Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Best Case Scenario

December 10, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I began to think, “This nature, this is something, this is really something.” So the practice that I engaged in (and this is how I was instructed to do so) was a practice of initially realizing the nature and then examining the cycle of death and rebirth, or what I now understand is called samsara. So I examined the cycle of death and rebirth. And even that term I didn’t have—cycle of death and rebirth. You have to understand I hadn’t heard any of these words before. So I was penning my own words to this idea or concept or reality that I was sensing and the concept that I was thinking about. So I began to think out what is this life that we are living then? This is this absolute nature. What is this life we are living now where we remain kind of blind to this nature? I began to really probe this life and tried to see: What is the best thing this life can give me or give anyone and what’s the worst? I began to examine all the different scenarios associated with ordinary life.

At that time I was living on a beautiful farm in North Carolina and I was 20, so I would have to say that I was a potentially aging hippy girl. I was living on this farm and I had the idea of going to back to the land. I was growing food. I was learning how to grow a garden. At the time I thought that I was so cool with that and so sophisticated. Later I found out that the farmers around us really thought that we were going to starve to death if we were any dumber. But, anyway, we were doing our best, and I learned how to can beans and all that stuff. So I had this wonderful thing going on. I was living at the foot of the mountains. I could walk out on my porch and see the mountains. I had a beautiful little baby boy, beautiful blonde hair. He looked like an angel. I had a wonderful husband and everything was just great.

I tried to think to myself: So this life, what is it? What could it be like? I thought, “What is the best case scenario.” You know, this whole scene that I have right here? What’s the best way this could work out? I really played with this a little bit.

I thought, okay, first of all, this is my initial demand: I never get old. No aging happens here. In my fantasy, these things weren’t going to happen, and when I am queen, they won’t. So I really thought that I am not going to age. This is the first thing: Nobody ages in this. We don’t age or, at least, I personally find the secret of how to use Este Lauder products perfectly, this secret which I am ever questing. I find the way to use them perfectly and finally she comes out with that new product, the one that I am waiting for, the one that makes everything better.

The same thing with my husband. There’s the male version of Este Lauder. We put it on him and he is great, too. My child does grow up, but, of course, he never ages either. Of course, my child grows up to be president or maybe first a doctor and then president. At his inauguration speech and, as well as when he receives his medical degree, at both of those occasions, he says, “It was my mom that made it possible.” Of course, I still look very young, and, of course, I am much more beautiful than I have ever been in my life.

So far this is working out pretty well, don’t you think? My husband and I never get into that place in marriage where you wake up next to each other and go “Hi”, ummm. We never got to that point. In this fantasy, it was always like those old Breck shampoo commercials. Every time we’d see each other we’d come bounding across the room and jump 10 feet into each other’s arms and land on our feet comfortably. It would all be very elegant. It would be choreographed perfectly, and we would both know our parts. I have a lot of romance in me, you see.

So after that we always had really good food to eat and everything is perfect. We live well—two cars and a chicken in every pot, or whatever, and all this kind of stuff. So everything is perfect. Then I thought to myself, “All this happens. Then what is the end of the story?” Well, the end of the story is just like the end of any other story that you can find in the human realm. No matter what Este Lauder does, we are going to get old because time is going to pass. She had not figured out the chemistry of time yet. So time’s going to pass. The end is going to be the same. We are going to be old. We’re going to, at some point, get sick and then we are going to die. I began to meditate on the fact that whatever comes together in samsara has to separate. That’s just the nature of it; it’s never been otherwise. Whatever is born, dies. Whatever is young, gets old. It’s the nature of it.

I meditated on that constantly. Then I would try all these other different scenarios. I tried to develop five or six best case scenarios and I gave myself total freedom. Well, suppose none of this here in front of me works out but, supposing the ultimate man of every woman’s dream rides up on a white horse and that horse does not do-do in the lawn, which white horses are likely to do. So all of that happens and the whole children thing works out where everybody’s rich and everybody’s happy, everybody’s famous or whatever. Well, in my case, it would be private not famous, but that would be the best case scenario.

With all of them, I thought of what it could be like. Every time I explored it, I found that the end result was always the same. It was always old age, sickness and death. The best ones, even if I had one of those funds where you prepare for your old age and even if it’s just prosperous and wonderful right up until the very end—I’d take up golf and die with a gold club in my hand, or something like that, whatever —it’s still going to end up the same way.

A Better World

December 9, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

I hope all of us will remember that, according to Lord Buddha’s teachings, there are many realms of cyclic existence, more than the human realm. There are lower realms of cyclic existence such as the animal realm, and there are non-physical forms of life. The Buddha teaches us that there are many different forms of life. Slowly, slowly in time as you continue to study Dharma you’ll learn exactly about them. For now it is enough to know that there are many forms and that most of them are not capable of engaging in some kind of practice because of the condition of their minds.

We may have very little time and it may be difficult for us Westerners to sit cross-legged very long, and we may make up all these different reasons why we can’t practice but, in fact, we are able to practice. If we apply ourselves and use discipline, we can also practice in such a way as to engage in compassionate care-taking for the other realms of cyclic existence and the other forms of life.

I hope that each and every one of you will think like that and engage in that practice, and remember that our practice and our lives really aren’t just about ourselves. They’re about benefiting sentient beings, all beings, considering them to be completely equal with and non-dual from ourselves. These are the instructions that I am giving the children. I am hoping that gradually throughout the course of their lives they will develop that really supreme, really extraordinary compassionate idea that is so rare and precious like a jewel in this world. I hope that those of you who have children will also raise your children the same way, because that is one way that we have of ensuring that in the future the world will be better than it is now. So, I hope that you will think like that.

Primordial State

December 8, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Here’s what my practice looked like. At that time I didn’t know that it is better to meditate sitting up, so, I mediated some of the time laying down and some of the time sitting up. I actually found that when I lay down I would fall asleep. So, eventually, I developed the habit of sitting up. So, slowly, slowly, we find our way.

I would set up a symbolic altar. I had a dresser top that I would use for this purpose. I put representations of all things physical. I had some plants, leaves and things like that. I had some food (I think it was fruit generally), andpebbles, rocks, brightly colored things from outside. Then I put a mirror because somehow instinctively I understood. I was sort of in a quandary. I hadn’t had any teachings yet. I was extremely spiritually oriented, yet the only teachings I’d received indicated that God was kind of an old guy with a beard who sat on a throne somewhere. He was making x’s if you were bad and checks if you were good. That was pretty much my understanding of what religion was. I didn’t really buy into that. I really didn’t feel that that was appropriate or acceptable, and it seemed to me just not right.

So my understanding of the divine nature, or what was called God, I had to develop from within myself. I didn’t like to use the word God because I thought that indicated we were talking about something separate. I really thought that whatever that absolute nature is, it is absolute to the point where it cannot be separated from one thing and another. Whatever that nature is, it must be all pervasive. It must be the same nature that causes fruit to ripen or flowers to come forth in the springtime as it is to make my own heart beat. And I really thought that was it. I didn’t know what to call it, but that was absolutely it. So as well as I could understand, I began to meditate on what Buddhists call the primordial wisdom nature or the uncontrived natural primordial view. There are many different ways to describe it, but that was what my meditation consisted of.

My altar had a mirror on it; it had of all these things that represented earth. In my mind that represented all that is form and all that is formless. I didn’t have the word “samsaric” and I didn’t have the idea of things that are contained in the cycle of death and rebirth. I merely thought of things that are displayed in form and those things which were absolute and natural and uncontrived, and I thought my altar encompassed both elements of reality. I was pretty satisfied with that as being something that I could work with.

So, I began my practice. I used to mediate on this absolute nature. I used to think, ”This nature, this nature, what is it? What is it like? What is this thing?” And I would think to myself,

‘Well, this is the same nature that causes flowers to open, the same nature that causes my heart to beat, the same nature that causes my son to be born to me, the same nature that makes people love each other. It must be that this nature is the fundamental foundational underlying reality”. I thought like that.

Instinctively, I understood that this nature was natural and uncontrived. For instance, if we were to meditate or rest in that nature we wouldn’t be thinking, “Oh, I want this or I don’t want that. This is beautiful and that’s ugly.” We wouldn’t be thinking like that. I understood that that nature was some kind of restful state that was spontaneous and luminous, but free of contrivance, free of the distinction of self and other, free of the distinction of good and bad, hot and cold, ugly or beautiful, here or there even. I didn’t even think that in this state time and space actually applied. I realized that this state was free of that kind of defining or discriminating conceptualization. I thought to myself, “This is the underlying reality”.

When I meditated on that state, I knew, or I tasted, that upon holding the mind in that natural restful state free of contrivance, free of discrimination, there was no potential for suffering in that natural state, because nothing that causes suffering was there. Grasping and desire weren’t there, hatred wasn’t there, selfishness wasn’t there, anger wasn’t there, ignorance wasn’t there. We meditate on that state; we are not blind to that state. So, I didn’t feel like there was ignorance there or dullness or any of those things that cause suffering. I felt we were not inherently there in that nature.

Introduction to Western Chod

December 7, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

The main thought about this teaching that I am going to describe to you is that all of this occurred before I ever met with my root guru, with either one of my root gurus. I have two root gurus,;I hadn’t met with either of them. I had not met with the path called “Buddhism”. I had not read any books about Buddhism. I did not know anything about Buddhism. In fact, I am embarrassed to say now that I thought the Tibetans were kind, smelly, old guys who sat on rugs. I really did think like that. I am sorry, but, you know that is the truth. I am bound to tell the truth.

I was about 20 at the time. I had known for about one year that I had to engage in a course of preparation for some later events in my life. I really didn’t know what the later events were. I had no idea about being connected with Buddhism or anything like that. But I had always known that there would be something, and I had always known that I should prepare for it.

At the age of 19 I received certain indications that it was time to prepare. I had already begun on my program of meditation. Right around the time that I was twenty I gave birth to my first son, and he was a very cooperative son. He was willing to take naps during the day so that I could meditate. I swear that I didn’t bonk him over the head or anything. He just took naps. So, I was able to engage in meditation early in the morning, then in the afternoon during his nap time, and then later on in the evening. I was very much involved with it. My feeling for my practice was that this was really the main part of my life, that everything else was kind of black and white, and, that was the colored part somehow. Every time I would come to a place where I felt as though I had engaged in a certain element of my practice for long enough, or it just simply felt naturally time to move on, I would request inwardly to, I would have to say, the absolute nature (which is the way I understood divinity at that time). What was the next step? How could I practice? How should I continue to grow and engage? And this one time I received an awareness, and an indication and instruction that I should begin to practice in a certain way.

The practice will be presented in upcoming posts…

Time To Practice

November 30, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

New students keep saying “Well this is amazing. I’ve been looking for something that’s that deep and that profound and this sounds really good, and as soon as I have time, you know, I’ll get into it. But right now I have children, and I have wife and I have a job and I have a car to support and all these things. So you know, I’m really for you and I hope lots of people become Buddhists and do all this. But right now for me I have to wait. I have to wait for a while. I have to wait ‘til my kids grow up. I have to wait ‘til my car is paid for. Right before I get the next one. And I have to wait for…, I just have to wait, you know, because waiting is what I do.” And so the thought that we have when we’re waiting is that somehow this is all going to work out well. We’ll be exposed to the Buddha’s teachings and we’ll hear something. It’s that magical thinking: It’ll just sort of come together eventually.

Actually, if you really think about it, the Buddha’s teachings are so extensive, so developed, so profound, so deep that they take time to contemplate, to understand, to prepare for, to even build the foundation that causes you to practice foundational preliminary teachings. It takes time. Why? Because you have to change in the process! We’re not in the business of applying bandaids here. It takes time for you to change. Some of you change faster than others. And it takes time to do the practice. The practice is extensive. So, I’m looking around the room now and I’m seeing that most of us are not under 10 years old. Therefore, whether we’re 20, 25, 35, 45, 55, 75 or however old we are, and it seems like there’s a mixture here, you need to start right now. Because there’s not much time.

There are two reasons: First of all the Buddha taught that there is no guarantee as to how long any of us are going to live, and you can’t understand this. For some reason it is beyond human capacity to understand this kind of thing, unless you yourself have been struck with a terrible illness or a terrible accident where you could have died or may still, or unless you’ve seen someone near you just kick off. Once you’ve had that experience you may understand, but before that, it’s very hard to understand what the Buddha has taught. There is no guarantee that you’re going to wake up tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year.

The second reason is the cause and effect relationships that constantly engage our own sea of karma. That sea of karma that is already hooked up and functional within our mindstream is very fluid and it’s constantly being catalyzed by other events. Each one of you most likely has the karma to live for a very long time and also the karma to die quickly. Which one will ripen? Well, that’s up to you, according to how you practice, according to how you live, according to how you determine your mind state because everything you do, everything you think, everything you engage in is an additional cause and effect relationship and an additional catalyst. Everything you do is important.

So for each and every one of us the wisest thing to do is to begin to practice now. You know yourself very well. You know when you tighten up. You know what you need. You know when you get scared. You know when you do your best. You like to think you don’t know and you kind of get limp and act like you need guidance for everything, but in fact you do know. You do know how to take care of yourself if you stop and think about it and engage in some self-honesty. So do whatever it takes to mother yourself through, to nurture yourself through, to get to the point where you can actually practice.

The Problem With Desire

November 22, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from an exchange of tweets between Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo and one of her followers:

Follower: “How can one beat desire?”

Jetsunma: “Study cause and result, and especially compassion for all. The desire is for everything and it keeps us suffering like a revolving door. No control over any result, bad.”

Follower: “So with desire there can’t be fulfillment?”

Jetsunma: “Exactly. An itch that cannot be scratched. Always returns. And by nature cannot be satisfied. Everything begins and ends.”

You can follow Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on twitter here: https://twitter.com/JALpalyul

Clarifying the Goal

November 21, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Honestly ask yourself whether there is wisdom in what the Buddha has taught. That, in fact, when it comes time to practice Dharma, to realize the nature of one’s mind, to see it purely and clearly, to wipe away the stain of non-virtuous behavior and discursive thought and ancient habitual tendencies and simple ignorance… Can we really ask ourselves whether there is wisdom in what the Buddha has taught when he said that this is something that needs to be worked at in depth. That there needs to be a great deal of effort in that direction. That, in fact, it really isn’t that useful to have a wonderful, blissful, emotional experience saying that one glorious mantra that you thought would really do the trick, because that’s just another flower in the bouquet of human experiences and emotions. If you have a blissful, marvelous, emotional, contrived experience with that one mantra, it’s really in essence not so very different from the blissful, emotional experience that you have when you do something else really well. Or when you buy a new car, or when you get a new honey, or when you taste a new kind of chocolate, or whatever it happens to be. It becomes then simply another human emotional experience that we contrive to look like, or to be, a certain way, because that’s what most of our experiences actually are. They are contrivances.

In order to really stir the depths of samsara, that is to purify ancient habitual tendencies, well-established habitual tendencies, in order to create the new habitual tendency of virtuous activity, a great deal of depth and effort has to come into that. So many recitations are required. The goal here is not really to have an emotional experience. It is to recite the syllables associated with mantra which are not ordinary in which each and every syllable has a particular extraordinary blessing associated with the mind of enlightenment and serves to actually purify the winds, channels and fluids within one’s psychic nature.

So many repetitions here are the key. And then on top of that, since you thought maybe the way to do this would be to have a beautiful deep and profound experience anyway, you might try being completely absorbed in the mantra that you are reciting. Because you are right about one thing: It is less potent to just say mantra than to really remain absorbed in the visualization that is given to you by the teacher and to remain absorbed in the activity itself. That is much more profound and much deeper. But still and all, even if you are to do it in a way where you’re completely absorbed, where the experience is deep, where it’s profound, where you’re really paying attention, where you’re really developing some clarity of mind, still and all, even with that, it is necessary to make many repetitions.

And the reason why is because there’s a goal here. We are applying an antidote to something specific in order to have a specific result. There’s a difference between reciting mantra for that reason, with that kind of perspective and maybe coming to some teaching or going to church or coming to even a Buddhist temple or hearing what I have to say to you and then simply thinking “Oh now I’ve heard that so therefore I’ve had some of the Buddha’s teachings.” O.K., that’s very good. There’s a difference in the goal orientation, do you see? One of them is simply collecting something, having something, saying you’ve been there—a knot on the belt. You know, it’s something. And the other one is understanding the faults of cyclic existence, the conditions of samsara, the depth of it, the complication of it, and understanding that there is a goal, an extraordinary goal that cannot be reached any way other than to apply the necessary antidote.

That goal of course is enlightenment. That goal of course is what the Buddha experienced when he said, “I am awake.” It is awakening to our primordial nature. It is a condition that is beyond form, beyond formless, beyond samsara, beyond even nirvana. It is an utterly conditionless and natural state and to awaken to that nature, that is the goal.

The Mantra of Samsara

November 20, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

What we’re up against here is we are using a technology that isn’t meant for a person who has only lived one life. We’re using a technology that really wasn’t designed, was not given to the world, to cure a superficial problem. It was not given to us to heal a scratch. The technology of Dharma is so extraordinary and so complicated, so deep, so effortful because of what it is supposed to do. What it has to do is a big job. What it has to do is to purify non-virtuous habitual tendency that we have created and is deeply ingrained since time out of mind. We have another problem and that problem is that it’s kind of like we were born on a merry-go-round. Do you know what happens if you’re born on a merry-go-round? You have no understanding that you’re going round and round. The only way you could understand that you were born on a merry-go-round is if the merry-go-round would suddenly stop. But if going round and round were natural for you, it would be invisible to you. And so for us it’s as though we were born on a merry-go-round. We have no way to know how much divisiveness, how much discursive thought, how much conceptualization, how much super-structuring goes on within our mind. We are literally, in many ways, strangers to our own mind. Actually within our minds as ordinary sentient beings there’s a constant dialogue going on inside, a constant inner dialogue. You have to ask yourself, between who and who? But it’s going on, you know. It’s a constant inner dialogue. There is this white noise, this conversation, that’s going on. And you’re answering yourself! That’s the weird part about it.

If you can really calm down and tune into yourself, you’ll see that there’s this constant inner chattering, inner noise. It isn’t even as simple as the one piece that you’re able to hear and pick out. In fact, there’s layer upon layer of it. It’s like many tracks that we seem to be running, so much discursiveness inside of us. So what we are actually engaging in all the time in our ordinary lives is kind of a recital of, or an ongoing mantra of, discursiveness. This chattering, this noise, this continuum that we experience of white noise within our heads—the one that argues, the one that answers, all that stuff that goes on inside—in fact, is layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of delusion, starting with the original belief in self-nature as being inherently real, and from that, all this superstructuring, beginning with reaction, because if one believes in self-nature as inherently real, everything else is other than self.

If there is separation between self and other, there is going to be reaction toward other or we cannot conceptualize any further beyond that, and you know we have. So we are involved in this process of discursiveness and ignorance constantly. We are right now, unless you are listening to me so carefully that there’s no other room for thought anywhere else in your mind, and I don’t think that’s happening. Right now, we are reciting the mantra of suffering. You don’t know that you’re doing that. You don’t have a mala in your hand, but you are right now reciting the mantra of suffering. We are reciting the mantra of samsara.

Even within our minds right now we are creating cause and effect relationships, right now, because it’s impossible for you to be in this room with everyone else here or listening to me or doing anything in your life, without having some kind of reaction to it. And that reaction continues. It becomes deeper and more profound and more habitual and there is structuring and ideation that continues to form from that, continual elaboration. Every single thought that is born within our mindstream is, rather than a thought that continues in a straight line, more like a pebble being dropped into a pond. It goes out in all directions. It continually elaborates, almost on its own volition.

So for the students who ask, “Why wouldn’t one good mantra, or one truly absorbed devotional, purely conceived prostration be as good as 100,000 kind of dull ones?” The reason why is right now, and since time out of mind, we have constantly been reciting the mantra of delusion. So we need a science or a technology that will antidote the depth of that process. You know how complicated we are. You know how that is. You know that we can sit here, open a Dharma book, read a prayer that’s very profound and really concentrate on it pretty well as we’re reading it. Of course if you really learn how to listen to yourself you know that even while you’re doing that, there’s something going on. That monkey in your head is still doing something. But let’s say we could really concentrate. We contemplate, and we think, “Oh, what a beautiful thing this is. This is really something special.” And we’re moved and we are attracted to the Dharma, you know, that sort of thing. We know that we are so complicated that even while we are doing that, at the same time although we choose not to listen to the voice that we don’t like, that other voice is going “Phew, Dharma, what do we care about Dharma! We care about one thing. We care about watching TV and sitting on our fat butts. That’s what we care about!” Or we have all of our other conceptions and ideas about the ways we really want to live. And so, while on the one hand, “Oh, these are the Buddha’s teachings. This is so pure and so perfect. I can see the virtue in it” —and you know really you can, I mean you read the stuff you can see the virtue in it—the other part of you is going “Nah, nah, we don’t want to do this. We want to be happy now!” So even while we’re studying Dharma and practicing Dharma, this business is going on inside of us.

So what we’re looking for is the kind of technology that can stir that pot from the depth, stir it from the depth and provide the purifying agent, or the antidotal agent, which is to put the weight in the opposite pile of what we ordinarily do. What we ordinarily do is have a divided mind and a lot of discursive thought, a lot of reactions, a lot of stuffthat is associated with the belief in self-nature as being inherently real. So we’re constantly continuing that practice. That’s what we do. That’s the Dharma, the worldly Dharma, which we’re practicing now.

Approaching the Path

November 19, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Antidoting the Mantra of Samsara Su2-18”

When one actually enters onto the path and begins to practice Dharma, one begins with teachings associated with Ngundro or Preliminary Practice. Normally what happens first is one receives teachings that cause one to turn the mind toward Dharma. My experience has been that for westerners that teaching needs to be deep. It needs to be extensive. It needs to be profound. It needs to be logical, meaningful. It needs to make sense. It needs not to rely on simply blind faith. There needs to be true understanding in order for the new student to actually take hold and actually hook in. That’s been my experience.

My experience has been that sometimes a student, through whatever circumstances, is introduced to Dharma at a more advanced level, by taking some empowerment or something, but they have no understanding of what they’re taking. They finally find out that now they have a practice commitment and they have no idea what that means! That sort of thing can be really terrifying and frightening for a new practitioner. And furthermore, since there is no understanding, it’s almost like trying to make something O.K. on the surface that in fact on a deeper level is not yet O.K. or is not yet suitable or acceptable.

So I’d like to spend some time talking about how one would actually begin to practice on the path, not necessarily the hows and wherefores, because that will be done in the next period of time, both by Khenpo and then after he finishes, I will continue and continue to develop the new practitioners with that kind of understanding. But I would like to actually address some questions that newer practitioners over the years have expressed again and again and again. These questions are interesting because they come sort of loaded with preconceived ideas. You can understand what the preconceived ideas are by hearing the questions.

So let me begin by indicating to you what some of those ideas or some of those questions might be. Here’s something that newer practitioners say all of the time. When they first get introduced to the idea of Dharma, they are normally attracted for whatever reason they are attracted. And it varies with each person. It’s according to their habitual tendency, their karmic propensity, their connection, whatever. Whatever that is, that will indicate how they enter onto the path. For some people it’s the attraction to what seems like something very exotic. For some people it’s the attraction to something that is a living, ongoing experience, spiritually speaking. That is to say, it isn’t like the way perhaps, many of these people practice, let’s say, Christianity which is to go to church once a week, or twice a year, or whatever it happens to be, and then in between not give so much thought to their religion.

Many people who approach Buddhism are interested in something that really travels with you, that is more a part, more distinctly a part of your life, and more a developed philosophy that can be a true guidance in one’s life. And for other people, they are simply connected to the teacher. They see the teacher and they don’t know what this is about, but they feel that connection and they go in that direction. For other people, they’re looking for something, and this looks like a nice thing to check out. There are many different ways that people approach the path, but generally speaking, most people, when they approach anything new, including the path of Dharma, they don’t really approach it with the idea of how hard they want to work at it. You know, when you approach a new job, the idea of a new job, you don’t approach a new job because you know it’s just going to be a real back breaker. I mean, you don’t think, hey I’m really looking forward to the grueling nine to five, that sort of thing! That isn’t what attracts us.

What attracts us is the payoff, the money, or the opportunity to do something exciting. There are things that attract us, but it’s not the hard work.

The Meaning of Life

November 18, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is quoted from “The Meaning of Life” published in 1991. Jetsunma (listed as Catharine Burroughs) was one of 173 people chosen that year to answer the question, here is her response:

Lord Buddha taught us that we are extremely fortunate to have been reborn as humans, having revolved, cycliclly, through many possible realms of existence. To have this time and opportunity to seek enlightenment is an extraordinarily precious gift. While alive, we are equipped with a unique kind of consciousness that can choose and make decisions about goals and values. We live in a world where there is a need for loving, compassionate activity; and we are capable of choosing to love and to be compassionate. Our minds are also capable of abstract understanding; therefore, we can choose to pierce the veil of mystery and comprehend the underlying nature of the self and the world around us.

The Buddha also taught us that we experience unhappiness and suffering because of desire, which is a result of the selfishness of clinging to ego. We have the ability to discriminate well enough to follow the direction of those supremely enlightened ones who point us toward happiness and the end of suffering and not to follow the many paths that lead to delusion and meaningless forms of gratification. Therefore, the meaning of life is based on the choices we make, the most profound of which is the choice to practice loving-kindness and joyful concern for the welfare of all beings. The choice to live a life of selflessness is the most profoundly beneficial decision we can make because of its ability to transform our minds and hearts and to bring joy to those around us.

Accepting the greater path of selflessness has the most potent ability to bring about changes in the quality of our lives simply because loving has that power. A life dedicated to selfless activity is a life fully empowered and competent to produce happiness. It is a life unencumbered by the concerns of self-cherishing, and is, therefore, illuminated by the limitless brightness of generosity. Such a life is, itself, the ultimate display of meaning.