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An interview with Jetsunma Ahk�n Lhamo

I first heard about Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo, the first Western woman to be recognized and enthroned by a Tibetan rinpoche as a tulku (an enlightened teacher who reincarnates in whatever form can most benefit all beings), when I read about her in Vicki Mackenzie’s book Reborn in the West six years ago. Touched and inspired by what I had read, I knew that one day I wanted to meet the remarkable woman who was miraculously discovered by H.H. Penor Rinpoche, the current head of the Nyingma sect, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Born to a Jewish mother and an Italian father in a blue-collar neighborhood of Brooklyn in 194
9, Alyce Louise Zeoli was baptized a Catholic and went to a Catholic school. Even though she experienced an inexplicable attraction to Buddha statues, she claims to have known absolutely nothing about Buddhism until her destined meeting with Penor Rinpoche when she was thirty-six.

Her spiritual depth began to reveal itself when she was nineteen, living on an isolated farm in North Carolina with her first husband and young child. She had a series of prophetic dreams in which she was “told” what to do, and, constantly praying for and receiving guidance, she systematically practiced different kinds of contemplation that she would ultimately discover were Tibetan Buddhist in form. “I didn’t have the words for it,” she explained to Mackenzie, “but I knew it wasn’t like God, the old-man-on-the-throne idea. What I was meditating on was a nondual, all-pervasive essence—that is, form and formless, united, indistinguishable from one another. I saw that it was the only validity—that and the compassionate activity that was an expression of it.” She continued to meditate intensively for a number of years, during which time she lived a householder’s life. When she was thirty, she had a spiritual experience that made clear to her that her personal life was over and that she had been born solely to be of benefit to others. “After that,” she said, “people started coming to me.”

Jetsunma moved with her family to Washington, D.C., in 1981, where a group of New Age seekers soon discovered her. One day, her group was introduced to a Tibetan lama who was selling carpets to raise money to support young monks in his monastery in southern India. Even though Jetsunma and her students knew nothing about Tibet and little about Buddhism, they decided to raise money for the monastery, and a correspondence followed. A year later, they received a letter from the monk who had sold them the carpets, informing them that His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, the abbot of the monastery, was making his first teaching trip to the United States, and he wanted to visit Washington to meet and thank the people who had sponsored so many of his young monks.

When Jetsunma first saw the five-foot-three-inch Tibetan master, she burst into tears. “Now I’m not the sort of person who usually does this sort of thing, you understand. I’m a hardheaded lady. I’m from Brooklyn, for heaven’s sake! But I just could not pull myself together. I cried and cried. I just looked at him and thought, ‘That’s my heart . . . That’s my mind . . . That’s everything.’” Penor Rinpoche then went with Jetsunma back to her house where he interviewed all of her students in great depth, probing to find out exactly what she had been teaching them. When
Jetsunma asked the lama where her teaching was coming from, he said, “In the past you were a great bodhisattva, a person who works throughout all time to liberate sentient beings. You have attained your practice to the degree that in every future lifetime you will not forget it. You will always know it; it will always come back to you. It is in your mind and will not be forgotten.” In 1988, Penor Rinpoche returned to Washington and conducted an official enthronement of Jetsunma, which received widespread media attention. Since that time, she has maintained a Buddhist temple of her Tibetan lineage in Poolesville, Maryland and, in recent years, has established a new center in Sedona, Arizona.

I had wanted an excuse to interview Jetsunma for a long time, and finally I had one. What could be more perfect than to speak with a Western woman tulku about the relationship between gender and enlightenment? In the following dialogue, I asked this “American dakini” [feminine embodiment of Buddhahood]—who is known for her unapologetic adherence to maintaining her feminine appearance and the great attention she gives to her clothing, hair, and nails—some very challenging questions about this very challenging subject. She didn’t disappoint me.

Interview

Andrew Cohen: In general, wo
m
en don’t speak about enlightenment and the spiritual path with the kind of confidence and authority that you do. In our last issue, on self-mastery, we spoke with developmental psychologist Beverly Slade about how, in our culture, women often shy away from publicly demonstrating their own competence and authority. She said, “They find that people are threatened by their ability and may want to avoid them. Given women’s position in the culture at large, they probably regularly face people who are trying to undermine them, because people are threatened by competent women.” What has your experience been? Do you find that because you’re a woman who has been recognized as a great teacher and who also speaks with unusual confidence and authority, people feel threatened?

JETSUNMA AHKÖN LHAMO: My experience with the gender question has been pretty interesting. When I was first recognized, upon performing the actual crowning ceremony, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche said, “Many Westerners have been wondering: ‘Where are the women in Tibetan Buddhism?’ Now I’ve answered their questions.” When I was recognized and enthroned, my experience was that the traditional monks had a kind of discomfort or squeamishness around me. Later, when I went to the monastery in India, His Holiness did an amazing, wonderful offering ceremony. He introduced me to all of the monks and said, “This is the cofounder of our lineage. She’s come back.” And all the monks then came up and offered prayer scarves. And it was interesting; some of the monks had this amazing surrender because here was this dakini and that was that. But the other monks actually felt a little embarrassed, not accustomed to being around women, not sure how to act. Many of them stumbled over their words and almost walked up backwards so that you wouldn’t know whether they were coming or going. And having asked other teachers about it, I found out it’s just fairly rare for a woman to be held up in that way.

But in terms of how Americans and other Westerners acted—actually, His Holiness once said to me, “Because I have recognized you and I have the right and the responsibility to do so, there will never be any conflict with any Tibetan teacher or practitioner who knows who I am. But,” he said, “your own kind, the Westerners, will probably crucify you.”

AC: Has that been your experience?

JAL: I’ve had both.

AC: Is it because you’re a woman?

JAL: I think so. When I was first discovered, I was a very Western woman, as I still am now. I used to paint my nails, I had makeup on—which I don’t do anymore—I had
all these unusual characteristics that one doesn’t associate with a teacher. And so there was a lot of criticism, questioning whether I was spiritual or worldly. And at first I tried to please everyone. I tried to ascertain what the expectations were for me. I was kind of naïve in that way, just wondering what it was that people wanted in a spiritual teacher. And I discovered that people had problems with women who were “womanly,” who were very feminine in their presentation. They also had problems with the fact that I wasn’t a nun, that I was married.

AC: But Nyingma lamas have often been married. It’s not against the rules.

JAL: Male Nyingma lamas. For some reason it’s easier to think of married male lamas than it is to think of married female lamas.

AC: And haven’t many great dakinis been described as being ravishingly beautiful and also sexually attractive?

JAL: Tara [a revered Tibetan deity] is seen with beautiful adornment. And she has taken a vow that says, “When I appear in the world, I will appear in this way so that beings can understand that all can approach the dharma. And I will always appear as a woman.” So there’s definitely a precedent for that, but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts, it’s another matter.

AC: It seems, from what I’ve read, that from the very beginning of your teaching career, you have never pretended to be other than who you are. You said, “This is who I am,” and you were always unapologetic about it. And when Penor Rinpoche recognized you, that was part of the package; everything was really on the table.

JAL: Yes, exactly. It was really on the table, and it was very unusual. During the enthronement ceremony, His Holiness even allowed news stations to come in and film it. He said, “This has never happened before. And the reason I’ve done this is that you were born as a Westerner, as a woman. Obviously, that’s where your mission lies.” In the beginning, I asked my teachers what they thought I should do—how I should change or what should happen. And they suggested that I wear dharma clothing such as chubas [Tibetan dresses] and things like that, which I usually do when I’m teaching. But what I found was that there’s no point in not being natural. There’s no point in faking yourself and becoming something else. What I came to understand, eventually, is that this is my job. My job is not to be a traditional Tibetan teacher. If that was my job, I would have come as a traditional Tibetan. I feel that my job is to be a bridge between Easterners and Westerners. I’m very good at translating abstract ideas, and I feel that the reason I appear in the way I do is that other women and men who are Westerners, and who have no plans to change their cultural affiliation, need to know that it’s possible for them also.

And personally, I have no attraction to the Tibetan culture. All of the other Western Tibetan teachers I know are crazy about it. They all dress up in dharma duds, and they walk the company walk and talk the company talk. But I really don’t. And I don’t feel sorry about that. I think that’s for Easterners.

AC: How does Penor Rinpoche feel about that? Does he respect your independence and your interest in bringing the Buddha-dharma to the West in a way that is as free from cultural overlays as possible?

JAL: Well, at first he sort of suggested that I become more traditional. He said, “Not many dharma teachers paint their nails red; maybe you should go for pink or something like that.” He tried to modify a little bit. Then after a while I said, “Well, Rinpoche, you know, I’m an Italian American. This is how my people dress. I would feel stupid not being like this. This is my way.” And he absolutely understood it.

AC: To me, that brings up an interesting question, which is: What is the relationship between enlightened mind and expressions of gender? What’s the r
elationship between emptiness, or freedom from all notions of self, and culturally prescribed norms for the expression of masculinity and femininity? Some teachers of enlightenment have stressed the need to abandon any identification with self-image. For example, there are men and women monastics who shave their heads and abandon all worldly possessions in order to leave behind attachment to culturally prescribed images of masculinity and femininity. And then there are others like yourself, or like the great J. Krishnamurti, who was known for giving a great deal of attention to maintaining his always elegant appearance. I honestly think this is a very intriguing question. What is the relationship between inner freedom and the desire to express one’s masculinity or femininity in a conventional yet unselfconscious way? What’s the relationship between emptiness and beautiful nails? Does the path to enlightenment, which is freedom from all notions of self, ultimately demand that we all unconditionally abandon any attachment to gender or care for our appearance, or is there room in enlightenment for a demonstration of masculinity and femininity that expresses beauty and dignity?

JAL: I like your use of the word “room.” I like to think of the path to enlightenment as a bit more spacious rather than confined by a lot of absolutely this’s and absolut
ely thats. Fundamentally, I feel that when bodhisattvas [those dedicated to the attainment of enlightenment for the benefit of all beings] come into the world to do a job, they do it in the best way that they can. I think they appear in a way that is not foreign, a way that speaks to us. If the bodhisattva comes to teach Westerners, then it would be appropriate to appear as a Westerner. If the bodhisattva comes to teach Easterners, then it would be appropriate to appear as an Easterner. I could never say that there’s a direct relationship between lipstick and emptiness, but I could never say that there is no relationship between lipstick and emptiness.

AC: What do you think the relationship is, though?

JAL: I’d have to say that the relationship is. There is just no other way to look at it.

AC: It’s an intriguing question because if someone was established in the enlightened mind or a liberated view, they would be, at least theoretically or ideally, free from any and all attachment to notions of self. So then the question is: What does that look like? Obviously, there are some very rigid ideas that have come to us from the East.

JAL: I can say that a person who dresses up as a renunciate, who doesn’t wear makeup and w
ears robes, can sometimes actually be in a position of increasing the strength of their ego because they are so virtuous and are so convinced of it. And the same thing can happen when a person dresses up in clothes “to die for.” So I hold the whole appearance issue kind of lightly. I feel like I’m not grabbing on to it in one way or the other. For me, there would be a level of discomfort if I were to radically change the way I dressed. The women I grew up with wore hoop earrings. They all wore lipstick. They had a ‘do. For me to not do that seems more effortful and more concerned with sticking to a rigid code. It seems like putting on some sort of elaborate disguise. To me it seems to be easier, better, more natural to dress the way I came and to just be the way I am.

AC: What if someone came to you and asked to be your student, and, after observing them over a period of time, it became apparent to you—let’s say, for example, it was a woman—that she seemed to be too invested in her appearance, in the way that she dressed, in the way that she moved, in the way that she walked and talked, and she seemed to express an overidentification with her feminine nature. Would you tell her to question it?

JAL: If I saw that there was too much ego-clinging and too much self-absorption, sure, I would always address that. But I wouldn’t indicate to them how they should dress. Except in one case. Actually, one of my nuns, before she became a nun, was a really sharp dresser. She was one of those “outfit” persons. She always looked really sharp and wore all the cool things. And even after she became a nun, her shirt over her shantab [robe] would always match her socks. And I did talk about identity issues with her. She was the only person I’ve ever told how to dress. She’s very beautiful, very exotic-looking, and she realized that most of the suffering in her life was because of her identification with her looks and her sexuality and so forth. And so eventually it came to the point where she decided to become a nun.

AC: Do you think that it’s possible for a human being to come to a point in his or her spiritual evolution where they’re finally freed from any fixation on, or attachment to, their gender identity while at the same time not in any way avoiding or denying the fact of their maleness or their femaleness?

JAL: Absolutely. As we move farther in our practice, we come to the point where we awaken to the natural state, and I feel that in that natural state, by definition, there is no gender. There is no bias whatsoever. For instance, supposing that I had come to that state—now I’m still a woman and I still dress like one, but the whole question of gender identity doesn’t seem like an issue that should be taken up. It simply is what it is. It has no particular emphasis. But you wouldn’t fight against it either.

AC: How does gender identity express itself in someone who’s no longer particularly identified with the fact of his or her gender?

JAL: I think it expresses itself naturally for the world we live in. I feel that bodhisattvas who are in the state where they’re no longer identified take on the demeanor and the ideas and concepts of the society that they come to. And since in this society it is natural to identify with either one gender or the other, I believe that’s why it happens. In a sense, a bodhisattva is like somebody who doesn’t smoke going into a room full of smokers. They come out smelling like it, and they even breathe a little bit of it, but they themselves don’t have that habit.

AC: You’re a teacher of the Buddha-dharma. There is much to suggest that the Buddha felt that women were spiritually inferior to men. In the Pali Canon [a scriptural record of the Buddha's early teachings], the Buddha is reported to have said, “Ananda, if women had not obtained the Going Forth from the house life into homelessness in the Law and Discipline declared by the Perfect One [acceptance into the Buddha's monastic order], the Holy Life would have lasted long, the Holy Life would have lasted a thousand years. But now, since women have obtained it, the Holy Life will last only five hundred years. Just as when the blight called gray mildew falls on a field of ripening rice, that field of ripening rice does not last long, so too, in the Law and Discipline in which women obtain the Going Forth, the Holy Life does not last long.” It is also traditionally held that in the monastic community that formed around the Buddha, the most newly ordained male novice monk was to sit in a superior position to the most senior female nun. This seems to suggest that women definitely had a second-class role. Now Buddhism is becoming more and more popular in the time that we’re living in, and more and more women are being attracted to the Buddhist path for many good reasons. But personally, what I’ve always found interesting is that often this particular question of the Buddha’s bias or apparent bias—we can’t really know for sure—is something that many women never really deal with. Because the Buddha has been called the “Perfect One,” his enlightenment was supposed to be complete and perfected. And the point is, if one such as he had such strong notions of gender bias, then it seems that we would have to conclude that either his understanding or his realization wasn’t perfect or there was something true about what he was saying and we need to come to terms with it. How do you feel about this statement?

JAL: Well, my understanding—and this is something that I have discussed with some of my teachers and with khenpos [Tibetan scholars]—is that the Buddha taught in stages. Lord Buddha taught perfectly and appropriately for the context that he was in. And to take a teaching out of its original context and isolate it may be inappropriate. At that time, there were cultural realities that were practically insurmountable. The Buddha was dealing with many caste structures, not only gender. He was accepting into his ranks untouchables—telling Indians that untouchables could be touched. There were many, many issues happening in his time that he was really right against. And the gender issue was one of them. Back then in India, women were still getting burned on their husbands’ funeral pyres when their husbands died. The prejudice was there; it was predisposed. The cultural difference between men and women was so extreme that if it had been the case that women were put in the same position as
men, I don’t think it would have been allowed. I don’t think it would have been okay. I think that things had to happen in a progres
sive, stage-by-stage way. Later on, through the evolution of the path, Buddhism developed all the way up to the tantric and Vajrayana elements in which males and females were exactly equal.

AC: The Tibetan Buddhist system has also been accused of being extremely patriarchal, with a structure that traditionally keeps women in second-class positions. One of the most outspoken critics of that system even went so far as to say that the patriarchal structure of Tibetan Buddhism literally depends upon the subjugation of women. Even though historically there have indeed been renowned female tantric masters, for the last five hundred years, strong female tantric voices have largely disappeared from public view. As a female representative of that tradition, what has your observation been? Is Tibetan Buddhism a man’s world

JAL: I have to say that I really don’t agree with the view that women are subjugated under the Tibetan system. Guru Rinpoche [Padmasambhava, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism] has said that, in fact, in the tantric tradition, it is women who have the highest potential for liberation. He has said that culturally, throughout time, women have been trained in suc
h a way that spiritual surrender is easier for them. Letting go of certain fixed, rigid things to stand on is easier for them.

AC: Are you saying that the Tibetan monastic system isn’t held together by a patriarchal structure at all?

JAL: The Tibetan monastic system is. But the left hand of that monastic system is another system of dakinis who are esteemed very, very highly. In fact, in thangkas [Tibetan Buddhist paintings], when you see a representation of someone practicing Tantra, while you’ll never see a male practicing alone, you will see dakinis practicing alone. And the reason for this is that the woman is considered to be a display or an emanation of primordial wisdom. She’s held in very high regard. I think that the people who are saying that the monastic system is so oriented toward males understand only one aspect of it.

You have to understand, each of us is viewing the situation with our own preconceived ideas and prejudices. I think if I were inclined to feel demoted as a woman or less than as a woman, perhaps I would see that male superiority, but I don’t. I do see that, traditionally, the form has the man on the throne in the monastery, but I don’t see in my practice, or in any other way, a male superiority. For instance, when most males are enthroned, they are enthroned with the crown of their lineage. When I was enthroned, I was enthroned with the crown of the five primordial wisdoms. From one perspective, you could say, well, maybe the five primordial wisdoms are much higher than the male lineage crown. But I just don’t think that there is any value in looking at it in that way. The male is the head of the lineage—that’s how the Buddha appears in the world. The woman with the five primordial wisdoms as her crown—she’s the dakini. These are all the appearance of the Buddha. How can they be unequal? To me, the Buddha appears. Period. That’s the event. We’re sitting here with our cultural bias and our gender bias and we’re looking at that and we are interpreting it. “He gets to sit on the throne. She gets to sit in the cave.” And we put our meanings on that. But I’m telling you, the only event that occurs is that the Buddha appears, and that’s how I see it. I would be unfaithful to my practice if I tried to distinguish and make one higher than the other.

AC: In a previous issue of WIE, we spoke with Buddhist scholar Miranda Shaw about gender roles in the practice of Tibetan Tantra, which is considered by many to be a powerful and even essential vehicle for reaching enlightenment. She made the intriguing statement that in tantric pra
ctice, conventional male/female gender relationships are reversed and, specifically as part of the practice of sexual yoga, the primary role of men is to serve women, acting as their devotees, servants, and even slaves. In tantric practice, Shaw writes, men are to “take refuge in the vulva of an esteemed woman” and are to literally worship her as a goddess. By worshiping her in this way, she told us, “He’s also realizing his innate divinity and his Buddhahood; only he believes that the proper expression of his Buddhahood is to honor her divinity. In this worldview, it is the role of the female to channel enlightened energies, the energy of transformation, into the world in a powerful way. It is the role of the male to be the recipient of those energies and to honor them and their source.” According to Shaw, that is the tantric view. In your own experience as a dakini and an incarnation of Mandarawa, perhaps the most renowned Tibetan yogic consort of all time, are women the source of enlightened energy for themselves and for men?

JAL: Wow! Well, I can’t say that I agree with her interpretation. I don’t feel that men actually worship and become enslaved to women. I think that what really happens is that there is a mutual recognition of the view. The female and the male become inseparable; they become unable to practice fully without one another. They are a unit in union. They are primordial emptiness and its display, inseparable. And that being the case, there is a mutual viewing of one another as that. The dakini recognizes the daka [male counterpart of a dakini] as the source of her energy; the daka recognizes the dakini as the source of his energy. It is a symbolic picture of primordial emptiness and the display or emanation of that emptiness, like the sun and the sun’s rays: completely inseparable. Any ideas that separate them or put one higher than the other really have no place in that kind of practice.

AC: In general, what do you see as the fundamental differences between men and women on the spiritual path? Do men have any particular advantages over women on the path to enlightenment? Do women have any particular advantages over men?

JAL: I really feel that I understand and vibe with what Guru Rinpoche said about women, through our cultural experience, having been trained in surrender a little bit better. This is simply my own observation. And in looking at the male population as practitioners and as people in our world today, I do think that men are having a little problem with their footing. I think that certain things have been expected of them and that they haven’t known how to get beyond that. There are certain strengths that men are supposed to have and certain ideas that men have as to how to have those strengths. And sometimes they can be counterproductive to getting past the exterior ego identity.

AC: Do you mean that certain culturally imposed ideas about manhood become obstacles to liberation?

JAL: Yes, I think they do. Men are expected to be strong, they’re expected to be controlled, they’re expected to be producers. And judging from a lot of the students I have taught, I think that psychologically a lot of men have to go through a period where they have to accept this intuitive, spiritual, feminine part of their natures in order to go even one step farther. But that’s not really something women have to do. We’re taught that’s okay for us, so we don’t so much feel that we have to get to that point before we let go. I think if there is a difference, it isn’t because there’s any fundamental potency or strength that either gender has over the other. I think the two are equal and meant to function in union. But I do feel that culturally, men have been biased toward a more materialistic life than women have.

AC: In the Buddhist teaching, enlightenment is said to be directly related to the recognition of the inherent empt
iness or insubstantiality of a separate personal self. In a previous issue of WIE, the renowned Indian woman sage, Vimala Thakar&md
ash;the only person who the great J. Krishnamurti ever told to teach—spoke in detail with us about her observation that women tend to have greater difficulty letting go of attachment to a personal sense of self than men do. She said, “Nothingness, nobodyness, emptiness-—even the intellectual understanding of this—frightens women. Because of our physical vulnerability, because of our secondary role in human civilization, on a subconscious level, there is fear. If I mature into nonduality, into nothingness, into nobodyness, what will happen to my physical existence? Will it be more vulnerable? Will I be able to defend myself in case of difficulty, in case of some attack against me? Consciously, intellectually, women understand everything, because with regard to the brilliance of the brain, there is no distinction such as male and female. But psychologically, at the core of their being, is this fear.” In my own experience as a teacher, I have also noticed that women do seem to have greater difficulty than men in letting go of the habit of what I call the personalization of their experience. Now I certainly don’t mean to imply that this means men, as a gender, tend to be fearless heroes who are willing to jump into emptiness and abandon any and all notions of self at the drop of a hat. Men and women struggle with the same fear of nonexistence. But it’s been my experience or my impression that women seem to have greater difficulty being able to see directly into the impersonal nature of all human experience than men do. As a woman and as a teacher of enlightenment, is this also your experience?

JAL: At a certain point in our path, there’s a kind of grieving that both men and women have to go through. When we leave the party and begin to really practice renunciation, begin to practice recognition of what samsara really is, there’s a grieving that comes from that. And I think for men and women it’s a different grief. I think that men have to let go of certain kinds of expectations that are made of them and that they have of the world. And I think that women have to grieve about the letting go of another kind of expectation, which is a more personal one. Women are culturally biased toward being in relationship to, and so their best way of understanding themselves is in relationship to. However, at a certain point in our practice, when that grieving is finished, we are every bit as capable of allowing that to pass and approaching the ground view and letting go of identification with self-nature as being inherently real. I think that at a certain level of practice, after that grieving is done, our abilities are equal.

AC: Would you consider that to be, relatively speaking, quite a high level of practice?

JAL: Yup. (Laughs)

AC: In this issue, in addition to exploring the relationship between gender and spirituality, we’re also looking into the relationship between sexual orientation and the path to enlightenment. In our time, there are many gays and lesbians who view their experience of sexual orientation as the very basis of the spiritual path. Do you think that giving spiritual relevance to sexual orientation is a help or a hindrance on the path to enlightenment?

JAL: I think maybe I should speak personally about my experience with this whole issue. First of all, I’d like to say that I have been very disturbed by the way in which some of the conventional religions that are present in our time have kind of lopped off their gay population and considered them not fit and inappropriate and bound for someplace bad. I feel a tremendous amount of grief about that. When I developed the temple and even before His Holiness recognized me, I made it very, very clear that any sexual orientation did not preclude someone from being a member of my temple. I made it very clear that whether you were gay or straight, tall or short, thin or fat, it didn’t matter to me at all. When that word got out, a lot of people who were gay and who were looking for a spiritual home took refuge in my temple. I now have some nuns who are gay. They’re not practicing, of course. They’re celibate.

Now my experience has been that of the people who came to my temple at first, some of the ones who were suffering the most were a lot of the gay people. They were deeply entrenched in finding an identity and gathering it around themselves and making a box out of it. It was as if they were less free than those who didn’t feel the need to find an identity. They were encumbered by this need.

AC: They were encumbered by their gay identity?

JAL: Yes. Not by their homosexuality itself but by the need to express it in one way or another, or to not express it—either to come out of the closet or to not come out of the closet—whatever their phenomena were about that. That was what oppressed them, not their sexual proclivity. And what I’ve tried to do is to let them know that they shouldn’t put themselves under such pressure to express themselves in one way or another but rather that they should identify with the original nature that we’re trying to reveal. I feel that people have t
o be who they are. In the same way that I didn’t want to lose my Jewish-Italian-American identity and start wearing Tibetan chubas, I don’t expect my gay practitioners to act like straight people or to lose their sense of gayness. But I feel that just as being a Jewish Italian American is not going to get me enlightened, neither is being gay going to get them enlightened.

What keeps us from functioning as awakened beings is the fundamental belief in self-nature being inherently real. Self-nature as defined by anything—gender bias, sexual bias, emotional, cultural—whatever form it takes. So giving that any validity, any lip service—what’s the point? We’ve already got that in the world. Let’s move away from it. My feeling is that we all have to drop that stuff and go for it!