- Drugchuma protector puja: 10,000 times
- Lama Tsonghapa Guru Yoga: Students to recite this.
- Extensive Medicine Buddha puja: five times
Practice Advice for Centers
Practice Advice for Centers
Date of Advice:
December 2014
Date Posted:
April 2021
Rinpoche advised students at a Dharma center to do the following practices for harmony and success.
Date of Advice:
August 2013
Date Posted:
December 2020
Rinpoche advised these pujas for students at a Dharma center so they could create the karma to get an apartment.
- 8,000-stanza Prajnaparamita (Tib: gya tong ba): To be recited four times.
- Chanting the Names of Manjushri (Tib: Jamphel Tsenjö; Wyl: 'jam dpal mtshan brjod): Recite this prayer a few times.
- Prayer of the eight goddesses (Verses for the Eight Noble Auspicious Ones): Recite this a few times.
Date of Advice:
October 2015
Date Posted:
April 2019
Rinpoche sent this card to students at a center.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling students and brothers and sisters,
How are you? I hope everyone is happy, because of having found the most precious human rebirth and having met the Dharma, Mahayana Dharma. This means Mahayana teachings and lamrim, which show how to practice Dharma—the Hinayana and Mahayana sutra and Mahayana tantra taught by Buddha, the graduated practice to achieve enlightenment.
Please continue to make your life most beneficial for every single sentient being—for the numberless ants, numberless mosquitoes, numberless insects, numberless fish in the ocean, and the smallest insects—so that means naturally for yourself, by the way.
Live life with bodhicitta, for sentient beings. Thank you very much, I hope to see you soon.
With much love and prayers ...
Date of Advice:
January 2000
Date Posted:
January 2018
This advice about the benefits of feng shui was given by Rinpoche to all FPMT center directors. Rinpoche also asked the centers to put up a picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in order to create the causes for him to guide us.
Dear center directors,
The main cause of success and difficulties is good karma and negative karma, but there are external conditions for success and prosperity, and also for problems.
The correct feng shui is set up inside the house and in the external environment, by placing cures for a disturbing environment. This is done in order to bring success and to stop problems. These are the conditions. However, when good karma is very strong, the external and internal conditions naturally change due to the power of this good karma, even without any idea of feng shui.
Having an understanding of feng shui helps, therefore I am sending this book [about feng shui] to all the centers, especially for those centers where there is a lot of disharmony and many financial problems. This can help to solve these things, depending on how extensively correct feng shui is done. Feng shui can even help the FPMT centers that have been developed for many years and are doing quite well due to much purification, merits and correct Dharma understanding.
Within the organization, we are building retreat centers and setting up city centers, so we need many things for success, to benefit Dharma. When there is much harmony, stable finances and things are going well, people can have more space in the mind to develop compassion and a good heart. In this way they are able to continue their practice without much pressure, worry and fear about running the center. Also, they will be more mentally clear and physically healthy.
Of course, for bodhisattvas the harder it is the happier they become, because they have the opportunity to sacrifice their life and bear hardships for others.
I feel that the first, best and biggest benefit, and the main solution, is Dharma. I think feng shui is the next most important solution to help others and to stop the normal problems that people always talk about, such as their relationships, jobs, health, education, wealth and long life.
I would also like to request all the centers to put a picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the south-west part of the director’s office at the center. This is to create the causes for His Holiness to guide us.
Thank you very much and have many, many, far-out good luck.
Date of Advice:
January 2015
Date Posted:
November 2017
Rinpoche gave this advice to a center director for success and protection of the centers in the area.
My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Please read the Golden Light Sutra five times in each month. This can be done as a group at the center, or individually, for success of the center. This will enable people to connect to the center but it also depends on the other teaching schedule. When reciting the sutra, it is important to meditate on the meaning, so recite it skillfully.
If there are many people coming to the center it is good to do social service. Also pray to Medicine Buddha or Tara.
To protect from pollution, it’s good to have Lama Atisha stupa protection. [You can find the downloadable Lama Atisha Protection Mantra at FPMT's Foundation Store.]
It is also often with the Namgyalma protection. This will protect people in the place from pollution, so you don’t get pollution from people who have broken samaya with the guru. The Namgyalma Protection Amulet you wear has both. You can wear it, but also put it in the gompa to protect the place.
Thank you very much. Try with a good heart and bodhicitta.
With much love and prayers ...
Date of Advice:
January 2015
Date Posted:
October 2017
There was a rumor that someone at a Dharma center had a weapon. Rinpoche gave this advice.
My dear ones,
I hope you are well. I am now back in the USA for checking my health, medical and dental. It seems I have to check almost every piece of me.
What I would like to express is that all the 84,000 teachings of Buddha—I think the Buddha taught more, but these are the main ones—are to subdue the mind. Even one letter is not wasted.
As the Kadampa geshe said, even one letter of the Buddha’s teachings is to subdue the mind. Why? Because if the mind becomes negative the result is hell and if the mind becomes positive it brings us to enlightenment. The mind creates samsara. A negative way of thinking brings problems, however, if we have a different way of thinking, a happy way of thinking, then no problems. So, all the Buddha’s teachings are to subdue the mind, to stop harming and to develop compassion. This brings all the happiness up to enlightenment.
The teachings are divided into three paths: the path of the lower capable being—the essence is not harming others; the path of the middle capable being—the essence is not harming others; and the path of the higher capable being—the essence is to benefit others. The entire Buddha’s teachings are condensed into two: not harming others and benefiting others.
That’s why we should not keep weapons. If we keep weapons, like guns, it is the same as someone who has not met Dharma and has not practiced Dharma. It is like the American way, thinking, “If someone hits me, I have the right to hit them back, and if someone harms me, I have the right to harm them back.”
We should abide by the four virtuous trainings; this is what we should practice. If someone harms us, we should not harm them back, and so forth. Especially in retreat—the real meaning is subduing the mind, not just reciting the mantra.
There is a Tibetan saying that we should not retreat facing outside; in retreat we should be facing inside. This is not a complicated thing; this is a simple thing we should do. We should practice patience.
I don’t want to hear this is a Buddhist place and they have weapons! I really don’t want to hear that. We should be very humble, patient and have respect for others. This is what the meaning of being Buddhist is.
Thank you very much for understanding. This is my advice.
With much love and prayers ...
