Stupas

Stupas

How to Use a Stupa to Bring You to Enlightenment
Date of Advice:
June 2019
Date Posted:
June 2019

Rinpoche gave this advice to a student who had a new stupa in their house.

This stupa contains a relic and powerful mantras. When held over the water, it blesses all beings that go below it or are touched by its shadow. Photo: Holly Ansett, October 2016.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
As this stupa was filled at Amitabha Buddha Centre (ABC), then it will have the Four Dharmakaya Relic Mantras inside.

This is a Kadampa stupa, like the one Lama Atisha used to carry, keeping the guru’s hair, robes and relics inside. When Atisha was on the road, even if a very subtle vice had been committed he would immediately prostrate to the stupa and confess. This was how he used the stupa, for that purpose.

Here I want to say this: you don’t have to put this stupa on your altar. Many times people don’t even look at the altar. So here, it is very important to see the stupa. Each time you see it there is great, great purification and that brings you to enlightenment; this is just by looking at the stupa.

Therefore, it is better to put it in the kitchen or living room or on a table. If you have many stupas then you can put them on a table and also put other buddha statues and texts (sutras such as the Vajra Cutter Sutra, Golden Light Sutra, Arya Sanghata Sutra, and so forth) then you can go around all these holy objects that are on the table. It makes it so easy to circumambulate them.

This is a great thing. It purifies negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths that are obstacles to happiness—temporary and ultimate happiness—and especially to actualizing all the realizations on the path to enlightenment. And it creates the cause to achieve the path to enlightenment—to actualize the teachings that you have heard and read in your heart.

People who are non-believers can also go around the table with this stupa (and if you have them, other holy objects) on it while you are having a conversation with them. In this way even if your speech is non-virtuous, you can still collect unbelievable virtue with your body. And the non-believers also create the cause of enlightenment. There is great purification and also we are able to collect merits.

It is like the example of Jinpa Pelgye (Shrijata). This is a story from the sutras. A long time ago he was a fly who followed the smell of cow dung around a stupa. That action became the cause in his life, when he was eighty years old, to begin to practice Dharma. He achieved renunciation from samsara. And by becoming free from samsara, he achieved the level of arhat, free from samsara and the causes of samsara—delusion and karma.

Not only non-believers, even when people from outside visit your house, they can also go around. If you have pets, such as dogs and cats, you can also bring them around the stupa that is on the table by holding them in your hands if you can, so they are at the same level as the stupa.

Also if you find worms, insects or flies in the house, or ants on your body—basically any insect that you find—you can catch them and put them in a plastic bag. Here at ABC they kindly made these insect catchers, which are two small boxes. One is called “method,” and the other is called “wisdom.” You can put the insects in those, take them around the stupa a few times and then release them in a safe place.

Or if you have a thousand ants or crickets in a plastic bag, then you can take them all around the stupa. This plants the seed of enlightenment in all their hearts, and there is great purification of heavy negative karma that has been collected from beginningless rebirths. Also, they collect extensive merits.

This is the best present from your side that you can offer them, as they are the cause of all your happiness from beginningless rebirths until now and also in the future. You receive every single happiness from them. Besides that, they have been kind to you from beginningless rebirths. They have created so much negative karma in order to take care of you. They have suffered unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably for you and will do so again in the future, until you are free from samsara.

Therefore, it is so important to be free from samsara as quickly as possible by actualizing wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. So for that you need calm abiding. For that you need pure morality, the three higher trainings, not only if you are ordained but also as a lay practitioner.

Having the Four Dharmakaya Relic Mantras inside the stupa means it also has the Secret Relic Mantra inside. So if you go around the stupa with this mantra inside just one time, it purifies all the heavy negative karmas to be born in the hot hells, down to the eighth hot hell, the unbearable hell realm that has the heaviest suffering. All this gets purified and it makes it so easy to be born in a pure land or to achieve a perfect human rebirth with the eight freedoms and ten endowments, so you have the freedom to practice Dharma and to achieve enlightenment.

When you go around the stupa you can recite OM MANI PADME HUM or other mantras, or if you have some commitments then you can recite them. Because if you sit down to pray then you will go to sleep, but when you try to go to sleep, then you are fully awake, but not necessary fully awake in Dharma.

One time at Kachoe Dechen Ling in California, our very precious kind Fabrizio [Pallotti] was in the same area and he was talking to me for a long time on the phone. I was in my room and in that room I have a table that has many stupas, prayer wheels, statues, texts, relics and images of buddhas on it. The table is similar to the altar tables I have in my room at Kopan and also in Dharamsala. The table is round and quite high and has many holy objects on it at a few different levels. You can go around the table. As I was on the phone I thought to make the time worthwhile while I was talking, so I went around the table with all the holy objects. In this way at least I can collect merit and purify the cause of the lower realms and create the cause to be free from samsara, and also lower nirvana and achieve great enlightenment. By going around the holy objects, at least with the body, we can create virtue and the cause of enlightenment.

Also outside the office at Kachoe Dechen Ling there is a table set up with many Kadampa stupas and tsa tsas, and a bigger stupa in the center. It is very neatly set up. So while Roger [Kunsang] and Holly [Ansett] are talking on the phone, which happens a lot, then at least they can go around and make the actions of the body virtuous and create the cause of enlightenment.

If you put this stupa on the table in the dining room or living room, it becomes very easy for people to go around it every day—many people, so many times a day. It is very good to go around. Then you can rejoice at the end of the day that at least there was some virtuous action collected. Many people spend a long time on the phone, and while they are on the phone they can go around the stupa. So it helps very much to not waste this most precious human rebirth.

You can look at some photos of how I have set up the different stupas at Kachoe Dechen Ling. Also there is one Vietnamese family in North Carolina who made a thousand buddha statues and they made an altar for the statues with many different colored lights. They go around every day, and also even their children go around by themselves as well.

Because we have this perfect human rebirth—it is just one time, it is not sure how long we will have it, life is very short—I am suggesting this so as to not waste your most precious human life, which is more precious that the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels, not only diamonds. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

PS: Please read this and look at the stupas.

A Billion, Zillion Thanks for Circumambulations
Date of Advice:
October 2017
Date Posted:
February 2019

A student with life obstacles had circumambulated a stupa 2,500 times, in accordance with Rinpoche’s advice.  Rinpoche wrote this thank you note and sent it with a box of chocolates.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kadampa stupa, USA, August 2016. Photo: Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
A billion, zillion thanks for 2,500 circumambulations of the stupa. That is amazing. So many lifetimes of negative karma and obscurations from beginningless rebirths have been purified; so much purification. You should rejoice.

According to my ear you might be the only one who did the most circumambulations among Western people, therefore you should rejoice so much.

I checked and you still have some life obstacles so you need to read the long-life sutra 300 times. You can discuss this with Ven. Sangpo, who recites it once a day, and you can share the number [of recitations] with others. You should recite the sutra as much as possible.

Wow, wow, wow. It’s such great purification.

With much love and prayers ...

A Powerful Place of Healing
Date of Advice:
November 2016
Date Posted:
May 2017

Rinpoche gave this advice about the power of stupas.

Wherever a stupa is built will become a powerful place for healing and a cause for success in whatever visitors to that place are seeking.

The Power of the Holy Object
Date of Advice:
January 2015
Date Posted:
March 2017

Rinpoche sent this letter to a student who was building some prayer wheels that Rinpoche had sponsored. The student was also building some stupas.

Regarding the four stupas, the positioning of them in the plans seems to indicate that there is no way that anyone can circumambulate the stupas. This is one of the main purposes of having stupas, so that people have the chance to create merit by circumambulating them.

Sometimes things can be thought of more in terms of appearance and almost like a decoration, rather than using these very precious holy objects for their real purpose, which is allowing us to create vast amounts of merit.

There is the story of how one elderly person in the time of the Buddha was able to create incredible amounts of merit. The man, Shrijata [Jinpa Pelgye], was eighty years old and was living with his grandchildren and children, but finally he got very bored and requested Shariputra, one of the Buddha’s attendants, if he could become a monk. Shariputra was the abbot of the monastery at that time. Shariputra thought to himself that this man is too old to memorize texts and too old to do service for the monastery and so forth, and with his clairvoyance he couldn’t see any karma for the old man to become a monk. The old man was very upset to hear that he couldn’t become a monk.

In the meantime, a long way away the Buddha with his omniscience could see what was happening and because of the Buddha’s omniscience, which has no limitation, he could see there was karma for this old man to become a monk. The Buddha had completed the two types of merit, whereas Shariputra, who was an arhat, still had limitations about what he could see of the past and future.

Buddha had removed both gross and subtle obscurations of the mind and had abandoned the four causes of unknowing, and so he could even see the subtle karma which arhats cannot see. This means the Buddha could see even the karmic causes for the colors on a butterfly and he could see the karmic causes of the shape of grass or the design of a plant. This only a buddha can know.

The Buddha could see that many eons before, this old man had been reborn as a fly and by chance that fly had followed the smell of cow dung that was floating around a stupa. By chance the fly was able to circumambulate the stupa by following the smell of the cow dung. The motivation of the fly was nonvirtue and the action was done with attachment to this life.

Usually whether an action is Dharma or not is determined by one’s motivation. Because of this it is not easy for ordinary people to practice Dharma. Those who have renounced attachment to this life are pure Dharma practitioners, so even their eating, sleeping and walking become Dharma. That’s beside their actions of prayers and meditation and so forth. Even doing meditation and reciting prayers does not become Dharma unless it is done without attachment to this life.

The fly was able to circumambulate the stupa just because of attachment to the smell of the cow dung, but that action became holy Dharma, the cause of enlightenment, because of the power of the holy object, the stupa.

In the end the old man received ordination, but for some time after that the young monks would tease him and he got fed up, so one day he escaped and jumped into the river. At the time he jumped in the river the abbot through his clairvoyance saw what was happening and through his psychic power was able to grab the old monk and save him. The abbot then took the old monk on the corner of his robe and they flew over the ocean and landed on a huge mountain of bones. The old monk asked the abbot whose bones these were and the arhat abbot said, “These are your past life bones.” [Jinpa Pelgye had previously been born as a whale.] The old monk’s hairs stood up on his arms and body and he immediately generated renunciation.

Later in that life the old monk actually realized the exalted path directly seeing emptiness, shunyata.

I am just telling you this story to give you an idea of how important and how beneficial these holy objects are. Therefore it is very important that they are made correctly so that local people and other visitors can get maximum benefit for this life and all future lives by circumambulation and so on.

Even the water from the rain or the wind touching the stupa and then touching insects or people has benefit—negative karma gets purified and people receive high rebirth. It plants the seed of enlightenment, making preparation for the mind to be liberated from the oceans of samsaric sufferings—all the sufferings we know and don’t know; and all the problems we don’t like. So there are infinite, infinite benefits from constructing stupas and prayer wheels correctly.

One idea I thought is that it is important that one can do korwa (circumambulations) around the stupas. It would also be good if there was a stupa in the center that was a bit bigger, like a stupa of enlightenment and then around that stupa to have eight smaller stupas or four smaller stupas. There are many benefits of building the stupas, especially in the texts it talks of the ten main benefits of building the stupas.

These are just my thoughts and suggestions.

With many prayers for success...

The Stupa Will Benefit Numberless Beings
Date of Advice:
March 2014
Date Posted:
August 2016

Rinpoche sent this card to thank a student who had recently helped build a stupa. He also commented on a Buddha Amitabha statue that was forthcoming.

My very dear one,
Thank you very, very, very much for all your service and dedication. Also, thank you very much for your service to sentient beings and to the teachings of the Buddha [while serving in your previous role.] I hope to see you next time.

Next time there will be Buddha Amitabha. The statue will bless the whole area and people will be very fortunate to see and enjoy it. It will create the causes to achieve not just temporary happiness, but ultimate happiness, enlightenment, and as I mentioned before, omniscient mind.

Also the stupa, anybody looking at it has the nature of peace. The stupa brings the mind into peace, even just by seeing it. The art has that feeling and gives that effect. I would have liked to have seen the stupa, but maybe I will try to come next time.

Thank you very much.

PS. Next time Buddha Amitabha statue will be here and we will have a big celebration with the neighbors and painting to celebrate. The statue will bless the whole area, the people, and will bring not only temporary happiness but peerless happiness and buddhahood.

Thank you so much for building the stupa, which will benefit numberless sentient beings of the six realms. In particular, in this world, the USA, the area and especially for those who built the stupa. It purifies many obstacles and completes all of the realizations to actualize the path. It totally eliminates obstacles, brings all the realizations for numberless sentient beings and creates skies of merit and good karma, the causes of happiness, and ultimately to achieve enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...

Building Stupas to Benefit Sick Dogs
Date of Advice:
May 2014
Date Posted:
November 2014

Rinpoche sent this letter to a student advising her how to benefit her sick dogs by building stupas and circumambulating them.

My most dear, most precious, most kind wish-fulfilling one Fiona,
How are you? I heard your two dogs are very old and sick. I was thinking if you can build something like these stupas that I have at my front door. [See Stupas in Everyday Life for advice and photos.]

The dogs can go around and even your husband can go around, but maybe you don’t need to mention the benefits of going around, you can just mention that it is for his health. In reality by just walking around a stupa even one time, so many eons of heavy negative karma collected from beginningless rebirth gets purified and we collect extensive merits every time we go around it. That makes it possible to achieve enlightenment.

Inside the stupas can be many tsa-tsas, many small pictures of Buddha printed on clay or made from plaster. Inside the stupas there can be so many tas-tsas, and outside also. Every stupa is not empty inside; it is filled with many mantras, with the most precious mantras, the four dharmakaya relic mantras, which have unbelievable, unbelievable benefits explained by Buddha. Even going around a holy object one time with these mantras inside, we don’t get reborn in the lower realms and there are many more extensive benefits.

Your husband can go around and you can tell him a story to distract his mind so he can go around, as there is so much benefit. Maybe you have better ideas how to take him around. Each time we go around a stupa it really definitely brings us to enlightenment. Then it is also so important for your dogs.

The stupas don’t need to be expensive and you don’t need much space. This way of making stupas is very simple. You just have a box and fill it with tsa-tsas and other stupas, and ten of these can have one stupa on top and many around. If you look at the pictures you will see how I have done it. Also there is a picture of the stupa with a rainbow roof at the back of my house. We built that stupa many years ago.

The story of this stupa is that Roger thought we should have a dog. I said if Buddhists keep a dog then after it dies it should not go to the lower realms, it should have higher rebirth, so if that is the case then it’s good to have a dog. So then I suggested that we build a stupa at the back of the house, so that the dog can circumambulate the stupa. One monk called Brian built the stupa, which is a little bit like the Borobudur stupa in Indonesia. It’s a little like that, but it has a Kadampa stupa on the top. The base design is not like the regular eight kinds of stupas, but more like the Borobudur stupa. Every two weeks the stupa is cleaned very well, all the dust is taken off and the statues and smaller stupas on it are taken off and cleaned well.

If you can, first make a small one, that would be very good for the dogs, to bring the dogs around, then they get a higher rebirth when they die. This is the best thing to do for them. If you do want to build something like this, then we can try to send you tsa-tsas from here. We can prepare the tsa-tsas and send them. You can communicate with one nun here, she makes tsa-tsas and stupas every day for sick people and for people who have passed away. I send her the names and she makes the tsa-tsas to purify those who have died, to get a higher rebirth and to achieve enlightenment, and to help those who are sick. So we try to dedicate and offer this for people.

I am sending you some photos, please enjoy them. Now I am going to Italy to receive His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to take teachings, then I will give long-life initiation for the center people and at the end I will go to the United Kingdom and give Heruka initiation, and then come back to USA. Then I will go to Australia, then maybe go to Nepal for the November course and then maybe India for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings, something like that.

With much love and prayers...

Pages