My very dear one,
I received your letter. According to my observations, the best thing for you to do is to go away. It would be good to attend the study course at Kopan Monastery. It is best if you go away for six to eight months. It is not so good to stay where you are living right now. I think Geshe-la will understand my comments because you are a nun. Maybe you can take teachings in the East, do a retreat, pilgrimage, and some service at the centers in the East. This is just a suggestion.

Your vows are the root of your great liberation and enlightenment. Because in your present life you are living according to these vows, it makes it much easier to achieve enlightenment, no question that it is easier to achieve liberation from samsara. Therefore, my suggestion is while the fire is small, it is easy to put out; if it becomes very big, then it is much harder. While it is still very small, like a candle, a match, a spark, control it. If you don’t control it now, it can become huge so that you can’t control it at all and then it’s too late.

Similarly, if you continue to stay where you are with the same mind, it will get heavier and heavier, and at the same time you can’t do anything, you can’t control it, and you have to follow it. You will be totally defeated by your delusion, like a flood of water, like a tsunami, or like Hurricane Katrina.

So, my suggestion is maybe to let go. You will have much more peace and happiness in your heart. Wherever you are you will feel peace, real peace, otherwise you won’t have peace, no matter how far you go, no matter the physical distance. Attachment does not bring peace, so no matter where you are, whether you are studying Dharma or on the moon, still you will suffer because your attachment wants to be with him, to have a relationship.

I am not going to take much time now to explain, this is just a drop. These are my suggestions:

Analyze what is the purpose of your life. Think, “I have full responsibility to free countless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras, and intermediate state beings from all sufferings and their causes and to bring all of them to enlightenment. I have full responsibility for this.”

For example, in one city, however many millions of people there are, you have full responsibility to free them from suffering and to bring about their happiness. If you think this way, then you can see how even in one field, there are many millions of sentient beings, and you can see what an incredible responsibility you have. There are so many sentient beings. Others are countless. It is your responsibility to free them from suffering and to bring them to enlightenment, to bring them to liberation and happiness.

This time you have received a precious human rebirth. It is not just precious, but a perfect human rebirth, having the eight qualities, and you have met a virtuous friend, who can show you the whole, unmistaken path. You have met the Buddha’s Dharma, you have all the opportunities to help sentient beings, to learn the Dharma, to actualize the path, to be free from all the delusions (gross and subtle), and to achieve enlightenment. You have the opportunity to be able to perform perfect works for sentient beings, so that in every second, each beam that is emitted from your Buddha body can liberate so many sentient beings from suffering. You have an incredible responsibility to help every single sentient being, not only every single human being, but every single animal, ant, insect, spider, fly, elephant, tiger, and so on.

You have received all your countless past, present, and future liberations from samsara, up to enlightenment, from the kindness of every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura and asura being. For that reason, every comfort and happiness that you experience comes from the kindness of every single sentient being. Therefore, you have full responsibility to free all sentient beings from all sufferings and their causes and to bring them to enlightenment.

Then think that if you are not liberated from samara, if you are still in samsara, having all the delusions, then you can’t liberate others. Like a person without any arms can’t help others from falling down a precipice, can’t pull them up, if you are drowning then you can’t help others who are drowning, or who are stuck in the quagmire. Therefore, you need to be free from delusions, karma, and all wrong concepts.

Without the higher training of morality you can’t achieve the higher training of concentration. Without the higher training of concentration you can’t achieve the higher training of wisdom. Without wisdom you can’t achieve the arya path, the exalted wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, and you can’t cease the delusions. Without that you can’t achieve total liberation from the oceans of samsaric sufferings, you can’t liberate others, you can’t achieve great liberation, you can’t achieve enlightenment, and you can’t perform perfect works for sentient beings. Therefore, in cherishing the “I,” cherishing just one sentient being: yourself, seeking happiness for one person: yourself, you are actually harming others, because you are giving up the most precious countless human beings, hungry ghosts, animals, hell beings, and all other sentient beings. You can see how that is illogical and totally ridiculous.

If you compare yourself to even just one sentient being, you can see from that one sentient being comes all your past, present, and future happiness. Therefore, others are the most precious ones. Immeasurable past happiness came to you from that one being. All one’s future happiness, temporary and ultimate, comes from that one being. One’s liberation from samsara comes from that one being. Achieving vast amounts of qualities, Buddha’s holy body, speech, and mind, so that one can perform perfect works for all sentient beings, comes from that one being. So, that one being is the most precious one. You can see how ridiculous, how mistaken, how foolish it is to give up even one sentient being, from whom all the countless buddhas come, all the buddhas to whom you pray, from where the Dharma comes, and from where the Sangha comes. You can see how precious even one sentient being is. The Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha that we take refuge in to stop rebirth in the lower realms (hell realm etc.), to be free from samsara and to achieve enlightenment—all of this comes from this one being. It is impossible to give up even one sentient being. It is impossible to seek happiness for yourself and to give up that sentient being’s happiness.

Analyze renouncing the “I.” As it says in the Guru Puja: “Cherishing the ‘I’ is the door to all suffering and cherishing others is the door to all happiness… etc.” That is the most important practice in your life, the best physician, the best medicine; it stops all pain, brings the best happiness in one’s life, and makes one’s life most meaningful. Thinking in this way, whatever you do becomes most beneficial for others, becomes the cause of happiness for all sentient beings, and the cause of enlightenment.

Meditate on how attachment is a wrong concept; analyze this. Think of the many reasons why it is a wrong concept, a superstitious thought, a cause of all harms and dangers. Think of all the delusions up to now, how one has been in samsara for so long, one has been a hell being, animal, and hungry ghost since beginningless rebirths; all this is due to attachment. This is how attachment has cheated oneself. Try to think about this as much as possible; it should have a deep effect. Practice meditation on the nature of attachment and how it cheats you totally.

Think how the object of your attachment is false, not true. If you analyze in this way, you are using the object of attachment as a meditation to realize the nature of life—how it is suffering. This helps you on the path to liberation and to be able to liberate others.

Please think about these things.

With much love and prayers...