Introduction to Compassion

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Foundation of Compassion”

The teaching for today about compassion has to have a certain foundation laid to it in order for us to understand how compassion is viewed in Buddhism. I am going to combine some traditional teachings and some non-traditional ways of presenting them, which is actually my forte. You will find that a lot around here.

In order to begin to give you some of the teachings, I have to give you a couple of definitions. Actually here in this temple, I have been using the term compassion and that is actually a poor translation of some of the terms that are actually used. One term that is actually used in association with the teaching of compassion is called Bodhicitta. Roughly that means compassion; but it actually has superficial, deeper and very profound levels of meaning. You will find that that is true in everything in Buddhism. There is outer, inner and secret meaning to just about everything. Sometimes I have sat through teachings with my teachers where I have heard the outer, inner and secret meaning and it seemed to me that I understood the secret meaning instantly—it didn’t seem to be a big secret to me—but the outer meaning was confusing. So I don’t know how they figure all this stuff.  In Buddhism there seems to be an outer, inner, and secret about everything, particularly in the Vajrayana point of view. Suffice it to say that Bodhicitta on the external level would be the practice of compassion, which means that one would thoroughly understand the faults of cyclic existence, that is to say the cycle of death and rebirth. One would thoroughly understand its confusion and its difficulties, and what the faults actually are, what the problems of cyclic existence are. One would understand what the cessation of such problems would actually result in; one would understand how these problems could cease, and one would understand what relief from that kind of suffering would be. One would engage in compassionate activity.

On a deeper level, the Bodhicitta nature is actually considered to be our nature. It is considered that our nature is a non-dual union of emptiness and compassionate activity; that that is our true nature.  We are not able to express that nature now simply because we have not obtained realization. But when the Buddha appears or when the Buddha’s teaching appears in the world and is conveyed or conferred in a way that does not deviate from the original purpose and power, then that is called a display of the Bodhicitta.  It is considered that the activity of the Buddha in the world and actually the appearance of the Buddha in the world is emptiness and enlightened activity displayed in a non-dual way, particularly enlightened activity. If one were to have obtained Buddhahood, from that point on one would automatically display enlightened activity constantly. Everything that one would do would be enlightened activity no matter how it seemed. I think I talked a little bit about it for those who attended last week.  For instance, different Bodhisattvas or Lamas that have obtained some realization might display different kinds of activities. There are many different examples of Lamas, for instance, that appear in robes and are really toeing the mark, straight and narrow. It is very, very clear cut that they are displaying the Buddha’s virtuous teachings. And yet there are other highly realized Lamas and Bodhisattvas who appear in the world and their activity seems crazy to us. Seems crazy to us. We don’t understand it. They don’t appear like pure Lamas and teachers.  They coined one phrase in some of the teaching called ‘crazy yoga activity’ where the Lama would appear in such a way as to be odd, almost crazy, looking like they even have mental disturbance, acting very strangely. Guru Rinpoche himself was known to do some very odd things like boink people over the head and kill them and bring about their realization. There is one story of a Lama that I heard of who actually lived not too long ago.  It looked like he did something really horrible. He picked up a rock and threw it at some kind of mouse or a rat, or something like that, and killed it. One of his students said, “Why did you do that? You killed. The Buddha tells us not to kill.” “You have no faith.” He snapped his fingers and the thing came back to life. So it was a display of compassion; it was a display geared toward creating devotion in the students. Those are extreme stories, but there are many simpler stories of Lamas appearing in the world in such a way that through their compassion students can actually relate to them better, can actually hear them better, can feel connected to them in a much better way. So that is one example. But according to the Buddha’s teaching the bottom line of that is when enlightened activity appears in the world, that enlightened activity will be effortless. Meaning that it will naturally occur; and it occurs directly from the mind of enlightenment as a result of the mind of enlightenment. There won’t be any contrivance about it; the thing will be what it is.

One of the teachers that has come and taught here used the expression “the ball is going to roll”. It is going to roll no matter what you do. It is simply its nature to roll. That is the way it is. Depending on the grade of the land, depending on the way things are laid out that is the direction that the ball will roll in. How fast the ball will roll depends on where it is sitting, but the ball’s nature is to roll. You can’t stop that; you can’t change that about the ball. So it is kind of like that with the Buddha’s appearance in the world. When songs are sung to praise the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, their activity is described as what I have spoken of just now as being effortless and spontaneous. Now it doesn’t mean that the Buddha didn’t go through some effort to travel from town to town to appear in different places to teach people as he taught people. It is not to say that Guru Rinpoche didn’t try, didn’t put any effort into his life. It is not like that. In that sense, effortless means that the activity is spontaneous, that at no time does the Buddha or any of the Bodhisattvas who have obtained that level of realization ever say, “I wonder what would look kind right now?  Let me try to do the right thing.  Let me see if I can figure out according to this phenomena here how two and two might add up to four. Let me see if I can figure this out. Hmmm. Maybe if I did this that student would react in this way.”  It is not like that. In that way, the activity is effortless and spontaneous. It comes as a result, not of logical thought, which would be an indication of a very superficial or relative view, but it comes as a result of natural and spontaneous activity that must result from enlightenment. The seed of enlightenment then produces the fruit of this enlightened activity. .

Now we have to be careful how we use that. Unfortunately students that have studied this concept and studied Dharma activity over a long period of time think that they are displaying enlightened activity, think that they are displaying effortless activity. That is an unfortunate thing because the moment that you think in that way and that you consider in that way and that you puff yourself up in that way, that is not enlightened activity.  That is not it all. The moment that you describe yourself as having that kind of enlightened activity you have puffed yourself up and you have strengthened your ego and that is no longer enlightened activity. You are off the mark. There are actually Gurus that are present in this world now that have very good intentions. They have part of the idea, but they do not have the capacity to fully express themselves in terms of enlightened activity. They have not yet produced enlightenment in their students and they are in a situation where their activity is partial. They speak of themselves very highly, as being enlightened, as being a certain way, and it only indicates their attachment to self-nature. So you have to be careful with how you use it and you have to be very careful how you hear it from other teachers.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

 

Generation Stage Practice and the Bardo

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered during a Phowa retreat:

There is one way that you can help yourself to prepare for the bardo state. As I begin to explain the bardo of becoming now, which is the next stage in the bardo, and a very important one, you will see how important it will be to you if you can successfully practice generating yourself as the deity. That’s called generation stage practice. That is a practice that is available for you to learn right now, even before practicing your Ngöndro. It is permissible, acceptable and desirable for each of you to practice, first of all, the Shower of Blessings, which is the generation of Guru Rinpoche—not oneself as Guru Rinpoche, but a generation of Guru Rinpoche in front of oneself giving blessings. That brings about a definite firming and developing of one’s relationship with Guru Rinpoche—one’s relationship with the appearance—the nirmanakaya form of all the Buddhas, in fact, because it gives us a relationship with the appearance form of that which is actually enlightenment itself. So there is that. There is also, even before Ngöndro, the opportunity to practice generating oneself as Chenrezig. Chenrezig is considered to be one of the main bodhisattvas who can block rebirth in the lower realms.

Phenomena is not solid and concrete the way we think it is. So we find that in generation stage practice we have the wonderful opportunity to be able to meditate on our true nature, allowing ourselves to dissolve into emptiness. Subtly we dissolve into emptiness and remain meditating on emptiness just momentarily, meditating on the emptiness or illusory quality of our own nature. Then we give rise to our self as the deity, and that takes different forms. Generally, it starts with a seed syllable which is symbolic of the qualities and mind state of the deity. Then after that, we begin to actually give rise to our self as the deity. But the deity is understood to be only as solid as, say, a bubble, or as gossamer thin, if you will, as a whisper. It has all of the solidity of dew, just before the sun dries it up. We generate ourselves as that deity and we are subtly meditating on a dis-attachment to the heaviness of our own consideration of what we are.  We’re also seeing ourselves in a completely different way.

Now why does generation stage practice prepare us for the bardo? First of all, it gives us enough spaciousness in our mind to have another idea besides ‘I am, and I want,’ which is probably the only idea we ever have, if you boil it all down—‘I am, I want, I think.’ So here we are in the bardo able to take a step back from that, and perhaps that will give us the spaciousness, the moment of space, that we need. Somewhere inside that knee jerk reaction tendency, we need to have a moment of space where we can consider where we are and what to do about it. And the lightening up that we have in generation stage practice will help with that. Furthermore, and most importantly, we will begin to recognize these displays, these many displays of the Buddha nature that appear as the meditational deities. These are forms, these are display forms which are actually pictures of, or movements that express, or dances that show, or colors that display or indicate, the qualities of enlightenment. That’s actually what the meditational deities are, if you think about it. They are enlightenment in display or emanation form. What they are holding in their hands, what they’re doing, indicates to us those particular qualities that are being isolated and demonstrated at that time. So we become familiar with the many different ways in which our Buddha nature is demonstrated, is displayed, and that prepares us for the bardo of becoming, because it is in the bardo of becoming that the BBuddhas actually come to meet us.  We will see them, and we can have liberation through recognition. It is actually the easiest form of liberation in the bardo. That is liberation through recognition. For most of us, that will be the easiest form.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

How We See Enlightenment

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Guru Yoga”

If Guru Rinpoche is the Nirmanakaya form of the Buddha, we should also think that he is Enlightenment itself, that what we are seeing is merely the tip of the iceberg.  It’s the way in which that function of enlightenment appears in the world.  Is it always so?  Does enlightenment appear in the world?  Why does it?  What is it when it appears in the world and what is it when it doesn’t appear in the world?  What is it, actually?

Very hard to describe what enlightenment actually is.  Because when we describe enlightenment, it’s like looking at the sky through a tiny peephole.  You can’t really get what it is.  You might be able to see the spaciousness of it. You might even be able to hook into a star. You might even be able to describe color and the way the star glimmers.  But from looking through a peephole, you simply cannot understand what the sky is.  It’s impossible.  And from our point of view, it is impossible to understand what enlightenment is by looking as we do through our little peephole.

We can only understand enlightenment really in terms of what it is not.  We can understand, for instance, that enlightenment is the state free of conceptualization.  We can understand that it is a state free of contrivance.  We can understand that it is a state unlimited by ordinary view, ordinary perception.  But we can’t really understand what else there is.  In fact if you described “some thing else,” you’ve lost the pristine nature of enlightenment, because if you do that, you are conceptualizing.  You are limiting, and you are contriving, an image or an experience.  That’s the way our minds work.  That’s the only way that we have.

When the Buddha described himself, he described himself as being “awake”.  Simply that.  We can’t even understand what that means because we immediately want to say, “Awake to what?  And what were you asleep in before?”  We try to understand in those ways. It’s either/or, black or white. Our minds hook on to something.  And for that reason, we cannot fully and completely understand enlightenment.

In short, enlightenment has been described as the primordial wisdom state, that state which is like luminosity.  But it isn’t luminosity because when we think of luminosity, we think of light and light is “some thing.”  This state called enlightenment is not a thing at all.  It is beyond “thing-ness” and “no thing-ness.”  It is beyond form and formless.  It is beyond self and other.  It is beyond up and down.  It is beyond hot and cold.  It is beyond dark and light.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Logic and Relative View

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

The Buddha never really bothered to address cosmological questions.   It is true that in the Vajrayana tradition there is a cosmological history that is given, but to my understanding that history does not teach us how the original assumption came about.  This cosmology speaks of the absolute void, and it says that from the void came movement.  In the way that it is spoken of, one understands that the void is the totality of form and formless as one. They are the same. They must both be contained in the void because form came from the void.  Emptiness and fullness are the same taste, the same essence, and the nature is pregnant with all potential.  In the state that is called the void there is non-distinction. Form and formless are not distinguishable from one another; they are the same. They are the same taste.

However, we do not perceive form and formless to be the same. Neither do we experience the clear luminous nature that is our own true nature and is also the nature of all phenomena.  Why don’t we experience that?

We don’t experience that because we are involved in consciousness. We are involved in taste; we are involved in feeling; we are involved in subtle and gross perception. And this process, this entire process of elaboration and exaggeration that extends from every single perception that we have, is so elaborate it extends, seemingly, forever.  We are so involved and so tremendously tripped up by and so compelled to compute instantly, because consciousness deals with relativity and specific perception and specific computation. We are compelled to be involved in that. We do not, then, perceive the true nature.

When you compute in the way that I have described, as quickly and as compulsively as you do, while you are utilizing these experiences which are a function of the assumption of self, there is no space to perceive that nature.The nature hasn’t gone away, nor has the void disappeared. The void isn’t something that used to be back there in time out of mind and now it’s not here anymore because everything developed.  This is how we think, isn’t it?  We think in terms of relativity.  That space, that emptiness, that voidness is the same. It remains.  It is steadfast.  It is unchanging. It is as close as it has ever been and as far as it can ever be. Close because voidness is the nature.  Far away because we cannot see it, not even for an instant, due to the functions which are based on an assumption of self-nature.

What conclusions can we draw from this?  Perhaps we can think that there is a tremendous amount of intelligence and logic in the Buddha’s teaching when he taught that the relative view, the relative world view, does, in fact, exist.  You, in fact, exist. The world exists.  Relative view exists.  Yet, the nature that is your nature, that is the nature of all phenomena, that is the nature of the world, that is the same nature of both form and formless, that nature is the true nature.  One cannot say that because you perceive yourself to be real and your experiences to be real that one can then deny the truth of your primordial wisdom nature, the nature that is really you.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Perception and Consciousness

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

Think of the experiences that constitute our lives and then single them out.  For instance, we certainly have the experience of form, and we have the experience of that which is formless.  We have the experience of touch.  We have the experience of taste.  We have the experience of hearing.  We have the experience of sight.  We have the experience of smell.  We have the experience of consciousness.  We have the experience of the perception that one computes, such as the perception of time and space, as well as the perception of sense, such as internal sense.  We have the perception of immediacy and distance, on both an emotional and a physical level.  We have many gross and subtle perceptual avenues.  Perception of some kind is an experience that we live with constantly.

Each one of these experiences is extremely compelling.  It is compelling beyond what can be easily described.  What I mean by compelling is not in the gross sense that we think of, like, for instance, an alcoholic might be compelled to drink alcohol or a really thirsty person might be compelled to drink water.  It isn’t that kind of compelling.  It’s more subtle, but it’s extreme, it’s very strong.  For instance, if I pick up this object I am compelled to compute it.  I can’t not compute it.  I have to compute it. I pick it up, and I immediately have the experience of how big it is, of how hard it is compared to my hand, of how hot or cold it is compared to my body, compared to my temperature, my own body temperature.  The sense of color compared to what?  Compared to my own color.  All phenomena are relative to my perception of self.  It’s extremely compelling.  The moment I have this kind of contact I immediately compute it in this most compelling way, and I can’t help myself.  I can’t come between myself and that computation.  The inability to come between yourself and that computation is the lack of spaciousness that is the karma of our minds.  There is no space.  There is the immediate fixation, compulsive computation of the relativity factor, the relativity between self and other.

Now, when I have any kind of awareness, subtle or gross, when I have any sense of time and space -such as I have a sense of being in this chair, being so far from you, of being halfway through my talk, it’s nighttime, these things – this kind of perception is actually a conglomeration of many different factors that have come together.  It takes a tremendous amount of computation to have this kind of perception.  It’s tremendously complicated.  Usually, all of the senses are used.   The air feels different. Not only is it dark but things sound differently. Things happen differently at night; usually you don’t come here this way during the day.  Many different things must take place to compose – and I mean the word “compose “– the experience that I’m having.

There’s also a general awareness of a process of distinction, or a process of differentiation, that constantly occurs.  You could call that process, that awareness, consciousness.  Consciousness, as we understand it, is a specific consciousness.  This consciousness that we have is a very specific function.  You cannot have consciousness without, on some level, computing relativity because consciousness is specific awareness. By the way, you really should not use the word consciousness when you talk about the nature of mind.  That’s done commonly, and it really is not correct.  You should not think you want to move into Buddha consciousness or that you want to have primordial consciousness.  Consciousness is specific, and the state that we speak of when we speak of the primordial wisdom state or when we think of the Buddha nature or when we think of an awareness that is non-specific, is pure and undifferentiated. It is free from any such contrivance as specific “-ness”.

Even when you have experience in your meditation that feels like it’s very vast and you’re congratulating yourself on how vast that experience just was and you’re so impressed with the vastness of your experience and you think that you’ve surely attained cosmic consciousness or something like that, under those conditions – probably especially under those conditions – the consciousness is extremely specific and computes relativity.  Consciousness means that I am conscious. I am having this experience.  To be able to have this experience requires consciousness.

So what is this consciousness a function of?  This consciousness is a function of the assumption of self.  One cannot have consciousness, or taste, or feeling, or any kind of subtle or gross perception, without the assumption of self.  The assumption of self comes first. The main thing that’s confusing about this point is that you want to know, well, who is having this assumption? Who is having this consciousness?  Who is having this taste?  I am.  I am conscious.  I have feeling.

Anybody want to test feeling?  We’ll give them the old Ahkön Lhamo test for feeling. If you think that you are beyond feeling, I have a pin somewhere on my undergarment that I can take out very quickly and there you go!  I will show you that you have feeling.

So what is your answer?  Who has consciousness?  Who’s conscious?  Who’s having this feeling?  Your answer has to be, although you’re terrified to say it: I am.  You are, aren’t you?  Can you doubt that?  Can you say that you can’t see?  Only if you close your eyes, but they have to be your eyes that you close.  You are conscious.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

How To Wake Up

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo given on Saga Dawa 2016

The great Bodhicitta permeates everything. It is our true nature. It is up to us to activate it in the same way in order to wake up the deities inside.

How do you do that? You practice the Bodhicitta. It doesn’t come naturally to most people. You have to practice it. A very new student that I had once came up to me and said, “I don’t have any Bodhicitta,” and I said, “Well, make some.” Practice. You have to practice. You have to understand that you are the same nature as the person that you may have bad feelings about. We are not different. We are intimately connected and we are actually in the same place. You appear to be over there when, in fact, you are in here. I appear to be up here when I am in your heart, too. There’s no reason for us to act as we do and make the world worse. There’s no reason for that because we are the same. The great Bodhicitta that emanated from seemingly nothing is empty, and yet it is the nature of everything. It is your seed nature. The Buddha seed that is within you is Bodhicitta. There’s no reason why any of you cannot accomplish the Dharma. You are the Dharma. We are all Dharma inside. We only have to wake it up. There’s nothing we can do to make Dharma appear where it is not. It has to be where it is, and it is within our minds and our hearts. The Bodhicitta first emerged, and then everything came from that. Everything. I’m seeing all the different forms in the world, and when I see them I know that they are not separate from me. They are not separate from you.

We have to learn that it’s different than what we see because the five senses are liars. They will deceive you. They tell us what our consciousness believes to be true, and our consciousness is born in samsara. The tools that we use to tell us definitely that this is five feet long, definitely this is that high, definitely this is definitely that, are lying to us. You can’t believe them. You have to believe what you see in your deepest nature and that’s comes through practice. It’s the only way you can see it. Sometimes I look at peoples’ bodies and I can see if they are sick or not, and where they are sick. I did that yesterday and I was 100% correct. I’m not bragging. It’s not like that. It’s that we all have this kind of vision if we practice. We all do. The root of it is Bodhicitta. That view, that understanding, is Bodhicitta. We have to doubt the tools that we use to learn things because they come from samsaric minds. The only things you can’t doubt are the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Their wisdom is what it is. Yes, they may have five senses too, but their five senses have been tamed and awakened. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas see differently. We could do that too, but it takes a lot of contemplation and practice. You have to doubt your own eyes. If you could see with pure view, you would see dimensions sliding across and around each other. You could see how they are related to each other. You can see one person disappearing here and then reappearing in another dimension. Once the senses are purified, you can see that, but with ordinary senses we don’t really see, we just make up things. We have to tame our senses and bring them in harmony with Dharma so that they can awaken.

Contemplation is good. Don’t believe in what you see automatically, but look deeper. You can’t be so shallow in your practice. You have to understand it’s not what you’re seeing. I hope this makes some sense. Whatever deity you practice, he or she lives within you—every deity that you practice—and you live within him or her. This is why we practice the deities. To wake up.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Wisdom: From “The Way of the Bodhisattva” by Shantideva

The following is respectfully quoted from “The Way of the Bodhisattva” by Shantideva:

1.
All these branches of the Doctrine
The Powerful Lord expounded for the sake of wisdom.
Therefore they must generate this wisdom
Who wish to have an end to suffering.

2.
Relative and absolute,
These two truths are declared to be.
The absolute is not within the reach of intellect,
For intellect is grounded in the relative.

3.
Two kinds of people are to be distinguished:
Meditative thinkers and ordinary folk;
The common views of ordinary people
Are superseded by the views of meditators.

4.
And within the ranks of meditators,
The lower, in degrees of insight, are confuted by the higher.
For all employ the same comparisons,
And the goal, if left unanalyzed, they all accept.

5.
When ordinary folk perceive phenomena,
They look on them as real and not illusory.
This, then, is the subject of debate
Where ordinary and meditators differ.

6.
Forms and so forth, which we sense directly,
Exist by general acclaim, though logic disallows them.
They’re false, deceiving, like polluted substances
Regarded in the common view as clean.

7.
That he might instruct the worldly,
Buddha spoke of “things,” but these in truth
Lack even momentariness.
“It’s wrong to claim that this is relative!”–If so you say,

8.
Then know that there’s no fault. For momentariness
Is relative for meditators, but for the worldly, absolute.
Were it otherwise, the common view
Could fault our certain insight into corporal impurity.

9.
“Through a buddha, who is but illusion, how does merit spring?”
As if the Buddha were existing truly.
“But,” you ask, “if beings likewise are illusions,
How, when dying, can they take rebirth?”

10.
As long as the conditions are assembled,
Illusions, likewise, will persist and manifest.
Why, through simply being more protracted,
Should sentient beings be regarded as more real?

11.
If thus I were to slay or harm a mere mirage,
Because there is no mind, no sin occurs.
But beings are possessed of miragelike minds;
Sin and merit will, in consequence, arise.

12.
Spells and incantations cannot, it is true,
Give minds to mirages, and so no mind arises.
But illusions spring from various causes;
The kinds of mirage, then, are likewise various–

13.
A single cause for everything there never was!
“If, ultimately,” you will now enquire,
“Everything is said to be nirvāna,
Samsāra, which is relative, must be the same.

14.
“Therefore even buddhahood reverts to the samsaāric state.
So why,” you ask, “pursue the bodhisattva path?”
As long as there’s not cutting of the causal stream,
There is no routing of illusory appearance.

15.
But when the causal stream is interrupted,
All illusions, even relative, will cease.
“If that which is deceived does not exist,
What is it,” you ask, “that sees illusion?”

16.
But if, for you, these same illusions have no being,
What, indeed, remains to be perceived?
If objects have another mode of being,
That very mode is but the mind itself.

17.
But if the mirage is the mind itself,
What, then, is perceived by what?
The Guardian of the World himself has said
The mind cannot be seen by mind.

18.
In just the same way, he has said,
The sword’s edge cannot cut the sword.
“But,” you say, “it’s like the flame
That perfectly illuminates itself.”

19.
The flame, in fact, can never light itself.
And why? Because the darkness never dims it!
“The blueness of a blue thing,” you will say,
“Depends, unlike a crystal, on no other thing.

20.
“Likewise some perceptions
Rise from other things–while some do not.”
But what is blue has never itself imposed
A blueness on its nonblue self.

21.
The phase “the lamp illuminates itself”
The mind can know and formulate.
But what is there to know and say
That “mind is self-illuminating”?

22.
The mind, indeed, is never seen by anyone,
And therefore, whether it can know or cannot know itself,
Just like the beauty of a barren woman’s daughter,
This merely forms the subject of a pointless conversation.

23.
“But if,” you ask, “the mind is not self-knowing,
How does it remember what it knew?”
We say that like the poison of the water rat,
It’s from the link with other things that memory occurs.

24.
“In certain cases,” you will say, “the mind
Can see the minds of others, how then not itself?”
But through the application of a magic balm,
The eye may see the treasure, but the salve it does not see.

25.
It’s not indeed our object to disprove
Experiences of sight or sound or knowing.
Our aim is here to undermine the cause of sorrow:
The thought that such phenomena have true existence.

26.
“Illusions are not other than the mind,” you say,
And yet you also claim that they are not the same.
But must they not be different if the mind is real?
And how can mind be real if there’s no difference?

27.
“A mirage may be known,” you say, “Though lacking true existence.”
The knower is the same, it knows, but is a mirage.
“But what supports samsāra must be real,” you say,
“or else samsāra is like empty space.”

28.
But how could the unreal proceed to function,
Even if it rests on something real?
This mind of yours is isolated and alone,
Alone, in solitude, and unaccompanied.

29.
If the mind indeed is free of objects,
All beings must be buddhas, thus gone and enlightened.
Therefore what utility or purpose can there be
In saying thus, that there is “Only Mind”?

30.
Even if we know that all is like illusion,
How will this dispel afflictive passion?
Magicians may indeed themselves desire
The mirage-women they themselves create.

31.
The reason is they have not rid themselves
Of habits of desiring objects of perception;
And when they gaze upon such things,
Their aptitude for emptiness is weak indeed.

32.
By training in this aptitude for emptiness,
The habit to perceive substantially will fade.
By training in the view that all lacks entity,
This view itself will also appear.

33.
“There is nothing”–when this is asserted,
No “thing” is there to be examined.
For how can nothing, lacking all support,
Remain before the mind as something present?

34.
When real and nonreal both
Are absent from before the mind,
Nothing else remains for the mind to do
But rest in perfect peace, from concepts free.

35.
As the wishing jewel and tree of miracles
Fulfill and satisfy all hopes and wishes,
Likewise, through their prayers for those who might be trained,
Victorious Ones appear within the world.

36.
The healing shrine of garuda,
Even when its builder was long dead,
Continued even ages thence
To remedy and soothe all plagues and venom.

37.
Likewise, though the bodhisattva has transcended sorrow,
By virtue of his actions for the sake of buddhahood,
The shrines of buddha-forms appear and manifest,
Enacting and fulfilling every deed.

38.
“But how,” you ask, “can offerings made
To beings freed from all discursiveness give fruit?”
It’s said that whether buddhas live or pass beyond,
The offerings made to them have equal merit.

39.
Whether you assert the relative or ultimate,
The scriptures say that merit will result.
Merits will be gained regardless
Of the Buddha’s true or relative existence.

40.
“We’re freed,” you say, “through seeing the (Four) Truths–
What use is it to us, this view of voidness?”
But as the scriptures have themselves proclaimed,
Without it there is no enlightenment.

41.
You say the Mahāyāna has no certainty.
But how do you substantiate your own tradition?
“Because it is accepted by both parties,” you will say.
But at the outset, you yourselves lacked proof!

42.
The reasons why you trust in your tradition
May likewise be applied to Mahāyāna.
Moreover, if accord between two parties shows the truth,
The Vedas and rest are also true.

43.
“Mahāyāna is at fault,” you say, because it is contested.”
But by non-Buddhists are your scriptures also questioned,
While other Buddhist schools impugn and spurn them.
Therefore, your tradition you must now abandon.

44.
The true monk is the very root of Dharma,
But difficult it is to be a monk indeed.
And hard it is for minds enmeshed in thoughts
To pass beyond the bonds of suffering.

45.
You say there’s liberation in the instant
That defilements are entirely forsaken,
Ye those who from defilements are set free
Continue to display the influence of karma.

46.
“Only for a while,” you say. “For it is certain
That the cause of rebirth, craving, is exhausted.”
They have no craving, granted, through defiled emotion.
But how could they avoid the craving linked with ignorance?

47.
This craving is produced by virtue of sensation,
And sensation, this they surely have.
Concepts linger still within their minds;
And it is to these concepts that they cling.

48.
The mind that has not realized voidness,
May be halted, but will once again arise–
Just as from a nonperceptual absorption.
Therefore, voidness must be cultivated.

49.
If all that is encompassed by the sūtras
You hold to be the Buddha’s perfect speech,
Why do you not hold the greater part of Mahāyāna,
Which with your sūtras is in perfect harmony?

50.
If due to just a single jarring element,
The whole is held to be at fault,
How might not a single point in concord with the sūtras
Vindicate the rest as Buddha’s teaching?

51.
Mahākāshyapa himself and others
Could not sound the depths of such a teaching.
Who will therefore say they are to be rejected
Just because they are not grasped by you?

52.
To linger and abide within samsāra,
But freed from every craving and from every fear,
To work the benefit of those who ignorantly suffer:
Such is the fruit that emptiness will bear.

53.
From this, the voidness doctrine will be seen
To be immune from all attack.
And so, with every doubt abandoned,
Let us meditate upon this emptiness.

54.
Afflictive passion and the veils of ignorance–
The cure for these is emptiness.
Therefore, how could they not meditate upon it
Who wish swiftly to attain omniscience?

55.
Whatever is the source of pain and suffering,
Let that be the object of our fear.
But voidness will allay our every sorrow;
How could it be for us a thing of dread?

56.
If such a thing as “I” exists indeed,
Then terrors, granted, will torment it.
But since no self or “I” exists at all,
What is there left for fears to terrify?

57.
The teeth, the hair, the nails are not the “I,”
And “I” is not the bones or blood;
The mucus from the nose, and phlegm, are not the “I,”
And “I” is not accounted for within the six perceptions.

60.
If the hearing consciousness is permanent,
It follows that it’s hearing all the time.
If there is no object, what is knowing what?
Why do you now say that there is consciousness?

61.
If consciousness is that which does not know,
It follows that a stick is also conscious.
Therefore, in the absence of a thing to know,
It is clear that consciousness will not arise.

62.
“But consciousness may turn to apprehend a form,” you say.
But why, then, does it cease to hear?
Perhaps you say the sound’s no longer there.
If so, the hearing consciousness is likewise absent.

63.
How could that which has the nature of perceiving sound
Be changed into a form-perceiver?
“A single man,” you say, “can be both son and father.”
But these are merely names; his nature is not so.

64.
Thus “pleasure,” “pain,” “neutrality”
Do not partake of fatherhood or sonship,
And we indeed have never yet observed
A consciousness of form perceiving sound.

65.
“But like an actor,” you will say, “it takes on different roles.”
If so, then consciousness is not a changeless thing.
“It’s one thing,” you will say, “with different modes.”
That’s unity indeed, and never seen before!

66.
“But different modes,” you claim, “without reality.”
And so its essence you must now describe.
You say that this is simply knowing–
All beings therefore are a single thing.

67.
What has mind and what does not have mind
Are likewise one, for both are equal in existing.
If the different features are deceptive,
What is the support that underlies them?

68.
Something destitute of mind, we hold, cannot be self,
For mindlessness means matter, like a vase.
“But,” you say, “the self has the consciousness, when joined to mind.”
But this refutes its nature of unconsciousness.

69.
If the self, moreover, is immutable,
What change in it could mingling with mind produce?
And selfhood we might equally affirm
Of empty space, inert and destitute of mind.

70.
“If,” you ask, “the self does not exist,
How can acts be linked with their results?
If when the deed is done, the doer is no more,
Who is there to reap the karmic fruit?”

71.
The basis of the act and fruit are not the same,
And thus a self lacks scope for its activity.
On this, both you and we are in accord–
What point is there in our debating?

72.
A cause coterminous with its result
Is something quite impossible to see.
And only in the context of a single mental stream
Can it be said that one who acts will later reap the fruit.

73.
The thoughts now passed, and those to come, are not the self;
They are no more, or are not yet,
Is then the self the thought which is now born?
If so, it sinks to nothing when the latter fades.

74.
For instance, we may take banana trees–
Cutting through the fibers, finding nothing.
Likewise, analytical investigation
Will find no “I,” no underlying self.

75.
“if beings,” you will say, “have no existence,
Who will be the object of compassion?”
Those whom ignorance imputes and vows to save,
Intending thus to gain the lofty goal.

76.
“Since beings are no more,” you ask, “who gains the fruit?”
It’s true! The aspiration’s made in ignorance.
But for the total vanquishing of sorrow,
The goal, which ignorance conceives, should not be spurned.

77.
The source of sorrow is the pride of saying “I,”
Fostered and increased by false belief in self.
To this you may say that there’s no redress,
But meditation on no-self will be the supreme way.

78.
What we call the body is not feet or shins,
The body, likewise, is not thighs or loins.
It’s not the belly nor indeed the back,
And from the chest and arms the body is not formed.

79.
The body is not ribs or hands,
Armpits, shoulders, bowels or entrails;
It is not the head or throat:
From none of these is “body” constituted.

80.
If “body,” step by step,
Pervades and spreads itself throughout its members,
Its parts indeed are present in the parts,
But where does the “body,” in itself, abide?

81.
If “body,” a single and entire,
Is present in the hand and other members,
However many parts there are, the hand and all the rest,
You’ll find an equal quantity of “bodies.”

82.
If “body” is not outside or within its parts,
How is it, then, residing in its members?
And since it has no basis other than its parts,
How can it be said to be at all?

83.
Thus thre is no “body” in the limbs,
But from illusion does the idea spring,
Tobe affixed to a specific shape–
Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man.

84.
As long as the conditions are assembled,
A body will appear and seem to be a man.
As long as all the parts are likewise present,
It’s there that we will see a body.

85.
Likewise, since it is a group of fingers,
The hand itself is not a single entity.
And so it is with fingers, made of joints–
And joints themselves consist of many parts.

86.
These parts themselves will break down into atoms,
And atoms will divide according to direction.
These fragments, too, will also fall to nothing.
Thus atoms are like empty space–they have no real existence.

87.
All form, therefore, is like a dream,
And who will be attached to it, who thus investigates?
The body, in this way, has no existence.
What is male, therefore, and what is female?

88.
If suffering itself is truly real,
Then why is joy not altogether quenched thereby?
If pleasure’s real, then why will pleasant tastes
Not comfort and amuse a man in agony?

89.
If the feeling fails to be experienced,
Through being overwhelmed with something stronger,
How can “feeling” rightly be ascribed
To that which lacks the character of being felt?

90.
Perhaps you say that only subtle pain remains,
Its grosser form has now been overmastered,
Or rather it is felt as mere pleasure.
But what is subtle still remains itself.

91.
If, through presence of its opposite,
Pain and sorrow fail to manifest,
To claim with such conviction that it’s felt
Is surely nothing more than empty words.

92.
Since so it is, the antidote
Is meditation and analysis.
Investigation and resultant concentration
Is indeed the food and sustenance of yogis.

93.
If between the sense power and a thing
There is a space, how will the two terms meet?
If there is no space, they form a unity,
And therefore, what is that meets with what?

94.
Atoms and atoms cannot interpenetrate,
For they are equal, lacking any volume.
But if they do not penetrate, they do not mingle,
And if they do not mingle, there is no encounter.

95.
For how could anyone accept
That what is part less could be said to meet?
And you must show me, if you ever saw,
A contact taking place between two partless things.

96.
The consciousness is immaterial,
And so one cannot speak of contact with it.
A combination, too, has no reality,
And this we have already demonstrated.

97.
Therefore, if there is no touch or contact
Whence is it that feeling takes its rise?
What purpose is there, then, in all our striving,
What is it, then, that torments what?

98.
Since there is not subject for sensation,
And sensation too, lacks all existence,
Why, when this you clearly understand,
Will you not pause and turn away from craving?

99.
Seeing, then, and sense of touch
Are stuff of insubstantial dreams.
If perceiving consciousness arises simultaneously,
How could such a feeling be perceived?

100.
If the one arises first, the other after,
Memory occurs and not direct sensation.
Sensation, then, does not perceive itself,
And likewise, by another it is not perceived.

101.
The subject of sensation has no real existence,
Thus sensation, likewise, has no being.
What damage then, can be inflicted
On this aggregate deprived of self?

102.
The mind within the sense does not dwell;
It has no place in outer things, like form,
And in between, the mind does not abide:
Not out, not in, not elsewhere can the mind be found.

103.
Something not within the body, and yet nowhere else,
That does not merge with it nor stand apart–
Something such as this does not exist, not even slightly.
Beings have nirvāna by their nature.

104.
If consciousness precedes the cognized object,
With regard to what does it arise?
If consciousness arises with its object,
Again, regarding what does it arise?

105.
If consciousness comes later than its object,
Once again, from what does it arise?
Thus the origin of all phenomena
Lies beyond the reach of understanding.

106.
“If this is so,” you say, “the relative will cease,
And then the two truths–what becomes of them?
If relative depends on beings’ minds,
This means nirvāna is attained by none.”

107.
This relative is just the thoughts of beings;
That is not the relative of beings in nirvāna.
If thoughts come after this, then that is still the relative.,
If not, the relative has truly ceased.

108.
Analysis and what is to be analyzed
Are linked together, mutually dependent.
It is on the basis of conventional consensus,
That all examination is expressed.

109.
“But when the process of analysis
Is made in turn the object of our scrutiny,
This investigation, likewise, may be analyzed,
And thus we find an infinite regress.”

110.
If phenomena are truly analyzed,
No basis for analysis remains.
Deprived of further object, it subsides.
That indeed is said to be nirvana.

111.
Those who say that “both are true”
Are hard pressed to maintain their case.
If consciousness reveals the truth of things,
By what support is consciousness upheld?

112.
If objects show that consciousness exists,
What, in turn, upholds the truth of objects?
If both subsist through mutual dependence,
Both thereby will lose their true existence.

113.
If, without a son, a man cannot be a father;
Whence, indeed, will such a son arise?
There is no father in the absence of a son.
Just so, the mind and object have no true existence.

114.
“The plant arises from the seed,” you say,
“So why should not the seed be thence inferred?
Consciousness arises from the object–
How does it now show the thing’s existence?”

115.
A consciousness that’s different from the plant itself
Deduces the existence of the seed.
But what will show that consciousness exists,
Whereby the object is itself established?

116.
At times direct perception of the world
Perceives that all things have their causes.
The different segments of the lotus flower
Arise from similar diversity of causes.

117.
“But what gives rise,” you ask, “to such diversity of causes?”
An ever earlier variety of cause, we say.
“And how,” you ask, “do certain fruits derive from certain causes?”
Through the power, we answer, of preceding causes.

118.
If Ishvara is held to be the cause of beings,
You must now define for us his nature.
If, by this, you simply mean the elements,
No need to tire ourselves disputing names!

119.
Yet earth and other elements are many,
Impermanent, inert, without divinity.
Trampled underfoot, they are impure,
And thus they cannot be a God Omnipotent.

120.
The Deity cannot be Space–inert and lifeless.
He cannot be the Self, for this we have refuted.
He’s inconceivable, they say. Then likewise his creatorship.
Is there any point, therefore, to such a claim?

121.
What is it he wishes to create?
Has he made the self and all the elements?
But are not self and elements and he, himself, eternal?
And consciousness, we know, arises from its object;

122.
Pain and pleasure have, from all time, sprung from karma,
So tell us, what has this Divinity produced?
And if Creation’s cause is unoriginal,
How can origin be part of the result?

123.
Why are creatures not created constantly,
For Ishvara relies on nothing but himself?
And if there’s nothing that he has not made,
What remains on which he might depend?

124.
If Isvara depends, the cause of all
Is prior circumstances, and no longer he.
When these obtain, he cannot but create;
When these are absent, he is powerless to make.

125. If Almighty God does not intend,
But yet creates, another thing has forced him.
If he wishes to create, he’s swayed by desire.
Even though Creator, then, what comes from his Omnipotence?

126.
Those who say that atoms are the permanent foundation
have indeed already been refuted.
The Sāmkhyas are the ones who hold
The Primal Substance as enduring cause.

127.
“Pleasure,” “pain,” “neutrality,” so-called,
Are qualities which, when the rest
In equilibrium, are termed the Primal Substance.
The universe arises when they are disturbed.

128.
Three natures in a unity are disallowed;
This unity, therefore, cannot exist.
These qualities, likewise, have no existence.
For they must also be assigned a triple nature.

129.
if these qualities have no existence,
A thing like sound is very far from plausible!
and cloth, and other mindless objects,
Cannot be the seat of feelings such as pleasure.

130.
“But,” you say, “these things possess the nature of their cause.”
But have we not investigated “things” already?
For you the cause is pleasure and the like,
But from pleasure, cloth has never sprung!

131.
Pleasure, rather, is produced from cloth,
But this is nonexistent, therefore pleasure likewise.
As for permanence of pleasure and the rest–
Well, there’s a thing that’s never been observed.

132.
If pleasure and the rest are true existents,
Why are they not constantly perceived?
And if you claim they take on subtle form,
How can coarseness change, transforming into subtlety?

133.
If coarseness is abandoned, subtlety assumed,
Such transition indicates impermanence.
Whey then not accept that, in this way,
All things will have the character of transience?

134.
If you say the coarser aspect is itself the pleasure,
The manifest sensation is of course impermanent.
And what does not exist in any sense,
Because it has no being, cannot manifest.

135.
you do not intend that which is manifest
Lacked earlier existence–yet this is the meaning.
And if results exist within their cause,
Those who eat their food, consume their excrement.

136.
And likewise with the money they would spend on clothing,
Let them rather buy the cotton grain to wear.
“But,” you say, “the world is ignorant and blind.”
Since this is taught by those who know the truth,

137.
This knowledge must be present in the worldly.
And if they have it, why do they not see?
You say, “These views of worldly folk are false.”
Therefore, what they clearly see has no validity.

138.
“But if there is not truth in their cognition,
all that it assess is perforce deceptive.
Meditation on the supreme truth of voidness
Ceases, therefore, to have any meaning.”

139.
If there is no object for analysis,
There can be no grasping of its nonexistence.
Therefore, a deceptive object of whatever kind
Will also have a voidness equally deceptive.

140.
Thus, when in a dream, a child has died,
The state of mind which thinks he is no more
Will overwhelm the thought that he was living.
and yet, both thoughts are equally deceptive.

141.
Therefore, as we see through such investigation,
Nothing is that does not have a cause;
And nothing is existent in its causes
Taken one by one or in aggregate.

142.
It does not come from somewhere else,
Neither does it stay, nor yet depart.
How will what confusion takes for truth
In any sense be different from a mirage?

143.
Things, then, bodied forth by magic spells,
And that which is displayed by dint of causes–
“When have these arisen?” we should ask;
And where they go to, that we should examine!

144.
What arises through the meeting of conditions
And ceases to exist when these are lacking,
Is artificial like the mirror image;
How can true existence be ascribed to it?

145.
Something that exists with true existence–
What need is there for it to have a cause?
Something that is wholly inexistent–
Again, what need has it to have a cause?

146.
Even by a hundred million causes,
No transformation is there in nonentity.
For if this keeps its status, how could entity occur?
And likewise, what is there that could so change?

147.
When nonbeing prevails, if there’s no being,
When could being ever supervene?
For insofar as entity does not occur,
Nonentity itself will not depart.

148.
And if nonentity is not dispersed,
No chance is there for entity to manifest.
Being cannot change and turn to nonbeing,
Otherwise it has a double nature.

149.
Thus there is no being,
Likewise no cessation.
Therefore beings, each and every one,
Are unborn and are never ceasing.

150.
Wandering beings, thus, resemble dreams
And also the banana tree, if you examine well.
No difference is there, in their own true nature,
Between states of suffering and beyond all sorrow.

151.
Thus, with things devoid of true existence,
What is there to gain, and what to lose?
Who is there to pay me court and honors,
And who is there to scorn and revile me?

152.
Pain and pleasure, whence to these arise?
And what is there to give me joy and sorrow?
In this quest and search for perfect truth,
Who is craving, what is there to crave?

153.
Examine now this world of living beings:
Who is there therein to pass away?
What is there to come, and what has been?
And who, indeed, are relatives and friends?

154.
May beings like myself discern and grasp
That all things have the character of space!
But those who long for happiness and ease,
Through disputes or the cause of pleasures,

155.
Are deeply troubled, or else thrilled with joy.
They suffer, strive, content among themselves,
Slashing, stabbing, injuring each other:
They live their lives engulfed in many evils.

156.
From time to time they surface in the states of bliss,
Abandoning themselves to many pleasures.
But dying, down the fall to suffer torment.
Long, unbearable, in realms of sorrow.

157.
Many are the chasms and abysses of existence,
Where the truth of voidness is not found.
All is contradiction, all denial,
Suchness, or its like, can find no place.

158.
There, exceeding all description,
Is the shoreless sea of pain unbearable.
Here it is that strength is low,
And lives are flickering and brief.

159.
All activities for sake of life and health,
Relief of hunger and of weariness,
Time consumed in sleep, all accident and injury,
And sterile friendships with the childish–

160.
Thus life passes quickly, meaningless.
True discernment–hard it is to have!
How then shall we ever find the means
To curb the futile wanderings of the mind?

161.
Further, evil forces work and strain
To cast us headlong into states of woe;
Manifold are false, deceptive trails,
And it is hard to dissipate our doubts.

162.
Hard it is to find again this state of freedom,
Harder yet to come upon enlightened teachers,
Hard, indeed, to turn aside the torrent of defilement!
Alas, our sorrows fall in endless streams!

163.
Sad it is indeed that living beings,
Carried on the flood of bitter pain,
However terrible their plight may be,
Do not perceive they suffer so!

164.
Some there are who bathe themselves repeatedly,
And afterwards they scorch themselves with fire,
Suffering intensely all the while,
Yet there they stay, proclaiming loud their bliss.

165.
Likewise there are some who live and act
As though old age and death will never come to them.
But then life’s over and there comes
The dreadful fall into the states of loss.

166.
When shall I be able to allay and quench
The dreadful heat of suffering’s blazing fires,
With plenteous rains of my own bliss
That pour torrential from my clouds of merit?

167.
My wealth of merit gathered in,
With reverence but without conceptual aim,
When shall I reveal this truth of emptiness
To those who go to ruin through belief in substance?

 

 

Bodhicitta: The Great Mother

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

New science theory wonders if space and time might be the same stuff. I don’t think that is exactly right, but close. So many theories being toyed with right now, that when “membranes” bump together that bump is a “big bang,” that there are infinite “bubble” universes all in the same place. That probable realities spin off with each choice we make. (Karma?) That where we sit is empty space, mostly, with atoms, and other nearly impossible to see particles. The rest of everything we see is mostly space with particles.

Another theory: what if when we space out, sleep, or forget where we are sometimes (just daydreaming) we may actually be focused on another reality. Hmm. Of course, that would mean brain is not consciousness, which is more. They are finding particles move in and out this dimension, and that black holes exist everywhere! Tiny and massive ones. So when we look at the stars and see galaxies, suns etc, we mostly see energy, same vibe as our eyes pick up. They look like what we think we know. But science always comes up needing a new theory. What if it all looks as it does because our own five senses came up with the very tools and measurements to prove themselves right? What if perception and consciousness became part of the equation? Like, all the empty space and speeding particles were exactly in the space we think we occupy? What if the macrocosm is the microcosm? What if looking “out” is delusion? What if all we see is our own perception? And what if that conscious/awareness perception is warped by thinking habitually, that it is all “out there” due to the scientific tools we created to see exactly that?

Okay, now, what if all consciousness could suddenly blink off. And there was no perception happening? Like a tree falling down with nothing and no one to perceive it would not make a sound. If there were no consciousness or perception, it would be unborn space, empty- but perfectly complete when there is perception and awareness.

We are one nature; that nature displays as we see it. We cannot be separated, but we can be duped by our own learned awareness, and so we have been, all this time. We are space. Our “vibration” is light, all-pervasive love. In Buddhism we call that Bodhicitta, the display of emptiness, the wisdom of Empty nature and its display. Bodhicitta, the great Mother of us all. We are that also. Buddha. But we are dreaming, and will someday awaken to view the primordial ground of being without the many gorgeous veils she dances with! Pure view. EH MA HO!

© Jetsunma Ahkön Norbu Lhamo

The “Chicken Suit”

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Neurotic Interaction to Guru Yoga”

It seems you have these strong habitual tendencies and project them onto an environment stimulated by just about anything. And when the stimulation looks like it’s even on the same continent as a predetermined habitual karmic scenario that you have been going through cyclically, you’ll do it again.  So many people do not have a good or honest or true relationship with their teacher because they are basically having a relationship with their own neuroses.  That’s the truth!  That’s the truth!  They’re having it with their own neuroses. But you see here again is a mystery, something beautiful that you really need to understand. I’m using a very western way of explaining this so that you will understand better.  That’s part of the gift of having a teacher.  It’s part of the gift, because the teacher will show you your own mind, will mirror something.  There’ll be that little bounce-back phenomena there so that when you have a meeting with the teacher, and something begins, you begin to feel like, “What’s happening here?  I’m beginning to feel a little itchy twitchy.  Now wait a minute, I’m seeing some authority figure stuff come out.” Or, “Oh God, that reminds me of my mother!!”

Or men are like, ALL women do that!!  I hate that!!  So that will start to happen, and when that starts to happen, what the student doesn’t realize is that is a perfect opportunity to look at your mind.  It’s a gift.  Of course, you can make this gift happen anywhere in your life and actually this is the best way to practice Guru Yoga.  There is a lot of poetry and a lot of very profound Dharma text written about seeing the Guru’s face everywhere—in every person, in every situation, in every hardship, in every joy, in everything that comes to you one way or the other—seeing the Guru’s face, and therefore turning adversity into felicity.  Using the practice of seeing that the teacher’s face, the Guru’s face  is everywhere.  Therefore I turn all adversity into felicity because I honor that blessing, you see.  So that would be a great way to practice.

But what happens instead is that we project our own neuroses onto the teacher.  Now as a teacher I’ll tell you that oftentimes what happens is that you have to hang back and just let the student do that thing they’re going to do.  Just let them spin around and do whatever it is they have to do.  Go on, knock yourself out. You kind of watch them go through their little freak out. They’re smooth. They kind of do their little neurotic thing, and they’ll freak in their response to this and their reaction to that and so forth.  After a while the student will kind of calm down.  What they’ll find is that it will come in their face so much that they’ll have to work some of it out.  And they’ll also notice that, pretty much, the teacher’s not playing.  You know, the teacher just doesn’t play the game with you.

Once in a while a student has been so locked in that confusion that (I’ve had to do this too) I’ve seen teachers kind of put on the chicken suit and go in there and dance with the student a little bit, because they need to make some kind of connection.  They feel kind of out in space somewhere and they need to make some kind of connection. So even if there aren’t honest and true, disciplined and pure student-teacher relationship responses happening, there is the introduction to that which is the student and teacher kind of dancing around a little bit. But you must understand the teacher is dancing with your neuroses.  That’s what’s happening.

In order to practice Guru Yoga well, here’s the trick: Most people think that Guru Yoga is about giving up your will.  Now you don’t have to think any more, you have a teacher.  Wonderful!  Mazel tov!  This is terrific! In fact, when you have a teacher, what that means is that you have to take responsibility.  It means more responsibility, not less.  The teacher is not here to blow your nose for you.  The teacher is not here to take responsibility for you.  If the teacher were here to take responsibility for you, the teacher could also have your enlightenment. And since that’s not what she wants because the teacher has already got their own situation handled hopefully, then you must understand that the responsibility is yours.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Realize Your Natural State: Full Length Video Teaching

The following is a full length video teaching offered by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Developing concepts based on the teachings of the Buddha is a good first step. But then one must apply the antidotes to purify perception to really realize the natural state of luminosity and compassion. Don’t mistake the concept for the actuality.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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