Helping a Nun

Helping a Nun

Date Posted:
November 2011

Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who was offering service to an older nun.

My very dear Sally,
How are you? I heard you have been serving my precious nun. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you billions of times, my dear. Generally, serving a sentient being in need with the good heart, is the purpose of our human life. This is the meaning of life.

Every time we offer service for others or even for one other being, we create far greater merit than from making offerings to all the buddhas. It says in the Bodhicaryavatara, by the great bodhisattva Shantideva, “Even thinking to really benefit others is much more meaningful than having made offerings to Buddha, so there is no question when one actually attempts to benefit others.”

This is always good to remember, especially in the morning when we wake up and the day begins, also during the day if we are depressed, if our mind is experiencing difficulties or anger.

This nun is precious, so you collect greater merit. This is important, because without merit there is no happiness, no realizations of the path, and we can’t achieve total liberation—the cessation of the whole entire suffering of samsara and its cause: karma and delusion.

Also, we can’t achieve full enlightenment for numberless sentient beings. Without merit we can’t liberate even one sentient being from the sufferings of samsara and its cause: delusion and karma. We can’t enlighten others, even if we cease the subtle defilements.

Now you can see how creating merits is so important, it’s most urgent. We need to actualize these attainments, even right now in this second.

Please take care of her. Serve her and the center, to benefit all suffering living beings.

With much love and prayer...