A sacred space for everyone
The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Developing concepts based on the teachings of the Buddha is a good first step. But then one must apply the antidotes to purify perception to really realize the natural state of luminosity and compassion. Don’t mistake the concept for the actuality.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
Harmony exists between people today, and agreeable conversations are everywhere. Call, email, write; chat. You can come up with a great idea and interface it with your current project. Speak up to an important person, and put your best foot forward. Go for a drive, a walk, a run. Be out and about. You are actively engaged in something that is making you happier, more content with things as they are in your life. Make happiness a priority, factor it in. At the same time, you are working like mad on details. A neighbor or a newspaper gives significant information. Take inspiration from everything! Frank Capra said “A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.”
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!
The following quotes are respectfully taken from “How to Follow a Spiritual Master” by Ngagyur Nyingma Institute:
Hence, Lord Buddha has said in the Pratimoksha Sutra:
Abandon all non-virtues,
Cultivate all virtues,
Tame our mind in its entirety,
This is the teaching of the Buddha.
The following is a full length teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Every religion has a concept of what is considered compassionate or virtuous. What we find is that often we “look” compassionate instead of deepeing in our practice of Vajrayana. This generates the ultimate result of enlightenment.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Turning Adversity Into Felicity
Many people experience fear. Confidence in your practice and confidence in your prayers to the guru, these things relax the mind and subdue fears. So my suggestion is to practice in that way and to begin to cultivate the kind of confidence necessary to have the mind be more relaxed and calmer. Everything about us, everything about our practice and everything about our lives in general tends to go better if the mind is not tense and tightly constricted. If it is more spacious and relaxed, all of our perceptual processes, every aspect of our lives tends to go better.
We can take this understanding one step further. If in our lives we meet with a frightening obstacle—a health obstacle, an obstacle to our finances or to our living situation or something like that—our tendency, of course, is to tighten up and become tense and constricted. Actually, you should know that when obstacles are rising, if our minds become tight and tense and constricted, the obstacles tend to rise with more venom, and to be much more difficult to handle.
In a way, if our minds are tense like that, it’s as though we are leaving ourselves open for obstacles to arise and bring all their friends with them. It’s simply that when the mind is churned up it makes everything very fluid, and when obstacles are rising, that fluidity may not be the best thing. That fluidity tends to make things ripen and catalyze very quickly.
The best thing to do instead, is to allow the mind to perceive the empty nature of all circumstances, to meditate on emptiness, and to see misfortune and fortune as being inherently the same in their nature. That doesn’t mean you have to like misfortune as much as you like fortune. Nobody likes it as much, and nobody feels that way. But still, if you can begin to take steps towards meditating on the inherently empty nature of both phenomena, there is a lightness and a spaciousness that occurs within the mind that allows things to relax, that allows whatever obstacles that are arising to dissipate naturally.
When you begin to learn a little bit more about the nature of mind, you will come to understand that our perceptual process, our minds and the ego structure that reacts to any kind of fortune or misfortune—are all inherently empty in their nature. As we begin to give rise to that awareness and meditate on that, the nature of experience actually begins to change. Clearly, in times of great trouble many, many practitioners have found that if they avoid the temptation to say, “Now I’m having problems, best I get busy trying to correct them,” and become more active, but instead, go more deeply into practice and actually rely on meditation as a solution, sometimes just backing off from the situation and relaxing the mind will cause the situation to arise much differently. And that’s including, and even especially, physical sickness.
All sufferings have their roots in cause and effect, and most can be immediately traced to the way that we perceive and the way that we react. Although it doesn’t seem like that when circumstances are really slapping us in the face, if we can sit quietly and meditate and have confidence in our practice, have confidence in the blessing of the Guru, have confidence in the blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, then in this way many of the obstacles in our lives naturally begin to dissipate. Many people have worked through tremendous personal obstacles by relying completely on their meditation, and they come out ever so much stronger.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
A happy attraction, a friendly person, keeps you zipping about cheerfully. The harder you work, the more the person smiles. You are willing to pull out all the stops to please someone. Enjoy the energy, and be careful that you understand the instructions for your job. The danger of becoming confused and doing the wrong thing is present. Double check or you’ll have to redo your work. Steady progress is being made on a long term goal, and you and others are being very productive. The phrase “will work for food” today is transformed into “will work for smiles and praise.” If you are the admiration committee, go all out in your encouragement! William James said “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
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!
The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
You can only know the result of the path when you have actually accomplished the path. Your life demonstrates result. The mirror.
It is easy to be deluded by the circus in one’s head. Awakening is inexplicable, too many words aren’t needed.
A foundation must be well laid before the house can actually be even dreamed of.
When the three accomplishments are complete, ground, path and fruit, then all are known as a great primordial spontaneous array.
That is the way.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
The following is from “The Lamp of Liberation: A Collection of Prayers, Advice and Aspirations“
Kye! To all the Buddhas of the three times
Inseparable from the great absolute space,
Great intrinsic nature of phenomena,
Space of awareness uncontrived and ever-free,
We bow in order to realize our self-nature,
And vow from now not to separate from it.
Realizing the essential sameness, may we be liberated in the absolute space!
Ho! In the vast space of the great expanse, the Wisdom-Mind
Of the Buddhas, the essence of the Sugatas,
wisdom, the rising power of gnosis
Displays a powerful pure aspiration.
The primordial space of the Ground, Dharmakaya,
Is the Adi Buddha among all Buddhas,
Unimproved by positive qualities,
Unimpaired by defects and stains–
The great space beyond conceptualized views.
May we realize the nature as it is.
All-pervasiveness beyond all partiality and limitations,
Expanse free from attributes and labels,
Great confidence that there is nothing to give up and nothing
to gain:
May we realize the nature as it is.
Purity and essential sameness of samsara and nirvana,
Dharmakaya;
Spontaneous display, perfect Sambhogakaya;
Complete self-liberation, Nirmanakaya:
May we realize the nature as it is.
There is no Buddha, there are no beings;
There is no cause, no conditions, no result.
There is no path, no wisdom to gain:
May we realize the nature as it is.
From the beginning it is pure from defects and stains;
Luminosity in depth: knowledge, realization and gnosis fully blossomed–
Space beyond the three times, beginning and end.
May we realize the nature as it is.
Thus the face of the Dharmakaya is perfect
Without having to be sought; the habitual tendencies which veil it
Are intrinsically pure in the great state which is without object.
May we enter the perfect path.
The supreme Wisdom, unborn and ungenerated,
Free from obscurations and veils of ignorance
Is the great natural state of suchness;
May we realize the nature as it is.
The powerful blessings of great Wisdom
having liberated the obstacle-makers of deviations, errors
and mistakes,
There is the primordial state beyond effort:
May we enter the perfect path.
Without alterations, changes, training or progress
Is the supreme path among paths, the perfect path.
With the gnosis which sees whatever there is
May we recognize the nature as it is
And reach the primordial space.
By observing one does not see the perfect View;
Leaving as is, without observing, ones sees the self-nature.
Not to observe is the vital point of the profound View:
May we enter the perfect path.
By acting one does not accomplish the activity beyond action;
Without acting the great meaning of naturalness is realized.
Not to act is the vital point of great action.
May we enter the perfect path.
The Wisdom-Eye of great gnosis
Freed from the murk and dust of habitual tendencies,
May we actually recognize Dharmata
And attain the level of the Fully Matured Vidyadhara.
All phenomena are like the ten similes of illusion.
With pure perception free from grasping
May the visionary experiences develop,
And may we attain the level of the Vidyadhara of the
Power Over Life.
Without depending on causes and conditions
Obtaining in reality independence and self-liberation,
May we reach the culmination of ground-awareness
And attain the level of Mahamudra Vidyadhara.
The dualistic phenomena of subject and object perceived
through deluded mind
Dissolve in the great Dharmata beyond intellect.
May we hold the invincible position of attainment of confidence
And attain the level of Spontaneously Accomplished Vidyadhara.
All mental perceptions of the three worlds of samsara,
As if waking from a dream into the absolute expanse,
Dissolve in the great primordial inner space:
May we fully awaken in the Youthful Vase Body!
The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo at Kunzang Palyul Choling:
How do we accomplish the aspiration to “not even see the faults of others” and at the same time not engate in “idiot compassion”? Jetsunma talks about how you can move toward enlightenment by engaging in the view of all as the Buddha.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
Groups are busy articulating their goals and philosophies, and it’s a good day to build group consensus. What is best for the general good is foremost right now. Organizations are powerful! Meet with friends, and be quite careful with your finances. You could commit to something you are unwilling to do once the mood has changed. Don’t sign anything without sleeping on it. The dominant theme involves going back over and carefully organizing the things of your life. It’s possible to refinance a loan, to negotiate better terms for something. A careful, detailed analysis of matters is extremely beneficial. Elsewhere, love suddenly appears. You are inspired, and this encourages you to work harder. Bennett Cerf said “A pat on the back, though only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, is miles ahead in results.”
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!