My most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling one,
I want to thank you from the depths of my heart, from the very inside of my heart and bones. Thanks to you and the others for organizing the mani retreat each year. This is one of my dreams, to have this each year and for it to continue forever, even after I die, even after the people living now die. Those who are working, offering service now—to continue even after they die; to continue for as long as the country exists.

This is like offering infinite skies of help to sentient beings. Even each session, even reciting one mala purifies negative karma and all the obscurations created from beginningless rebirths. This is even without doing it with bodhicitta. Then we collect merit more than the drops of water in the Pacific Ocean, more than the sand grains of the Pacific Ocean, more than the blades of grass growing on the mountains and on the lands of the earth.

Doing it with bodhicitta, even if we recite OM MANI PADME HUM one time, we collect merit more than skies. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable; we collect so much merit. In particular, it causes us to develop compassion for others, for numberless sentient beings in the six realms— numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras and numberless intermediate state beings.

Generating compassion is most powerful, and that is what helps us achieve enlightenment rapidly. Even if we generate compassion for just one sentient being, that is the quickest way to purify all the defilements and complete all the merits, which is a necessary condition to actualize the path to enlightenment.

The conclusion is that this helps us to achieve enlightenment, buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations, as quickly as possible. This means being able to free all the six realm sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering quickly and being able to bring the numberless sentient beings to buddhahood quickly. This is the achievement, the most important thing. It’s more important than anything else in the life and especially by generating compassion we are able to achieve this quickly.

For example, my mother was not able to read texts because she hadn’t learned the alphabet. I have read Dharma texts and also I explain a little bit to people and I can write, but her compassion is one hundred times more than mine, little Mickey Mouse. She told me one year before she died that she recites 50,000 OM MANI PADME HUM a day, but then she became too old and could not recite as much. From this, she had so much compassion for people.

In Nepal, we took my mother by car down to Boudha Stupa and different places, and when she saw Nepali people walking without shoes, she felt so sorry and had so much compassion, so much feeling for them. She didn’t want them to suffer. In Dharamsala, we have a meditation center called Tushita, so when she was there, every morning when she ate breakfast, like pancake, she would eat some and then half she would pack up and keep in her dongka (shirt) pocket. She would carry this half-pancake and when she circumambulated His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s temple (also when she went around the mountain where His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s palace is) she would share her half-pancake with the beggars on the road. So like that, she had much greater compassion than me, so much, so much.

I see many old people, ladies who often do nyung näs in the temples in the villages. They haven’t learned the alphabet, so many of them can’t read texts or do the sadhana, but they have so much faith in Chenrezig and they recite OM MANI PADME HUM and take the eight Mahayana precepts. That’s what they do. I spoke just a few words to one of the ladies and I felt that she had much compassion, more than me. This was because of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM every day and doing nyung näs, as I have explained.

My plan is not only to do the 100 million mani retreat in the main city, but also in other cities, to gradually start 100 million mani retreats. Then by the way, it helps all the people who come there. They achieve the happiness of future lives so easily and ultimate happiness, liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering so easily, and buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

All those people who have been able to give time to come to this mani retreat, even coming for just one part of the retreat, even coming for one day, it is very wise. It is one of the functions of the center and it extremely worthwhile for our center. It is so beneficial for sentient beings, particularly those in the country.

With much love and prayers. I hope to see you soon.

Lama Zopa