Tell the person who has cancer that when I was with Lama Yeshe, he cooked and took care of me while I just sat and did prayers and wandered around the world, looking like I was meditating.

We were on the way to Los Angeles to check in to the hospital where Lama was meant to have an operation, but they did not operate because it was too late, they said. They hired a small airplane and on the way, on the plane I had to clean Lama’s holy kaka maybe two times. That made Lama very happy. It looks like Lama did that just for me, so that I could purify many eons of negative karma. Maybe this is why Lama was especially happy. So this is the quick path to enlightenment.

Tell [the sick person’s carer] that the Buddha also practiced charity. He gave his life, his eyes and his limbs numberless times for three countless eons. He practiced pure morality, having all the hardships for three countless eons, and he even cut his own limbs. He practiced perseverance, concentration and wisdom for three countless eons and he completed the two merits—the merits of wisdom and method—and then he achieved the two kayas of the holy body and mind. This was all for us sentient beings to be fully free from samsara and to bring us to full enlightenment.

Therefore, taking care of the person with cancer, cleaning his kaka and pipi, is like this, collecting the most extensive merits and for purification. It’s a quick way to achieve enlightenment for numberless sentient beings, therefore he is so precious, so kind for us.

Thank you.

Also, you should know that even though he is not cherishing numberless sentient beings, even cherishing one sentient being brings you to enlightenment. For example, Arya Asanga did not see Maitreya Buddha even after twelve years of retreat. Then he left to come down the road and he saw a black dog totally wounded, full of maggots. Arya Asanga felt so much compassion for the dog that he cut flesh from his thigh—not somebody else’s thigh—to put the maggots on. Then he stretched out his tongue and closed his eyes, but his tongue did not touch the maggots on the dog. When he opened his eyes he saw Maitreya Buddha. He grasped Maitreya Buddha and said, “How come for so long I did not see you when I was in retreat?” Maitreya Buddha said, “I was always there in the cave with you.” He showed Arya Asanga where he spat in the cave, but actually he was spitting on Maitreya Buddha’s robe.

Maitreya Buddha asked him, “What do you want?” Arya Asanga asked for teachings, then Maitreya Buddha took him to the pure land of Tushita, where one morning is like fifty years in the human realm. Maitreya Buddha gave teachings and when Arya Asangha came down he wrote five treatises of teachings, like Abhisamayalamkara [Ornament for Clear Realizations] and so forth. After a long time Lama Atisha wrote the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which contains the whole path. As a result, for so many years up to now, many beings have achieved full enlightenment and are free from samsara and are able to free many other beings from samsara and bring them to full enlightenment.

What I am saying is that numberless sentient beings have achieved full enlightenment from those teachings up to now, and have actualized the whole path to full enlightenment. This came from Arya Asanga generating great compassion for that wounded dog.

Another story is in the commentary of Vajrayogini. Getsul Tsembulwa was the disciple of a great yogi called Ngagpa Chöpawa [Krishnacharya.] Getsul Tsembulwa was a monk living in thirty-six vows. First his teacher came, because he was going for his last conduct (tantric conduct) in Oddiyana, which is close to Buxa, where I lived for eight years. There was a big river and at the river’s edge there was a totally poor lady, full of leprosy disease. Pus and blood was coming out of her and she was very dirty. She asked, “Please take me to the other side of the river.” The great yogi Ngagpa Chöpawa did not listen and he went straight across the river without helping her.

Then his disciple, Getsul Tsembulwa, came and she asked him the same thing. As soon as he saw her, unbelievable compassion arose. He did not care at all that by touching her he might also get the leprosy disease, and also that she was a woman and therefore a monk could not touch her. So he immediately carried her across the river on his back. When he was only halfway across the river, because of the compassion he had generated, he purified so much negative karma and obscurations. Then the lady was no longer that dirty ordinary lady, but actually Dorje Phagmo, who is the same as Varayogini. She was Dorje Phagmo from the beginning, but he could not see that before. Now he saw Dorje Phagmo and without the need to leave this body, she took him to the pure land of Dagpa Khachö where you can definitely become enlightened.

So you see, definitely you can become enlightened by generating compassion, such as to that lady who was unbelievably dirty and sick. There are numberless stories that show this.

Now [the carer] should think that the person he is caring for and cleaning up is the most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one. Even if it is only one person.

Destroy cherishing the I, which is the source of all the suffering of yourself and the source of all other sentient beings’ sufferings.

Please take care well and think about these teachings, understand them well. Therefore, generating compassion for these people who are very sick with cancer and so on, cleaning their kaka and pipi, and serving them is extremely important. It’s very important even for this life, for all the wishes to succeed and then for hundreds of thousands and millions of lives, to have unbelievable success and to quickly actualize the path and achieve enlightenment.

The bodhisattva Thogme Zangpo said:

All the suffering comes from desiring happiness for oneself. The fully completed realization, the total cessation of all the obscurations, comes from the thought of benefiting others (cherishing others).

Kadampa Geshe Langri Tangpa said:

For profit, offer the victory to sentient beings. Why? Because all the collections of goodness come from that sentient being. All the loss, take it on you, by yourself, because all the harms and sufferings come from cherishing the I. Take any defeat and any loss; take it on oneself.