My most dear, most precious, most kind wish-fulfilling one Fiona,
How are you? I heard your two dogs are very old and sick. I was thinking if you can build something like these stupas that I have at my front door. [See Stupas in Everyday Life for advice and photos.]

The dogs can go around and even your husband can go around, but maybe you don’t need to mention the benefits of going around, you can just mention that it is for his health. In reality by just walking around a stupa even one time, so many eons of heavy negative karma collected from beginningless rebirth gets purified and we collect extensive merits every time we go around it. That makes it possible to achieve enlightenment.

Inside the stupas can be many tsa-tsas, many small pictures of Buddha printed on clay or made from plaster. Inside the stupas there can be so many tas-tsas, and outside also. Every stupa is not empty inside; it is filled with many mantras, with the most precious mantras, the four dharmakaya relic mantras, which have unbelievable, unbelievable benefits explained by Buddha. Even going around a holy object one time with these mantras inside, we don’t get reborn in the lower realms and there are many more extensive benefits.

Your husband can go around and you can tell him a story to distract his mind so he can go around, as there is so much benefit. Maybe you have better ideas how to take him around. Each time we go around a stupa it really definitely brings us to enlightenment. Then it is also so important for your dogs.

The stupas don’t need to be expensive and you don’t need much space. This way of making stupas is very simple. You just have a box and fill it with tsa-tsas and other stupas, and ten of these can have one stupa on top and many around. If you look at the pictures you will see how I have done it. Also there is a picture of the stupa with a rainbow roof at the back of my house. We built that stupa many years ago.

The story of this stupa is that Roger thought we should have a dog. I said if Buddhists keep a dog then after it dies it should not go to the lower realms, it should have higher rebirth, so if that is the case then it’s good to have a dog. So then I suggested that we build a stupa at the back of the house, so that the dog can circumambulate the stupa. One monk called Brian built the stupa, which is a little bit like the Borobudur stupa in Indonesia. It’s a little like that, but it has a Kadampa stupa on the top. The base design is not like the regular eight kinds of stupas, but more like the Borobudur stupa. Every two weeks the stupa is cleaned very well, all the dust is taken off and the statues and smaller stupas on it are taken off and cleaned well.

If you can, first make a small one, that would be very good for the dogs, to bring the dogs around, then they get a higher rebirth when they die. This is the best thing to do for them. If you do want to build something like this, then we can try to send you tsa-tsas from here. We can prepare the tsa-tsas and send them. You can communicate with one nun here, she makes tsa-tsas and stupas every day for sick people and for people who have passed away. I send her the names and she makes the tsa-tsas to purify those who have died, to get a higher rebirth and to achieve enlightenment, and to help those who are sick. So we try to dedicate and offer this for people.

I am sending you some photos, please enjoy them. Now I am going to Italy to receive His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to take teachings, then I will give long-life initiation for the center people and at the end I will go to the United Kingdom and give Heruka initiation, and then come back to USA. Then I will go to Australia, then maybe go to Nepal for the November course and then maybe India for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings, something like that.

With much love and prayers...