Member of the FPMT

My very dear Kenneth,
Thank you very much for taking a precious human rebirth and making your life most beneficial for sentient beings in the ten directions in this world.

It is a great gift for me that I have you. You are always such a happy person, that is another of your qualities, always filled with inspiration, devotion, intelligence, compassion, all the important stuff. These are the roots within you. So, I am very proud of having you. Maybe after a few years I will sell you to His Holiness the Dalai Lama or put you inside a mandala and offer you.

I would like to thank you very much for everything, for all your dedication, benefiting others, your traditional practice, and all the beautiful Dharma hats with mantras on, which liberate so many sentient beings every day in this world. It is such an easy way to liberate sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric suffering, bring them to enlightenment, and attract them to the Dharma Center, as well as to the retreat center. HA HA HE HE HO HO [Rinpoche laughing].

I want to tell you that when you give a hat to someone there should be a card explaining the benefits of the hat. You can incorporate the benefits that you have already compiled with these:

Just by wearing this hat in public, playing golf, in the street, on the beach, where many people are shopping, in the market, anywhere that animals or people can see you, you are liberating others.

If an insect flies around your hat (with mantras), or an insect goes under or around the hat, or a person walks around you on the way to a shop, you are liberating them all the time. You are bringing so many sentient beings, who are suffering, to enlightenment. The hat enlightens even the flies.

OM MANI PADME HUM is the mantra of the compassionate Buddha, who is the embodiment of all the Buddhas. This mantra is for developing compassion, which is the most precious, wish-fulfilling thing, for all happiness, including liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering, up to full enlightenment—the peerless happiness. You, one person, by generating compassion, can liberate all suffering sentient beings, who equal the limitless sky, from the oceans of samsaric suffering, and bring them to full enlightenment, fulfilling all their wishes and happiness.

The mantra on the front is from Buddha’s sutra teaching called Chulong Rolpai Do. Merely seeing this mantra pacifies 100,000 eons of negative karma.

Any sentient being who walks under the mantra on the back of the hat purifies 1000 eons of negative karma.

Seeing the mantra on the left side of the hat, below the signature, enables one to achieve enlightenment.

Of course, this applies to OM MANI PADME HUM as well. There is no question that this mantra also has this benefit. Also, it purifies one’s very heavy negative karma, including purifying the five uninterrupted negative karmas.

Please give my regards to your family.
With much love and prayers...

[Note: The hat that Rinpoche designed, shown above, is available from the FPMT Foundation Store.]

When you watch TV, one benefit is when you see people or animals die (e.g. animals alive and being cooked) you can immediately pray:

By the merits of the three times collected by myself and all other sentient beings may this being be reborn in the Pure Land of Buddha and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Then recite a few mantras—mani mantras or mantras of the Five Powerful Deities of Purification.

Through the power of your merits from beginningless rebirths and others' merits, this action becomes very powerful. It makes watching TV very worthwhile in that you are able to benefit beings who have no guide.

One must practice with the bodhisattva attitude every day. People can't see your mind, what people see is a manifestation of your attitude in your actions of body and speech. Pay attention to your attitude all the time, guard it as if you are the police, or like a maid cares for a child, like a bodyguard, or like you are the guru and your mind is your disciple.

You need to guard your attitude all the time, 24 hours a day. Doing whatever your mind says is very dangerous—even small problems can lead to suicide when emotions are involved. When we think, “This is what I feel, so I can do anything” it's usually what our delusions want, not what the bodhisattva wants. This leads to long-term harm.

Humility is important. Humility comes naturally if you are kind and forgive others. Also, you should rejoice when good things come to others. These are practical, good qualities for anyone in the world who wants to have a happy life. The point is to be humble, but when there's a need to clarify, to say something, you need to be able to say it.

A Dharma center or an office is a place for Dharma practice. When one goes to the office, dealing with people, one has to recognize that it's a place to practice lamrim, the Three Principles of the Path, tantra, and the six paramitas. The six paramitas fit very well with daily life—they offer you protection. Everything is there.

If one doesn't put effort into this, then problems arise. Without this, things won't succeed, won't be smooth, and people won't support you. If people are happy, they will support you.

We have meetings in the FPMT, but that isn't enough. We have to really put it into practice at work, when we go back. At FPMT meetings all the nice advice is there, but when you go back to work, if you don't practice, all the problems come up again.

Think of home and office as practice. It’s a wonderful practice, a great challenge. Before you go to the office think, “I'm going to practice Dharma: the Three Principles of the Path, the six paramitas.” The office is a place for tantric practice—see everyone as the deity. Everything is in the nature of bliss. Nothing is boring or upsetting.

Don't get disturbed if you hear problems—our ears are made to hear problems. Hearing problems are like wearing earrings; they are different decorations for the ears.

Regarding the question about the confusion that arises when trying to see and accept everything in Dharmic terms and yet wanting to change negative things, you have to clarify this. If you don't, then the center/office can't develop. Be humble, but don't be dumb, otherwise you can't make the work better. Try to explain things within your practice, the lamrim, then the mind doesn't become negative, and things go better, smoother. Think how all sentient beings are so kind, have all been our mothers, and shown us such great kindness, then respect comes. Think that Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha come from this person, all happiness in life comes from this person, he or she is so precious, then respect comes. Think that this person is cherished the most by numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, like a beloved child; this person is like their heart. Then you dare not say any bad words to that person, you offer service, you offer as much comfort as possible, and you never dare to harm or hurt him or her.

We need wisdom to discriminate what needs to be said and not to be said and when is the right time. This depends on analysis. It's not easy because we don't have clairvoyance. Bodhisattvas say we need clairvoyance in order to benefit sentient beings. Even without omniscient mind, clairvoyance, it is our responsibility to use our intelligence to do as best as we can.

Try your best. It might not be perfect. We can't succeed every time, but sometimes we can.

Yesterday I was talking to a student on the phone for some time. I thought that in order to make the time useful I should do something else, so I took the opportunity to walk around many enlightened buddhas’ relics: relics of Lama Atisha, Nagarjuna, the Buddha, the Karmapa, Milarepa, and Lama Tsong Khapa, as well as stupas that contain the four powerful mantras. That means that each circumambulation purifies the five uninterrupted negative karmas (drawing blood from a buddha, killing an arhat, causing a schism within the sangha and killing one’s mother or father). There is no question that it purifies the ten non-virtuous actions, directs one’s life toward enlightenment, brings one health, long life, and other temporal benefits, as well as the ability to achieve all the realizations, such as the three principal aspects of the path, the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment, etc.

The 7 royal emblems

So, while I was talking on the phone I walked around all the relics, pictures of Buddha, and tsa tsas that I have on a table in my room. I thought that my attendants Roger and Holly spend so many hours talking on the phone that it would be very nice to have a stupa that they could circumambulate. Also, the FPMT International Office could have small stupas, such as many tsa tsas, and, especially, some stupas that contain the four powerful mantras, as well as photos of Buddha, statues, texts etc. on a table, beautifully set up, very pleasant and inspiring. Also, you can make offerings around the table, flower and water offerings, the seven royal emblems and eight offering goddesses* carrying offerings, around the edge of the table. The stupa could be either outside in the garden, in the middle of each room, or in the center of the building. Then, because people spend many hours on the telephone they can take the opportunity to circumambulate as much as they can. Even if our speech does not have a virtuous motivation, our bodily action becomes virtuous and the cause of enlightenment, liberation from samsara, and happiness in future lives. If our speech is virtuous, then our bodily action also becomes virtuous by circumambulating, so we collect much more merit. If our mind is also virtuous then it is even better. It is important to take the opportunity to make one’s body, speech, and mind virtuous, as much as possible, to put effort into that, because the nature of life is impermanence and death.

So, in this way, one’s life is not wasted. By performing circumambulations life becomes extremely profound. Lama Atisha always traveled with a Kadampa stupa and circumambulated it so many times. You can see that circumambulating is very important.

The other thing you can do while on the phone is use your other hand to turn a prayer wheel. This purifies all sentient beings in the six realms. Beams emit from the prayer wheel and purify you and all sentient beings. All the realizations, especially great loving kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta, as well as the whole path, the five wisdoms, etc., are achieved.

*Note: The seven royal emblems are the precious wheel, precious jewel, precious queen, precious minister, precious elephant, precious horse and precious general; the eight offering goddesses are those of grace, garlands, song, dance, flowers, incense, lamps and perfume…as in the long mandala offering.

It will not necessarily be better just because it has been kept in very good condition. It doesn’t mean that problems won’t occur. It all depends on the karma of the individual, because when the vehicle changes hands, even if the car has no problems, the new owner’s karma changes this, and the car may then have many problems. Or the car might currently have many problems, but when it changes owners, because the karma changes, the car might run great.