My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,

Thank you very much for your kind letter expressing the problems of your family.

You should recite Vaishali Sutra (Entering the Great City of Vaishali Sutra). This is the painkiller sutra, to be recited until the pain goes down. Normally, after reading it three or four times this happens, but sometimes it could be recited nine times before the pain goes down. You should read it near her so she can hear the sound. The Buddha’s teachings are unbelievable.

I’ve been carrying this text for many years and I had never used it, until one time there was a girl from Argentina who was sick for some time, so I remembered the prayer and I took it for this. I recited it three times and Tsering, the monk who writes the Prajnaparamita in gold for the success of the Maitreya Project building, also recited it three times. I had to bless water, so that’s why he did it. After that, she got better.

Then she got sick again and went to the hospital. So I went to the hospital to see her and recited this sutra. Her face was kind of dusty and white, then while I was reciting, her face came back to normal, then her pain stopped. The next day or sometime after that, she had so much pain and the nurses brought her drugs, but she remembered that I had left the tape recorder there and she listened to the recording and her unbelievable pain stopped immediately. So from there, I started to use it when some people had pain.

Recite it loudly next to her, because she has to hear it. By doing that, the beings who help her will stay and those beings who harm her will leave. It’s due to much compassion and loving kindness. Also, those beings who harm her create negative karma, so this practice is done with compassion.

She should take the moon crystal precious pill four times, and between each one have three days break. This medicine is covered, and she shouldn’t expose to the blue sky or to bright light. She should bite it and drink it with warm water. These can be sent to you if you give your postal address to Holly.

Then make prayers to Medicine Buddha. There is a verse from one practice that says:

Bhagavan with equal compassion for all,
Whose name, when merely heard, dispels the suffering of lower realms,
Dispeller of disease and the three poisons:
I prostrate to Medicine Buddha Lapis Light.

Pray to Medicine Buddha with this verse, for her to immediately recover and for her life to become beneficial for sentient beings. You don’t have to eat the medicine for her; you just have to do the prayer for her.

Then recite the great mantra five times. My attendant, Ven. Sherab, should do this by knowing her name, and also understanding the problem that the prayer is for. I will arrange this for you.

Also, chag sum puja needs to be recited once by the Lama Gyupa at Kopan who is the son of a ngagpa. You need to give him the name and explain the problem. If you want to arrange this, you can write to Holly. There will be a small cost for offering to the Lama Gyupa to do the puja, so if you email Holly, she can help to arrange this.

Tell your daughter that the thought to commit suicide is not worthwhile, as I told her before. Having received a human body is most precious, more precious than skies of wish-granting jewels.

A wish-granting jewel is more precious than gold or diamond, but of course there are hardly any people in the world who have them. In the past, great bodhisattvas and wheel-turning kings who had unbelievable merit got these from the ocean and then after cleaning them in three ways, they put them on the banner of their house. Then whatever they prayed for—the happiness of this life, whatever comfort they needed, anything—appeared in the next minute in that form. So it’s unbelievably precious.

With a wish-fulfilling jewel, we get everything, so it’s like that. It is unbelievably precious but that alone doesn’t stop the cause for being reborn in the hell realm, in the hungry ghost realm, in the animal realm. It doesn’t stop our negative karma, it doesn’t cause us to be reborn with a deva or human body that has more happiness and less suffering of pain. It doesn’t cause us to be free from delusion and karma; it doesn’t cause us to be free from samsara and achieve everlasting happiness. 

Also, it doesn’t make us free from the self-cherishing thought, and the king of delusion, the wrong concept that there’s a real I existing from there. There’s an I merely labeled by the mind that experiences the sufferings of samsara in mere name, but we can remove the cause of suffering in mere name, and we can practice the path to everlasting happiness and liberation in mere name. We can become free from the self-cherishing thought, holding the I as real while it is not. The way the I exists is existing only in mere name. 

So the wish-fulfilling jewel can’t cause us to achieve bodhicitta, the most precious thought, and it doesn’t cause us to achieve enlightenment, buddhahood, the cessation of the mistakes of mind, gross and subtle, and the completion of all the realizations, sang gye in Tibetan.

However, with a human rebirth [we can achieve enlightenment], just like Milarepa, who achieved full enlightenment probably almost a thousand years ago. He was not a monk, but he achieved enlightenment in his lay life within a few years, by practicing on the basis of sutra and tantra, as taught by his guru Marpa. He followed the advice exactly and he became free from samsara, all the sufferings of rebirth, old age, sickness and death, everything. He not only achieved enlightenment in that life, but within a few years.

Milarepa didn’t have even one rupee, but he practiced Dharma and he achieved enlightenment by following exactly the advice of his guru Marpa, who was an enlightened being. Like that example, having a human body is so precious.

Like that, because you have a precious human body, you can do the same work as Milarepa. You can do that. With this body you can do everything. Even if you have skies of wish-granting jewels, you can’t do that. With the wish-granting jewel alone you can’t do it, you cannot achieve all that. Therefore, this body is very precious.

Committing suicide is influenced by the spirits. When you have suicidal thoughts or some problems, the spirit finds a way to harm your life. This is very common and it happens in the West and in the East. For many people this happens, but in the West they don’t know that it’s caused by spirit harm.

You should read the Vajra Cutter Sutra for her three times to start with. Her father also needs to read it for her three times. After that, read the Vajra Cutter Sutra three times each week. Continue doing that for some time. It is most powerful for pacifying problems. That’s all.

With much love and prayer ...