An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999
To develop spiritual recognition, you need to recognize that beings that you see living in a material way that seems so fruitless have the very seed of Buddha Enlightenment within them. They are That Nature, but piteously confined; blind, wandering in this deluded world of appearances, simply dancing through reactiveness. Without that spiritual discrimination, there’s no practice.
If we can begin to really push ourselves to give rise to a state of recognition by applying this discrimination and mindfulness, then perhaps we are actually practicing, actually accomplishing something. It is entirely possible to spend one’s whole life calling ourselves a “renunciate,” dressed up like Dharma, walking around with beads, but if we do not require of ourselves that we move further and further into giving rise to a state of recognition, we might as well be entertaining ourselves. The very thing we wish to disengage, that deluded ego, that inherent belief in self-nature, is on center stage. So long as that is happening, we are suffering; we are wandering aimlessly in samsara with no way to understand our Nature: blind, deaf, dumb, unable, mistaking the five primordial wisdoms for our senses. Our senses that tell us if things are hot or cold, big or small, so we can have them. Our senses that tell us if things are far away or close by so we know whether to react with repulsion or attraction. Our senses describe that stuff ‘out there’ so we can determine how we should feel about it. This deluded and continuous reality that we steep ourselves in is not practice, even if you do it with the robes on; even if you do it with your beads in your hands. It is awakening to the state of recognition that is most important.
When we see deluded sentient beings, this is an opportunity. They become to us like gurus. This is an opportunity to practice. Have you seen your parents? Though I’m sure they’re dear to you, they’re not really enlightened people. They’re not like living Buddhas. We’ve watched our parents age and sometimes very painfully – the aging process is not a comfortable process. Your body drops out from under you and starts betraying you. Not only have we watched this process go on, but we’ve watched them suffer so much. We’ve watched them try to attain, one by one, all the goals they were told to obtain and work so hard.
Sentient beings aren’t lazy. Sentient beings are working very hard every day to fulfill their belief systems. Our parents went to work. They might have been the worst parents in the world, but they went to work every day. They worked really hard. Maybe my parents were some of the worst in the world, but I did watch them suffer, suffer, suffer and work, work, work and beat themselves to death. And the grief that they feel when they look at what they’ve been doing and working so hard for, and it amounts to nothing. What happened? Now I’m old, nearly dead. This is not only true with our parents; it’s also true with us. It’s true with all beings. These are not bad people; these are not evil people. The sickness here is ignorance. The sickness here is a state of non-recognition. The sickness here is the narcotic sleep called samsara.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo