Student's email

I am a Sherpa daughter. I have heard so many good things about you from my father. My family suggested I should search for you on the internet and I found you. I am seventeen years old and I'm in my first year of college, studying. Whenever I ask my father to tell me stories about you, he just gives a sweet smile and starts his story of his home and my great-grandmother and you. His smile is the same as yours. I would be honored if you would reply to my email.

Rinpoche's Response

My dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Yes, I am still alive, as your father said. What is his name and is he from Namche?

I am very happy that you are young because this means you have an incredible opportunity to make your life useful. There are many types of beings like you who want happiness and don't want suffering. Numberless of them are in bad states and so many humans don't even go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Because your family is Buddhist, they go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, so you are incredibly lucky. As a Buddhist you have an unbelievable opportunity by taking refuge and protecting your karma—renouncing negative karma, the cause of suffering, as much as possible, and creating good karma, the cause of happiness.

The essence is to renounce the ten nonvirtuous actions, which are the cause of unbelievable suffering and to practice the ten virtuous actions, the cause of very good karma for so many good lives in the future.

Not only that, discovering how samsara is in the nature of suffering, and looking for ultimate happiness, freedom from samsara. To achieve that we must practice the basic path, the three higher trainings—the higher training of morality, concentration and wisdom.

On the basis of that motivation, we develop compassion. We use our own samsara to see how unbearable the suffering is and to see how all beings have suffering, and with that we develop bodhicitta (Tib: jang chub sem). With that we follow the Mahayana path, we cease the gross and subtle defilements and we achieve the complete realizations. Then there’s nothing more to gain.

At that time we achieve the state of a buddha (Tib: sang gye). That is the peerless happiness and is achieved for sentient beings. Then we free the numberless sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric suffering and bring them all, who are numberless, to peerless enlightenment. Becoming a buddha is the ultimate purpose of our life, in order to free all living beings from suffering and bring them to ultimate happiness.

[We must understand] first, the purpose of life, and second, the Hinayana section of Buddhism. On the basis of that teaching, Mahayana Buddhism is practiced—practicing bodhicitta and achieving full enlightenment in order to bring all sentient beings to that enlightenment. On that basis, we bring all sentient beings to enlightenment, but that takes a long time. It takes three countless great eons to achieve that [by following the sutra path]. So we have incredible great compassion for sentient beings and the suffering they experience.

If we practice Mahayana tantra, we are able to complete the merit and wisdom in one life. There are four classes of Buddhist tantra. The lowest tantra [gives us] great skills to achieve enlightenment in this life, but it involves practices to make our life very long and it takes many hundreds of years [to achieve enlightenment] practicing lower tantra. Now we have greater compassion and we can't bear the suffering of others, so if we practice the fourth class of tantra, Highest Yoga Tantra, we can achieve the state of buddhahood in one lifetime, like Milarepa and other great yogis.

So the essence is that on the basis of Mahayana Buddhism, Mahayana tantra is practiced. All three levels in Buddhism are for the practice of lamrim, which is the basis. This is what you have to learn. Lama Tsongkhapa wrote a few different versions. You are young, so you have much opportunity to learn Dharma and benefit so many sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.

In the meantime, live your life with a good heart, not just helping your family but all living beings. Working just for ourselves doesn't bring happiness for others and doesn't even bring us happiness. The selfish thought is an obstacle. When we study Dharma, the best thing is to live our life for others. It's the way to bring the best happiness to others and to us and makes our life beneficial.

I am very happy you contacted me. I can send you my books to learn if you like and we can meet sometime. If you have questions I can answer, it can take a little time. Please pass my best wishes to your family.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you so much, I am so happy that you were able to memorize the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. Thank you very, very, very much. Also, thank you so much for studying Discovering Buddhism and Living in the Path. This is very good.

I also happened to see your video explaining why the sky is blue; it came up afterward. I wanted to tell you about this point according to Buddhist teachings. You may find it interesting.

According to the Buddha’s teachings, there are four continents around Mount Meru and we live on the southern continent where the sky is blue. The southern side of Mount Meru, which faces the southern continent, is sapphire blue, deep blue. Therefore, on the southern continent, where we are living, the sky is blue and also the water is blue.

The sky is a reflection according to the color on each of the four sides of Mount Meru. On each continent the color of the sky is different. The eastern continent has a white sky because that side of Mount Meru is silver, therefore the sky is white and the ocean is white. The western continent has a red sky and the ocean is red, because that side of Mount Meru is ruby. The northern side of Mount Meru is gold, so on the northern continent the color of the sky and ocean is gold.

Many years ago in Switzerland one man had the feeling that there was someone coming from outside, from a different universe, so he set up a camera near three lakes. Then a flying saucer came and a lady with long ears came out. She said she came from the western continent, where people lived for one thousand years. This is actually the same as in the teachings, which say that everyone on the western continent lives for one thousand years and also that there are no poor people, everyone is wealthy. Anyway, she said a few words and went back, and the man took a picture. So aliens did happen in past years and in different places.

Mount Meru has four levels under the ocean and four levels above the ocean, where there are situated different devas. There are four guardians on top of Mount Meru and there is the realm of the thirty-three devas and also Tushita, which is not a pure land but an ordinary deva realm.¹ So there are categories like this.²

Only those who have the karma or maybe psychic power can see Mount Meru.

Another example is liquid in a bowl. For human beings it appears as water and they see water. For preta beings that same liquid appears as pus and blood. Ugly, dirty things appear and this is how they see the liquid. They don’t have the merit, the good karma to see water, for it to appear as water. For deva beings the same liquid in the same bowl appears as nectar and they see nectar. Devas have much more merit than humans, so this is their reality.

Similarly, if one hundred people look at one person, some see that person as very ugly, some other people see that person as the most beautiful person and some see the person as indifferent. Among one hundred people they all see something different, but it’s the same person. This is due to the karma that they collected in the past and the imprint of that karma. They see the object, one person’s body, in different ways. Some see the person as beautiful, some as ugly and some as indifferent.

It is also like this for us. If we see somebody who is ugly and then we see somebody who is uglier, compared to the second person we now see the first person as beautiful. Or maybe there is somebody we see as beautiful, then we see someone more beautiful, so then the first person seems ugly in our view. This is according to karma and it shows that the nature of the mind is not the same.

That also happens with a place. For some people the place is very beautiful, for some people it is ugly and for others it is just OK. Also with food: for some people the food is very delicious, for some people it is very bad and for others it is indifferent. So for different people it is like that. There are many examples.

This shows how everything comes from the mind, according to different karma and arising from imprints left from the past. This is very important to understand.

There are material objects that some people can see and other people can’t see. When their karma ripens then the person can see those objects.

I am very happy that you were able to memorize the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. Thank you a billion, zillion trillion times from my heart.

With much love and prayers ...

Notes

¹ There are two Tushita realms (Tib: ganden). One is a pure realm and the other is the abode of one of the six divisions of desire realm gods (Tib: död lha rig drug; Wyl: 'dod lha rigs drug). [Return to text]

² There are six abodes of the desire realm gods. From the lowest to the highest, they are:

1. The heaven of the four great kings (Tib: gyalchen rizhi; Wyl: rgyal chen ris bzhi)
2. The heaven of the thirty-three (Tib: sumchu tsa sum; Wyl: sum cu rtsa gsum)
3. Free from conflict (Tib: thab dräl; Wyl: 'thab bral)
4. Joyful (Tib: ganden; Wyl: dga' ldan)
5. Joyful emanation (Tib: trulga; Wyl: 'phrul dga')
6. Power over others' emanations (Tib: zhentrul wangje; Wyl: gzhan 'phrul dbang byed) [Return to text]