My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

In your letter you asked if your son gets merit because after he passed away this brought you to the Dharma, through the great suffering you have experienced. This would be the case if your son was a holy being and had planned it this way, for you to meet the Buddhadharma, and that this was the only method for you to meet the Buddhadharma, to wake up from being in samsara –which is to wake up from beginningless rebirths of suffering, being totally under the control of karma and delusion. It is a great thing that you have woken up and realized that this perfect human rebirth is a one-time opportunity to wake up, because having a perfect human rebirth (even if it is in prison) is an incredible opportunity to practice Dharma and achieve the three great meanings. You can achieve happiness in this life, the happiness of future lives, and the ultimate happiness – liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering, including liberation from the causes of suffering, karma and delusion – then full enlightenment, the peerless happiness. Even in one second, by having received this perfect human body, one can achieve this happiness of full enlightenment.

Definitely it is a great thing that you have now met the Buddhadharma. I am sorry about your son passing way. He didn’t have a long time in this life, but his passing away became the cause and very good condition for you to meet the Buddhadharma. This is the kindness of your son, that now you were able to meet the Dharma and that this has helped you so much. This is unbelievable, unbelievable!

Now you can help your son by practicing hard and well. For this you need to learn the Buddhadharma well, by reading the correct Dharma books, such as books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If they are correct Buddhadharma texts, then it won’t confuse you. Please practice the Buddhadharma hard and dedicate your merits to your son; this is what you can do now.

In your daily life, transform your actions into virtue as much as possible, with the motivation to benefit all sentient beings, for the happiness of all sentient beings. Of course, that means not only this life’s happiness, but the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara, and full enlightenment, especially enlightenment.

Abandon as much as possible all negative karmas, which are the cause of suffering, samsara, and the lower realms. Do this for others, for all sentient beings, including your son. Then, every day, after your evening practice, dedicate the merits to all sentient beings, particularly to your son. That is extremely important.

This is how to dedicate:

Due to all the past, present, and future merits accumulated by me, due to all the merits of the three times collected by others, which means all sentient beings, including the bodhisattvas and buddhas, may my son, who passed away, immediately be liberated from the lower realms (if he is in the lower realms), and may he be reborn in the pure land of the Buddha, where he can attain enlightenment or receive a perfect human body and meet the perfectly qualified Mahayana teachings. Without wasting his life, may he renounce the householder’s life, take ordination, meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru, and do only what is most pleasing to the holy mind of the virtuous friend with his body, speech, and mind, seeing the virtuous friend only as an enlightened being, with no mistakes. Then, may he train his mind in the common path, renunciation, bodhicitta, and right view, then the uncommon path – the two stages – and achieve the unified state of Vajradhara.

This is what you can do for your son every day. At the end of the day, especially, dedicate the merit collected that day, but you can do it at other times as well.

This is a little joke to make you smile: maybe, if you make very strong dedications like this, then your son might become a monk, and when you come out of prison, maybe you will meet him and he will become your guru. What about that?

You are asking if I can be your guru. It is not that I have the qualifications, but we try to do what we can. You try your best and I will try. So, I accept. It is extremely important, as I mentioned above, to practice well. This is our only chance to get out of samsara and reach enlightenment. So, we must.

I am sending you a prayer called Calling the Guru from Afar (the short and long versions). You should read these two slowly every day, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Definitely, if you can, take refuge and the bodhisattva vows. You can arrange this with the Liberation Prison Project; they can help you. First, take refuge and maybe later you can take the bodhisattva vows. I went to a prison recently in Mexico and gave a talk to about 100 prisoners.

The essence of what I am saying is that you should regard the prison as a very special place for you. This is a place for you to realize your past mistakes. It is a place to wake up; it makes you wake up. It is a great place for your discovery, for your inner life, to see the mistakes from the past that you have made (this does not just mean in this life, it means also in past lives); it is a place to develop wisdom and compassion. You can tell this to others, to your friends, if appropriate.

This is a great place for developing courage, to abandon suffering by abandoning the cause of suffering, and to develop happiness, by developing the cause for happiness. This is a great place for great change. It is a great place compared to being behind the bars of the prison of being reborn as a hell being, hungry ghost, or animal. It is a great place to discover the cause of negative thoughts and actions, which are the cause of rebirth in the lower realms. By realizing this, it enables you to achieve a higher rebirth in the future, by creating virtuous thoughts and actions.

As Nagarjuna said (Nagarjuna is like the second Buddha) in his teaching Letter to a Friend:

Actions born from ignorance, anger, and attachment are non-virtue
From that all the suffering of all the evil transmigratory beings arises.
Actions born from non-ignorance, non-anger, and non-attachment are virtue
From that all the happy transmigratory beings arise.

That means all the hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animal rebirths come from non-virtue. All the births in Buddha’s pure land, where there is no suffering, or receiving a perfect human body come from virtue. As far as receiving a human body, there are seven qualities and eight ripening aspects, which Lama Tsongkhapa emphasizes, and with those you can achieve a high development on the path to enlightenment. Then, also, you can achieve a human body that has the four Mahayana Dharma wheels, so that you can achieve full enlightenment.

Prison is a great place to discover about samsara and liberation, by discovering the cause of samsara and the cause of liberation, abandoning ignorance, anger, and attachment, and then actualizing path to liberation, which is best done through the higher trainings of morality, concentration, and wisdom. From this one can achieve liberation, the total cessation of all the oceans of samsaric suffering and the causes – karma and delusion. This means the total cessation of the cycle of death and rebirth, which includes all the sufferings of each realm, which we have experienced numberless times from beginningless rebirths, and which we will be experiencing in the future, without end, if we do not achieve liberation.

This is also a great place, an incredible place, compared to be being born in the hell realms. In prison, you can still achieve enlightenment, by practicing bodhicitta, great compassion, for all sentient beings. This is the Mahayana path. Then, of course, by practicing the tantric path, one can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime, or within a number of years in this brief lifetime of these degenerate times. Then you are able to bring all sentient beings quickly to enlightenment.

Here are your practices for your whole life. Also, when you are out of prison, you will know what to focus on. It is very important every day to meditate on the lamrim, also to recite one lamrim prayer every day, reading it slowly, going over the meaning (such as the Foundation of All Good Qualities, theThree Principles of the Path, Calling the Guru from Afar, etc). The lamrim is what you need to actualize, no matter how long it takes. Please put your effort into that. Continue practicing whatever lamrim topic you are on, doing the meditation every day, going through the subjects slowly. Whatever meditation you did in the morning, then continue with that mind during the day, so that way your mind is in the lamrim all day. Follow how it is explained in the attached sheets.

Regarding the lamrim meditations, this doesn’t mean you don’t do other meditations during this time (according to the period of time I have mentioned), it just means this is what you mainly focus on for this period. Please follow the lamrim outline from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo. First read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand so that you have a good idea and are familiar with the subjects. The lamrim cycle is for your whole life, and you follow the cycle like this.

Every day, practice meditation on guru devotion by following the outlines. The length of time is up to you. The main thing is to do it every day, whether it is short or long – it could be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or one hour. Do all your practice on the basis of guru yoga, Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. Also, you could do the Guru Shakyamuni daily practice (the small booklet I put together, A Daily Meditation on Sakyamuni Buddha), if you prefer.

Do guru devotion meditation until you have stable realizations, not only for a few days or hours or even just until you have the experience, not even just a few months or years, but until the realization is stable: that all the buddhas are the guru, and all the gurus are the buddhas, and you realize this all the time from the bottom of your heart, that they are all one being, with different names. Continue the meditations of the graduated path of the lower capable being until one has stable realizations. This is from perfect human rebirth up to karma.

Mostly in one’s life the aim is seeking the happiness of this life, and one does not think about the happiness of future lives; that is secondary or not even considered. Here, the realization is to totally change that, so that your attitude is mainly seeking the happiness of future lives, and the happiness of this life is unimportant. It is not important whether you are happy or not.

By training the mind in the gradual path of the middle capable being, one sees samsara as in the nature of suffering, one has no interest in samsara for even one second, because you see it as like a septic tank, like poison. One does not have interest in samsara for even one second, it is only in the nature of suffering. You see this spontaneously from the bottom of your heart and you want to achieve liberation. It is like a person who fell in a fire and wants to get out. This is how you feel in samsara, and have such a strong wish to get out, to enter the path of liberation.

Then you realize how all other sentient beings are suffering in samsara and constantly creating the cause for more suffering. It is unbearable. And you feel unbearable compassion for all sentient beings, wanting them to be free from all sufferings, wishing all sentient beings to be free forever from sufferings and their causes. That is great compassion. As a result of that, one generates bodhicitta – the wish to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings. This combines the two thoughts of wishing to liberate all sentient beings and wishing to achieve enlightenment. Then you have entered the path to enlightenment. This realization comes naturally from your heart all the time, except when one is in equipoise meditation on emptiness. Apart from that, one experiences the wish to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings (with no exceptions) spontaneously from one’s heart.

This mind is based on generating incredible compassion for all sentient beings that are suffering and wanting them to be free from all sufferings, then wanting to free them, by oneself alone, from all suffering and bring them to enlightenment, by oneself alone. When that thought arises spontaneously that is bodhicitta. Please keep your attitude in bodhicitta; this is the main object to actualize in your life, this is your main project in this life. When you come out of prison you can receive the initiation and start practicing tantra, to achieve liberation and full enlightenment.

Please practice as much as you can – life is not long, the nature of this life is impermanent, and death can happen at any time. This is the foundation of Buddha’s teachings, and this was the last advice Buddha gave before showing the aspect of passing away.

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

With much love and prayers ...