Migtsema Retreat

Migtsema Retreat

Date of Advice:
January 1970
Date Posted:
January 2014

Rinpoche sent this hand-written card to a student who had written about his meditation experience while doing retreat. [Lightly edited by Sandra Smith.]

My most dear Tony,
How are you? The letter that you sent to me explains the experience of the meditation through the migtsema retreat. That effect is the real blessing of Guru Lama Tsongkhapa, so your meditation highly worked and was beneficial. That is exactly what is supposed to happen. So this experience is a billion times better than winning the Olympics!

You are so fortunate, this is like finding a wish-granting jewel, so develop this continuously, meditate on Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, and don’t forget this feeling you developed. Stabilize it, then you will be able to generate all the realizations of lam-rim meditation, the three principal aspects of the path and the two stages. Your feeling, your experience—that is exactly what is supposed to happen.

As I mentioned before, winning an Olympic medal is nothing, but this is most meaningful, more precious than finding a wish-fulfilling jewel—even if you have that, it cannot stop rebirth in the lower realms; from that you can’t achieve higher rebirth and it can’t make you achieve liberation. You cannot achieve full enlightenment from the wish-granting jewel and you cannot liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, as much as possible, keep [doing] the meditation. When you meditate on the perfect human rebirth, renunciation of this life, renunciation of the next life, bodhicitta, emptiness, all those meditations, without much hardship all those experiences will happen.

Hope to see you soon...