Dalai Lama | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

How Buddhists Think

May 31, 2018 by Holly

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By Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called “How Buddhists Think”

Some years ago, His Holiness the Dalai Lama took part in an interfaith discussion at a cathedral in Washington, D.C. The Episcopalian ministers and Catholic priests repeatedly stressed the sameness at the core of all religions. His Holiness stood up and said that in some respects we are all the same: we all wish for peace on Earth, we wish for the benefit of beings, we wish for the end of suffering, we wish to attain a level of consciousness in which we are unified with our optimum goal, whatever that might be. “But,” he said, “between your religion and my religion there are fundamental differences. And that has to be okay. There has to be unity in diversity.”

Although I would certainly never speak for the Dalai Lama, I assume that the “fundamental differences” to which he referred have to do with Buddhism’s lack of an external God. This is generally not understood by Westerners. The Buddha’s teachings do not advocate the attainment of oneness with a God, with anything external. Instead, the Buddha teaches the essential sameness of all phenomena, pointing out that in the beginning there was no distinction. The Buddha tells us that such a distinction exists only in our mind, which is fixated on self-nature as being inherently real.

In truth, our Nature is all-pervasive. There is no separation. There is no distinction. When Realization is achieved, it is a non-specific awareness, a luminosity, an innate wakefulness. The process of fixation, of contrivance and distinction, is pacified. That is not the same as attaining oneness with anything external. The Buddha leads us to pacify the delusion that causes fixation on duality.

There is no optimum state one has to create, no supreme being towards whom to move. For a Buddhist, the goal is awakening. It is an awakening to the Nature that cannot be nearer, or stronger, or better than it is now. It can never be tainted, pushed away, destroyed. It remains stable and unchanging. It is simply “Suchness.”

Extraordinary Blessings

March 9, 2018 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Compassion, Love, & Wisdom by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

We need to practice human kindness. For instance if someone described to me child abuse and they said to me, “As a Buddhist you believe in karma, do you just accept that this is the child’s karma to have experienced abuse and do you sort of leave it at that and think, well that is their karma and pray for them?” Well, Lord Buddha, I don’t know what you would say if you were here right now, standing here in the flesh, but I’ll tell you what I understand to be the Buddha’s perspective. If you see someone being abused or hurt and you do nothing to end their suffering that is now your karma. You will have karma with them and you always will until you can be of benefit to them. So ordinary human kindness is very much a part of what we have to do, but it isn’t all that we do.

We have to prevent people from being hurt; we have to feed the hungry if we can. If we see suffering we have to do what we can to end it. But it is simply not useful to stop there. We must continue with an extraordinary kind of love, an extraordinary kind of compassion that sees beyond the causes and effects that are only obvious in this life time and goes further to understand the root cause and the ultimate effect. We must develop the capacity to completely liberate ourselves from the cause and effect relationships that have been caused from the beginningless past and that are with us always until we reach enlightenment. We have to think not only of this one slice of reality that is our life, what is it – eighty years? We have to think of the countless eons of cyclic existence that we have continued to accumulate cause and effect relationships and we must institute causes that overcome all of them. You have to get some perspective. To practice Dharma sincerely you have to get some perspective. It isn’t just about eighty years. It is about a long time. You may not always understand the causes that you experience the results of now.

It is popular now for people to go to psychics and say, “How come my husband always beats me?” And the psychic says, “Oh, because in a past life you ran over him with a mule.” Well, fine so far as that goes, that may very well be one of the things that happened. Maybe you were the mule and this psychic doesn’t like that, but anyway, that, I promise you, is only one of many things that contribute to your life such as it is now. It is only one of many things and it is impossible for a psychic without complete omniscience to see all of them. You may never know what the root causes are. But what is wonderful about the Buddha’s path is that you don’t have to know what the root causes are: they are all desire, hatred, greed and ignorance. This is the medicine.

Here in the West we love to examine our garbage before we take it out, but you don’t have to do that, you just take it out. This is the necessary perspective to maintain: that the wisdom we must seek is the wisdom that is different from ordinary knowledge, it is the pristine balance of the primordial wisdom state. It is completely in union with love. And that union is the very display, or results in the very display, of what we see bringing the most benefit in this world. When we look in this world and see where there is hope and where there is relief, we find that there is an extraordinary path, that there is an extraordinary means to achieve realization. That there have been, and there are, in this world extraordinary teachers incarnating again and again, and there are extraordinary blessings. We are living in an extraordinary time, able to grasp an extraordinary opportunity. This being the case we should adopt this wisdom as our most precious goal and adopt this love as our most precious mother.

Leaving you with that thought, I hope in some way you will come to the point where you will choose with certainty and with courage and with determination to practice in a consistent and meaningful way. I hope with all my heart you do not waste this precious opportunity. It is taught this opportunity to hear the Buddha’s words and see the Buddha’s form and come to a point where we can accomplish the Buddha’s teaching is so rare it is like finding a precious jewel sifting through garbage. It is that rare. And having had this opportunity once, if we do not institute the causes by which we will have it again and again and again it will be a long time before we see it again. Those are the teachings. I didn’t make that up and I believe them. So I ask you to consider practice, to learn how to practice, to practice consistently and to be faithful in your practice and, most of all, to begin now, even on your own, to turn your mind with thoughts of caring for others. To cultivate both ordinary and extraordinary kindness, to cultivate a pure determination to bring about the end of suffering, these things you can begin now. Thank you.

What is Non-Virtuous Speech?

March 30, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following description of the 4 types of non-virtuous speech are from “The Way To Freedom” by the Dalai Lama:

“ The next four negative actions are deeds of speech.

The firs is telling lies. This includes speaking contrary to what one has seen, heard, or knows to be fact. Lying can be motivated by attachment, hatred, or ignorance. The intention is to confuse the other person, and it can be carried out either by speaking or nodding the head and gesturing with a hand. Any action done out of the intention to confuse someone constitutes the negative action of lying. If the other person hears it, that constitutes completion of this act.

Next is divisive talk. The intention is to cause dissension between friends or people in the spiritual community for one’s own sake or for he sake of others. Whether one succeeds in causing dissension or not, the moment the other person hears the divisive talk, that constitutes the completion of this act.

Next is verbal abuse. The intention is to speak harshly, and the deed is complete when the abusive words are heard by the person to whom they are directed. Abuse includes insulting others, speaking about their faults, whether true or untrue; if one does it to hurt the other person, it is abuse.

Next is senseless gossip. It is frivolousness without any purpose, and it can be motivated by any of the three poisons. One’s intention is simply to chat without any reason, to just gossip without any purpose.The execution of this act does not require a second person. You do not need a partner; you can do this by talking to yourself. Idle gossip would include talking about wars, the faults of others, or arguing just for the sake of argument. This would also include reading unimportant books out of attachment.”

Why Compassion?

December 30, 2011 by Holly

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

I would like to talk about a subject that is of the utmost importance to everyone. The subject is compassion.

You may think, “Oh, I know all about compassion. I’ve been a Dharma practitioner for a long time. I’ve had many teachings about compassion.” Or you might think, “I’m a person with a good heart. I try not to do any harm, and I try to help people. Therefore, I know about compassion.” If we hold these ideas in our heart, we have already lost precious opportunities, and will continue to lose more, because the cultivation of compassion in the heart and mind is an ongoing process.

Even if you come into this world with a compassionate ideal you must still cultivate the idea of compassion as though it were the first time you ever thought of it. Due to intense spiritual practice in the past, you may have been born into this lifetime with the idea that you want to be of benefit to sentient beings. Yet still you must cultivate the idea of compassion everyday, as though it were a delicate orchid that could die in an unnatural environment. Until we are supremely enlightened, we have obscurations of our mind that will fight against the idea of compassion.

There is no one on this earth, unless they are supremely realized, who has the purified mind of compassion. If you have been meditating for many years, and think compassion is a baby subject and you’re far beyond that, or if you think because you’ve practiced for a long time, compassion is just one of the beginner studies, and now you’d like to get on to the mystical or the “higher” Dzogchen teachings, then I think you’re making a mistake. I hope that you will relax your mind and come to the point where you commit to studying compassion deeply and profoundly, as though it were your mother. You should have that kind of intimate relationship with the idea of compassion. You should seek to be taught by it. You should seek to be suckled by the mind of compassion. You should seek to be nourished in that way.

The Dalai Lama Visits Washington, D.C.

October 7, 2009 by anisonam

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is coming to Washington, D.C.—our very own neighborhood! Of particular interest to Buddhists, whether aspiring or practicing, is the teaching he will give at American University on October 10, “The Heart of Change: Finding Wisdom in the Modern World.” His Holiness is renowned for his clear, direct teaching style, his humor, and his excellent command of English.

Winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, compassionate diplomat and peace maker, and leader of the Tibetan Government in Exile, he is the face of Tibet for many around the world.

And the Dalai Lama is much more than a temporal leader. Tibetan Buddhists revere him as an incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion. Spiritual Head of the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelupa, he is honored as a spiritual authority by the other three sects as well (the Nyingma, or Ancient, School, the Kagyu, and the Sakya).

Born in 1935 and discovered two years later as the rebirth of the previous Dalai Lama, His Holiness assumed full political responsibility in 1950, after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Under increasing pressure from the Chinese, he escaped into exile in 1959, and established the Tibetan Government in Exile from his base in Dharamsala, India.

A prolific writer, the Dalai Lama is particularly notable for his interfaith dialogues. His book The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1996) is studied by Buddhists and Christians alike. Others among his widely read works is The Art of Happiness (by H.H. the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, Riverhead Books, New York, 1998) and An Open Heart (by H.H. the Dalai Lama, edited by Nicholas Vreeland, Little Brown and Company, New York, 2001).

Avidly interested in modern science since childhood, His Holiness has also engaged in dialogue with neuroscientists. This interest is reflected in Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism (Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 1999) and, more recently, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (Morgan Road Books, New York, 2005). Other books by His Holiness—too numerous to mention—are listed here.

We are honored to have his lotus feet touch the earth in our part of the world, and hope that you will engage with this mind of compassion in some form!