My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, I was very happy to receive it. I am sorry for the long delay.

If you are going to make a painting, please do it using the best example. Copy from the best example and do it very well, then there is unbelievable merit and it creates the cause of enlightenment. You receive incredible purification and collect extensive merit, and it creates the cause of enlightenment. But if you paint an image of Buddha and make mistakes, then that actually creates negative karma and you have to suffer for many lifetimes. This is really important to know. 

I want to post you a blessed string. Recently one student told me some stories about his two dogs which were very close to death. (This happened at different times.) He put blessed strings on the dogs, and both dogs miraculously recovered. 

The blessing strings were blessed with many thousands of OM MANI PADME HUM mantras, as well as Namgyalma mantra, the five powerful mantras and others. This blessing cord should not just be taken like a custom, just to put on the altar or put somewhere in a container. It should be worn; the idea is for it to touch your body. There are so many benefits explained regarding how these mantras can purify negative karma. So these blessing strings can purify our negative karma and our suffering can become less. 

Also, when a person or animal dies or is dead, we can put the blessed string on their body. Even if they died a long time ago, we can still put it on their body, as it purifies their negative karma. Even if the consciousness is not there, if the consciousness is somewhere else, no matter how far away it is, it still has effect. 

Please use this blessing string in this way, wearing it as a protection and blessing, or putting it on animals or people who are sick, dying or who have passed away. 

You also need to take two precious pills called ratna samphel. Take one pill one week, then a week later take the other pill. Take the pill first thing in the morning. They are wrapped in cloth because you can’t expose the pill to the light. That means you should open it under a blanket and take it while in the dark, with your head under the blanket. It is hard, so you can either crush it or bite it, then put it in your mouth and drink with warm water.

Think, “I want to achieve happiness, but the purpose of my life is not just temporary happiness or even ultimate happiness, freedom from samsara. Even everlasting happiness is not the purpose of my life. The purpose of my life is to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and bring them to enlightenment, the peerless happiness—the cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.” 

For that we need to achieve buddhahood, therefore think, “I am going to meditate on emptiness.” Think about the ultimate nature of reality. We think there is a real "I" and real cancer, but all that is a hallucination, the view of our ignorance, the view of our mind. The ultimate reality is that there is no I who has cancer and there is no cancer. Meditate on that for as long as you can each time.

Meditate that although everything appears as real, it is just a hallucination, a projection of the view of ignorance. There is no real I, no real cancer, all those things, no real karma from the past. What is there is the merely labeled I and the merely labeled cancer. This is most unbelievably subtle, and it is not easy to realize; it is difficult to realize.

Please try this, and please read my advice on how to meditate on emptiness. This is what came out best for you to do.

If you can, also recite the Compassion Buddha mantra with bodhicitta; this OM MANI PADME HUM mantra is the best one. It is most important, because we have to die and we are not sure when we will die. We are not sure when, it can happen anytime, then whether the next life is a good rebirth depends on karma, so it’s important to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings.

You need to recite Most Secret Hayagriva mantra, first taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. You also need to recite some Vajra Armor mantras, but you don't have to recite many of these. [Find links to these mantras here.]

It is important for both these recitations that you are not only thinking about yourself. Samsara is endless and there are numberless sentient beings in samsara, suffering so much, so dedicate for them. Also take strong refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. 

You can look at a picture of Most Secret Hayagriva and recite the mantra and think that while you are doing the recitation, mantra beams emit from Most Secret Hayagriva and purify all your negative karma, spirt harm, sickness and obscurations.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim and to live your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...