Compassion | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

No Short Cuts

June 27, 2016 by anisonam

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

As a part of Ngondro, we have to accomplish 100,000 repetitions of a short version of the Bodhisattva Vow, the Bodhicitta mantra. Do you think to yourself, “Well what’s the goal here? See, I’m trying to be compassionate. O.k. so from now on I’m just going to be nice.” Have you ever tried to make that decision? From now on you’re going to be nice? Have you ever tried to do that? How long did it last? Maybe five minutes if you’re lucky! I think the all-time world record for a woman is 28 days! And that goes for her husband also! So it really can’t be done. You can’t just decide you’re going to be compassionate. And why is that? Because you still have the weight of these ancient habitual tendencies and deluded perceptions.

The Buddha teaches us that what’s needed here is to recite the Bodhicitta mantra at least 100,000 times with the correct absorption, correct mental concentration, mental imaging, and mental visualization, just as you are taught by the Buddha. Don’t make up your own religion now. Don’t do that! Practice what the Buddha has taught you just like the Buddha says, and that will change that. Rather than thinking “Oh, let me see if I can rewrite this religion to make it a little easier,” which you guys have all tried to do, haven’t you? Yes, we know that. So, instead of rewriting the religion, we actually practice it the way that it was given. But we’re thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice, instead of this 100,000 business, why don’t we sort of do it the new way? This is a new age isn’t it? We’ll just think positive all of the time.” Anybody ever tried to think positive all the time? That’s another fun one. The world record for that is also 28 days.

So we have to understand that what’s recommended here is not arbitrary. Some Buddhist person didn’t show up a long time ago and say “Let’s see, when it gets to be about 1996, how are we going to torture these people?” It wasn’t like that at all. These practices are meant to antidote your particular situation. You must understand that these were not given to us by ordinary sentient beings. These were not authored by someone who felt that they had an answer the way many of our New Age wisdoms are. You know, nowadays we hear people coming up with wisdom all the time, all kinds of wisdom.They came up with it two years ago, five years ago—how to dream, how to vision. Everybody’s got some wisdom.

But this stuff that comes from the Buddha is different. What actually occurred here is that the very mind of enlightenment appeared in the world as the perfected Buddha. This was not an ordinary sentient being. This is the Buddha nature appearing in the world in a form that we can see with our eyes. And from the mind of that nature, from the mind of that one, from that, directly from the Buddha nature itself, this antidotal process was given. It’s not the same as some mom and pop wisdom somebody cooked up nowadays. So it’s not going to sound like, “Let’s put a bandaid on an ulcer.” It’s not going to sound like “O.k. you’ve been alive since time out of mind creating lots of nonvirtue. Just think positive. Everything will be fine.” It’s not going to sound like that.

It’s going to sound like what it is. The necessary solution for what ails you according to what you actually are, not according to your over-simplified understanding of yourself. So the Buddha has given a very deep, very extensive, very profound method for a very deep, extensive and profound problem. And there are no shortcuts.

Natural Practice

June 24, 2016June 24, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod”

I came to understand that that is the way it would be. I had to not lie to sentient beings. I could not hold these beings in my arms and say, “Here I am for you. I’ll do anything I can for you,” because it was complete, pardon my French, bullshit. You know, I was lying to them. So I began to think, “Well, if this unlimited luminous, pure, uncontrived nature that is free of suffering could somehow be here, that’s it. That’s it.” But how to do it? How to do it?

At that time I really didn’t have the answers. Honestly, I have to tell you that part of my life was like mountain tops and valleys at the same time, because I really felt the bliss of feeling that I had come to understand the faults of this world and had come to truly reach for and lift my sights to something that was so much purer, so much better. I really felt the bliss of that, and kind of excitement and happiness of being on my way. But the suffering of knowing that you could do nothing but lie to your child… The suffering of knowing that everything that we see looks so good, so colorful and wonderful, and it’s bullshit. It’s a lie. That kind of suffering! It was a very difficult time. Plus the struggle of thinking “I’ve got to find a way!!” And I had no teacher who could give me the way. No teacher at that time had come to my life yet who could say, “All right. Do this and this and this, and that will happen.” So I’m struggling with this and I’m thinking every day, “What can I do?” I mean literally I had gotten myself into such a state that if I could have physically ripped out my heart and handed it to Lord Buddha himself… I didn’t think of Lord Buddha at that time, I forget. It was just that absolute nature. If I could rip out my heart and physically hand it to the absolute nature, I would do it, because I was going crazy, kind of a little crazy. There was this crazy Yogi phenomenon happening, you know? I was a little crazy with this idea. I couldn’t think about anything else. It was weird.

I would sort of reward myself at the end of the day, here on this farm. I would sit down and have a cup of tea and a snack. One day I went out and got some potato chips. I thought I would have some potato chips and a coke. Now I like potato chips, but potato chips don’t like me, so this was a splurge. So I had a potato chip. And then I started thinking about my practice, and thinking about the children, thinking of beings in samsara, thinking about my mouth. Did I give this up or not? I did. The whole thing became so disgusting to me.

So that’s the kind of experience that I had. Many of you will say, “Well, I don’t know if I want to have that kind of experience. Thank you very much.” But I have to say that also in that was a tremendous amount of joy, like nothing I had ever experienced in the world. Greater joy than even my family, which I was very happy with and very much caring for and very close to. Greater joy than anything I could see or touch or eat or smell or anything, because I could feel that here was some noble potential. Maybe it hadn’t been actualized yet, but somewhere was this noble potential, and the excitement of that was really happy. It was a happy and genuine thing, and I really thought that somewhere in here there is going to be the solution for sentient beings.

Here I was—you have to understand the humor of this.Here I am back in Chandler, North Carolina, reinventing the wheel, literally reinventing the eight-spoke wheel because I didn’t realize that Lord Buddha had already done this. I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea. So here I am trying to find the way. I didn’t realize that Lord Buddha at some point made the same decision. He noticed that there was old age, sickness and death and he left to go figure out how to make this better. He took off and tried to make it better. In a way, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. If only I had known, I could have short-circuited that a little bit. I have to tell you, that particular practice, done in that way, from my heart, with very little guidance —especially that nothing was written down so that I had to make it up—was so profound.

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

The Stream of Bodhicitta

May 7, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

AH – May all beings be free of suffering.
May they recognize what to accept and what to reject, and pacify the root causes of suffering.
May we joyfully and lovingly accomplish compassionate activity for the sake of all sentient beings in all realms.
May the stream of Bodhicitta flow deep, strong and sweet, to quench the thirst of all beings.
May the fruit of merit ripen in our mind streams, nourishing all who are hungry.
May all who are homeless be sheltered, who are cold be warmed, who are sick be healed.
May all who are lonely be comforted, the helpless be raised up, the poor be satisfied in every way.
May our land be purified of hate and greed.
And may a song of freedom be heard throughout this and all nations.
May we join as one life, which is our nature – and be unbound by hatred, greed and ignorance.
May there be peace and joy throughout the 3,000 myriads of universes!
And may I myself bear in love, the suffering of all. Now and in the time to come.

Light of Compassion

April 28, 2016 by Holly

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

Somehow you have found yourself in this fortunate, amazing position where this feast of possibility is laid before you. How did you come to this point? How is it possible that you have this option? You must have done something right in the past, and I suggest that you now build on it. If you don’t cultivate the mind of extraordinary compassion and such a burning love that compassion is the most important force in your life, then the natural inclinations of a mind filled with desire will overcome you. This is Kaliyuga, the age of degeneration, and that’s how it is. You must practice and cultivate that mind of compassion, of love, so thoroughly that you are moved to the core by even the faint possibility that you might achieve liberation in order to benefit beings. You think of nothing else. You must cultivate that until you burn with it. Don’t be afraid of that kind of love.

In the West we are taught, “Be cool. Hey, I’m an intellectual, I don’t think like that. I’m kind of special.” That’s what we’re taught, that’s our value system. That is the same value system we will take to our graves, and only the selfishness of that kind of idea will survive, not the intelligence. There is one thing that will survive this life, and will create the karma for your next life. It is the purity of your mind and the degree of love that you have accomplished. This will be the determining factor for how you will return time and time again in a form that will benefit beings until someday there is no more suffering.

Eyes Wide Open

April 25, 2016 by Holly

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.

Compassion – The Foundation of the Path

April 23, 2016 by Holly

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.

Deepening on the Path: The Importance of “Caring”

April 19, 2016April 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

If your eyes are open at all, you have seen that you have often boxed your own ears, that you have often hurt yourself by engaging in non-virtuous activity that has brought you suffering. Maybe you’ve had time to see a little bit of that. But I’ll tell you that according to the Buddha’s teaching, and this is the truth, every bit of non-virtuous behavior that you have engaged in will bring about unhappiness. So it’s not logical to engage in non-virtuous behavior and that includes the lesser non-virtuous behaviors. The big ones like killing, we can get that. Killing, stealing, that sort of thing, but what about simple selfishness? What about judgment of others? What about just not giving a big flip? Not caring? What about reading the newspaper and thinking “Wow millions of people are starving over there. Too bad.” You don’t think that’s a non-virtue? That’s how we read the paper, every day. Of course that’s a non-virtue. We’re not caring. We’re not praying for them. We’re not sending them anything. We’re not doing anything to help.

The Buddha also taught us that virtuous behavior brings about happiness, but we have exactly the opposite idea. Most of us don’t like to practice, for instance. We don’t like to sit down and practice. Who likes to sit down for two hours at a stretch? I don’t know about you, but I get fanny fatigue big time. Two hours at a stretch. That is not how I want to spend the day. So we think like that. We think “Oh, you know, if I sit down today and practice for two hours, I’m really going to suffer!” So we have this weird idea that virtuous activity like practice is going to bring about unhappiness, and it’s because of our lack of understanding. What we don’t realize is that yes, while we have maybe the antsy-ness or the fanny fatigue or whatever it is that we get, ultimately that two hours of practice will ripen. And when it ripens it will be like a precious jewel within your life. At some point there will be an event or a change or a lift or a gift or something that you very much need in your life. It will appear as though out of nowhere. and it can be directly traced to previous virtuous behavior.

The Buddha also teaches us that if we offer even something, if we’re very poor and all we have is something simple like a candle or a butter lamp. If we offer only that, placing it on an altar and with a full and generous heart visualize it as being everything that we have, everything that we could ever have and offer it to the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha and particularly to the Lama as the representative of all three, then let that merit be used to benefit sentient beings. What we don’t realize is that while that took some time out of our busy day, yes, and we did have to prepare a butter lamp or light the candle or whatever hardship we had to engage, still we have created unbelievable happiness for ourselves. Actually, the Buddha has taught that if we could manage to make that offering with complete and total absorption in the expanse of that generosity, then we would be reborn eventually in unmovable samadhi, complete happiness, because we are engaging in the kind of activity that creates the habitual tendency of supreme generosity.

We are taught also to make offerings of our body, speech and mind. For instance, we visualize that our body becomes like food and we offer our bodies. Of course, we don’t cut off pieces of ourselves. Nobody would want to eat that anyway, I don’t think. But we do visualize our body as being transformed into this nectar that nourishes all sentient beings, and without holding on to ourselves, we offer ourselves in that way. So we offer our bodies to benefit sentient beings. We offer our speech to benefit sentient beings. We practice so that what comes out of our mouth will be of benefit to others, such as mantra or teaching about Dharma or some spiritual advice. We try very hard to give our speech to benefit sentient beings. And we offer our minds as well to benefit sentient beings. We make that offering. The way that we practice that offering is by no longer using our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish nonvirtue. Instead we use our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish virtue for the sake of sentient beings. That is the true meaning of offering our body, our speech and our mind.

Many practitioners unfortunately say that. They say “I offer my body, speech and mind” and they make all kinds of grand gestures but, boy, when it comes down to the clinch, they ain’t offering nothing, and that’s the truth. Not a thing. It isn’t happening. So we, as Dharma practitioners, have to learn how to practice more deeply than that in order to assimilate the causes for true happiness. It is that kind of virtuous activity that we have to engage in.

Pitfalls and Excuses

April 10, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From The Spiritual Path: A Collection of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

It is difficult in our world to practice regularly, with firm resolve. Some people say, “I’d really like to do that, but I don’t have the discipline, the commitment.” But if you are motivated by compassion, you will find the time and the way to do it. What if you are just too tired? Well, how do you find the strength to breathe when you are totally exhausted? You do it automatically, don’t you? What if you could understand, through a process of deep cultivation, that innumerable sentient beings are constantly in pain, that they go through endless rounds of torment, that there are non- physical realms of existence filled with unimaginable suffering? What if, because of this realization, compassion and profound generosity became so much a part of you that they were an automatic reflex, like breathing? Then there would not be a moment in which you did not practice with the utmost compassion. You would never think only of yourself and your needs, pursuing temporary gratification.

In order to become a deepened practitioner, you must have compassion for all others—so strong, so extraordinary that it will nourish you even when you feel “dry.” Unfortunately, some people practice for years, perhaps taking both retreat and ordination; then, suddenly, some karmic switch flips in their minds. They decide not to “do” Dharma anymore. They move on to other things. This is not uncommon for Westerners. It need not happen to you, but you should face the fact that it could. You could become dry inside. If so, you must face the cause: You have forgotten them.

If an extraordinary, burning love is not the most important force in your life, the natural inclination of a mind still influenced by desire will be to reassert itself at some point. This sounds harsh, but it is true. This is a time of increasing degeneracy. You must practice and cultivate this mind of love so thoroughly that you are moved to the core even at the faint possibility of achieving liberation in order to benefit beings. Do not be afraid of that kind of love. In the West, we learn to be cool, rational and detached. We value this highly. When we go to the grave, however, only the selfishness of this ideal will survive, not the intelligence. What will also survive and create the circumstances of your next lifeis the purity of your mind and heart, the degree of love you have accomplished. And if your love is so strong that you return even after attaining liberation, you are the hope of the world.

If you have the love to make a commitment to benefit beings at any cost, a sense of joy is born in the mind. This joy is stronger than ordinary human joy. It begins as a tiny seed but eventually grows to become a profound sense of bliss.