My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. You mentioned a self-destructive habit and other things, however this can definitely be changed. It can definitely be changed by looking at the mistakes and shortcomings of such a habit. Look at the harm to yourself and to other sentient beings, and the benefit of not doing those things.

Instead, think more about bringing benefit to other sentient beings for all their future lives and their happiness, then you can change. We get more courage to avoid destructive acts and to develop good behavior, to abandon harm to others and to have less courage to harm others.

What I would like to advise is to read the many, many, different books of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings. Those are very, very good for you, so you should learn Buddhism; it is deep and wide.

My main emphasis is to please, please, please study the Bodhicaryavatara  [A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life], especially His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings on this. See if you can get this book; it should be the main book for you to study, reflect and meditate.

It is very, very important to keep this book wherever you go. I don't mean you should take it along with you when you go to the bathroom - I am not saying that! But generally, wherever you are traveling, keep this book with you. It came out from my observation that this book is very, very beneficial for you. It covers everything, according to your problems.

Then also read Lama Tsongkhapa's teachings on the great lam-rim, or the middle lam-rim. The middle lam-rim is not printed, but you can get it from FPMT centers which run the Basic Program.

Read the book Bodhicaryavatara well. Anything that you don't understand, write all the questions in another book, and from time to time go to Sera Monastery, where you can discuss with some monks who speak Hindi or English, and who study well.

However, understand how things that appear to us—how things we see all come from our mind. It all depends on what label we put on things at the beginning. Our mind is merely imputing a label; it depends on that.

Please understand this. First of all, for example, it will take time to understand; you may not get the idea immediately. Think about it over and over again, and check.

For example, the “I”. When the “I” comes into existence, we only have the collection of aggregates of form, feeling, cognition, compounded aggregates and consciousness. Among the 51 mental factors, there are 49 compounded aggregates. So, the others are feeling and cognition, and consciousness. So there is the collection of these five aggregates, but when there is no “I” labeled by the mind, the “I” doesn’t exist at that time.

The “I” is merely imputed by the mind, and if there are no aggregates, no base, at that time the “I” doesn’t exist. When the “I” comes into existence, there is the base, the aggregates, then the mind merely imputes “I”. So, the “I” comes into existence because there is a valid base and the valid mind labels the merely imputed “I”. That is how the “I” comes into existence.

What is that “I”? It's nothing more than what is merely imputed by the mind. It is a false “I” in the way it has been appearing to us, but we believe it is 100 per cent true. It appears as not merely labeled by the mind, which means we think it exists from its own side. However, if we look for this “I” in our body, inside our chest, there is no way we can find it; neither here nor anywhere in the world. That means this totally false “I” doesn't exist at all. It doesn't exist at all; it's totally empty. Therefore, this shows that the “I” is false in the way it appears to us and the way we believe it is 100 per cent true.

Meditate by looking at this emptiness, concentrating on this emptiness. The way this false “I”  appears to us and what we make our mind do is false. We give a job to our mind to trust that as true, but it is totally false. Meditate on the appearance of this false “I”, the hallucination. This is an excellent meditation. Sometimes meditate on this emptiness and sometimes look at the hallucination, the false “I”. This is a very powerful meditation.

Meditate that the “I”, action, objects or phenomena are empty one day, then the next day look at the hallucination, the false “I”. See the “I” as false, just as we become aware of the dream while we are dreaming, and look at it as a dream. When we do that, no negative emotional thought arises, because we see it as empty. There are no negative emotional thoughts; our mind will experience great inner peace and we will enjoy our life. Then whatever activity we do becomes the antidote to samsara. We are continuously reincarnating into these aggregates which are in the nature of suffering, so this meditation becomes the antidote for that. "Antidote" means it becomes an opponent to resist that, therefore it becomes the antidote to the root of all the delusions, karma and suffering, to continuously taking rebirth with these aggregates.

So what is the root of suffering? It is ignorance. Although there is no such “I”, the hallucination “I” not merely imputed by the mind appears, because our ignorance projects it. We believe in that ignorance and we see the “I” as real, which is completely not true; there is no such “I”.

Living life with this mindfulness becomes the antidote to this samsaric root of suffering, this ignorance. So, we can eliminate it. By eliminating this and by developing wisdom, we purify even the seed of this ignorance, which is in the nature of imprints. Then it is impossible to experience suffering, because there is no cause. There are no delusions and no karma, so there is no suffering. So, we are totally free forever from suffering, we are always in the state of bliss and peaceful also.

On another day we can meditate on how the “I” exists in mere name. It is merely imputed by the mind, so whatever action we do also exists in mere name and is merely imputed by mind. And whatever object of the action is also merely imputed by the mind. So the whole of phenomena exists in mere name and is merely imputed by the mind. That's another day of meditation.

Similarly, as I mentioned with the “I”, the “person” doesn't exist when the body, the base, and the aggregates exist, but a person is not labeled yet by the mind. Also, when a person is labeled by the mind but there is no aggregate, at that time the person doesn't exist. So the person exists only when there is a valid base and the mind immediately imputes the “person” relating to that base. That shows that the "person" is nothing more than what is merely imputed by the mind.

So the person appearing to us as slightly more than what is merely imputed by the mind is false. It's a false person which doesn't exist there; it doesn't exist there at all, it’s totally empty. That's a false person, who doesn't exist at all. It exists nowhere. That's the emptiness—the shunyata—of the person.

So, what a person is, is most unbelievably subtle. A person exists, but it's unbelievably subtle; it is never the person that appears the way it has appeared before and that we believe is true. So, the person is totally empty. There is a person, but it's totally empty of a real person existing from its own side.

Nor is the person non-existent. So, the person is free from eternalism—existing from its own side without being merely labeled by the mind; and also free from nihilism—that the person doesn't exist. This way of seeing the person as merely labeled by the mind is the ultimate reality.

Now we should get the idea of the false person. Ignorance leaves negative imprints on the mind, then projects the real person as not merely imputed by the mind. This decorated “I” exists as something more than what is merely labeled by the mind. This is decorated on the mere imputation, the person who is merely imputed by the mind just a second before. Then we allow our mind to hold and believe that is true. That time we are creating ignorance. It is not created by God; it's created by us.

On the basis of that hallucination, that belief, depending on what and how the person thinks—if the person is criticizing us or is angry toward us, then when our mind is following the selfish mind of attachment, we think there is harm to us. So it's bad because the selfish mind of attachment doesn't like the person getting angry with us; scolding and criticizing us. We make up the label and our mind follows the self-cherishing thought of that attachment. We merely impute the labels, thinking, “that is bad”, “there is harm” and also “that person is an enemy”— so all that.

It's all merely imputed by our mind, by our negative thought, but we don't realize that, we don't see that, because it's so subtle. The next second, we see that person's attitude and action as real harm and bad to us, and we think that person is our real enemy. Decorated by our own ignorance, we believe that this is true, as if it really exists. We believe that person is harmful and bad; the real enemy. We see something existing from the person’s own side, but that is totally false. There is no such thing; the person is totally non-existent, empty.

When we follow a healthy, positive mind of compassion, bodhicitta, cherishing sentient beings and also loving kindness, that person doesn’t appear as harmful, bad or the enemy. With this view it doesn’t happen, because compassion would like that person to be free; we wish that person to be free from suffering. Great compassion is that we want to free sentient beings, whereas loving kindness is wanting that person to have happiness and great loving kindness is wanting to bring that.

With the view of bodhicitta we want to cherish that person, and we do not renounce cherishing that person. Just as we think we are so important and cherish ourselves now, in the same way, bodhicitta cherishes that person and lets go of cherishing the I. So, we don't reject the person; we keep them in our heart as the object to be cherished, because they are very precious.

And also with the positive mind of patience, we don’t renounce that person. With the view of patience, we see that person who was angry toward us and criticized us as most unbelievably kind and precious. Most precious and kind toward us. The anger and criticism is something which is of the utmost need for us. It is more important than a hundred thousand million dollars. So that person is not harming us; he or she is only helping to destroy our ego, our selfish mind, attachment, anger and so forth.

Without these, we can achieve ultimate happiness and enlightenment. So the angry person is giving us enlightenment, realizations and patience. Apart from patience, he is giving us enlightenment. Buddha and the guru teach us about patience, so we need to practice it, and in order to practice patience, we need somebody who has anger and harms us. We need that.

Therefore, a person’s anger does not harm us, but is the most beneficial thing for us to achieve enlightenment and to liberate numberless sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric sufferings, and bring them to full enlightenment. Therefore, this person having anger toward us and criticizing us is most unbelievably precious. He is the kindest, dearest one. More precious than billion, trillion, zillion dollars; more precious than even the wish-granting jewel.

Even if we have a wish-granting jewel, that doesn't give us enlightenment. A wish-granting jewel doesn't have anger, which makes us practice patience. It doesn't have suffering, so it can’t help us practice compassion. What it helps is only temporary happiness and enjoyment in this life; the material possessions that we need for this life.

Actually, the person who is angry and wants to harm us, if we use that person for Dharma practice, he is like a wish-granting jewel, fulfilling all our wishes. So, it is very powerful.

With the view of this positive mind of patience, the anger and harm from others becomes very, very positive. It is not bad, it is very positive and it becomes an utmost need and most beneficial.

With the view of the ego—the self-cherishing thought, attachment and anger—the person becomes harmful and bad. All these feelings are built up with the view of attachment and grasping, that is projected by exaggerating that it is nice and so forth. It's also the same with the view of anger, but all these are built on the basis of the object of ignorance, which is decorated by ignorance that is totally false and completely non-existent.

It is beneficial to find such a person who has anger and wants to harm us, and to use that to practice patience and generate compassion, bodhicitta and so forth. The other view is looking at the person as empty and using that to practice wisdom. This gives us a method to lead us to achieve enlightenment, so we can liberate numberless sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment.

So please, these are your meditations. There are very extensive teachings about patience, wisdom and many other things in the Bodhicaryavatara. So you can learn these things. There are also six techniques on patience from the Kadampa geshes. So, if I can find out I will send these to you.

Please study Dharma, meditate and make the best use of your life, using the human body. Use your life in this human body to achieve enlightenment; to do perfect work for all sentient beings. Use this body like a boat to cross over the ocean or river to get to the other side. Use this human body like a boat, to cross over the ocean of samsaric suffering and its cause—karma and delusions—to achieve liberation from samsara, and enlightenment.

Please try this. Thank you very, very much. After some months of practice, please let me know.

Please enjoy these cards. Look at these cards at least when your mind is upset or angry. The most holy stupa is called the All-encompassing Wish-fulfilling Stupa. Each time you look at this, it plants the seed of enlightenment. Even when you are dying, if you look at the stupa, you will never get reborn in the lower hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. So please keep this stupa, and maybe buy a good frame for it when you have some rupees.

With my love and prayer...