Alyce Zeoli | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Stopping the Merry-Go-Round

June 24, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

Now, during this practice, with our whole body we’re purifying body karma arising from the non-virtuous activity that we have engaged in since time out of mind, when instead of going for refuge, we went for ice cream. So instead, now we are actually using our body, speech and mind—using the body by making prostrations, using the speech by reciting, and using the mind by remaining absorbed and visualizing. Now we are training in the same way that a body builder trains a muscle. He develops and trains that muscle by pumping it and working it and working it. Now we are working to sharpen our focus, not to be simply reactive and discursive the way we are in samsara going towards meaningless goals with no distinction whatsoever. I mean, we’ll follow anything!

Instead of going for meaningless goals that have no meaning whatsoever, instead now we are training body, speech, and mind to be single-pointed for the first time. This is pretty amazing! I mean, think about it. For the first time, single-pointed. I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma and the Sangha. And if you do it with your body, speech and mind, the potency of reciting that 100,000 times is extraordinary! Simply extraordinary! I mean, completing 100,000 repetitions of the refuge mantra and prostrations is an extraordinarily life-changing experience. It’s like stopping the merry-go-round for a minute. If you were born on a merry-go-round and your movement was invisible, and then suddenly you stopped, don’t you think that something inside of you would go, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What’s this? This is new!” And that would be the beginning of a new kind of experience. And it takes the weight of that kind of practice to make that happen.

The Way Out

June 23, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called Turning Adversity Into Felicity

When we practice Guru Yoga, we actually begin to develop the view that the lama is the source of liberation. We begin to understand using traditional, prescribed images. For instance, we are taught that we should think of samsara as being like a burning room. In samsara there is a great deal of suffering, and it’s actually just as probable that you will experience adversity as it is probable that you will experience felicity. It is just as probable that you will experience suffering as it is that you will experience happiness and joy. So we think of samsara as being untrustworthy, and we think—and this is true—that within samsara, because of our confusion and our lack of awareness about what our nature actually is, we are constantly giving rise to the causes for more suffering. This is constantly the case. So we think of samsara as being like a burning room with no windows, that there is no escape except for this one door. In our practice we think that the Lama is like that door.

The Lama is considered to be the door to liberation, the very means by which the blessing comes to us. Without the Lama, we would not have been hooked onto the path. Without the Lama, we would not receive the teaching. Without the Lama, we would not understand the teaching. Without the Lama, our minds would not be empowered and ripened and matured. That is the responsibility of the relationship between the guru and disciple. The mind must be matured in order to progress on the path. So we rely on the Lama for all of these things without which we remain wandering in samsara experiencing birth/death/birth/death/birth/death with very little control.

Of course, when life is going well we think that this must not be true. It looks like we have a lot of control in our life. But if you think that, then you should read the newspaper more frequently, and you should talk to people who have been inflicted with incurable, diseases, who were afflicted completely out of the blue, not expecting that their lives would come to this. You should talk to people who have suffered through circumstances that seemed to come from outside, misfortune, the loss of a job, the loss of loved ones. These are terrible sufferings for us as human beings, and until we have experienced our fair share of them — and we will, eventually; old age, sickness and death, these things occur to all of us — we have the delusion of a certain kind of control in our life. Ordinarily that kind of delusion comes with youth, and then later on, as we pass the age of supreme omniscience at about 30, we begin to discover that, in fact, we are not totally in control, that life seems to control us.

So we think of samsara as being this untrustworthy, inescapable difficulty, and we think of the lama as being the door to liberation. We hold that kind of regard. It isn’t that we worship a personality. Of course, it’s not like that. That would be very superficial and useless. What good is a personality? If we conceive of the Lama as a personality, what good would that do us? We are a personality, and look where it’s gotten us! That’s nothing to rely on. So we rely on the Guru as the condensed essence of all the objects of refuge: all the Buddhas, all the Bodhisattvas, all the Lamas, all the meditational Deities, the Dakinis and the Dharma protectors all rolled into one, including all of the teachings. These are the liberating truths of Dharma. These are the objects of refuge. So the Lama becomes the door through which we exit samsara.

What is Your Refuge?

June 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara”

When we practice prostrations we are applying the antidote to pride. Well, you think to yourself, if that’s what we’re doing, I’ll just stop being proud! And how long do you think that’s going to work because you know what you’ve already done? You’ve already said I could figure out how to do this better than the Buddha did! You don’t think there’s a little pride in that? Hm? Hm? I do. There’s pride in that already. Instead of being oriented towards engaging in non-virtuous activity and creating non-virtuous habitual tendency and continuing our delusions, instead we should make prostrations. And how do we make prostrations? We say, “I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma and in the Sangha.” The Three Precious Jewels—the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Now why is it necessary to do that 100,000 times and to bend our bodies when we do that? Because inside ourselves we are constantly saying “I take refuge in what-I-want, what-I’m-gonna-get, and what-I’ll-have-in-the-future. I take refuge in you-love-me, you-take-care-of-me, you-give-me-stuff.” We are constantly taking refuge in stereo, TV, CD player. We are taking refuge in chocolate. What else? What do you like? Cake? Ice cream! I mean, these are the ways that we think! We don’t realize that, but when you go for something, what do you go for? You go for something else! You don’t go for the Buddha, the Dharma or the Sangha. You go for ice cream! You go for a new car! You go for anything but the Buddha the Dharma and the Sangha!

Gossip: Understanding the Poison

June 20, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Any time you talk badly about someone you actually shorten your life force. Or at the least you endanger your ability to draw trusting friends and the ability to be well-spoken in future times. And no one will believe you.

I don’t like gossip – it does no good and tastes like poison. And it comes back.

Question from Twitter Follower: “What is the distinction between gossip and recounting your experiences with others?”

Jetsunma’s response: Intention is the difference. Tell stories, I do. Usually we know when we are being mean-spirited.

Increase Your Capacity to Love

June 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Dharma and the Western Mind by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Having taught Westerners I can see that the ones that last on this path, the ones that change and gentle and deepen in their practice are the ones that are motivated by this intensity of loving. The ones that will do almost anything to end suffering, these are the ones that make it. These are the ones that I have hopes for.

It is a Buddhist tradition that we should pray for the ones who have hopes of us because we have many karmic connections. Each one of us have karmic connections, it’s just like a giant web of connections, and some day each one of us will attain supreme enlightenment just as Lord Buddha did. Surely we will, because our nature is the same as his. We are the same and we will some day become awakened to that nature. And on that day, those with whom we have connections, those who have hopes of us, will rejoice because at last they have a chance. You should think right now there are those who are waiting for you, whose future it is, whose karma it is that when you achieve supreme realization they will depend on you as your disciples and you will be their teacher. You will be the one by which the door to liberation is opened for them.

Some day you will be reborn as a teacher that opens the door of Dharma, or makes the path available and you will be the cause of the end of their suffering. You should think about them every day. You should pray for those who have hopes of you. It is a very important thing to think about and in teaching Westerners I find that they must remember this.

Even if all of the concepts associated with the Buddha Dharma are difficult, even if the idea of devotion is difficult, even if the idea of doing prostrations is difficult because we are unfamiliar with these things, we can do anything in order to benefit beings. We can accustom ourselves to any idea in order to benefit beings. Once your mind has been gentled and softened by that kind of loving you can begin to understand that the most important thing is to eliminate suffering. You can understand also that the idea of doing what is unfamiliar to you – repetition of mantra, practice of different kinds, meditation of different kinds, sitting for a very long time, doing prostrations, developing a relationship with the guru, these things, that are not common in our Western society, become acceptable because we can see that they bear fruit and gentle our minds. They increase our capacity for loving and they bring us closer to enlightenment. Then we can do it.

©Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Dakini’s Blessing

June 18, 2016 by Holly

Mandarava-small

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Dakini Workshop

The Dakini is considered to be the enlightened or concerned activity of the Buddha nature. In order to understand the enlightened or concerned activity of the Buddha nature one should understand thoroughly the activity of samsara. In order to do that, one should observe one’s own activity. The key word to describe one’s own activity is effortfulness. Everything that we do requires effort. There is nothing that we can simply do spontaneously without effort. Everything requires effort; including starting with the effort it takes to get up in the morning and the effort that it takes to continue throughout the day. Every single item on our agenda requires some effortfulness.

Of course, there are degrees of effortfulness and there are degrees of ease. You can describe some things as being easy. You can describe some things that you do as being very, very difficult but the key word, the mark of samsaric experience, samsaric movement, is that everything one does requires effortfulness. That is the basis of it. And of course, in order to understand that basis of effortfulness, one must understand the foundation or the basis of activity. All activity experienced within samsaric existence is based on the idea of self-nature as being inherently real because the self is doing the activity. It has to be based on that. And in order for self to interact with the environment, self has to distinguish between self and other. That distinction has to be made. That is the activity that is going on in samsaric experience.

In order for that to happen, one must have attraction, repulsion or neutrality. One must interact with, or continue to meet up against and reinforce duality in every sense. Therefore, in samsaric experience concerning activity, there is always an inherent friction. Nothing slides through. There is no effortlessness. There is always a friction. There is always a bumping up against. That bumping up against has to do with the mind of duality and the distinction between subject and object. There is no movement in samsara without that. All movement occurs in that way.

Therefore, in order to understand the nature of the Dakini and enlightened activity or compassionate activity, one must understand the concept of effortlessness. In order to understand the concept of effortlessness, one must understand the basis for the appearance of miraculous enlightened activity in the world, and that, which is consistent with the nature of the Dakini. The basis for enlightened compassionate activity is that this activity is consistent with, inseparable from and indistinguishable from, enlightenment itself – Buddha nature. That must be understood.

How is that distinct from ordinary activity? Ordinary activity has that friction and struggle associated with its basis. This basis is the fundamental idea of self-nature as being particularly solid. Remember that in order to determine self-nature, one has to distinguish between self and others, so immediately there has to be division, there has to be distinction, there has to be cleavage – there has to be a breakage of some kind. That movement is very hard. It is a movement very much involved in a solid process of continuing the continuum. That is the basis for any activity or movement seen in samsara. That is not the case pertaining to the nature of the Dakini, enlightened activity or compassionate activity.

If we can think of the nature of the Buddha we should think of the great sphere of truth, the undifferentiated expanse, the great sphere of emptiness. We should think that there is no basis for the sphere of truth, there is no basis for emptiness, and there is no building block or cause and effect relationship because there is no distinction within the great expanse. In order to understand the great expanse, the mind has to relax utterly. There is no arising of the components of distinction. There is no contrivance. There is no ripple or friction or cleavage or distinction of any kind. The great sphere of truth is simply suchness. The moment one tries to box up suchness or put it in a bottle or put in a certain shape or color it or distinguish it from suchness, it is no longer that. So, the great sphere of truth is as it is – simply suchness.

Yet, all potency arises from the sphere of truth. All that one sees, all richness, all diversity arises from the sphere of truth: that which we perceive as diversity arises from the sphere of truth. How can that be so? Either a thing is empty or it is not? Well, the mistake, the delusion comes after the idea of self-nature as being inherently real. At that point, the mind operates in the posture of distinction. It operates in the posture of duality. And everything that is perceived from that point is engaged in that process. Yet, from the point of view of enlightenment, when one has awakened to that nature and the view is correct, when one no longer engages in the process of distinction, when the mind is restful, spacious and luminous in the natural state, the mind is not operating in distinction. There is no distinction. And so, all that arises from the sphere of truth arises spontaneously and effortlessly and is spontaneously completed and insubstantial, like a rainbow.

A Great Stabilizer

June 17, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Dharma and the Western Mind by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

I have found something wonderful about Westerners; we are really kind people. I don’t know what it is about us. Is it because we grew up and our parents told us? Is it because we heard it on the news and all the Presidents have told us and Kissinger says so and everybody knows that we are the strongest country in the world? This is what we grew up with. We think that if anybody is going to save the world that it is going to be us. Who else would it be, really? So we have this idea that we can save the world. Are we really thinking, “Well we really have something special, we are pretty extraordinary.” Or is it somehow that karmically a family has come together here and has the leisure to practice. It has the opportunity to accomplish Dharma. It even has the opportunity to make Dharma stable in a world in which it is no longer stable. It is no longer stable in Tibet. It is difficult in India. It is difficult in Nepal. Could it be that a family has come together in the right place at the right time that has the opportunity to do something really terrific and somehow we know that somewhere? Are we unusual? I know so many people that have grown up with the idea that they wanted to help people and to do something good for somebody some time. They felt almost a sense of being chosen, that there was some meaning that would be found in this life and a sense of purpose, so many of us have had that.

I don’t know if it is unique to Westerners. I have no idea. When I talk to Tibetans they talk all the time of being of use to sentient beings. So I know that that is a meaningful concept to them but I don’t know how they approach it or how they think of it. But I know that it is a thought that somehow a part of us has hopes of ourselves, that we will do something useful. We look at the world and we feel genuinely sorry. We have a big brother or a big sister attitude. We may not have an easy time looking at our suffering but we can see that other people are having a rough time. Sometimes we can’t even relate to the issues that make the times rough but we can try to help. Sometimes we mess it up worse than before, we really complicate things when we try to help and we have that knee jerk reaction without even understanding what the causes are. Nevertheless we feel that we can help.

I found therefore that in teaching Westerners this is a very important and central thing to understand, that the Buddha teaches us to be of use, to be of benefit to sentient beings. The Buddha teaches us that if you cannot be of use at least do no harm. But in Vajrayana Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism you are actually asked to consider that other sentient beings are more important than you are by virtue of the fact that there are many of them and only one of you and that the name of the game is the end of suffering.

We are taught to love, I mean really love, which means defining love in new ways. We are taught that we are supposed to be on fire with it and know it is possible in order to practice Dharma correctly and purely. We have to think only of that which can be of benefit to beings and to bring about the end of suffering, only that is important. I have found that Westerners are moved by that, and they are stabilized in their path.

Those of you who are familiar with the center know that we have a twenty-four hour a day prayer vigil that has been running since 1985. There is never a time when there is not someone here, undertaking prayer for all sentient beings. I have been delighted and warmed to see how deeply my students respond to that job. They take it very seriously. They adopt the idea that if there is no-one else at least there is me, and pitiful as I am I am still going to give it my best shot to do something virtuous in order to be of use to sentient beings. I am going to try to help. That has been a great stabilizer on the path.

For those who have turned their minds in such a way that they care more for the welfare of sentient beings and are greatly motivated by the end of suffering, their hearts are warm with it and their minds are gentled with it. They will practice in order to benefit beings. You can’t stop them. Yet even for my long time students I find that those who haven’t quite got that, remain up and down about practice. It varies and they need inspiration, and they need someone to take them by the hand and help them to stay on the straight and narrow. Once we really learn to love in this profound and universal sense, there is no turning back. We are touched and we are changed.

©Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo

Your Potential

June 15, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Dharma and the Western Mind by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

One of the most difficult concepts for Westerners besides the idea of emptiness of self-nature and some of the thoughts about the Nature of Mind that the Buddha teaches us are thoughts about devotion. I think it is because we have grown up in a society where it is very important to be important. We are very egocentric really. We have this idea of individualism as being the optimal thing; the idea of the self being fully developed and fully actualized in some way, the idea of developing all of your qualities and talents, whatever they may be. Developing all of your different talents has become so central to us that when we see that in Vajrayana Buddhism it is the custom to do three prostrations to the teacher we become appalled. As Westerners, our first thought is, does this mean that I am less than this person, do I have to subjugate myself, do I become some sort of wimp? What happens to me when I do that? Does this mean that I am kind of useless somehow?

You should understand that there is nothing in this path that will undermine what you inherently are. In fact the point is for you to awaken finally to your real nature, to your true nature. There is no way, there is no room, and there is no space on this path for you to be undermined in any way. In fact in this path you are recognized to be something that you never thought you could have been. Your potential to be a Buddha is fully recognized, male or female, high or low, whoever you are, that potential is fully recognized by your teachers and that is the point of teaching you.

When you comply with the custom of doing three prostrations and of honoring your teacher you are purposefully cultivating devotion, because the teacher is seen as the door to liberation and the motivation of going through that door is love. You want to be of benefit to beings, you want to accomplish Dharma so that there is an end to suffering. You want to return again and again and again in whatever form necessary in order to be of benefit to beings and the teacher is seen as a door that you walk through to get there. The teacher gives you the Dharma. The teacher offers you the technology. The teacher acts as the catalyst by which these things are realized and for that reason the teacher becomes a feast; the feast that you have always hungered for. When you prostrate to the teacher you do not prostrate to the person.

My name before I became Ahkön Lhamo used to be Catharine. Do you really think that anyone is really prostrating to Catharine? She is not that great. No one is that great really, but what is great is the door to liberation that your teacher offers you. What is great is that awakened nature that someone who has experienced some realization displays. That is what we prostrate to, not the person.

So you shouldn’t be shy about that or uncomfortable with that. If you don’t want to do it that is fine but don’t feel funny about other people doing it. Try to overcome the different blocks that you have as Westerners so that you can practice Dharma purely and sincerely.

Remember the whole thing is about being of benefit to sentient beings and about loving. As Westerners that is what you have to stabilize your mind with, you should cause yourself to understand these things, turn your mind; cause yourself to only want to do those things that will produce the result that you want – love. Motivate yourself to be stable on this path because the result of this path is the awakened state, and that state is of benefit to all beings, especially those who have hopes of you.

Right Speech

June 14, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called The Eightfold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Right speech is the first principal of ethical conduct on the Eightfold Path. And on the Eightfold Path is really based on ethical conduct. It’s one of the things that I like best about Buddhism. It isn’t based on a pie-in-the-sky idea. You have to work it. People who are recovering alcoholics will recognize that saying about the 12-step program, “It works if you work it.” Right? And the Eightfold Path is exactly like that. If you don’t work it, you’re going to go back to the narcotic of samsara. But if you do work it, you have strength and bones that you never had before. There is a similarity. I’ve often drawn that connection between the Buddha dharma and the way that self-honesty is required, and the 12-step program, especially in that we are all addicts. We are addicted to our emotions. We are addicted to our delusions. We are addicted to our visions. We are addicted to our dreams. We are all addicts. And we are just so drunk with the narcotic of samsara that it is hard to pay attention, and see what is the root of all this. We are trying to become awake so that we can see all of that, and right speech is one of the guidelines to the moral discipline of ethics.

We don’t realize that you have to do right to be right. That is certainly true on the path of Buddha dharma. The importance of speech in the Buddha dharma is central and obvious. For one thing you can cause harm with speech, and you should never do that. Right speech would be speaking well, speaking nobly, speaking higher, and not speaking against anyone or speaking harshly or cruelly, or gossiping.

Gossiping is a terrible ethical non-virtue or perversion of Buddhist ethics. And I must say it’s rampant in most religious communities and in ours too. It’s rampant. It’s not what the Buddha taught and it should not be that way. We should uphold one another with speech, rather than to tear one another down. Words can break or save lives. Think about that. Words can make enemies or friends. Start war or create peace. All by words. And you can review history to see that that’s true.

To keep away from false speech, one especially should never tell deliberate lies or speak deceitfully. Some people are storytellers, and tend to be expansive in their speech. I’ve been known to do that myself. When you tell a story, you expand it a little bit. You polish it up. Make it a little more interesting. Throw in a few hand gestures. That’s not deceitful necessarily unless you are making yourself higher. Then that would be deceitful. If you said, “I had this experience in meditation. It was so big. You’ve never had anything like it.” (And therefore, I’m big) That would be wrong speech. That would be unethical. What we really want to do is avoid telling different lies, especially those that bring us power, acknowledgement, or approval, because then we know that we are lying to someone, which is unethical, in order to bring ourselves up above them which is not right either. It ruins our right intention.

That would be called false speech and it is to be avoided. We must also abstain from slanderous speech, and should not use words maliciously against others. That’s gossip. We do it all the time. We should be very very careful with that, because one thing I’ve noticed about gossip and slander is that it comes right back to you, even in this very life. But if we develop the habit of slanderous speech, lifetime after lifetime, what happiness can come from that? We will be born into lifetimes where no matter what we do people will not think well of us. We will be causing more suffering to others and ourselves. To use words maliciously against others undermines the whole basis of the path, which is this right intention and this right view, and this consideration of the truth of the Four Noble Truths.

When we consider all of this together, we understand that malicious speech is not just a no no. It’s a killer. We should abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others. We can see what the ethics of that would be. Like if I were to say to you, “Gee, you look kind of ugly today.” What is the point of that? Why would I need to do that? Even if it were true, why would I do that? Well, first of all I have shown that I have not accomplished right view. Right there I have shown you my buttocks. So, obviously this is not the right way to go.

We want to cultivate right intention, so we want to keep away from unethical speech that hurts or offends others. We want to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, it means tell the truth, speak friendly, warmly and gently, and talk when you’ve got something to say. Brilliant! Only a Buddha could have thought of this. Actually it was “talk only when necessary.” I had to have a little fun there.

The Burning Room

June 13, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching called “Essence of Devotion”

When embarking on the path, we look for the most excellent method. We look for that method that gives excellent results every time. That method would be Dharma. Dharma has brought about enlightenment in generation after generation of students and teachers alike. Students have become teachers who have returned to benefit beings, just as I hope you are hoping to do.

Now, we not only need that, but we need an excellent captain, and that captain should be considered none other than the Buddha and his emanations in the world. The Buddha is the one who has successfully crossed the ocean of suffering and has, without a doubt, achieved enlightenment. If you read the life of the Buddha there is no doubt that he has achieved enlightenment. The results of his life—having brought enlightenment to so many others for 2,500 years—can only have arisen from the mind of enlightenment. So we want the proper ship. We want the proper captain. We also need the proper navigator because it’s considered that, while the Buddha is the supreme captain of our ship, it is his spirit, his mind, his nature which is present in the navigator who does the driving and keeps us afloat. And that is our teacher.

So that is the situation that we want to hook up to. That’s how to leave the party, another analogy that we can use. I love to teach in analogies because it’s much easier and simpler for us. We can understand parties. We can understand foolishness. We can understand suffering. We can understand ships and water and the urge not to drown, but sometimes it’s hard to understand Dharma. So I like to learn and I like to express in analogies. One good analogy for understanding our present situation as we embark on the great task of practicing refuge and Bodhicitta is that when we look around and we read the paper and we see our own eventual age and death and all the sufferings that come with it, as well as the sufferings of others, we consider that the two of them are unbearable and they are inseparable. I am suffering, you are suffering. It’s all one package. You come to realize that it’s like you’re in a burning room. You know, the room just burning, burning, burning, burning, on fire, and at that point you look around and you realize that there is one door, one opening, not even a window. One door as an exit from that room, and that door is wide open. How much love and regard will you have for that door, while being in that burning room? Well, we’re so funny, we’re so kind of asleep at the wheel, at least in the first part of our spiritual path. Maybe we don’t even have much realization but, when in our own experience the room really begins to get hot and we begin to see the singeing of our own hairs and really relate to the burning of our own flesh. we begin to see, really see, what the situation is due to our own experience. And we will someday. We will. If not now, then someday. Then at that time we look at that door with such love and regard. In fact, we don’t even think about how much we love and regard the door. We are so into the door that we are out of the door as soon as possible. We love the door. The door is our hope.

It’s like that when we approach the path. As we begin to practice turning the mind towards Dharma, we begin to practice seeing what is in this ocean of suffering, what we are surrounded with. Then at that point, we begin to take in our own real experience and how kind of silly it is when we try to keep on top of our suffering when, in fact, we are suffering and it is foolish to be in denial about that. At that point our minds soften. They gentle and they turn. And suddenly we get smart in a way we were never smart before. Suddenly we’re on Red Alert. Something is different and we begin to regard that door, not as just a shape in a room, but as something that is more meaningful to us than anything else. The path is that door. Our teachers who give us the path are that door. The method is that door. That is our opportunity to exit samsara.