Member of the FPMT

Your daughter has turned out to be very, very good. You should rejoice. I was very happy to see her; I felt very positive. All the effort you have made, carrying the baby for nine months, giving birth and bearing all the hardships, experiencing difficulties, exhaustion, and the worry of taking care of her all those years, besides educating her – it is all so meaningful because she has become a good human being, positive, and wants to help others.

I mentioned to her about helping young people, so she has started something with the young people at the university where she studies. She has joined up with a few other young people. She has turned out quite good. This makes meaningful all the suffering, hardship, and worries that parents bear to take care of children, also working to earn enough money.

Now, from what I saw, it seems your daughter's life has become positive. She tries not only to not harm, but to be kind to others. So, all the effort, over so many years since she was conceived up to now, all the expenses for the well-being and education of the child, have become meaningful.

My very dear Gilles,
Both of you should think of the situation many other children are in—many have great difficulties such as being Siamese twins or deformed in many serious ways. So many families have to experience more difficult situations than yours. My point is you should not think you are the only ones in this situation. Take some time and contemplate that many other parents are in a more difficult situation.

I am going to try and help you as to how to think about and relate to your situation. You should be very grateful to Buddha/God. Think Buddha/God gave me this small child to look after and to help me develop my spiritual practice, to purify heavy negative karma that I have created in the past. This is Buddha's gift, helping me to be free from my oceans of negative karmas, and this is Buddha’s gift for me to develop my practice and to develop full enlightenment and peerless happiness.

Think that your child is cherished by countless buddhas and holy beings—bodhisattvas. So many bodhisattvas collect vast amounts of merit in every second and actualize the path for the benefit of every single being, including your child. So many buddhas competed the two types of merit and actualized the two kayas (two Buddha bodies) for the benefit of all beings, including your child. There are so many buddhas and bodhisattvas, including Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, who sacrificed his life for three countless great eons, and gave up his family and wealth when he was King; the whole point was to actualize the two types merit for all sentient beings, which includes your child. Like that, there are so many buddhas, and all of them achieved enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings, which includes your child.

Therefore, every day when you offer service to your child, this is the best offering to all the buddhas; this is the best puja for all the buddhas. This is the most pleasing offering to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. You both should offer service to your child with this awareness and on the basis of this. In this way, your child makes your life so meaningful, gives you a lot of satisfaction, and makes your life so fulfilling. In your heart you should have the wish to benefit all sentient beings, to bring them to liberation and enlightenment, to be able to enlighten countless sentient beings from samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should not try different treatments for your child, I am not saying that, there are many different methods to try to heal: traditional and alternative, and there are many different kinds of healers, not just in hospitals. So, in the meantime, you can look for different methods, see if there is anything that can help her. This way you can feel that you have tried everything.

I am very happy to hear that you are both thinking of accepting the situation, that is very important, because your child was born to you in this life, in this way, due to past karma, both your karma and the child’s karma. Karma is not inherently existent, but is formed by wrong actions created by the mind in past lives; usually they are performed without your knowing the result that you are creating. Maybe the action was performed to try to achieve happiness at that time, but it was performed with a selfish mind, a mind of ignorance, attachment, and anger. Because of this attitude it became a negative karma and the result was suffering, maybe to be born like this.

So, your child being born to you comes from karma on both sides. But this karma is not forever, it doesn’t last long, it is a very temporary situation. You shouldn’t think it is forever, because when death comes, one’s life is like dream, it’s gone, all your plans for the future are gone. It is good to remember this now because it helps you realize that this current situation, this life, having this child, could end at any minute.

This is a very broad way of thinking, a positive way of thinking. Your child is also a teaching for you by showing this aspect, being born like this. If we don't practice Dharma and abandon negative karma, then we can all be born like this in the future. Your child is telling all of us that.
With much love and prayers...

My very dear Joanne,
My apologizes for the many eons that it took to answer your letter.

According to my observations, it would be best for you to practice Medicine Buddha puja every day. This is beneficial for your whole family. Of course, you also dedicate it to all sentient beings achieving enlightenment, to all holy beings’ long lives, and for all their wishes to be fulfilled.

Totally rely on Medicine Buddha every day and make prayers to Medicine Buddha that the best things may happen to your family. Don't only make prayers for this life but for all future lives. Pray for a good rebirth after this life, that you can meet the Dharma and actualize the path, or that you will be reborn in a pure land and become enlightened. Pray to be free from samsara as quickly as possible and to be able to enlighten all sentient beings as quickly as possible.

Set up many offerings in front of Medicine Buddha, many water bowl offerings, light offerings, fruit offerings, and food offerings, and change these offerings every day. Water is very easy to offer, so you can have more water bowl offerings. The food that is taken off the altar is then blessed food and can be eaten or given to people.

The other thing that would be very beneficial for you to do is to recite the mantras below every day 30 times.

The following mantra is Buddha's name in order to have success:

DE ZHIN SHEGPA SA-ZIN GYALPO CHAG TSA LO
TAYATHA OM DHARE DHARE BEN-DAYE SOHA

So, please make many offerings to Medicine Buddha, and after each practice dedicate the merits. Here is a dedication you can use:

Due to all merits of the three times, may bodhicitta ripen within my heart, my family, the leaders of countries, violent people such as terrorists who are harming the world, as well as all sentient beings.

You can also make other dedications.
With much love and prayers...

Poison of Self-Cherishing
This is a letter from a student of Rinpoche’s in California, who had some realizations. Rinpoche felt it could be helpful for others to read.

Dearest Teacher and Friend,
I have been in the hell realms with my children for the last 18 months. At this point we have not spoken for many months. Over the years they have been angry at me for a number of things. I have not seen any of my grandchildren for over a year. It just goes on and on. I have been alternately angry, frustrated, confused, and hurt by their behavior toward me.

On Saturday night my husband and I had yet another conversation, trying to figure it all out. Again, no answers. I got out of bed and went into another room and just cried. I realized that I can get answers to these kinds of questions from my own side. It is impossible to figure out the motivations of others. However, I can try to understand my own motivation. I went into a meditative state with the question, “What was my motivation for having each of these children?”

As my mind drifted further back in time, I remembered who I was when they were conceived. I was a mess. I wanted my children to save me. I wanted them to help me to have what I did not have. I wanted someone to love me. ME ME ME. It was all about me and my needs, and, of course, when they arrived they were helpless and needed all those things from me. When I really got in touch with the feelings and thoughts of my mind from that time, I realized why my kids have always seemed so unhappy with me. That important beginning was poisoned by self-cherishing. At the moment that realization came, I felt a small explosion go off in my mind. The realization of the torment in cyclic existence hit me full on, and my heart filled with compassion for these beings. I held onto the understanding for a while, and then I trotted off to bed. When I put my head on the pillow I wished that I had memorized “Calling the Lama from Afar.” I simply said three times, “Lama Zopa, help me to banish self-cherishing from my life!” I immediately went to sleep.

In the morning when I woke up, the feeling of tightness in my chest, like dull teeth biting in, was gone! I have had this feeling for 18 months, sometimes worse than others, but always there. And now it was gone. I felt a kind of peace that had eluded me not just in this situation, but through many things that have happened in my life. I went to the Wheel of Sharp Weapons and found this:

When others find fault with whatever we are doing, and people seem eager to blame only us, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have been shameless, not caring about others. We have thought that our deeds did not matter at all. Hereafter, let's stop our offensive behavior. (Number 23)

It seems to me that this sums it up. I am a cause of my own suffering, and it is up to me, and me alone, to become enlightened to stop this suffering for all beings.

Do you think this qualifies as a meditation on the lower scope?

Biggest love and prayers to you Dear Heart. I thank you for caring for me and never giving up on me. Have a safe journey and a safe return.

Your friend in Dharma...

Growing Up Too Fast
A student expressed concern for her teenage daughter, who was 16 years old and had started experimenting with different things. The mother felt that daughter was not always telling her the truth.

Raising children in a society full of negative influences, where bad friends are many, and good friends—disciplined, compassionate friends— are few, is not easy. Western culture has so much desire. It is not like so-called “developing” countries. Here, advertisements are all about desire, advertising what to do best for one’s desire, just like food commercials make us want to eat. All these things—bad friends, culture, school—make teenagers uneasy.

Just like tsatsa molds, our friends are like models for us. Parents should teach children never to forget karma.

Every day, pray to Medicine Buddha that she will grow up with all the qualities of the Buddhas, of Tara, and of Chenrezig, with the best qualities. The prayers of people who share homes have great power for each other. If you just pray for a healthy life, and other things like that for your daughter, then you are just focusing on the benefits of this life. That is not so good. But if she has all the best inner qualities, then she can be free from all suffering and can help all sentient beings.

A Bad Mother?
A student described the problems her oldest daughter had with manic depression and described herself as a bad mother who drank when her children were growing up.

It is not the parents’ fault when they can’t help their children. It’s the karma of the children. Because people don’t accept reincarnation in the West, they fall into the trap of blaming the parents.

Depression doesn’t give us much space to help others. If you can, put all the blame onto the one enemy: the self-cherishing mind. Normally, self-cherishing becomes our guru, the thing we cherish most. But cherishing our self-cherishing keeps us from enlightenment, so instead we need to see self-cherishing as our enemy. By defeating self-cherishing thoughts, it gives space for bodhicitta to grow. Anything that hurts our self-cherishing mind can help us actualize the path. Even if sometimes you have problems, and sometimes things are OK, don’t worry, just bring your mind back to compassion.

Your daughter can try changing her diet: No sugar, no processed foods, and eat fruit, rice, and vegetables. She can also try taking the herb St. John’s Wort.

You should perform Medicine Buddha sadhana, and recite the names of the Medicine Buddhas seven times a day. When you practice the purification part, first purify yourself, then purify your daughter.

Unexplainable depression, that is, depression that is not due to something happening externally, is the ripening of past sexual misconduct.

You can also recite these mantras: “Om Mani Padme Hung” and His Holiness the Dalai Lama's name mantra.

More advice by Lama Zopa on this topic:
Advice on "Making Children's Lives Meaningful" on the Advice Book's School-age children page.