Please try these Tibetan precious pills:
- Rinchen Nyung Yin: Take five of these in total, with four days between each pill.
- Moon Crystal: take four of these in total, with three days between taking each pill.
Rinpoche gave this advice for a student who had a stroke.
Please try these Tibetan precious pills:
Rinpoche sent this mind training advice to a student who was quadriplegic.
My most dear most precious, most kind wish-fulfilling one,
I received your kind letter and offering. I want to say thank you so much, so much, so much!
I’m here after coming from Mongolia and Russia. There were more than one thousand people who came to the teachings in Mongolia and Kalmykia, Russia, and in Moscow there were around eight hundred people at the teachings.
I wanted to chat with you about what you are experiencing and how to think. By experiencing this present suffering of not being able to walk—having no freedom to walk and all the things that you are experiencing physically—you can think that all of this is the result of your past karma. It could be from this life or past lives before this, even a billion, zillion, numberless eons ago. Think that this is a very positive experience, because by experiencing the suffering in this life all the heavy suffering that you would have to experience in the hell realms for so many eons is purified. So by experiencing this now you don’t have to suffer in the future, and it will be like the sun shining—there will be so much happiness, greater and greater happiness in each life up to enlightenment (Tib: sang gye).
It is said by Lama Atisha’s follower, Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa:
By experiencing this small suffering now,
It finishes the past lives’ delusion and karma
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice in this present suffering.
This means that the present suffering, experiencing the problems now, is actually giving us greater happiness and freedom in the future. Greater happiness is like the sun shining that goes up to enlightenment—liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering, and buddhahood, the peerless happiness. So in reality, this suffering now is unbelievable, because it will give us ultimate freedom.
Panchen Shakya Shri mentioned:
When I am happy, I dedicate my happiness for all sentient beings to collect merit:
“May they receive skies of peace and happiness.”
When I encounter suffering, I take that suffering upon myself:
“May the oceans of suffering of sentient beings dry up.”
In this way we take the suffering of all beings on ourselves, on the self-cherishing thought. Why? Because it is the self-cherishing thought that has caused us to suffer from beginningless rebirths; this is what has caused us to be reborn in samsara up to now. If we don’t practice Dharma—renunciation, bodhicitta and right view, the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness—then we can’t cease the seed of delusion and karma. If we don’t purify the cause of suffering, we have to experience the oceans of samsaric suffering endlessly, again and again.
The self-cherishing thought is our worst enemy, the greatest demon. There is no demon outside; only the inner demon, the self-cherishing thought. Without the inner demon there is no outer enemy. So, if there’s no self-cherishing thought, there’s no inner or outer enemy. Therefore, we need to take all the sentient beings’ sufferings onto the self-cherishing thought, thinking, “May the oceans of suffering be dried up.” This means we take every sentient being’s suffering.
This is the best thing to pray for, thinking that by experiencing this physical suffering now, may all the sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras and asura beings—be free from all the diseases, spirit harms, negative karmas and defilements. So think, “May all the numberless sentient beings who right now are experiencing the same problem that I have or worse, and all those who will experience this in the future, be free from all the delusions and karmic obscurations and achieve buddhahood right now.”
This is a very, very, very good way to think, to use the situation. This was Choje Gotsangpa’s advice. It means that we experience all sentient beings’ spirit harm, sickness, negative karmas and defilements, so they can be free from everything and achieve enlightenment, the peerless happiness, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all realizations.
If you can, do even a mala of this. Think:
By my experiencing this suffering now,
May all sentient beings be free from negative karma and defilements, spirit harm and sickness,
And may they achieve buddhahood right now.
If you can, think like this while meditating in the morning time, afternoon and evening time. Do even more if you can; that would be so good. This is the best way to achieve inner happiness. Cherishing other sentient beings causes greater inner happiness.
Please read my advice on tonglen and watch the teaching I gave at Root Institute earlier this year if you can.
In general, regarding tonglen, you can think, “Whatever I experience, the suffering and so forth, with that I take on all others’ suffering and dedicate my body, possessions and merits to all sentient beings.” First receive the suffering and the cause of suffering, every obscuration. Then think, “I am so lucky each time I take the suffering of sentient beings on my self-cherishing thought.” Then give charity to sentient beings of your body, possessions and merits collected from beginningless time. By doing this you create skies of merit. This is the most powerful purification and the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. Think, “I am the most fortunate one.” This causes real happiness. This is the greatest cause of success.
Please take care with bodhicitta. Thank you very much. Live your life with bodhicitta as much as possible, in order to free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to buddhahood. For that, you need to achieve enlightenment.
I am sending you some books and also the Golden Light Sutra and Arya Sanghata Sutra. If you can, read a little each day from the sutras and in this way you can slowly finish each sutra. Then start again and continue like this. Just keep doing it continually, even if you read just a little each day.
With much love and prayers ...
A student who had translated Rinpoche’s teachings and books was having health problems, including issues with their eyesight and possible paralysis on one side of the body. In this long letter, Rinpoche explains how to transform problems by practicing tonglen (taking the suffering of others and giving them happiness.)
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I heard how much hard work you have done, translating so many of my teachings into books, as well as translating during my time. I’m so happy, I’m so happy. You made me so happy.
Even at other times you put effort and your time into translating my teachings. In that way it could be a sign of purification, even if you have paralysis. We are the same; you are my friend as I have taken paralysis from a stroke ten years ago. That happened in Bendigo where we built a stupa the same as Gyantse Stupa in Tibet. How many stories high, I don’t know, but it’s a big one, the same size, only the statues are different.
In Tibet, the statues are mostly from the lower tantra. Even I don’t know how many of those statues here [at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia] will come from the Highest Yoga Tantra deities, Kalachakra, Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka, White Dzambhala, Vajrayogini, all those, Kurukulla and so forth. Also, Twenty-one Taras, eight Medicine Buddhas, Thirty-five Buddhas, Thousand-arm Chenrezig, all those; there are many.
There’ll be a Kalachakra mandala constructed, and the Kalachakra deity, like that. Already in the gompa there’s a Jade Buddha, maybe one story high or more. It’s jade, even the stone is jade. Then there’s a Padmasambhava statue, gold-leafed, a big one, and maybe Buddha Ksitigarbha, and the Kalachakra mandala on the ceiling with lights coming from the back side.
Yes, there are so many mantras and meditations, but I didn’t get them done. Also my guru told me to do purification, but I didn’t get much done; I’m so lazy and careless. The paralysis didn’t go away, so it’s there, I think telling me to be careful.
I want to tell you that when the purification happens by practicing Dharma, that’s the best quality purification. I say it’s the best, because if you don’t experience anything in this life and if that karma is very heavy, then you will be reborn in the lower realms and experience suffering there for so many eons, like that.
However, due to Dharma practice you experience all that heavy negative karma in this life. Instead of being reborn in the lower realms, it manifests in this life as some sickness or catastrophe, or something like cancer or a stroke or virus, things like that, and then it’s finished. You don’t need to get reborn in the lower realms and experience so much suffering for eons. You don’t need that; it’s finished by experiencing it as some catastrophe or sickness in this life. Then in the future life there will be so much happiness, just like the sun shining. The sun is just one, but so many animals and humans enjoy it in the world.
It is mentioned by the Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa,
Even the present little suffering finishes the bad karma of the past, and in the future life there will be happiness. Therefore rejoice in the suffering.
It means we can think that by experiencing this suffering now, we will get happiness [in the future], so then we can rejoice in that. The mind feels happy by thinking that. He said this is how we should think and practice, using the present situation, the sickness, as a path to happiness.
Then the other one, the next one, we get reborn in the lower realms for just one second or it could be for one day, one hour or one minute, or we see somehow it’s lighter and shorter. We don’t have to experience being reborn in the lower realms and remaining there for many eons; we don’t need that. Like that, there are different levels of purification. So it’s very important to recognize this is the effect of our Dharma practice, our purification, great purification.
The great Kagyu holy being, the great yogi Choje Gotsangpa advised that when we have sickness or any problem, to think,
By my experiencing this sickness or whatever the problem is,
May I be the substitute for the sentient beings and experience their sickness and problems.
May they immediately become free from all the sickness, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements (and I add)
And may they achieve buddhahood, enlightenment.
He is saying that whatever problem we’re experiencing, whatever we have, think it has become all sentient beings’ problems. Whatever it is, think we’re taking all the sentient beings’ problems and sickness. So we make our sickness or stroke or whatever most beneficial, most worthwhile.
Sentient beings are numberless, hell beings are numberless, hungry ghosts are numberless, animals are numberless, humans are numberless, suras are numberless, asuras are numberless. So the stroke or whatever, the sickness, is experienced for every sentient being.
This is all sentient beings’ suffering and we experience it on their behalf. We experience it for them voluntarily and let them be free from all the sickness, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements, free from sickness or whatever the problem is.
By experiencing the sentient beings’ suffering it becomes the path to enlightenment. Sorry, by experiencing the problem in that way, it becomes the path to enlightenment. Not just ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, but the highest, peerless happiness, buddhahood. That means it becomes the [cause of] happiness for all the sentient beings, even enlightenment, so it’s really unbelievable, wow.
Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing! We transform that, so it becomes most meaningful and most beneficial. Before, it caused so much worry because of cherishing the I and we were just creating the cause of samsara and the lower realm sufferings. That’s because there’s attachment involving our own body and we dislike that, so our mind made it painful.
The next advice, the most precious, is more precious than the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels. Even if we have that many [wish-fulfilling jewels] it doesn’t make us free from the lower realms, to not be reborn in the lower realms, to not suffer, it doesn’t do that. It doesn’t free us from samsara, it doesn’t free us from the lower nirvana, liberation from samsara; it doesn’t free us so we can attain enlightenment for sentient beings; it doesn’t free us so we can free the sentient beings from samsara by ourselves and bring them to enlightenment by ourselves, it doesn’t do that.
But this one, where we voluntarily experience the suffering on behalf of all sentient beings, then we experience happiness, so much joy, unbelievable, unbelievable happiness and the more we see sentient beings as kind, precious, most dear, and wish-fulfilling. Therefore skies of wish-fulfilling jewels are nothing compared to the value of this suffering, the problem that we have.
Regarding the wish-fulfilling jewel, some bodhisattvas, the wheel-turning kings who have unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merit find the wish-fulfilling jewel, then they clean it in three ways and put it on top of a banner on the roof. [With a wish-fulfilling jewel] whatever we pray for, any temporal needs in this life, whatever we pray for, it just gets materialized in the next second. So then how many helicopters we need, how many jewel palaces we need, how many jet airplanes we need, anything, any temporal needs for this life, this is mainly because of the unbelievable merit we have and the condition is this jewel. It has this power. It is much more precious than a diamond or sapphire. Among the external jewels this wish-granting jewel is the most important rare jewel.
So you can recite [the quotation, in the same way you recite] OM MANI PADME HUM, even for the whole day or for several hours, much of the time during the day. You can make sessions in your daily life and recite this quotation with a mala. Think,
By my experiencing this sickness, may all the sentient beings be free from suffering, may they be free from so many problems, spirit harm, negative karma and defilements, and may they achieve enlightenment.
Keep on reciting this and think that this is the happiest life. In this way, each moment of your life is dedicated for sentient beings, and your life becomes unbelievably precious, more precious than a sky filled with wish-granting jewels.
There are many words about tonglen, such as:
Whatever suffering the sentient beings have, may it be ripened on me;
Whatever happiness and merit I have, may it ripen on all the sentient beings.
That means numberless sentient beings, numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras, and numberless asuras.
I just want to elaborate on the extraordinary kindness of sentient beings, just in case you don’t know. You need this understanding first as a basis to be able to practice tonglen, cherishing the sentient beings and giving up the self-cherishing thought, the I.
For example, the person who doesn’t love you, who is angry with you and always complains about you behind [your back], even though they might say nice words in front of you, whoever you call enemy, by your self-cherishing thought, by attachment, by your anger, that which your mind calls enemy, it is not done with a mind of bodhicitta and it’s not done with the mind of the wisdom realizing emptiness or omniscience. When your mind becomes omniscient, there’s no way, and even on the path [you understand] that the enemy is obscured and suffering in nature.
So by depending on that person, compassion arises, and from compassion, great compassion arises, and from great compassion, then bodhicitta arises, then bodhisattvas arise, and then from bodhisattvas, Buddha arises, and from Buddha, there’s Buddha’s holy action arising. Buddha has two holy actions: one is only by the Buddha’s own mind and one is within us. Our virtuous thoughts are Buddha’s holy actions, therefore, they are the Buddha’s holy actions.
From the virtuous thoughts, which are the Buddha’s holy actions, from there, all the past, present, and future merits happened from beginningless rebirths. Then from there, all our happiness from beginningless rebirths, now and in the future, including enlightenment—everything comes. Therefore our happiness from beginningless rebirths up to now, including enlightenment, everything comes from that person we call “enemy,” who doesn’t love us, who’s angry or criticizes us, who harms with the body or whatever.
For example, land. If we have land we can grow food, build a house, we can do many things, whatever we want, so land is considered very precious.
Also as an example, you can think that money is so precious and everybody works for money. “Everybody” means all the people in the world, the majority of people who look for money, who spend their life making money, because if you have money then you can get what you want. If you have one dollar you can get something by paying one dollar. Or if you have a hundred dollars, that much you can get what you need. Or one million dollars, you can pay that much and you get that much, what you need. Like that, it goes on, therefore money is regarded as very precious and everyone works for money, except those who practice holy Dharma. There are many examples like this.
So from this sentient being whom we call enemy, from that person, our happiness from beginningless rebirth, now and in the future, including enlightenment, comes. All the qualities of Buddha, limitless like the sky, the limitless qualities of Buddha’s holy body, holy speech and holy mind, all that, that people study in the monastery for a lifetime, all those qualities comes from there.
That means Dharma comes from Buddha, so all the Dharma, all the qualities of realization, the Lesser Vehicle path, the Mahayana sutra and Mahayana tantra, all the qualities of the arhats and the bodhisattvas, all those qualities come from that sentient being. The arhats have unbelievable, unbelievable qualities and psychic powers. Higher bodhisattvas have unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable qualities.
From within the ten bhumis, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth, there are those higher bodhisattvas whose qualities we can’t imagine, who can see so clearly all the atoms of a mountain, who can see very clearly. So like that, it’s amazing, amazing, amazing! All those amazing qualities come from ordinary bodhisattvas and what we’re going to achieve comes from that sentient being whom we call enemy. So this person is the most precious and most kind for us, the most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling for us.
That means one ant, one mosquito, the tiniest fly, the tiniest sentient being that lives in water that we can only see through a machine, every single sentient being—there are numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, like the examples I gave, every single human being, every single sura and asura being—and there are numberless universes, not only this one. I’m not talking about only one, but every single sentient being, as I mentioned before.
All our happiness from beginningless rebirths, now and in the future, including enlightenment, all the qualities of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, what we’re going to achieve, all comes from this, from each sentient being. And what exists now, all comes from numberless buddhas, Dharma, Sangha; it all comes from the kindness of each sentient being.
Not only that, even the numberless statues, so now the numberless buddhas, numberless Dharma, numberless Sangha, everything comes from every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, from every single ant, every single mosquito, those tiniest flies, as I mentioned, those suras and asuras, every single human, so everyone is most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling, everyone.
And not only that, the numberless statues, stupas, scriptures, for ordinary beings we cannot see buddhas directly at the moment, so they manifest in the statues, stupas, and scriptures. Since we cannot see Buddha, these give us the opportunity to purify our mind and collect merit, to achieve the graduated realizations of the lamrim and to achieve enlightenment, to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring every sentient being to enlightenment by ourselves.
These are the benefits that we get from them. This is the most unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable practice, the best practice.
So the point is to understand how sentient beings are most kind, and also how holy objects, thangkas and statues of Buddha are so precious for us, the sentient beings.
In the Sutra of the Mudra Entering, Generating the Power of Devotion, Buddha said,
“Jampel (Manjugosha), any girl or boy of the race”—that could be Mahayana race—“offering to all the solitary realizer arhats equaling the number of dust [particles] or atoms of all the universes for the number of eons equaling the number of sand grains in the Ganges or the Pacific Ocean, so every day offering one hundred tastes of the devas’ food to that many solitary realizer arhats,”—who collect more merits than the hearer-listener arhats—“Jampel, any son or daughter of the race, by just seeing a painting of the Buddha or the form”—which means a statue—“this collects numberless greater merits than that offering of divine food made to the solitary realizer arhats.”
As I’ve explained above, by just seeing a painting or a drawing of the Buddha or the form, a statue, you collect numberless greater merits.
“And if you put your palms together to those holy objects or offer flowers, incense or lights”—these are just examples, there are other examples of offerings—“there’s no question you collect numberless greater merits than just seeing a painting or a statue of the Buddha.”
It is mentioned in a sutra, the Victorious One said that by hearing, seeing or making offerings we accumulate a huge heap of limitless merit and we abandon all the sufferings of samsara caused by delusion. All this causative phenomena doesn’t get wasted.
In another sutra, Konchog Tsepa, the Sutra of the Heap of Jewels, it is mentioned in Nyingma texts, from the text Showing the Qualities of the Field of Manjugosha,1 all the phenomena are a condition, up to the tip of the wishes. Anyone who makes the prayers [of aspiration], like that, the result will be achieved.
So all this came from sentient beings’ kindness, even the person you call enemy, who you get angry with, upset with, and beat or harm with your body, speech and mind. It’s incredible, besides the skies of kindness I mentioned before. Now here, the benefits we get from holy objects all came from this sentient being that we call enemy, so it is nothing.
I want to tell you one thing. The self-cherishing thought, the I, the self-cherishing thought, the thought cherishing that, causes us to suffer from beginningless rebirths in samsara. We are reincarnated in the six realms, one after another, then we are suffering again and again, experiencing the same suffering again. It’s most unbelievable, unbelievable, from beginningless rebirths, not just one time.
Then again in this life, if again we don’t practice Dharma, bodhicitta, then the self-cherishing thought causes us to create negative karma and suffer. It doesn’t let us realize renunciation, bodhicitta, emptiness, and it makes us suffer without end. We reincarnate and suffer in samsara without end. Wow, wow, wow. Similarly, we experience suffering numberless times again. Wow, wow, wow, wow.
Not only that, it causes harm to numberless sentient beings—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings, and it makes them to suffer.
Not only now but it’s happened since beginningless rebirths. If we don’t practice Dharma, if we don’t practice bodhicitta in this life, then we continuously follow the self-cherishing thought, which harms numberless sentient beings again and makes them suffer without end.
So now the [COVID19] virus or cancer, or for you, possible paralysis, all this is caused by the self-cherishing thought. What created the cause is the self-cherishing thought; the self-cherishing thought caused all the sickness and suffering. So actually for us ordinary beings who are worried about stopping the virus, cancer, life-threatening disease and so forth, actually the sickness is harming the real I, the this truly existent I, the I existing from its own side, by its own nature, the real I. It is harming that, the self-cherishing thought.
What appeared to that I and is believed by ignorance to be true, so it has harmed to that self-cherishing thought. Why we have so much worry is because it’s harming to the self-cherishing thought. So in reality that’s exactly right, that’s exactly right, actually it’s destroying the cancer, the virus, the stroke, all this, all this.
It’s exactly to harm your enemy, the self-cherishing thought which has harmed not only us from beginningless rebirths and endlessly in samsara, not only that, but every hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, asura being—every sentient being is harmed, also our enemy.
So all this, the virus, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, paralysis is to destroy the self-cherishing thought. It’s exactly what is needed to destroy our enemy, it’s exactly what is needed. This is the best thing, what is needed, the best thing, the happiest thing, the happiest thing in the life.
If you don’t know this, then you’re not on the wisdom side, you’re on the ignorant side, the side of the self-cherishing thought, the side of the ignorance. You totally create suffering, you suffer, you create suffering for yourself and it totally doesn’t make sense.
It’s just like putting our finger in the fire and then screaming, “It’s burning! The fire is burning me!” It’s just like that. We say “It’s burning me,” and we jump up and down while we’re keeping our finger in the fire instead of taking it out. Right? It’s like that. Our whole life becomes like that. For ordinary beings, our whole life becomes like that. It doesn’t make sense, it’s totally silly.
All this explanation is the basis of the tonglen practice. Please read my advice about tonglen practice also.
Lastly, I’m giving you one mantra. If you have paralysis, you must recite this mantra, so it helps you to not get paralysis again. If you have a stroke again, it is more difficult to recover. You can get a stroke again and again many times, depending on your karma. So if you have one stroke you must recite this mantra seven times each day. Then you will never get the stroke again.
OM TONBOLLI TONBOLLI SUR SUR ME ME SHIG SHIG SVAHA
This was taught by my own guru, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, in his past life. So just seven times per day. There are many methods for strokes, so if other methods come out, I will send them to you.
Again, I want to thank you very much for translating my garbage words that are called teachings and all my Dharma books, and that you have benefited many people with so much. Thank you a billion, trillion, zillion times.
With much love and prayers ...
1 The Heap of Jewels [Skt: Ratnakuta] is a compilation of 49 Mahayana Buddhist sutras. One of the sutras in this collection is The Array of Virtues of Manjushri’s Buddha Realm. Go to 84000.co to find this collection of sutras. [Return to text]
A student wrote that they had Bell’s palsy and tumors in their breast and lungs. Rinpoche recommended tonglen practice.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind email. I checked and it comes out best if you can recite Most Secret Hayagriva mantra: four malas every day.
You also need a puja called chab trü (washing ritual with blessed water) and for Geshe-la to do this, to wash normally your head. You need it nine times from Geshe-la. It is commonly known by the Tibetans that it is very helpful, so do that.
The other practice that came out for you to do is tonglen practice.
There is one very old student, Ueli, who is from Switzerland and now lives in Mongolia. When he came to Nepal a few years ago, he had very high blood pressure. Even before he came, it was high but then in Nepal it got very, very high, so he asked me what to do. I told him to do tonglen, and every time he did tonglen his blood pressure definitely went down. For him this was proof; it definitely went down after doing tonglen for half an hour.
From this you can understand the importance of tonglen. There are no side effects from tonglen—so many medicines have many side effects, but with tonglen there are none. For example, even if you die, with tonglen you will never be reborn in the lower realms. Tonglen causes bodhicitta and that causes you to be born in the pure land of Buddha.
Kadampa Geshe Chekawa had been praying every day to be born in the hells, to suffer there for the sake of other sentient beings. He was sincerely praying very much for that to happen. But what happened was that when it was the time for him to die, instead of going to the hell realm he had the appearance of the pure land. When this happened, he told his attendant that he didn’t succeed in his prayers, as he sincerely wanted to be born in hell and suffer for sentient beings, but then at the time of death he had the appearance of the pure land. So that happened to him as a result of tonglen.
Also Fred from Singapore, who was a commander in the army. His wife suddenly died, even though she was very young and after that I told him to become a monk. Recently when he was in Singapore, he met someone who had cancer and he advised that person to do tonglen. Later they completely recovered from cancer. So you have to know these things. They are factual stories.
My advice for you is to do tonglen. This is the best; this is very good, incredible. You can find more advice on this practice here.
You can do tonglen yourself and also explain to other people, but of course it’s best to know the lamrim first. Then on the basis of lamrim you can see the purpose of doing tonglen and you will want to do it. Unless someone already has a good heart, it is difficult.
When we take on the suffering of even one sentient being or somebody who is very sick, we take on the whole entire suffering, not only the sickness and the cause of suffering, so that brings us to enlightenment. Then of course there are numberless sentient beings in the six realms—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings—so we take all their sufferings and causes. It’s amazing, amazing. That makes it even faster for us to achieve enlightenment.
The self-cherishing thought is the main obstacle to achieving enlightenment for sentient beings. So to serve the sentient beings, we take others’ suffering on our heart and give it to the self-cherishing thought, the great demon, the self-cherishing thought. That is totally against the self-cherishing thought, so that is very good, the best, the most pure Dharma practice, bodhicitta practice.
Then we give our body, next we give our enjoyments, and next we give our three-time merits, the cause of all the happiness up to enlightenment. Giving to even one sentient being—when we give our body and make charity of that, or even our hat or our jacket, dedicating it with the thought of giving—what we renounce is attachment. We give sincerely, not politically or to experience something in return. That is not really giving, so if we give properly like that, it brings us to enlightenment more quickly.
The Buddha said:
Any sentient being, who during my teachings,
Makes charity well, (even if the material is the size of a hair,)
For 80,000 eons will have the good result of great enjoyments.
They will have a beautiful and healthy body, enjoy happiness and have control over wealth.
At the end, they will also achieve the result of peerless enlightenment.
Having heard there is such a great result, who would not want to collect merit?
It is incredible, incredible, and it brings us to enlightenment. So now here we are giving to numberless sentient beings in each realm and we are getting so much closer to enlightenment—wow, wow, wow—we are giving our past, present and future merits. This is the cause of all the happiness, so it is incredible; this is the best practice for us ordinary beings. That itself is the biggest puja.
Regarding giving away, we have so much attachment, miserliness, so giving away to sentient beings is so good, especially if it is done with bodhicitta.
Then when we take the suffering, that is totally against self-cherishing thought, which is the worst enemy of bodhicitta, so we totally destroy the self-cherishing thought.
Please read the section [of the lamrim] on the kindness of sentient beings—how all our past, present and future happiness is received from every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura and asura, and every intermediate state being. It is so important to know that and to meditate on that; knowing how other sentient beings are most kind, most precious, most dear and wish-fulfilling for us.
Remember how we receive all the happiness from every sentient being. All our past, present and future happiness is received from every sentient being, and every sentient being has been our mother and kind. To really understand this, we need to read the lamrim and really meditate on it.
Of course, we also need to understand how samsara is in the nature of suffering and we need to develop renunciation, then bodhicitta. So we need to have more understanding of the graduated path of the lower capable being, basically from the perfect human rebirth. So please read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. That will help you very much, and then you will be able to do tonglen effectively.
Even when death is happening, as I mentioned about Kadampa Geshe Chekawa, like that, so it is better to go to the pure land, than to live in the suffering world and the pure land is, of course, for the benefit of sentient beings.
Please try like this and live your life every moment, day and night and in every action, with the thought of bodhicitta. This is the best life.
With much love and prayers ...
A student’s vocal cord was paralyzed and over time this had resulted in a weak, high-pitched voice and difficulty swallowing. A recent operation had enabled swallowing, but the student’s voice was now very squeaky and hoarse.
My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
I am very sorry for the long delay.
I checked and you need the puja called ga gön. If you can, request one of the geshes to do this for you. You can explain this is what came out in my observation, and that you need it done.
You also need to drink mantra water. I will make this for you and send it to you. Generate bodhicitta motivation and while drinking the water you should visualize the Buddha powerfully blessing you. Visualize the water as completely blessed energy purifying all the four things: negative karma, disease, spirit harm and obscurations. You should feel that your body is totally filled with blissful purifying energy. Concentrate on that and at the end make strong dedications.
You need to have the Padmasambhava incense puja [Tib: nolsang] done.
You also need to wear two protection amulets: Dzambhala protection and Namgyalma protection.
Please, every day if you can, do the morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).
This is my advice at this time. Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night and in every action you do.
With much love and prayers ...
Rinpoche sent this letter to a student with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis.
My dearest one,
I have checked, and gur-gum, ༼གུར་ཀུམ་/གུར་གུམ་༽ , [Tibetan medicine] comes out very beneficial for you now.
Please enjoy the life with the thought of benefiting others and emptiness, because you received teachings on emptiness for quite a number of years—even now, Geshe Sopa Rinpoche mentioned this many times. He mentioned non-inherent existence so many times even in one day. Maybe Geshe Sopa Rinpoche may have mentioned it probably many million times, one hundred million times.