothered others, you will be grounded. Retrograde Mars is hobbling those who misused his energy. Seneca said, “Injustice never rules forever.”A private conversation is excellent, and deals and negotiations go very well. Someone declares love and offers support, surprisingly. A powerful force is working behind the scenes to right wrongs and bring happiness. Expect holdups in travel and foreign matters, and don’t be surprised if people announce changes in their fundamental beliefs.

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

Cultivate Selfless Compassion

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An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

It’s almost impossible to attain the goal of selfless compassion, where you commit every fiber of your being to benefiting all sentient beings, seen and unseen, without a moment’s hesitation. It’s almost impossible to develop the kind of compassion where you understand that all sentient beings are revolving helplessly in such suffering that they can’t bear it, and you can’t bear to think it’s going on, without cultivating a deep understanding of suffering. You want to avoid the trap of making the very same prayers that the selfishly motivated person might do, but instead have the idea that you want to be a great Bodhisattva.

One goal will produce lasting results and the other will not. The person with the motivation of selflessness has the key. Through extraordinary, selfless compassion, that person has the strength to persevere through everything until he or she is awake. That person will persevere until he or she has completely purged from his or her mind even the smallest, gossamer thin seeds of hatred, greed and ignorance. The person whose motivation is to be the ‘good person’ will not be able to do the same for any length of time. The foundation isn’t strong enough. That person may need some kind of feedback, or warm fuzzies as reward for being good. Even tried and true Buddhists will find this impure motivation in your minds. Even our ordained Sangha will find that they, themselves, will have dry periods. You’ll go spiritually dry, bone dry, and you’ll think, “What am I doing here? I can’t go on; it’s just too hard.” Then the next day, you’ll wake up and you’ll think, “Another day…good.” You’ll have all these different feelings that are just so common. Everybody, everybody has them. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to have these feelings.

Why does it flip flop back and forth? Because you have not built the firm foundation of very pure, selfless compassion. You need to cultivate it every single moment. You need to get yourself past the point where you need warm fuzzies to keep you going. If you are only looking at the symptom of suffering and trying to manipulate your environment to turn suffering around, you will always need feedback. That feedback may or may not come. Your compassion, your love should not depend on that.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

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