Post-September 11

Post-September 11

Date Posted:
November 2005

Shortly after the September 11 attack in the USA, Rinpoche sent the following letter to a businessman in Hong Kong.

My very dear Ronnie,
How are you? What a terrible thing happened in New York. According to the news, there was a terrorist attack. It seems they planned to commit this unbelievable destruction that killed so many thousands of people who were in those buildings, and also those who were in the airplanes. According to the news, there was a man on one of the planes that was hijacked who got suspicious. He was able to ring his wife on his cell phone, and told her he was going to try and stop the hijackers, with some other men on the plane. Then, suddenly the message stopped. The phone went silent, so something must have happened. He may have tried to interfere with the hijackers, which would have prevented the plane from crashing into possibly the White House or Camp David. Instead, the plane crashed to the ground in a forest.

The other solution in order not to receive harm, like this or any other kind, is to purify the past karma of having harmed others and abstain from doing it again.

The ultimate solution to prevent enemies from harming the world is to change their minds from anger into loving kindness and compassion, and to help them eliminate their delusions completely, even the seed, which is the imprint of the delusion. Only then can they stop harming others completely. And, of course, there is no question that this helps them to have stable realizations of compassion and loving kindness.

Even if the body is destroyed, completely disintegrated, the body is just the house for the mind, so the mind still exists. The mind continues to take different forms, so it can be harmed again and again. You harm others and they harm you back, and it goes on like this, and there is no end to the suffering. Therefore, it becomes very important, an urgent issue, to eliminate the delusion and anger, and to transform their minds into loving kindness, compassion, and a good heart that cherishes others. This is the ultimate solution in order for ourselves and others not to have any enemies. Others don’t become an enemy to you, and you don’t become an enemy to them.