Member of the FPMT

Director of a Dharma Center	[posted May 2008]
Rinpoche sent the following advice to the director of a Dharma center, on how to practice.

Rejoice every day. It is essential. This is how to be a fortunate person, as rejoicing eliminates ignorance and delusions and causes happiness. Nagarjuna advised kings who are busy to rejoice in others’ good works and dedicate the merit. Then, success in business or whatever just comes easily.

Jealousy is an obstacle to your happiness in samsara and for your longterm wishes. We should rejoice in others’ good fortune. Practice contentment. Problems arise from desire. Practice forgiveness for those who hurt you.

As a director of a Dharma center you face a lot of things that hurt your ego. This is a great challenge for your practice. When you live in a cave or a tree you don’t see many of your mistakes, you think, “I’m a good person with no delusions,” but still the mistakes are inside.

Being director of a center, so many people are like a mirror teaching you (not from books), forcing out your pride, jealousy, and anger, so you see what has to be purified, you have to apply the antidote. It all shows what impurities you have, the suffering that you have. It’s like a dirty cloth. When a dirty cloth is cleaned with water, not much dirt is seen, but when you add soap it makes the dirt come out. That’s good!

People who talk in a way you don’t like and hurt your attachment are like soap. Accept people who hurt your attachment and self-cherishing. They are helping you by showing you your delusions, to help you be free from samsara, helping you to be perfect, pure, to practice the path.

In the practice of chöd, you invite spirits to you; they create disturbances for you in the cemeteries and haunted places. Your ego, self-cherishing, blows up like a balloon and becomes clear; you see the false “I.” Then you realize emptiness. Washing the dirty cloth of the mind is like army training for many years, so see that you are here in this job, this position, to defeat delusions.

Anyone can chant mantras. Real Dharma is rare. Cherish and care for sentient beings from the heart. When someone creates an angry situation, it is so important to practice patience. This is the real Dharma.

Advice to Director	[posted May 2008]
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had been an FPMT center director, but now a new director had been appointed.

My very dear student,
Thank you very much for the great service you have been doing. This organization is to benefit not only human beings and sentient beings in this world, but also sentient beings equaling the limitless sky, who are obscured and suffering.

This is the best method: providing service for the teachings of the Buddha Dharma, the complete and stainless path to enlightenment—the peerless happiness.

What greater life there is than this? Please continue.

With much love and prayers...

Thanking Directors	[posted May 2008]
Rinpoche wrote these two letters, thanking a student who had been the director of a center, and thanking the new director of the center.

Letter to old director:

My most wish-fullfilling Jenny,
There are no words left to express your kindness and to express my thanks, and how precious you are; it is just unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, and, of course, also this refers to your partner, who has been supporting you and bringing success. My most dear Jenny, the humblest, most dedicated student, thank you so much for fulfilling all the wishes of sentient beings, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and me, the very tiny Mickey Mouse.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Letter to new director:

My dearest Colin,
Billions and billions and billions of thanks, thanks as many as the atoms of the earth, and as many drops of water. Thanks to you for helping to actualize the 500-foot Maitreya statue. Maybe after this statue we will build another one that will touch the moon, or the stars. The stars are much further away, so that may take many lifetimes to complete, but I am sure you will have the courage. Then, we could build another one on the moon and then another one on the sun, which touches the stars, or maybe reaches to the earth. I am not sure which one it will touch. So, if you have the courage for this, then this 500-foot Maitreya statue is nothing, it’s so small, so tiny, like a tsatsa.

So, thank you very much, and hope to see you both very soon. Both of you please have billions of eons of long life and healthy, radiating, happy, compassionate minds.

With gigantic, Mount Meru of love, and also a giant cake with billions of singing lights on top,
Lama Zopa

PS: If you describe something like this to the pretas and sprits, it seems they actually do see and receive it. In the same way, I am sending you oceans of nectar and mountains of food, so I hope it benefits everyone in your country. To actually send this to you I would need an airplane bigger than the earth.

Lama Yeshe used to often say it is not up to the mind, it is up to karma. He quite often used to say that or just to accept the situation when things are not happening as you want them to. If something can be remedied or managed then you can try. If there is an opportunity to do something, then you do it. There is no point in being unhappy in this life. If there is something which cannot be remedied at all, then what is the point of disliking it. There is no benefit so it is better to accept it.

If we think of our activities and responsibilities as a burden, then stress and unhappiness come. Then, even when you are doing your job, your mind is not happy. If you look at it as a burden, then lung and stress come and the mind becomes so unhappy. If you look at all your activities and responsibilities as an opportunity to be useful to other sentient beings, as a positive opportunity, thinking how you are so fortunate to be able to benefit others, then that is one technique which might stop you squeezing the mind and getting lung. Lung can also bring high blood pressure and that affects your health. Thinking this other way brings joy and happiness in one’s heart; so, this might help.

It is essential always to remember to keep a mind of bodhicitta. That should be the main refuge in life. And think that what you are doing is according to the wishes and advice of the guru. Always think how sentient beings are most kind and precious, and are suffering. The whole purpose of this life is to serve others and to ensure they have happiness in all future lives, and to give one’s own life to sentient beings, who are most kind and precious, and who are countless. Develop your inner qualities and realizations of the path. In this way, you are able to offer deeper and better success and more extensive qualities to others; to liberate others from sufferings and cause them to achieve not only temporary but ultimate happiness.

His Holiness says: “As long as the sky exists and suffering beings exist, I will abide and I will eliminate the sufferings of sentient beings as much as possible.”

In everyday life practise mindfulness as much as possible. Think: Everyone is wish-fulfilling for all my happiness, so I myself will be a wish-fulfilling jewel for all sentient beings.

My most dear Jamie,
I hope you are well and blissed out.

As you know, because we and all beings still live in samsara and have anger, attachment, ignorance, and all the mental garbage, have all these wrong views, that is why we need Dharma centers, which are a place to learn, to practice, to purify and collect merits, to inspire each other, to develop wisdom and compassion, and to achieve liberation and enlightenment. Because we are in samsara and have problems, we need Dharma centers, that is why Dharma centers exist.

Don't you think it is better to think this way rather than to think: because we have Dharma centers, we have problems?

Please give my regards and big love to Jenny and John and my wonderful brother Nicky, who is always full of energy and smiles. I hope he is still like that. If he has any more hats I would love to have a few hats with mantras on, not important to have billions, but just a few to give as presents to people.

My regards and lots of love to you and your family.
With much love and prayers...

You should try to check if someone knows anyone in the planning department to get an idea of how they view the center. If someone from the planning department does come to check the center, you should apologize. You can explain that it was built under a different director. It is hard to keep it quiet if they do come, but it is possible to do a puja to prevent them from noticing.

You never know when someone can complain about the center. For example, somebody might suddenly get angry at the director, and then complain to the planning department. Therefore, it is very, very important that the center perform pujas continuously—not just when the center’s luck is down, but all the time for the success of the center, and also for the success of people who do retreat, study, and practice at the center. This helps to prevent obstacles, and helps people to be successful in their practice.

The center should recite daily the Heart Sutra, praises to the 21 Taras, and the prayer to remove obstacles, which follows directly after the Heart Sutra and includes the Lion-Faced Dakini mantra. Every month, besides the normal practices recommended for centers, you should definitely do Tara Puja. From time to time, it is good to do incense puja.

When an actual difficulty happens, you can do the following practices. One is Dala Pandu. This is a puja you perform when you are attacked. By doing this, you energize the white protectors, or devas, that you are born with. Performing this puja increases their power while at the same time it decreases the power of the enemy’s devas. When the enemy’s devas are more powerful, you are defeated. By weakening the deva of the person attacking you, then the person is weakened.

Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra. This helps when there is a court case. Normally the Heart Sutra is very powerful, but when it is very serious, recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Even if you are not involved in a court case, even if there is just a risk of one, you can still recite this sutra.

You should recite the prayer of whichever is the center’s protector as much as you can. That will help the center continue without obstacles, and function well.

The most important thing to avoid receiving problems from others is to recite the prayer called “Gyalsen Tse Moi Punggyen.” You can recite the Tibetan phonetics, but you must pronounce them well. It would be better to have it translated and then recite it in English.

Medicine Buddha practice is very powerful for overcoming problems, and for achieving success. The center should be doing this monthly anyway. It is important for retreat centers and other centers which have practitioners to do Medicine Buddha practice, to help those practicing there.

My most dear Kim,
Thank you very much for your many years of service, and your dedicated heart. I remember you when I went to Australia for the first time and I was doing retreat in Sydney. I was doing Chittamani Tara retreat, and Roger was my cook, and first thing in the morning he made salt tea that had many bubbles in it. I didn’t say anything until the end of the retreat and then I said that the tea was a little salty. Roger cooked rice and beans every day. Every day it was the same lunch, but I didn’t see any problem with that. Now it may be different. The next door neighbor made noise at 4am, I think they were going on holiday. I think I was having a good time at that time.

I remember that you came for a short time from time to time, just outside; maybe you were shopping, I’m not sure, maybe you were just hanging around. I also remember you in Sydney helping Roger at the university where I was giving a talk. You were carrying loud speakers and arranging things. Anyway, I appreciate very much your kind service and good heart for so many years, especially all your good heart.

Yes, definitely I have the intention to develop the Dharma center and I want to come and lead retreat and things like that, even if a new director comes. Of course, I still need your help at the center. As long as you are there, as long as time permits, I definitely want to see you, to be like the legs and hands and limbs of Milarepa, part of Milarepa’s body.

Don’t worry about whatever happened in the past, even recently. I guess there is some karma from the past between you and the other person. So, just think like that.

I don’t have anyone in particular in mind who can be director. There is one nun, but I haven’t asked her yet if she will do it. So, I am happy to receive whatever other names you have so that I can check.

With much love and prayers, you are always in my prayers. Thank you very much and I hope your two daughters are well...

The chairperson of an FPMT Center should be nice and easygoing from the beginning. Don’t listen to other people’s gossip about others’ faults. If you listen, you will become upset with those people, then you will have a bad relationship with them, thus causing difficulties in relating to people. Then, you can’t succeed in running the organization.

You should see others as blank paper, be completely neutral, and learn about people through friendly communications. Even with the same person, due to different karmic connections, some people will think this person is OK, some will think they are very good, while others will think they are bad. It’s important to communicate with people in a friendly way and judge people peacefully according to their ideas and actions from your own experiences with them.

If you encounter any legal problems, you should consult with FPMT International Office. Whenever problems come up, it’s very important to analyze the situation first. It’s easier to run things this way.

Don’t be too fussy, just take it easy! Don’t be bothered by small things. The accumulation of small things can make a big deal and make you feel bad, and then that worsens the situation and your relationship with people. Try to treat everything in a smooth, peaceful, and harmonious way. Whenever problems come up, try to analyze and resolve them from the very beginning. Don’t wait until a small problem turns into a disaster and becomes very hard to resolve. This advice is very important.

The motivation for being the chairperson is to benefit others, to spread the holy Dharma, bring prosperity to the Buddha Dharma, and bring sentient beings to enlightenment.

Try to deal with everything in a peaceful way in general. However, it’s necessary to be tough sometimes, according to the situation. This latter is external skillful means.

To manage a center, a family, and a country requires compassion and the wisdom to analyze and distinguish advantages and disadvantages. It’s very important to run things in a practical way. Compassion alone is not sufficient, you must apply wisdom too. Don’t ignore the big benefit and go with the small benefit. Sometimes a situation can bring small benefits in the beginning, but turns into a disaster later on. This is not what we want. Try to be wise and think in a large way for the long term with a broad mind.

This is the same as running a family, a country, and the world. You must be practical and run things with both compassion and wisdom. You can’t solve problems properly without wisdom. Presidents and Prime Ministers need both compassion and wisdom.

Try to get to know everybody while you are new, as then you can have a new, fresh relationship with them. You don't need to follow what previous people have said and fall into the same situation as them.

My very dear Katya and Nick,
How are you? It was so good to see you taking such good care of all those people at the retreat. You are both great examples of center directors, with your kind hearts, love and respect, and caring. Also, you are smiling all the time. This doesn’t cost anything, but it gives much happiness to people coming to the center. It makes them open their hearts, and enjoy the center, and enjoy the Dharma. That brings them to enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...

Dear George,
One way you can look at the situation is to think that the center just cannot exist without these difficulties. There is collective karma, and without these difficulties, it would not be able to offer extensive benefits to so many sentient beings every year, giving Dharma education in sutra and tantra, and planting the seed of the four kayas, liberation, and enlightenment, and leading sentient beings to a good rebirth in their next life.

The center offers unbelievable benefits. The geshe, translator, director, assistant, secretary, bookkeeper, cook, and cleaner’s main function is to bring the teachings to others, making the center available for sentient beings to come there to practice, collect merit, and plant the seed of enlightenment. All the members of the center are offering this benefit to sentient beings. This cannot happen without collective karma. Problems occur because collective negative karma ripens and individual karma ripens, so we experience these things while we are offering extensive benefit to others.

You can make an analogy with the body and ornaments on the body. These difficulties are the ornaments. This means you can use these difficulties to overcome your own delusions, ego, and self-cherishing thought. These difficulties destroy one’s delusions and ego, like in chöd practice. In chöd, you invoke spirits to create violence, a disturbing violent environment, and that makes the thought of self-cherishing stronger, the feeling that something is going to happen to me, to the “I.” The main thing is to see the emotional “I,” the false “I,” the object to be refuted, the “I” which is a hallucination, the “I” which doesn’t exist, as the object of the root of samsara—the concept of inherent existence. The minute you recognize it is the minute to realize emptiness. Why this is so important, such a big deal, and is talked about so much in the teachings of Buddha is that without this realization of emptiness, you have no way to escape the ocean of suffering. Humans, asura, sura, hell beings, animals, and pretas have all been reincarnating in these realms up to now, from beginningless time, because of delusion and karma. We are still wandering in the six realms, and suffer without end. That means we can’t liberate other sentient beings from the suffering of samsara, the suffering of contaminated aggregates.

All the problems of the center are the same as in chöd practice. Here, without your putting effort into it, it just happens, the disturbed violent environment arises. So, it is a very good opportunity to realize emptiness and destroy the ego, the self-cherishing thought.

It is the same as in the text the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, when you use difficulties to cut the demon of your self-cherishing thought. It is also mentioned in A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life that when people have scars from having fought in a war, they see those scars not as something ugly, but as an ornament, a special sign that they have been brave. They are proud of those scars. So, like that, you can use the problems in the center as a challenge to vanquish the self-cherishing thought and ignorance, the concept of true existence, the unknowing mind.

These ornaments, your problems, can be used as weapons that you always keep with you to destroy the real enemies, those which prevent all good things from happening to you, including enlightenment. The real enemies are the ones that stop you from benefiting all sentient beings, giving them happiness in their day-to-day life, up to liberation and enlightenment. They harm you and make you harm all living beings.

Use the problems as an ornament, seeing them as extremely precious, because they make you achieve enlightenment quickly, by getting you to achieve bodhicitta. Experience these problems on behalf of all sentient beings, giving all happiness to sentient beings. This is the ornament.

Just accepting the problems, as I said in the beginning, makes the mind calm down. And without problems and obstacles at the center, the center cannot exist. For example, a rose bush can’t have roses without thorns. Look at it like that.

Also, we should purify karma that brings problems, and stop creating a similar cause again. Practice the ten virtuous actions. For those who have taken pratimoksha, bodhicitta, and tantric vows, these are the guidelines to follow so you don’t create similar karma again. The foundation is living in the ten virtues. This is the solution. The second solution so as not to have problems is to purify karma, as I often say. The real solution to any problem—never to have AIDS, cancer, sicknesses, relationship problems, and failure in business—comes if these two things are done—purifying negative karma and never committing it again, and living in vows helps with this.

So, now you can see, without Dharma, you can’t solve the problems in your life, no matter how much medicine, food, exercise, organizations, and meetings you have. That is why, even though people have an operation and cut away a cancer, if the karma is not purified, the cancer keeps coming back until the person dies. That is a good example.

Performing pujas and practices is one way to try to purify the cause so that you do not create it again. Then, try to prevent difficult external conditions as best you can. If you have tried to remedy the situation, you will not feel much regret. If you don’t try, then you will feel regret. Since you have met the Buddhadharma, sutra, and especially tantra, you know there are so many ways, so many deep solutions. This helps the mind to not get freaked out, whether you are living in a meditation center, with your family, or with others.

In this way, the mind can enjoy life. There is peace and happiness. There is so much space in your mind, space for love and compassion for others, so you can benefit others continuously.

My very dear Theresa,
I would like to express many many thanks and appreciation from the bottom of my heart for your limitless kindness, since I met you at Kopan Monastery. If I include your past lives, then your kindness has no beginning.

You offered your family house as the Dharma center, and very kindly tried to keep the center there as long as possible. You offered immeasurable kindness for years, and when there was a great need for a chairperson, you very kindly accepted, even though you were so busy with many obligations.

So, now it seems the karma has changed and it is another person’s turn to be chairperson. She has already happily accepted. As soon the request was made, she cried.

Even though you are no longer chairperson, I hope, as we have made a connection due to past karma, that you and your husband will have a continual connection and bond with me and that you can help the organization like before, so that it can benefit the teachings of Buddha and sentient beings.

I will make prayers for your family. Please pass this message to your husband and tell him that I will put a lot of effort into the center so that it can benefit sentient beings.
With much love and prayers...

My very dear (director),
Thank you very much for your great dedication and service to me and to the center, which is service to sentient beings and to the teachings of the Buddha.

My experience when meeting you is that you always have a calm quality and are easy to communicate with. You may not be involved with sadhanas and mantras, but your heart is very good and genuine. The purpose of sadhanas, prayers, and mantras is to make you into a good human being with a good heart. From being a good human being with a good heart, it is possible to become a holy being. From being a holy being, it is possible to become a Buddha. Then you can end all sentient beings’ suffering.

During this period, the center’s work is very important. This is a very crucial stage in the center’s life, in order for it to be able to benefit others on a large scale, benefiting thousands of others, for many years to come.

I deeply appreciate your having accepted this job and doing it seriously and sincerely.

I will send a separate letter to the other member of the center’s committee who wrote to me about you.

My very dearest Susie,
How are you?

I would like to say that your kindness is incredible, most wonderful. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You took on the task of being center director at a very difficult time, when I needed a lot of help and you did it. You took on the responsibility when I really needed help and were there to support me. So, I am very very happy.

Now the karma has changed. Everything is impermanent and karma changes, so now the karma is that James is director. This is the karma of your Dharma center.

This statue is a simple gesture of my thanks to you. I love you very much, and you are always in my prayers.
With much love and prayers...