Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Astrology

February 21, 2012 by Norma

Good fortune comes through friends and groups, and a stable organization or focus is being developed. Two approaches to a situation have appeared. One side is emotional, sensitive and imaginative – the creative part. The other side is hard working, detail oriented and wants results it can see – the pragmatic part. This dichotomy continues to grow throughout the week. It is a mistake to think either side is unnecessary. You will tire of each other, but you need each other. You won’t agree, but that doesn’t matter. Together you’ll come up with the perfect product or solution. Which role are you playing? Be flexible, willing to change. A bouncy sense of fun that seems out of sync with everything else is here too. Let it bring some joy into the mix. Colin Powell said: “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”

The daily astrology post affects everyone. Because individual charts vary, the circumstances outlined in the post will affect people differently. Some will feel this energy in the personal arena, some in finances, some with children or family, some in work and so forth. There are many departments of life. Look to see where the dynamic affects you!

From “To Have or to Harm” by Linden Gross

February 20, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “To Have or To Harm” by Linden Gross:

Chicago, Illinois, August 5, 1989
After violating a protective order three times, Sheila Gallo’s former husband kills her. Their divorce had been final for just two days.

Richmond, Virginia, February 9, 1989
Deborah Frost’s old high-school boyfriend kills her while out on bond. The young man, who came from a “nice family” according to the victim’s mother, had never gotten over her. Eleven encounters with the law over a ten-month period did nothing to change his intentions or the outcome.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 9, 1992
Shirley Lowery waits in the hall outside a courtroom where she’s applied for a restraining order against the man with whom she’d once lived. Before she makes it inside, Benjamin Franklin stabs her nineteen times, fulfilling his promise to make Shirley pay for leaving him.

Boston, Massachusetts, May 30, 1992
Eleven days after Kristin Lardner gets a permanent injunction to keep Michael Cartier away from her, the twenty-two-year-old bouncer walks up to her in the middle of a busy street during daylight hours and shoots her repeatedly in the head. He was on probation at the time, for the beating of a previous girlfriend. “If the courts had checked his record or spoken to police when she sought help, he would have been locked up rather than set loose to kill her,” Kristin’s sister Helen Lardner, a Washington lawyer, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Statistics on stalking are limited, principally because the cases wind up being classified as the crimes into which they usually escalate, such as assault or homicide. But most authorities agree that the overwhelming number of stalking victims are women. In fact, 90 percent of the fifteen hundred women killed by their current or former mates each year in this country were stalked before being murdered. However, that doesn’t mean that most stalking victims are killed. But “there’s a far greater chance that an ordinary -citizen case is going to result in a tragic conclusion than the celebrity,” says Lieutenant John Lane, who heads the Los Angeles Police Department’s Threat Management Unit, created especially to deal with stalking cases.

Stalkers don’t prey just on their individual targets. In cases involving family units, children frequently wind up as the victims. In October 1992, for example, Andrew Taylor made good on a prior threat. After his attempts at reconciliation — and his intimidation campaign — failed, he kidnapped his one-month-old daughter from her mother, a respiratory therapist. Authorities found the bodies of the unemployed actor and baby, whom he’d strangled, on a nearby bench. Eight months later, a South Dakota man shot his estranged wife and their two children just before their divorce was to become final.

Obsessed pursuers will frequently harass a third party to whom the actual target is attached in order to gain the intense impact and reaction they seek. “The easiest way to get me is to get to the people I love,” says Sarah Jane Williams, whose grandmother wound up in a nursing home after being knocked over by a prowler — presumably Sarah Jane’s stalker — when he broke into her home.

How did he know where to find the ninety-eight-year-old woman? or for that matter Sarah Jane, whom he continues to harass by phone even though she changes her number so often it takes her a few seconds to remember her current one?

Today’s easy access to informaiton has made us all potential victims. In his book Privacy for Sale, Jeffery Rothfeder explains how the proliferation of computerized records containing information about personal, private lives (5 billion records to date in the United States alone) means that a person with the right skills or contacts can find out virtually everything about us, from our whereabouts to our finances to our purchasing habits and family ties.

Why would one person obsess about another to the point of craving this sort of intimate information?

Anyone who has ever fallen in love or been infatuated knows how close the experience can be to a spiritual or drug induced high. Suddenly, our thoughts are consumed with one single being. Everything we see or do seems to bring him or her to mind. We find ourselves doing things we wouldn’t under any other circumstances. Like calling and then hanging up or using a fake voice just to see if anyone is home. Or driving by the house or apartment again and again for a glimpse.

The truth is that, for most of us, we’re in love not just with the person but with our projection of what kind of couple we’ll make, the needs that he or she will fulfill, and the idealized notion of love in general. Before we’ve even gotten to know what we’re really dealing with, we’ve fallen in love with what this person could represent to our future.

The individual whose life is a void waiting to be filled, however, takes those feelings and amplifies them. The person with whom he’s infatuated becomes his reason to exist. Any contact is better than no contact, any information a way to feel more intimately involved even if no relationship exists. That emptiness also helps explain the explosions that take place during the separations or divorces of many couples, when those who have used their relationships to define their identities simply can’t afford to let go.

In a culture where male violence is highlighted daily in the press and glorified nightly on television, the inability to accept rejection can easily mutate into dominance — particularly if it’s the man who’s been cast aside. “It has been sanctioned in society for a thousand years that a man has control over his woman,” says Michael Faymar, training coordinator for the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minnesota.

The social conditioning that most American men receive feeds this distorted view of relationships as ownership and love as a predestined occurrence. Even when they have targeted women who don’t return their affections, the socially accepted notion that men choose women, rather than the other way around, feeds their sense of righteousness. “She’s the only one for me,” says the ardent suitor, as if that should be the determining factor in her decisions.

Astrology

February 20, 2012 by Norma

Emotional harmony and happiness characterize this day. Friendly contacts are mutually beneficial, and groups and others are supportive. Women and children are loving and inclusive. Men are in an escapist, creative mode. Hidden matters are being negotiated, and it’s important to keep your eye on people around you. A temptation to engage in criminal or escapist behavior is prevalent. A tempting opportunity presents itself, and some people won’t be able to resist it. Criminals will be caught. New medications are developed that heal previously fatal conditions. Two paths diverge – one leads to compassion and the other to easy, dishonest solutions. H.L. Mencken said “There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible and wrong.” Take the ethical solution to your problem and no harm arises.

Astrology

February 19, 2012 by Norma

Game change! A technology-based braininess has been replaced by intuitive sensitivity, and you’ve got it! Follow your hunches, your intuitions. They are right, and the next couple of weeks will prove this out. Avoid sharing secrets today, the listener won’t understand or else will pepper you with so many questions you’ll lose heart. But don’t forget your idea. It’s a quiet time, for a change. Take advantage of a peaceful environment. Engage in activities that inspire and calm you. Water is excellent, as are films, music, all medical treatments, meditation and dreams. Mellow out! A dream or fantasy is pointing the way to what comes next, if you’re paying attention. Oscar Wilde said “Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

Develop the Mind of the Dakini Part 4 of 4: Full Length Video Teaching

February 18, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

In this final part of the workshop, Jetsunma goes through the practice she developed of Supreme Generosity (called Chod by Tibetan Buddhists). Through this she was able to deepen in her practice. We hope you will too.

Astrology

February 18, 2012 by Norma

A friendly man is really on your side, and a long term project is going smoothly! You learn a secret that opens a door you were unaware of. It’s safe to go in! A significant conversation leads to action that can resolve a standoff. Someone loves and supports you and will express this in private. Be dignified in public. If you are called on to act in public, dress up and be respectful of the occasion. It’s possible to make comments that will be quoted and remembered for years to come. You are aching to be noticed, but it’s better to remain demure and let others seek out your good qualities. Avoid assertive behaviour and avoid behavior that puts you in the flashy limelight. But you don’t want to. If you goof off in public, you can always apologize or hide tomorrow. G.K. Chesterton said “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity.” Be an angel.

Let Good Intention Guide Your Life: Full Length Video Teaching

February 17, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Following on the visit of H.E. Mugsang Tulku Rinpoohce, Jetsunma used him as an example of using your intention to benefit beings in all aspects of your life. By offering all y see, do, hear or anything for the benefit of all – this is a living mandala practice and can transform your life to an extraordinary one.

Astrology

February 17, 2012 by Norma

An emotional surprise kicks off the day. Don’t meet trouble head on. You can hide, pull in and wait things out, or you can go shopping and make excellent purchases. Powerful figures make an emotional appeal for order, and it’s better to avoid the fray. A sensitive, private conversation is excellent. Someone is worried about public opinion, and assurances of good will can avoid trouble. Be reassuring. Older folks or a person with problems must be dealt with. You’d rather not, since you’re in the mood for fun, but help out anyway. Elsewhere, men are making plans that will come to fruition, creativity is highlighted, and music soothes the soul. Avoid direct confrontations with authority, and do your best to respect the boundaries of others. Margaret Cho said “Try to love someone who you want to hate, because they are just like you, in a way you may never expect, in a way that resounds so deeply within you that you cannot believe it.”

Endowed with Garland of Flowers: The Reasons for Exhaustion by Longchen Rabjam

February 16, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully taken from “Drops of Nectar” published by Ngagyur Nyingma Institute:

Endowed with Garland of Flowers: The Reasons for Exhaustion by Longchen Rabjam:

Om Svasti Siddham!

The delightful enlightened form, like a blooming lotus garden,
Whom gods and humans honor as the omniscient one,
The glorious Samyepa of mountain retreat,
Offers some verses to the ears of people with clear minds!
Nowadays, some people have been, in a manner of speaking,
Claiming I lack knowledge of appropriate manners, wealth and
short of an unconfused frame of mind,
That I am not firmly established in solitude and am extremely exhausted.
To all these, I answer. Listen as I speak!

Although criticized by sublime beings, non-dharmic evil behavior is increasing.
Lies, cunning and fraud are the basis of deceiving others,
Causing regret at the time of death and falling to lower realms in future lives.
Such appropriately worldly manners are better done without!

Sublime beings criticize sensual pleasures as the lasso of samsara.
Bringing on quarrels with everyone, it is the basis for many kinds of suffering.
Even if you have enough, you’re not satisfied and craving increases.
Since it’s the cause for downfalls, it’s fine to be devoid of wealth!

If revulsion towards worldly dharmas does not arise,
There will never be liberation from the ocean of existence.
Toward impermanent and essence-less phenomena,
It’s good to be unattached and better if you are short of worldly plans!

While staying together as one, attachment and hatred naturally increases.
Distractions, diversions and activities become even greater.
By binding one to existence, ego clinging is the cause of bondage.
In this kind of situation it’s better not to have any certainty!

Even my exhaustion is not without a cause.
As I ponder the auspicious throughout the day and night,
[I see] the ocean of samsara, with its waves of birth and death.
We wander here from the natural illusion of ego clinging.

Having seen the deep ocean of existence that is difficult to cross,
I despair and, shedding tears, become exhausted!
Please listen to how I am even more wearied by
Examining behavior of other people.

Venerable abbots, teachers and lamas, though quite secure,
Do not pursue the path of Dharma but chase after sense
pleasure and entertainment.
Outwardly peaceful, they are extremely arrogant within,
Having seen their cunning ways, I become exhausted!

Even those endowed with the Dharma pay attention to the wealthy.
The straightforward guides as well are more benevolent
towards their dissimulating retinues.
They pursue the eight worldly concerns, those versed in non-Dharma.
Seeing mere reflections of the Gurus, I become exhausted!

The slanderous ones who engage in divisiveness know nothing
about what is meaningful.
The crooked demonic ones who never take a stand but who live by flattery
Are not pleased by goodness and separate two who are in harmony.
Seeing friends like this, I become exhausted!

Unable to bear it themselves, while expecting others to cope with effort;
Not helping in times of need, and upholding others’ unworthy positions.
Displaying all kinds of moods even for minor things;
Seeing friends like this, I become exhausted!

If you teach those who have no proper respect, you evoke harsh words.
Lacking faith and devotion, rigid as unyeilding wood
They run after food and leave behind the activity of exertion.
Seeing students like this, I become exhausted!

They praise you to your face, and speak badly behind your back.
Not striving on the path of Dharma, but chasing after sense pleasures,
As the final return for your nurture they manufacture quarrels.
Seeing students like this, I become exhausted!

If your food and clothing are inferior, you’re cast down even if
you’re learned.
With great wealth, even the stupid are venerated
And reckoned as talented although their companions are evil and cunning.
Seeing this kind of people, I become exhausted!

They look on those who live in an honest way as being completely uncultured.
They take those who lack wealth as having merit.
They say that those who follow the Dharma have accomplished
only worthless methods.
Seeing this kind of people, I become exhausted!

Those who are expert at fitting into the ordinary are counted
excellent scholars.
Those who mimic good qualities are said to be wise in Dharma
Those who are good at using harsh, stupid and deceitful words
are considered quite exemplary.
Seeing this kind of people, I become exhausted!

With only verbal generosity, they dedicate as though the merits
were complete.
Bringing harm, they are proud as though they had created virtue.
Engaging in non-Dharma, they clearly believe they have
accomplished the journey to the bliss realm.
All these perversions make me quite exhausted!

Without Dharma, obtaining mere trifles is counted as happiness.
And genuine monks without wealth are scorned by all who see them.
When fools are more valued than noble ones,
If there is any feeling, exhaustion is appropriate!

At this time and place, principles are perverted.
Being the opposite of one’s mistakes, good qualities are
reckoned as erroneous.
Just as the beings of Tsuta (a realm where all beings have only one leg) laugh at two-legged humans,
Saying one leg is extra,
The one called Samyepa who composes, teaches and debates,
Now faces insults for acting in accord with the Dharma!

When I expound this truth, the throng of heedless, ignorant fools,
The most stupid who pretend to be studying and contemplating
the system of logic,
The foolish hypocrites with their imposing air of mastery of the
supreme precious three trainings,
And those lofty associates who easily befriend them, are most displeased.

However my body of discipline is superb; the petals of the
three trainings are formed and expanded.
And the excellent ones who can discern the causes assemble at
the fortress of honesty.
In order to awaken delight in their minds I arranged this composition.

All whose minds are clear, please examine whether the
meaning is true or false.
In this manner the sweet-voiced one of mountain retreat
I, Tshultrim Lodro Zangpo composed this.

By this virtue, may I and all beings,
Sit before the great tree of the essence of enlightenment;
After defeating the devils of unpleasant speech,
May we become Dharma Kings with the spontaneously established three kayas!

With the intention of a perfect exposition, this answer, called “Endowed with Rosary that Completely Subjugates”, was composed by the greatly learned poet, the glorious Samyepa, Tsultrim Lodr. It is here complete.

If You Can Open Your Heart and Ask

February 16, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

For whom is Dharma written? Not for the ones who feel they know it. That would be a waste. If you are like that don’t listen to me.

Remember I was born in Brooklyn. (So not trustworthy?). I learned late, Aha! But was born young. I’ve always been kind and generous which makes me stupid, a joke.

I am a women past her prime. What use am I? I have seen my nature long ago, yet cannot hardly speak of it. I know the pulse of life, so must be repelled and fought. And because I have a throne and crown will never be loved truly.

But I love you. If you can open your heart and ask me in I will be there. A whore for Dharma, sure. A healer, speaker, -piece of shit, a rose, whatever you need me to be for you.

But not beaten. I will never be beaten as it is pre-ordained.

If you can hear me, I am here for you.

Abandon you? It is the only thing I cannot do.