Practices for Financial Problems

Practices for Financial Problems

Obstacles After Buying Property
Date of Advice:
July 2018
Date Posted:
April 2023

Rinpoche gave this advice to a student who wrote that after buying a new property, they had some obstacles with money and with the building department.

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,

Thank you very much for your kind letter. I checked and what you need to do is to recite the two mantras [from How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness]. If you can, recite five malas a day of these two mantras:

DE ZHIN SHEG PA SA DZIN GYÄL PO LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO
TAYATHA / OM DHARE DHARE / DHARANI BÄNDHE SWAHA

Recite one mala of this mantra for success:

TAYATHA / OM KHYA NG SWAHA

Also do Four Mandala Offerings to Cittamani Tara puja once each month.

Keep your motivation in pure bodhicitta, so you can be of most benefit to all sentient beings, to bring them to enlightenment as quickly as possible. Then no problem, whether you have success or a lot of problems, it doesn’t matter, as it is the best purification for yourself and the best way to create the highest merit.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim, then to live your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...

Practices to Avert Financial Ruin
Date of Advice:
June 2018
Date Posted:
September 2019

A family was facing financial ruin. They were in debt and were losing the house they were renting. Although they had been reciting sutras the situation had not changed.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Boudha Stupa, Nepal, 2017. Photo: Bill Kane.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling ones,
Please recite the Vajra Cutter Sutra seventy times. This is to be recited by both of you. Of course do all the recitations with bodhicitta, to purify past negative karma and the causes of being in samsara, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings quickly, and to free sentient beings from samsara and bring them to enlightenment quickly.

This will help you stay on at the house. I checked on that and it seems maybe it can be of some help for that, according to my observation.

Please read this advice for a happy life, which explains the importance of the good heart and is even for non-believers. In order to help people we don't have to sponsor big pujas. The advice is for everyday life and explains how to live our life. It is a very important answer.

If you both can, recite the longest Chenrezig mantra and OM MANI PADME HUM as much as possible and continue your life reciting the longest Chenrezig mantra. This is basically for enlightenment and to enlighten sentient beings and then, by the way, it takes care of your life.

You mentioned having read the sutras and you said it didn't help, however, you collect unbelievable merit by reciting them, but the karmic obstacle has already ripened and is big, therefore it has not lifted yet.

That [negative] karma has already happened, but you collected inconceivable merits by reading those sutras. Don’t think that it didn’t benefit, because thinking that would cause you to lose those merits.

Please also read my advice on lojong, how to think when experiencing difficulties.

With much love and prayers ...

Financial and Relationship Difficulties
Date of Advice:
March 2015
Date Posted:
May 2016

A student was losing money every month and could not make a living any more. He had followed Rinpoche’s previous advice and had done 80 Vajra Armor sadhanas, but his situation had not improved. He said it seemed that the black magic Rinpoche had previously mentioned was still affecting him. The student also asked about his friend’s relationship problems.

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your email. Regarding your first question about your financial situation, it is a sign of black magic. According to my observation, it came out to recite the Lion-faced Dakini practice with mantra and also to recite Vajra Claws at least once every day until the problem changes. Sorry, that might have been my mistake—the name of the puja is actually Vajra Claws, not Vajra Armor, but that is karma.

Most important is to practice lo-jong, thought transformation, utilizing the problems in the path to enlightenment as explained in the Lama Chöpa practice. You need to practice thought transformation and use the difficulties to practice conventional bodhicitta and also ultimate bodhicitta.

Regarding your question about a friend who felt very negative due to a relationship ending, in this case I sent her two or three lo-jong practices, thought transformation, utilizing the difficulties in the path to enlightenment.

I was talking in a Dharma way and giving advice that even if there was no problem from her side and what happened was that her friend had a relationship with somebody else, still even in a normal worldly situation like this, she should use what happened in the path to enlightenment and not as a path to be depressed and commit suicide, these kind of things. Instead of using it as a cause of samsara and a cause of the lower realms, she should use it as a cause to achieve the dharmakaya, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, to be able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment.

So we should pray for her. Whenever you do your practice of Medicine Buddha, Chenrezig and so on, pray for her mind to become Dharma; for Dharma to become the path to nirvana, liberation from samsara; and for there to be no obstacles to the path but for the path to become the path to enlightenment. Pray for her even to have tantric realizations in this life and to generate the realization of correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, by seeing that one guru is all the buddhas.

But you know whatever happens in this life is the result of our own past karma. In the past we have collected the karma to experience things this way. It is mentioned in the lo-jong text, the Seven Point Thought Transformation:

Put all the blame onto one;
Meditate on the kindness towards others.

This achievement is the heart practice of Mahayana Buddhism.

Whatever I explained to your friend, she could not accept and instead she totally blamed the other person. I even told her what the Panchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, said in the Lama Chöpa, that even if all sentient beings become your enemy, are angry, beat and even kill you, in return you should practice patience and cherish them as more dear than your life.

That means you should regard them as so precious. If you practice this way you will get enlightened easier and quicker. But she doesn’t know this and just follows attachment and anger, saying that it’s completely the other person’s fault.

So please pray for her as I explained, then after some time it can change. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...

Savings Lost in Stock Market Crash
Date of Advice:
August 2014
Date Posted:
April 2016

A student had lost all his money in the stock market, and he had became dependent on someone else for financial help. He was very, very worried about his financial situation and he asked Rinpoche if there was anything he could do to improve his financial situation.

My most dear, most precious, most kind wish-fulfilling one,
I am so sorry for the long delay in replying to your email. I checked and you should recite the Verses of the Eight Noble Auspicious Ones two or three times every day. Also recite the prayer In Praise of Dependent Arising and the eliminating obstacles prayer (Tendrel Nyesel), Padmasambhava's prayer, every day. Then recite the Celestial Mansion mantra and the mantra from the Sutra of Golden Light a few times each day.

Think that those people who have lost their jobs and all their money are numberless in the world and also in the numberless universes, which are even mentioned scientifically and also by Buddha. So there are numberless people who have lost their jobs and all their money, not only you.

Other suffering beings are numberless—there are numberless hell beings suffering, numberless hungry ghosts suffering, numberless animals suffering, numberless human beings sufferings, numberless suras suffering and numberless asuras suffering and also there are numberless intermediate state beings suffering.

For example there is the suffering of pretas, who cannot find food for even 10,000 years. There is the suffering of the hell beings—if all the suffering of just one hell being was materialized it would be difficult to fit in this world. There is the suffering of animals, who due to ignorance are killed by another one, eat one another or get eaten by another one. [They experience] the suffering of cold and hot, or human beings eating or torturing them, etc.

Please continue to make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night and in every action you do.

With much love and prayers...

Help for Financial Situation
Date Posted:
November 2012

A student asked Rinpoche who his yidam is and begged for help for a very bad financial situation. Rinpoche advised the following.

My very dear Leo,
Thank you for your card and kind letter. Regarding your questions, according to my observation your personal yidam is:

  • Guhyasamaja
  • Hevajra

From these two deities, you can choose the deity you feel a stronger connection to. It also means you can take both these initiations, when the time comes.

Regarding your financial situation, I checked and what came out most beneficial is:

1. Read the Arya Sanghata Sutra many times.

The sutra is available from FPMT; also read about about the sutra on this Arya Sanghata Sutra website.

Also write it out at least nine times; if you can do more that would be good. You should write it out in very nice handwriting on beautiful paper, so it is an offering and practice. This creates so much merit.

2. Read the Diamond Cutter Sutra at least three times.

This is for purifying and collecting extensive merits to achieve full enlightenment for sentient beings by realizing emptiness and bodhicitta. Read about the benefits and download the sutra on this FPMT website.

With much love and prayers...

 

Straightening Out Problems
Date Posted:
October 2005

A couple were experiencing numerous problems in their domestic life and in their finances and asked Rinpoche for advice.

My very dear ones,
I checked to see what you could do to help your financial situation. These practices came out very good for you to do:

1. Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra 30 times.

2. Make 1,000 copies of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. You can print the version that has Tibetan, English and Chinese on the same page, as this way you are printing more sutras. Print 1,000 full copies (even though it has the text three times per page). If you can’t find this version, then just print the English or Tibetan version.

This is a most precious text, where Buddha showed ultimate truth. This is the way Buddha liberates sentient beings, by revealing the truth—not by washing away our negative karma with water, or by taking them from our body with his hand, and not by transferring realizations.

3. Print five copies of the Arya Sanghata Sutra.

4. Recite the Arya Sanghata Sutra 300 times. When you recite the text, you will understand how much merit you collect by printing this sutra. It can bring miracles.

After you have printed these texts, keep them respectfully in a high, clean place. You can also give copies to people. If you keep some in your house, you can make offerings and prostrations to them, and in this way collect incredible merit.

If you have many copies, when a stupa or large statue is built, these extra texts can go inside them. It has to be the complete text, with no missing pages.

It would also be good for you to perform the practice Celestial Mansion Extremely Secret Sublime Success. Recite four malas of the mantra a day. [Find links to this mantra in the FPMT Catalogue.]

Please put effort into these things. You are both so fortunate even to see these texts, the Arya Sanghata Sutra and Diamond Cutter Sutra. There is incredible benefit to having them in your house. According to the texts, if you even have one copy of them in your house, your house becomes a holy object, and all the devas of the three times come there and protect your house. This is what you should do to make your life easier.

With much love and prayers...