Advice to Center Directors
The Best Offering and the Greatest Joy
Rinpoche sent this advice to a center director thanking them for offering service and for bringing benefit to sentient beings who come to the center.
My most dear most kind wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? I know you are the director and have to do everything and you must be very busy. From my heart I want to say I highly appreciate you and all that you are doing with your body, speech and mind.
I want to send billions and zillions of thanks to you for every single action of your body, speech and mind, dedicated for the sentient beings, for the teachings of the Buddha, for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and for Mickey Mouse me. I am very small, like dal. I hope not black dal, but orange dal! I hope to see you very soon. Maybe if there is time I will come to visit the center.
You have to know that every sentient being is cherished most by the numberless bodhisattvas who purified negative defilements collected since beginningless rebirth and collected all the merits for them. Even their breathing in and out is for the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings, in order to free them from delusions and samsaric sufferings and bring them to the omniscient mind, enlightenment.
Even Shakyamuni Buddha collected merit over three countless great eons. He made charity of his own life and limbs to numberless sentient beings and practiced morality for numberless sentient beings. He practiced perseverance and so forth for three countless great eons and completed the path, achieving enlightenment for every sentient being—for the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings.
That is incredible! So the numberless buddhas became enlightened for every single sentient being, including those who come to the center. You are teaching Dharma and awakening the sentient beings with your body, speech and mind; this is serving sentient beings. Numberless buddhas became enlightened for this, and every sentient being is cherished by numberless buddhas.
Of course, whatever you can do, try to serve them, help them and bring them happiness—even just a little bit, but as much as possible—helping to free them from suffering and achieve happiness, especially bringing them to the ultimate happiness of liberation from samsara and enlightenment. That is the greatest joy, the greatest happiness, the most meaningful life. So you are offering service and each time it’s not only for numberless sentient beings, but also for even one sentient being who comes to the center. This is the best offering to numberless bodhisattvas and buddhas, so you have to know that.
As Sakya Pandita said:
Even if you practice the paramita of charity for a thousand eons by giving your arms, legs and so forth to sentient beings, and you dedicate the merit of that to them, you collect all that merit in one second by offering service to the guru.
Sakya Pandita also said:
Just as fire burns wood and in one second it becomes ashes,
By pleasing the guru, then our negative karma is purified in a second.
And many eons of heavy negative karma are ceased.
Thank you very much. I hope to see you soon.
With much love and prayers ...
Practices for Center Director
Rinpoche advised a student to do these practices in order for their service as a center director to be most beneficial.
Please do these things first:
- She nyin dü dog puja: To be done three times by eight to ten senior Lama Gyupas at Kopan Monastery.
- Amitayus Long Life Sutra (Tse dö): To be written out five times by you in English.
- White Tara meditation: Do this daily for some time. If you haven’t received a great initiation (Kriya or Highest Yoga Tantra) then you can still do it but not see yourself as the deity.
Thanks for Bringing the Students Together
This card was written to a center director who had helped the center grow substantially by organizing many activities and bringing students together again.
My most dear one,
What a great joy, what you have been doing and thinking there so that everybody, Sangha and non-Sangha, is coming together again.
I really appreciate all your past kindness and present kindness, and everybody appreciates this. That is really a good thing. Also, in this way you are helping the older students and the new students and especially the Sangha, by bringing them together. They are also learning from the geshe, learning his ideas. So it is very, very good.
My great, great appreciation to you and your sister. I must thank your parents for making both of you, for having brought you both into the human world.
As it is said in the lamrim teachings, this is just about one time meeting the guru, who is revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment. It is just one time meeting the holy Dharma and just one time having received a perfect human rebirth. So, we can’t imagine that now we are able to help other sentient beings.
The conclusion is that everything we do is to spread Dharma to sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment. Our every movement, every moment, is for that, and even our breath in and out is for that.
I have these quotations for you. Nagarjuna said:
Abandon making all the other offerings,
And strive to make pure offerings to the guru.
By pleasing the guru, you will achieve the supreme transcendental wisdom of omniscience.
That is because there is less merit offering to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha than offering to the guru. This means obtaining the guru’s advice and fulfilling the guru’s wishes, not only physically making an offering. This is the greatest offering, and we collect more merit than offering to the ten-direction buddhas, Dharma, Sangha, statues, stupas and scriptures.
Sakya Pandita said:
Even if we make charity of our head, legs and hands for one thousand eons and then dedicate that merit to sentient beings—all that merit is collected in one second when we practice the guru’s path.
What this is saying is that having made charity of various parts of the body for a thousand eons, and even if the merit of that is dedicated to sentient beings, when we follow the guru’s advice or follow the guru’s wishes, we collect all that merit in one second.
I hope to see you soon.
With much love and prayers ...
Learning How to Run the Center
This advice was given to a center director who had made a confession about past mistakes at the Dharma center.
My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I’m very, very happy with all that you said, that it is harmonious, and all the good things you informed me about, and also that a number of students are close to Geshe-la. That is so good.
I’m very happy, so no question, even though you made mistakes in the past, but [they] didn’t get to explain or you didn’t learn how to run the organization—not in a business way, but through Dharma, with compassion, with devotion and with compassion. This wasn’t explained and there was no training for directors on how to run the center in this way, so that training didn’t happen. Then of course, you were quite new to Sangha also and you made many mistakes, but you noticed this as the year went by.
Now I’m sure you have a much better understanding as you noticed that you made mistakes and you know what needs to be corrected, to be done, so there is development. Now you understand what is the correct way to do things, so there is development. This is how I think, but if you don’t notice mistakes, then mistakes happen all the time and the situation doesn’t get better.
That is not only for outside work but also for our Dharma practice, our own Dharma practice, it’s the same. We need to develop everything and to subdue the mind. That is why Buddha said:
Do not commit any unwholesome actions,
Engage in perfect wholesome actions,
Subdue one’s own mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.
The Buddha said, “Subduing the mind, it is the teaching of Buddha.” He didn’t say only being learned in the teachings of Buddha, only being a scholar is the teaching of Buddha, he said, “Subduing one’s own mind, this is the teaching of Buddha.”
Thank you very much and I hope to see you soon. Please enjoy this perfect human life, especially being Sangha, preserving the Dharma and bringing sentient beings to enlightenment, not only nirvana.
With much love and prayers ...
On Being Center Director
Rinpoche gave this succinct advice about priorities when serving as director of a Dharma center.
Being a director, the first and the main thing is having ideas; then second is finding people to help, so you don’t have to do everything. You can do the things that other people cannot do.
Advice Received in a Dream
A center director wrote he had dreamt of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In the dream Rinpoche was advising that students could find eight days for taking the eight Mahayana precepts and on those days they could recite the Sutra of Golden Light and the Sanghata Sutra, as well as other mantras and prayers.
My very dear one
As you received [the advice] in the dream, you should do as you received. These are wonderful and very positive things to do. My appearance to you can be Buddha appearing that way, in my aspect.
So, as you have received, please do that. Again it can be all the buddhas advising you, taking my form. Many times it happens like that. Many people get messages [from] my form but in reality all the buddhas are manifesting that way.
With love and prayer ...