Offering Thanks

Student's Letter

I want to say many thanks to you and all of the educators at FPMT. The lessons that I learned and put into practice have helped me greatly. My family had just encountered a series of difficult events. The person I was before would not have been able to handle the situation very well, but after following your teachings and putting them into practice I am able to better keep things together emotionally, for the sake of my children and wife. I still catch myself crying from time to time, but I am much better off than I was before meeting you. Thank you for everything you do.

Rinpoche's Response

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much your kind letter. I am so happy that this helped your life so much. I am so happy that it helped you and I thank you billions of times. Please continue and that can help you. If you are not having problems yourself, then you don’t bring others any problems; you don’t harm others and you bring peace and happiness to others. As well as having peace and happiness yourself, you bring peace and happiness to others and to the whole world. So thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

Amituofo,
I’m not sure who to write to. I read Lama Zopa’s replies to people looking for jobs, to read/copy the Sanghata Sutra. I copied this advice for someone and within three months, she found a job! She was jobless for one year. The confidence and motivation this great news gave me is indescribable. Thank you, Lama Zopa and all who upkeep FPMT and the buddhas.

Amituofo,
Helen

Dear Lama Zopa was the title of a book I read some years ago. That book, I believe, was the best thing that had/has happened to me in my whole life. Suddenly, everything fell into the right places. The hopelessly distorted world that I could neither understand nor adapt to, was magically transformed and “straightened” by your words.

As if for the first time in my life someone said that right things were right and wrong things were wrong. I felt such a relief. Before, it was always the other way round: right things were wrong, and wrong things were right. Non-virtue was considered to be virtue, and virtue appeared to be something one must be ashamed of. It was very confusing.

Since then, I’ve read more books of yours. Each of them was exactly like the first one: the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. They all were like a medicine, healing my own mind and the world around me at the same time.

Thank you.

Dearest Rinpoche,
I pray you are doing well. I just wanted to say thank you for the lessons that you continue to teach us. Watching the video of you laughing in the hospital and seeing the picture of Ven. Holly helping you and holding your arm and hand up in the mudra of prostration warmed my heart and made me realize just how many obstacles my “self-cherishing I” creates in my life—“I don’t feel like practicing, I am too tired; I had a hard day at work; I want to get some extra sleep.” Nothing but excuses!

It also made me think of something you said at Milarepa Center. I will not be able to correctly quote you, but I remember it as, “When we don’t study Dharma, it is as if Buddha is calling us on the phone and we tell him we are too busy to take his call.”

Thank you for being here, for teaching us so many lessons with your actions, for caring so much for all of us. I hope I am fortunate to see you again in this lifetime. Regardless of whether you are close or far, you are always in my heart.

Much love, my precious guru...

My dearest Rinpoche,
Along with thousands and thousands and thousands of others around the world, I am sending you much love and many prayers. Your teachings have brought me so much peace, have made me a better person in this lifetime and have helped me to (hopefully) help others.

Precious guru, I hope I am fortunate enough to see you again soon. Thank you for all you do for all sentient beings. You are an inspiration.

Much Dharma love...

Dear Lama Zopa,
I am writing to express my deepest gratitude to you, the lineage lamas and the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Teachings [FPMT]. In your teachings and the teachings of this lineage, I have found the most precious jewel that is purifying my obscurations and cultivating bodhicitta in this transient and illusory life.

I first took refuge in 1991 and I have been practicing ever since. My practice has been totally pathetic at times and deeply transformative at other times. I have mainly practiced in the Nyingma tradition, and have had the good fortune to meet the most profound teachings in the tradition of Longchenpa and Dudjom. I am very close to completing the accumulations of ngön-dro.

Early on in my learning of Buddhism, I came across the writings of Langri Tangpa and Shantideva, and I hold these teachings the closest to my heart; I put my faith and trust in the teachings of these two masters more than any other. The teachings of Langri Tangpa and Shantideva are my supreme guide.

Now I have come across the FPMT mandala and Sangha here in the San Francisco Bay Area and your teachings. I feel like I have found my true home! I am so deeply inspired by the focus on bodhicitta, compassion for all sentient beings—my precious mothers in the six realms of cyclic existence. I came across The Everflowing Nectar of Bodhicitta in an FPMT practice book and have been practicing this daily. This is now my core practice. The combination of Chenrezig, the yi-dam [meditational deity] I feel closest connection with, along with Langri Tangpa’s Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, the ground of all wisdom and inspiration for me, is profoundly meaningful. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this sublime practice.

Indeed, deepening and widening compassion for all sentient beings in the six realms is my path. I know that the only way I can truly relieve the suffering of mother sentient beings is by actualizing buddhahood. This is the most important thing to me in life. I am finding that your teachings are providing the guidance and inspiration needed for me to realize this aspiration. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

About seven years ago, due to the increasing awareness of suffering of animals, I became vegetarian, and two years ago, vegan. I volunteer at a wildlife rehabilitation center to help injured and orphaned animals. For my work, I am fortunate to be employed as a hospice chaplain, providing spiritual and emotional support to people who are dying. I feel so fortunate to have so many ways to show compassion to others. Now I have found your teachings and the FPMT Sangha, and that supports and gives even greater meaning to these endeavors. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am inspired to write to you to express my deepest, heartfelt gratitude to you and the FPMT for transforming and supporting my practice and guiding me on this life’s journey of ever-deepening bodhicitta, onwards to buddhahood. I will never be able to repay your kindness. I pray that any karmic hindrances to the fulfillment of your highest aspirations ripen in me, and I give all the merit I have accumulated in this and every life.

Deepest blessings and auspiciousness to you,

Robert