My dearest Nina,
How are you? You must think that you are the luckiest person in the world, that the happiest thing in your life is this sickness. It is the most precious thing given to you by the enemy, the ego or self-cherishing thought, which has completely prevented your enlightenment. The self-cherishing thought has never allowed this to happen—not even liberation from the actions of samsaric suffering and their causes: karma and delusion.

This self-cherishing thought has prevented any lam-rim realizations, even the very first realization, the first Dharma—renunciation of this life. It has also prevented you from liberating others from samsara and enlightening them.

Think: “I give this sickness to the self-cherishing thought , like bombing my ego, my self-cherishing. It is thousands of times better than the best, most powerful weapon. It destroys self-cherishing completely; this sickness is priceless. There is no prize for it. I can’t buy it in a department store or supermarket—there are no shops selling this in the world. This sickness is so precious for me!”

Then think that you have received all the suffering of sentient beings and particularly the same kind of sickness that you have. You have been praying for many years for this. Most people don’t succeed, but you, unbelievably, have succeeded. You are the most fortunate one.

Think, “I am experiencing this for all sentient beings.” Think like this most of the time. This means you are letting all sentient beings have all happiness, the dharmakaya.

Another way to think is: “I am experiencing all sentient beings’ suffering.” If you can think like that it is the best life. Even if you die with this thought, you can easily be born in the pure realm.

Otherwise, you get caught in the selfish or emotional mind, in attachment to this life, comfort, and happiness. Then you cannot be free, there is no pure realm and also you get reborn in the lower realm—the pure realm of negative non-virtuous thought. HA HA.

Each time when you think you are experiencing all sentient beings’ suffering, you purify many eons of negative karma. This is most unbelievable, unbelievable. Also, each time when you think like this you collect limitless skies of merits. Each second you think like this, it is unbelievable purification, and you collect skies of merits, each time bringing you closer to enlightenment and more distant from samsara. Then, enjoy life, feel so happy. Try as best you can.

This is the best, biggest puja, okay? This means your negative karma is purified so easily, so quickly, that it finishes very fast. In this life, so many very heavy, bad karmas from past lives are being purified by all your many powerful Dharma activities, such as translating many books, your practice of devotion to the guru, all that service.

Every time when there is Naga Puja, offer naga incense and torma for your sickness to not get worse. Also, recite the Mantra Liberating from the Bondage of Body, Speech, and Mind at least 14 times every day. If you can do Vajrayogini self-initiation once a week, that would be unbelievable.

With much love and prayers...