My most dear one,
What a great joy, what you have been doing and thinking there so that everybody, Sangha and non-Sangha, is coming together again.

I really appreciate all your past kindness and present kindness, and everybody appreciates this. That is really a good thing. Also, in this way you are helping the older students and the new students and especially the Sangha, by bringing them together. They are also learning from the geshe, learning his ideas. So it is very, very good.

My great, great appreciation to you and your sister. I must thank your parents for making both of you, for having brought you both into the human world.

As it is said in the lamrim teachings, this is just about one time meeting the guru, who is revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment. It is just one time meeting the holy Dharma and just one time having received a perfect human rebirth. So, we can’t imagine that now we are able to help other sentient beings.

The conclusion is that everything we do is to spread Dharma to sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment. Our every movement, every moment, is for that, and even our breath in and out is for that.

I have these quotations for you. Nagarjuna said:

Abandon making all the other offerings,
And strive to make pure offerings to the guru.
By pleasing the guru, you will achieve the supreme transcendental wisdom of omniscience.

That is because there is less merit offering to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha than offering to the guru. This means obtaining the guru’s advice and fulfilling the guru’s wishes, not only physically making an offering. This is the greatest offering, and we collect more merit than offering to the ten-direction buddhas, Dharma, Sangha, statues, stupas and scriptures.

Sakya Pandita said:

Even if we make charity of our head, legs and hands for one thousand eons and then dedicate that merit to sentient beings—all that merit is collected in one second when we practice the guru’s path.

What this is saying is that having made charity of various parts of the body for a thousand eons, and even if the merit of that is dedicated to sentient beings, when we follow the guru’s advice or follow the guru’s wishes, we collect all that merit in one second.

I hope to see you soon.

With much love and prayers ...