Descriptions of Teachings -
American Dakini Series

JST-202  Humanity: The Thinking Species?
The five senses are the five delusions according to the Buddha. They are actually the working extensions of our ego. One of the biggest blocks to  practicing Dharma is "our inability to think clearly". Jetsunma exhorts us to "think in whole equations" and to live and practice a  life of virtue.

JST-203  How to Develop Pure View
"Pure view" at the beginning of  the Path is simply holding your mind like a bowl: open, relaxed, gentle, receptive. Over time, pure view begins to develop depth through deity generation practice and honest examination of cyclic existence and oneself. Eventually, the habits that produce suffering decrease and you gain the habit of spontaneously abiding in a naturally compassionate, pure and virtuous way. Jetsunma advises: "You don’t have to change on the outer level, you change on the inside, slowly, gently."

JST-204  Not Grasping Means Not Suffering
Growing up in a materialistic culture, being taught to "be all that you can be", actually produces obstacles to the path to enlightenment. The definition of neurotic is acting in a way that is inappropriate according to reality. The Buddha teaches that this "self" into whose pockets you are putting things, is an erroneous concept. Instead, Jetsunma advises how, through the practice of devotion on the Vajrayana Path, one can stop developing the ego through all this collecting.  Discriminating between what is ordinary and what is precious, one can look at  one’s teacher and say, "This is the face of Truth", and thereby enter the door to liberation.

JST-206  Conscious Living and Dying
The first teaching of a week-long P’howa retreat, Jetsunma begins to prepare students’ minds through an understanding of our position in cyclic existence. To practice P’howa, or the Buddhist  science of conscious dying that allows one to attain Buddhahood in this lifetime, one must first develop a context for the practice within one’s mind.  Developing a strong motivation to exit the wheel of death and rebirth in the six realms is our first step in preparing to truly be of benefit to all beings.

JST-207  The Logic of Dharma Practice
There is a deep prejudice in the West that has become almost invisible to us: the idea that one’s spiritual life is somehow separate from the rest of one’s life. This results in the habit of denial about the truth of our situation and we are literally paralyzed on the Path. We are trapped by the narcotic of samsaric living, seduced into a feeling of safety. Jetsunma brings us the Buddha’s heart teaching on how to wake up to what must be done in order to prepare for our next life. If we don’t, our next life will not be what we want it to be.

JST-208  Viewing Your Life as a Single Day
What if you woke up today and could not remember all your yesterdays?  This is like the situation we’re actually in: in this life we cannot remember all our yesterdays. How do we know what we should do? To get by, we learn conventional wisdom: how to drive, how to work, how to make money - limited tools.  But what if we had a different kind of wisdom at our disposal?  What if we had the kind of wisdom the Buddha had: omniscience?  What if, like the Buddha, we could see the whole pie and not just this little slice of it we call "my life"?  What if we could learn from our past mistakes and only create the causes for happiness?

JST-209  Live with Depth, Clarity, and Heart
Contemplating the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind Toward Dharma is a traditional, foundational practice that, done  deeply, brings potency to the rest of your Path.  Jetsunma asks us not to follow the Western habit of simply memorizing and parroting the words, but to take them deeply into our hearts, until they are a part of us. "This practice is a jewel we hold in our hands; like a golden egg sitting on our laps, yet we’re still looking out there for something else." She asks us to open our minds, see what it is and what it isn’t. Really see what we hold in our hands.  "Take care of yourself as though you loved yourself."

JST-210  You Can Live Beyond Conventional Wisdom
Was Lord Buddha the first dead-beat Dad? Through the eyes of conventional wisdom, he disappointed everyone: his father, the King, the wife he loved so dearly and their newborn son. But Lord Buddha felt he was perhaps a different kind of husband, maybe husband to the world. He wanted to end suffering, including the suffering of his family. Jetsunma teaches how conventional wisdom brings conventional results and only deepens our habit of choosing self-aggrandizement over the welfare of all beings.  That habit is what we take into all our future lifetimes and if we don’t conquer it now, we just have to come back again and again to do it.  She asks, "Do you want to do it now? Because you will, eventually."

JST-211  Choose Liberation as Your Goal
Choices. We make them every day.  Are the choices we make leading to happiness or just more suffering?  The spiritual discrimination needed is non-existent in most of us when we enter the spiritual path, and even extremely rare among seasoned practitioners.  The end of our life is the most significant moment of our entire life.  At that moment we actually experience our natural, primordial awakened state, but because of our habit of delusion, we don’t see it. We have not prepared for that moment. This life should be considered simply a tool for profound practice, and the choices we need to make are ones that result in bringing the end of suffering for all beings.

JST-212  Turning Adversity into Felicity
Events in our lives tend to seem more negative if our minds react to them with tension and constriction.  Sometimes just backing off and relaxing the mind will cause the situation to arise much differently.  Jetsunma teaches us to engage in the causes that will create future happiness while avoiding those that bring us only suffering. By utilizing the Teachings and relying on the Teacher with confidence and patience, we can transform adversity into extraordinary benefit.

JST-213  Experience Holidays with a Calm Mind
During the holiday season our minds become even more unstable than usual, according to Jetsunma.  Our hopes and fears increase. "The more we grasp outwardly and try to secure what we want...the less happy we will be."  Jetsunma discusses a compassionate way of life as a way to true and lasting happiness.

JST-214  The Stakes Are High!
There is no safety in samsara, in cyclic existence.  Jetsunma asks us to look around and see the faults of cyclic existence.  She also tells us in order to truly end suffering, to truly protect loved ones and all sentient beings, we must go against the grain of our cultural upbringing. "To be a Buddhist in the West, you have to have courage."

JST-215  Chöd (Cutting the Ego) Western-style
When Jetsunma was in her early 20’s she practiced examining all aspects of life: physical, mental, emotional. What she found in the things of samsara: "There’s no future in this."  At the same time, meditating upon the natural, luminous state that is free of contrivance, she would cry, realizing that this primordial nature is free of all causes of suffering yet none of us have awakened to it. This practice, clearly outlined in detail, gives rise to a breadth and depth of compassion that makes the rest of one’s life very simple. Accomplishing this, there is no longer any decision to be made.  All of one’s life becomes a vehicle to benefit all beings.  Later Jetsunma learned that this practice is called Chöd in Tibet.

JST-216  What is True Compassion?
We are all trying to be happy, yet few of us know how to get the results we want.  Mistakenly, we think only of our own wants and needs.  Jetsunma tells us there is a better way to live, a life based on compassion and unconditional love.

JST-217  Going Beyond Safety to Love
We are taught to never truly surrender our heart, to never risk in order to experience great passion, to always keep something aside for ourselves. Our quest for safety leads us to compartmentalize our experiences and keep everything in a neat, controlled place.  Jetsunma calls us to give rise to the phenomenal flame of compassion as the only thing that will truly keep us safe. If our feeling of safety comes from having control over our experiences, we are the least safe of all.

JST-218  Beginning Practice to Deepen Your Mind
All beings suffer from the dis-ease of desire. The mind of Enlightenment appeared in the world as the Buddha who prescribed the medicine.  If taken deeply and applied consistently, cure is guaranteed.  And yet, constantly engaged in an ongoing mantra of delusion and discursive thought, we think we know a better way.  Jetsunma implores us, "Literally, there are beings right now who have no other connection to liberation than you. The more you dance around, the more they suffer, the longer they wait. These precious ones are the ones you should live and breathe for."  We have to take our medicine, for their sake.

JST-219  What Your Five Senses Really Tell You
The five senses are about distinction - the idea of self-nature being inherently real. They are extensions of our ego. Why is the understanding of our own true nature so difficult for human beings?  Jetsunma answers, "Because we are practicing the mantra of separation constantly, on five different levels at once!"  Ngündro, a preliminary foundational Buddhist practice, is the support for all other practices that follow. It is designed to pry our minds loose from the conceptualization, delusion and over-intellectualization that our five senses have been reporting to us for aeons.

JST-220  Live a Sacred Life
The ideas of competition and materialism are taught to us as virtues during our childhood. Collecting things and going somewhere are pivotal ways of viewing our life’s progress.  Jetsunma steers us away from these misconceptions: "Every moment is something that you have a sacred relationship with, because you move into the awareness that there is nothing that you can do that is separate from your own nature."  We must realize that we are not doing anything or anybody a favor by living a spiritual life.  We are simply expressing that which is true.

JST-221  Compassion Stops the Suffering
Jetsunma takes us to a deeper understanding of the interdependence of the practices of Refuge and Bodhicitta.  Leading us through the mental equations that will result in the cessation of suffering, she points out, "The cessation of suffering does not come about when everything external gets alright."  The answer to the question, "How in the world am I going to fix this?" is:  you’re not...in the world. We have to move beyond the realm of cyclic existence to get the answer.  In a less than perfect world we decide to reach for something perfect that we can’t see yet. Only then can we bring comfort to others.

JST-222  Marrying a Spiritual Life with Western Culture
Our spiritual life can be a precious living truth inside of us if we develop a deep and ultimate connection with our spiritual path.  Jetsunma explains to us that this is not easy to do because our society is materialistic and removed from the natural current of life.

JST-223  Your Treasure is the Bodhisattva Heart
Bodhicitta, the Great Compassion, the Great Awakening, is often misunderstood by western students.  To have an emotional experience of compassion is not "it".  In fact, the true experience of Bodhicitta cannot be described.  Yet, it is inseparable from the ground of being, from the Path, and from Buddhahood.  Jetsunma guides us through the disciplines required to uncover our innate treasure: the one heart of Bodhicitta.

JST-224  The Bodhisattva Ideal
Jetsunma discusses impermanence and how sentient beings are mindlessly "riding on the current of acquisition". She then tells us of the intelligence of the Bodhisattva, how to put our efforts into those things that bring lasting benefit: kindness, generosity, contemplation.

JST-225  The Magic of Spiritual Innocence
The need to remain innocent and childlike in one’s approach to the spiritual path is fairly universal.  For example, in Christianity there are statements about "entering the kingdom of heaven like a child."  There are many different interpretations about what that phrase means. Jetsunma addresses this topic from a Dharma point of view.

JST-226  Transforming Neurosis into Guru Yoga
There is a saying, "I’ll believe it when I see it."  But in fact, we only see what we believe, so the saying should be, "I’ll see it when I believe it." Then what is to be believed? Our neurotic habitual tendencies or the clear perception of the Awakened Mind?  This is where the Guru, the Spiritual Friend, is indispensable: in lighting the way so that we can believe, and therefore, one day see our true face. To continue to only believe in what our neurotic mind tells us, is to be forever caught in the endless round of death and rebirth.  How shall we utilize purely the relationship with the Guru to achieve liberation?

JST-228  How to Awaken from Non-Recognition
It is possible to move beyond the habitual tendency to cling to our ego and to see our own true face - primordial wisdom nature. In this teaching, Jetsunma talks about why and how to  approach Guru Yoga, the foundational Buddhist practice that connects the student with the teacher, who is considered to be the door to liberation.