Possessed by Spirits

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter, I am sorry there wasn’t time to meet, but I read your letter and checked for you.

It comes out very good to have the Yamantaka peaceful fire puja done for you. This is something I can try to do when I am at Kopan.

It comes out best for you to walk around the Bodhgaya Stupa five hundred times and to make this strong prayer:

“May I recover and have a most meaningful life by actualizing the root of the path to enlightenment, correctly following the virtuous friend, seeing the guru as a buddha, having that realization and following the guru’s advice, and by actualizing renunciation, bodhicitta and right view, then having tantra realizations, both uncommon and common, in this lifetime.

"May I be able to generate bodhicitta in this life and may my life be most beneficial for sentient beings. May I be able to actualize the path to enlightenment without any difficulties.”

So, make very strong prayers and go around the stupa. While you are going around, either generate compassion for all sentient beings or generate devotion to Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Also recite OM MANI PADME HUM aloud, not keeping quiet while you recite. In your mind take full responsibility for liberating the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings; to liberate them from the oceans of samsara sufferings right now and bring them to enlightenment.

Think that the stupa is not only this holy object. Think it is numberless buddhas, Dharma and Sangha, and numberless statues, stupas and scriptures, which in essence are His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So every single statue, stupa, etc., is His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and this includes all the buddhas, Dharma, Sangha, statues, stupas and scriptures in the ten directions.

As you go around, visualize beams are emitted from the stupa to you and to all the sentient beings, and especially to you. Think this totally purifies your negative karma, sickness, spirit harm and obscurations collected from beginningless time.

Do this well after each time you go around the stupa, thinking you are totally purified. Please, please, if you can try this it would be so good, not just for sickness but for practice.

You also need to recite the Guhyasamaja root text four times. Unfortunately this is not yet translated into English. We only have phonetics, but hopefully it will be translated soon.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim and living your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...

You need:

• A peaceful fire puja: To be done by Geshe-la.

• Hayagriva Tsog Kong: To be done ten times at Sera Je Monastery. This one seems most important. To reduce the cost, you can count each monk doing the puja as one. That is a cheaper way of getting it done, otherwise to do it the full way, you would sponsor the puja ten different times, to be done by the whole group.

• If Khadro-la comes, she could come to your house and pacify, or she could send blessed water for you to sprinkle in the house, all over the house every day. This could be done in the morning and evening, every day, as long as it is blessed water. So that came out very good. Of course, if Khadro-la is able to come, that would be best.

• Request Namgyal Rinpoche, at Kopan Monastery, to recite the Mantra Promised by Arya Tara seven times, making strong prayers to Tara to pacify all spirit harm and [for you and your partner] to have a most meaningful life, to never to be reborn in the lower realms and to actualize enlightenment as quickly as possible.

I will send you the White Umbrella and Black Dzambala [protections] as well as a special square/number protection for everyone in the house to wear.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your message. It is not known yet in the West, but this is caused by spirits, which enter and use that person’s mind to kill them. For many people who are suicidal, it's caused by spirits influencing the mind, so then they do many things.

Usually there is some problem of attachment or self-cherishing thought—that person wants to get something but doesn’t get it, then along with that, there is spirit harm. Then the thought comes to commit suicide or there is paranoia, so these things happen. Also they can hear sounds. There is nothing there in reality, but still they hear the sound of another person. This is all to do with spirits.

I checked and your relative needs to have Most Secret Hayagriva torma pills that are crushed up and then burned, and then they should smell the smoke when it starts to happen.

Also, the Kangyur needs to be read for them. It’s best if that is done by Ganden Shartse Monastery in South India. If you can't afford to sponsor this, it could be checked if there are others who also need the Kangyur recited and they could help you. This is something you would need to discuss with the monastery.

This is what came out in my observation. I am also making prayers for her.

With much love and prayers ...

For the father who committed suicide, I suggest five nyung näs for the family there, to be done as a family group or by one person.

Also dedicate all the extensive merits, the past, present and future merits, dedicate all the merits for the father to be born immediately in Buddha’s pure land where he can achieve full enlightenment or at least have a perfect human rebirth and meet the Mahayana teachings and a perfect teacher who reveals the perfect, completed path, the unmistaken path, in order to achieve full enlightenment.

The family, or some of the family, can recite OM MANI PADME HUM 200,000 times. Visualize the father and all sentient beings in the heart. Think that they are totally purified of all the obscurations and negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths. Visualize that nectar beams, like sunbeams, are emitted from Guru Chenrezig. Recite the last prayer from the nyung nä text, that we recite after many prostrations, when kneeling. Recite that prayer for the father and the whole family.

Please tell the family whose father committed suicide that all those in the West don’t know it is spirit harm. The spirits occupied or possessed the mind of that person. You can see this, for example, when someone hangs themselves with rope, but it can happen in many different ways. In Japan there was a man standing at a train station and his mind was possessed by a spirit, so he heard a voice telling him to push the next person. Then he pushed the other person and they fell down, then the train came and that person was killed under the train. So it happens in all kinds of ways.

At Lawudo when I started the first monastery, which is now Kopan Monastery, at that time there were mostly young boys. One small boy monk heard his mother calling from outside, down below the window of the house. It was at night and everybody was asleep; it seems the calling was done by spirits. So he dressed up and went outside. It looked like there was a wide road and way down in the valley, called Mende, there was an old-style stupa, from where the road came up.

The monk saw that there was a very rich man coming up the road, riding on a horse which was well-decorated. Then suddenly there was a black man, I think the spirit, which suddenly ran away to the left side. The white man was coming up, so this is the country deva. There is huge rocky mountain on the left side of the cave and this is where the country deva resides. He was protecting the monk. Then the monk became conscious, and he arrived in the early morning outside the house where they slept.

The reasons to kill yourself, there is no essence, such a tiny reason, but the spirit makes you believe it’s very important.

Therefore, it is very important to always examine what thought comes. If something does not make much sense, by checking, then you can know a spirit possessed your mind, used your mind.

Normally we need strong refuge; we need to rely on Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and of course, our basic practice is to stop creating negative karma and to practice good karma. If we have some problem, such as strong attachment or something, then related to that, they harm us, but if our practice is stronger, then they can’t harm us. Even if the spirit wants to, they can’t harm us. Anyway, the best protection is bodhicitta.

Millions of maras tried to harm the Buddha—one million maras tried to harm him in so many hundreds of ways—but he became enlightened the next early morning, so then they couldn’t harm him. They tried to harm him, but the Buddha’s mind was living in loving kindness, so all the million maras were completely defeated and he was enlightened completely.

For the boy, please explain the whole story—to the family and to the boy as well. He should get the Most Secret Hayagriva torma initiation and practice this every day and recite the mantra. He needs to totally rely on that enlightened being and to be compassionate like the ocean toward every sentient being, and to complete all the realizations, all the understanding.

Why is the deity wrathful? It is wrathful toward our selfish mind and ignorance, which is the source of all the obstacles and all the suffering of samsara. This precious human life is short and we can die at any time, but cheating is harmful. We believe we are always going to live for a very long time, therefore we need to practice the holy Dharma correctly. So we should study the holy Dharma. That is most important. We have a short life and we have to make it most useful.

For limitless number sentient beings, then our life naturally becomes meaningful.

Please tell the family this.

Please read the sutra Entering the Great City of Vaishali so your daughter can hear it. Whenever you see some kind of spirit harm, this sutra should be read loudly.

There is one protection that I will make and send to you. It is the protection Liberation from Bondage of Body, Speech and Mind. Your daughter needs to wear it.

You should read the Golden Light Sutra for yourself and your daughter and also for the whole world, to pacify all sufferings, to bring perfect peace and happiness, and to purify all sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.

When your daughter is possessed by spirits, you should visualize her as Tara and all the buddhas and bodhisattvas in the form of Tara absorb into her. So, you can do that visualization.