Transforming Problems

My dear one,
How are you? I heard that you went to Lama Yeshe’s stupa and then fell down from the steps. You can say that’s really Lama Yeshe purifying you, all your negative karmas. Also in recent times in Bodhgaya, all those karmas that you mentioned, Lama Yeshe wanted to purify you, so that’s what happened. That is something to rejoice in. 

In Tibet, the great meditator, the Kadampa geshe Chekawa mentioned, 

By experiencing this small suffering, it ceases the past life’s negative karmas 
And there will be happiness in the future. 
Therefore, meditate on the happiness, the joyfulness of the suffering. 

So you see, you have to think that it purifies all the past heavy negative karmas, and then, what happens in the future, the result of that, because you experience that suffering result in this life, in the future there will be happiness like the sun shining. When the sun shines animals enjoy it, people enjoy it, everybody enjoys it. 

Also in future lives—not just one but many—on and on and on and on. So then if you practice bodhicitta, especially if you experience the suffering for sentient beings, the result is happiness, which you enjoy from life to life up to enlightenment. Then you attain enlightenment and your mind is in the state of omniscience, peerless happiness, the cessation of the disturbing thought obscurations, cessation of the subtle obscurations. Lama khyen, Lama khyen, wow, wow, wow. You achieve great happiness for sentient beings.

It will be like this in the future, therefore you must meditate on this and enjoy the suffering by thinking about the benefits. This is an incredible opportunity to practice bodhicitta if you can, if you have great, good luck, if you are fortunate. 

Think: “As I prayed in the past to experience the suffering of sentient beings—like in Lama Chöpa, in the lamrim section—so now sentient beings’ sufferings are ripening on me and I’m experiencing this problem.” Now that your wrist is broken or whatever problems you have at different times, think, “I’m experiencing this suffering on behalf of all sentient beings.”

Don’t think it’s your suffering, instead think you’re experiencing all sentient beings’ suffering. Think you’re experiencing all the sentient beings’ suffering for them, and this lets them become enlightened. 

Pray and meditate like that as much as possible, again and again. You experience their suffering, therefore all sentient beings become enlightened, free from samsara. They become enlightened, like that. It’s incredible.

Sometimes you can think, as the great Kagyu lama Choje Gotsangpa said, 

By my experiencing this sickness and any other problems
May sentient beings be free from all disease and spirit harm. 

Now you have sickness and at other times, whatever problems you have, think, “By my experiencing this, may all sentient beings be free from disease and spirit harm.” 

The diseases have spirit harm, therefore, we need puja together with medicine. We can recover from some diseases by taking only medicine and there’s no need for puja, but sometimes medicines don’t help, and we need puja together with medicine. Then there are some sicknesses that medicine doesn’t help at all; there’s no medicine or there’s no medicine that helps, and only pujas help. So there are different things like that. Some diseases we have to do big purification and then we recover. 

Like my uncle, the good uncle, the younger uncle who was a good monk. He was sick so many years ago. He had very heavy sicknesses and at night when he was sleeping he couldn’t stay with one side of his body lying down; he had to move around and around all night. For many years he had very heavy sickness. 

No medicines could help, so finally the incarnation of Charok Lama—not the one who is in Sera, and is now in Germany, who was Kopan monk for a long time. In his past life he was also a very pure monk living in that cave, not far from Lawudo. So he did observation and said that my uncle needed to do preliminary practice. So many prostrations came out for him to do. 

My uncle received the preliminary meditation teachings from Charok Lama, the incarnation who is now at Sera. In his past life he was a married lama—the lineage is through a married lama—but he passed away and reincarnated, and he now studies at Sera. So he taught [my uncle] how to do the prostrations, how to do the preliminary practices.

So my uncle built a small house next to Gaga mountain, and he had to take care of my grandmother, whose hair was completely white. She was blind and could not do anything, so she had to be brought out for pipi and kaka, and then be brought back inside, and he also had to make food for her, as well as doing prostrations. 

He did many hundreds of thousands of prostrations; I think 700,000 prostrations or something. He did that in the cave at Lawudo, in that small house, while he was also taking care of my grandmother. Then after all that, slowly, slowly, he got better through his own practice, not by medicine. 

OK, so think: 

By my experiencing this sickness
May all the sentient beings become free from disease, spirit harm, 
May they be free from all suffering and its causes—the negative karma and defilements collected from beginningless rebirth. 

Then I added this, 

And may they achieve full enlightenment. 

So tonglen is great, incredible, and we collect skies of merits each time we do it. We take all the sufferings, not just one type of suffering, but all the sufferings of samsara and the causes of suffering, together. So, it’s unbelievable, most unbelievable, most extensive purification, as well as collecting the highest merit. It’s an amazing, amazing practice. 

I hope you have seen the practice of tonglen, the practice of taking and giving. First there’s taking, then giving. You can do just taking many times and that’s OK, then you can also do giving from time to time. 

Think your body is in the form of a wish-granting jewel and numberless sentient beings—every human being, every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every sura and asura, and every intermediate state being—received that. Wow, wow, wow. 

After that you give all your enjoyments, your belongings, everything. So every belonging you give becomes wish-fulfilling to every sentient being— every hell being received all your belongings; all the animals received your belongings; every preta received your belongings; every human being received all your belongings; every sura and asura being, and every intermediate state being received all your belongings. Think they’re not just [mundane] belongings, but they also become wish-fulfilling for them. 

Then you give all your possessions, past, present and future, and all the virtue, past, present and future, to numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. So you completely give all your possessions to them.

Now you see, like when you do puja for some sick people, for some people who have problems, it heals their sicknesses and pacifies their problems. Similarly, if someone died, and you are doing puja for that person, they are liberated from the lower realms and they get a higher rebirth. 

Anyway, by giving these things to the sentient beings, it helps them and you collect skies of merits, the cause of happiness. By giving away your body and every belonging to sentient beings you collect skies of merit. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

Then [you give] all your virtue, past, present, future. From [giving] each virtue you collect skies of merit and in this way you achieve enlightenment quickly, because you collect the highest merits and it’s great purification.

Think all the sentient beings receive everything, whatever they want. First they receive what they want—the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, sura beings, asura beings and intermediate state beings get everything that they want for their happiness.

Next, they get whatever they need. So numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, sura and asura beings, and intermediate state beings receive a perfect human rebirth, meet the Mahayana teachings, and meet a perfectly qualified guru who reveals the unmistaken path to enlightenment, they receive teachings and generate the whole path to enlightenment, and then they become liberated from all the sufferings and the cause of suffering, and they become enlightened. 

Think that each one becomes a deity. If you’re praying to Tara, [they become] Tara. If you’re praying to Chenrezig or whichever deity [ they become like that.]

I have your message and yes, I understand what you explained in the message. 

So, it’s like this. Milarepa was not a monk but a layperson, and through black magic advised by his mother, he killed thirty people while his aunt and uncle were having a wedding at their house, where people were dancing and drinking, all that. Downstairs there were even more animals and they were all totally killed through black magic. He caused the rocks to fall down from the mountain and the house was totally smashed. 

But in your case, you didn’t kill even one human being.

Then Milarepa met his guru, Marpa, who was an enlightened being. Marpa asked Milarepa to build a tower for purification. So without any porter Milarepa alone built the nine-story tower. After he had finished building it he had to tear it down and carry the stones back to where he found them. Then again he had to rebuild the nine-story tower by himself alone. Then again he had to put the stones back. Again Milarepa tore it down and again built it up, so he did that three times. 

Then Marpa’s secret mother pushed Marpa to give teachings to Milarepa, and because Marpa was an enlightened being, he immediately transformed the mandala and gave initiation and all the teachings. Then he sent Milarepa to the mountains to meditate. 

Milarepa bore great, great, great hardships, for example, eating only nettles. There was no chili, no salt. One day a thief came by and wanted to cook [some food] but Milarepa only had nettles. So the thief asked, “Where’s the chili? Where’s the salt?” Milarepa didn’t have chili or salt so he added nettles for chili and he added nettles for salt. This is what he did.

Like that, he bore unbelievable hardships to actualize Marpa’s advice and he achieved the path to enlightenment. He became enlightened in the degenerate time; he achieved enlightenment, the unified state of Vajradhara, in that very lifetime. 

Due to his bodhicitta he became known in the world, so from this you can understand. It’s unbelievable, and then he already enlightened numberless sentient beings.

You didn’t kill even one human being, so, you see, there are big differences. Milarepa was able to practice Dharma even after creating all that heavy negative karma and he was able to purify. Marpa let him build a nine-story tower three times in order to purify all the negative karma. 

Please read The Life of Milarepa. It’s very important, very, very, very important. That’s the whole lamrim, that’s correctly following the virtuous friend; it goes in that section of that the lamrim. 

Reading this book will really help you to become enlightened. Not just learning lots of Dharma words, sutra and tantra, or even learning the Kangyur and Tangyur, all the teachings of the Nalanda pandits, even Nagarjuna, Asanga and Chandrakirti, all their teachings. Even if we can explain all this by heart, even if we become the most famous scholar [we’re not subduing the mind]. 

We have to realize the path; we have to actualize the path. The purpose of learning Dharma is to subdue our own mind, for our own mind to become Dharma. That’s the main thing, that’s the aim, what we should look for—for the mind to become Dharma, holy Dharma.

So we need to experience, to actualize the path, then we become enlightened. We purify the two defilements, otherwise not. Therefore, you can see that even Milarepa was able to purify and he was able to achieve enlightenment in this life. He was able to correctly follow his guru Marpa without anger, without heresy, without losing faith. It’s unbelievable.

Now I’m going to tell you about the practices. Please read The Life of Milarepa, I beg you. 

There is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and there are many lamrim texts by Lama Tsongkhapa, including the Great Lamrim commentary (Lamrim Chenmo), the Middle-Length Lamrim, the short one, A Hymn of Experience and the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. 

Read Liberation in Palm of Your Hand by the great Kyabje Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo. There are many other lamrims, but you should read this one. It is quite easy to understand; it’s not too hard, it’s so easy to understand. You should study Liberation in Palm of Your Hand four times from beginning to end. When you study, it’s not like when we do puja for people, just reciting it fast, so it’s very difficult to even think about the meaning, so not like that.

Read mindfully. When you read it, read mindfully so it all becomes meditation. You should know that it all becomes meditation. Meditation doesn’t mean just sitting down and closing the eyes and thinking about nothing. Like the Zen meditation, thinking about nothing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not talking about that. 

So read Liberation in Palm of Your Hand four times. Then for four months do effortful meditation on guru devotion—how to correctly follow the virtuous friend—going over the outline and thinking about the meaning that is mentioned there. You can also use The Essential Nectar as a short guidebook. This book, The Essential Nectar, is a commentary by my teacher, Geshe Rabten.

Otherwise, there is the outline in Liberation in Palm of Your Hand. If you don’t have it, you can ask Dr. Nick Ribush. You can write to Dr. Nick and he might send it to you. Anyway, he can explain to you how to get it. 

Then, study the graduated path of the lower capable being for three months, meditating on the outlines. Read the commentary and use the outline that’s contained in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or use The Essential Nectar, going over and over the outline for three months.

Then bodhicitta, five months. Of course, as you know, the self-cherishing thought has caused us to suffer from beginningless rebirths up to now, and by following it, we will continue to suffer without end. We have used the self-cherishing thought to harm the numberless sentient beings, each sentient being. We drink their blood, we eat their meat, and like that, we create negative karma, then by killing and stealing, all the things we do with the self-cherishing thought, we give harm to numberless sentient beings. 

The self-cherishing thought is our biggest enemy, so we need to avoid it, to renounce it, give it up, then that allows us to generate the cherishing thought, bodhicitta, which becomes the cause for ultimate liberation from samsara, enlightenment—wow, wow, wow, wow—and we receive all the happiness. 

Bodhicitta brings all the happiness to numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings, numberless intermediate state beings. Our bodhicitta brings all the happiness up to enlightenment. Wow, wow! It brings all that; it’s so incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible. 

In this way with our life, our small body, with all these benefits we are able to benefit sentient beings. We benefit every single sentient being, including all the insects, the tiniest ones in the water, the mosquitoes and the ants. Can you imagine? Every single sentient being, every single human being. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Those in the numberless universes and the numberless human beings. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. We’re able to bring them all the happiness.

Then spend two months on emptiness. Go over the outlines and meditate on emptiness.

So do this five times. When you finish, go back and do it again. Repeat this five times. Then after that do effortless meditation. This is my advice about lamrim, which is the foundation of tantra.

Now, regarding the negative karmas that you wrote about, having created negative karma—becoming angry with me and angry with others, all those things, and you broke some samaya vows—all those things that you did. So you can do tsog offering, Lama Chöpa tsog offering.

If there are monks in retreat, you can invite them to do Lama Chöpa tsog well. Maybe [they can recite] the short tsog 108 times, one mala. You can invite more monks to do the Lama Chöpa short tsog 108 times, one mala. 

When doing the tsog offering, think that strong nectar beams are emitted from the monks to you and to all sentient beings, but particularly to you, then think you are purified of all the disease and spirit harm. The main thing is to purify the negative karma and defilements collected from beginningless rebirths. Think the broken samaya, the broken pratimoksha vows, the broken bodhisattva vows, the broken tantric vows, all these negative karmas are totally purified.

And especially think the negative karma collected in relation to the guru from beginningless rebirths is totally purified during the tsog time. Then do very strong meditation, thinking you’re purified. It’s like [washing] a glass under the pipe. The water is coming, then you wash the glass and all the dirt goes out and it becomes so clean. Your body becomes like that, so clean and clear. 

Think all the negative karmas collected with the guru, especially the heaviest negative karmas, all the broken advice, and harm to the holy body—not just harming in this life, it could have happened in any past lives—and having disturbed the holy mind. Think all the negative karma, especially with the guru, is totally purified. Think like that, meditate strongly in that way during the tsog prayer.

At the end, believe that you are totally purified. As I explained, it’s like glass being cleaned by water; you become so clean.

You can also do 100,000 Samayavajra [mantras in] retreat. Do maybe four sessions or three sessions, or whatever you like. That particular practice is to purify negative karmas with the guru. You can do [Samayavajra practice] this time, then later you can do Vajrasattva one day and Samayavajra the next day. You can do it like that, so doing a little bit. Or with the Lama Chöpa, you can do it like that also. 

All right. That’s it. 

So this is the way to practice. If you practice lamrim, it is the essence of all the Buddhadharma, the 84,000 teachings taught by Buddha. If you practice lamrim, then you are practicing the essence of Dharma, all the teachings, the essence of practice.

If you don’t practice lamrim, if your mind is far from lamrim and you’re just learning the words but you never get to practice, then the problem is always there. So it’s the same as before you met Dharma; it might even get worse, because you didn’t use the teachings to subdue your mind. So the best way is to read and practice lamrim. 

This is the basic method to subdue the mind. You can also use other teachings to subdue the mind, for example, meditating on impermanence and death.

Meditate on impermanence and death, like the prayer Heart-Spoon [The Heart’s Utmost Need.] Maybe I made a little mistake in translating the title like that, but Heart-Spoon means it’s the most, the most important practice. So contemplating impermanence and death is very, very, very, very, very good.

First do the morning motivation, How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness, [to develop] bodhicitta, so the worldly mind becomes holy Dharma, the mind changes from self-cherishing thought into cherishing others. Wow, wow, wow.

If you generate that, then with that mind, if you do a lot of listening, reflecting and meditating, and even while eating, walking, sitting, sleeping, doing your job, everything becomes Dharma, the cause of enlightenment.

So do The Method to Transform, then after doing that, you can read about impermanence and death in Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s Heart’s Utmost Need. That’s great, great, great, so that’s how to enjoy your life. Then you live the rest of your life, the rest of the day, you live your life with bodhicitta. It means when you eat, eat with bodhicitta; when you walk, walk with bodhicitta; when you go to sleep, sleep by generating bodhicitta; anything you do, like that, as much as possible.

Of course, when we have the real realization of bodhicitta, then everything we do, even breathing in and out, everything we do with bodhicitta is only for sentient beings, not for ourselves, only for sentient beings So before we generate bodhicitta, we have to try very hard to do everything with bodhicitta.

This is how to enjoy life. If we’re practicing lamrim, this is how we do it, to enjoy the life. Otherwise, just eating ice cream or going to beach, that’s not really enjoying life because if our mind is not in Dharma, then all the negative karma we create causes us to go to the lower realms, so there is no way to enjoy life. 

When we’re practicing lamrim, that’s really the way to enjoy our life. We collect so much good karma, so that’s the way to go to enlightenment. That’s how to enjoy the life.

Thank you very, very, very much. 

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your letter regarding your mother. According to my observation, there are some pujas to do:

• Gyab shi: twice. You can ask the Kopan monks to do this for you. Send an email to Kopan Monastery and request the puja. You can say it is my advice and ask about the cost beforehand.
• She nyin dü dog: three times. This puja contains hundreds of Heart Sutras, but not only that. It can be done by Kopan Nunnery. You can email the nunnery, explain I have given you this advice, make the request and find out the cost.
• The third puja is chag sum, which I will do. According to my observation, the Mickey Mouse, the sloth, can do it.

So please tell your mother these things can happen. In London, many years ago at Manjushri Institute, there was one man who played guitar and when the meditation session started, he would get a headache and a toothache. There are many other examples.

What is happening is an obstacle to practicing Dharma. Lama Atisha, who revived and made Dharma pure in Tibet, came from Nalanda Monastery in India. The 84,000 teachings which the Buddha gave can be subsumed into Hinayana, Mahayana sutra and Mahayana tantra. All that is contained in the lamrim text called A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which was written by Lama Atisha in Tibet.

At that time there were many misconceptions about sutra and tantra. People thought that if you practice tantra you can’t practice sutra, and if you practice sutra you can’t practice tantra. Lama Atisha, by writing A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, completely pacified all the wrong conceptions.

Lama Atisha had 157 gurus, teachers, who he received different teachings from. His two main teachers, his root gurus, were Lama Serlingpa and Dharmarakshita. Lama Atisha traveled thirteen months by boat to Indonesia and spent twelve years receiving teachings on bodhicitta from Lama Serlingpa, like receiving the contents of one pot poured into another. Just hearing that teacher’s name would cause Lama Atisha’s [hair] to stand up and tears would come.

His other teacher, Dharmarakshita, said that when we experience unbearable pain in our body, it is because we harmed transmigrator beings’ bodies in the past. Now the wheel of sharp weapons of negative karma is turned on us. So now we must take all the sentient beings’ pain on ourselves.

That means letting all the sentient beings be free of all the sicknesses and causing them to achieve enlightenment, by taking all that on ourselves and experiencing it for them. This is the practice of unbelievable compassion, bodhicitta practice, dedicating ourselves completely to sentient beings, taking all their suffering and letting them have peerless happiness, enlightenment.

All the sufferings came from “I” which is not an object to be cherished; it’s most harmful. Our beginningless suffering, our past, present and future suffering, comes from cherishing the I. Our suffering is not only beginningless but endless if we don’t practice Dharma in this life, if we don’t actualize bodhicitta.

That means whatever obstacle we’re experiencing now, pain and so forth, is the result of our past karma of harming others. That is being explained or introduced. So all these obstacles—anxiety, blood pressure, depression, dizziness, nervousness, all that—if we know how to think about what has happened, this [suffering] is very, very, very, very good, excellent.

The self-cherishing thought is our worst enemy. It has given us beginningless suffering in samsara, as well as suffering now, in this life, and also in the future samsara. And not only that, this is nothing; numberless sentient beings are like us, so precious, but we have harmed them because of the self-cherishing thought. It lets us harm numberless sentient beings and lets them suffer, from beginningless rebirths, now and in the future, endlessly. Therefore, this self-cherishing thought is the worst enemy.

So this disease, this problem, this sickness, is helping us, but we are under the control of self-cherishing thought. Instead of renouncing self-cherishing we follow it, we cherish it like a guru, we completely cherish it and totally offer service to it.

From that, only suffering comes to us and other sentient beings, numberless sentient beings, endless suffering. It harms us because we do not become enlightened for sentient beings, we don’t achieve even nirvana for ourselves, liberation from samsara. We don’t achieve the happiness in future lives, it doesn’t allow even the happiness of this life and what we wish for becomes an obstacle.

Therefore, all these problems—spirit harm or whatever harm anyone is causing us—all this is so precious because it can help us destroy the self-cherishing thought, the root of all our suffering and problems. Actually, it is the best thing, a really good thing in reality. But if we think harming the self-cherishing thought is a problem and that it’s bad, then that’s what appears to us.

Harming the self-cherishing thought is very good, because it’s our worst enemy. That’s what is needed to actualize bodhicitta, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. After we achieve enlightenment we can free the sentient beings from the lower realm sufferings forever; we can free the sentient beings from samsara forever; we can free them from the lower nirvana forever, and we can bring them to enlightenment, the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations, so like that.

So it’s really good, this is the best thing, this is the attitude, the mind of thought transformation, transforming suffering into happiness, utilizing problems in the path to enlightenment.

In the world, even human beings, the common people in the world don’t know this, but those who know Mahayana teachings on thought transformation—which means utilizing suffering in the path to enlightenment in order for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment—for them all the obstacles become a support, all the misfortunes become fortune, everything becomes positive, so for that mind there’s no obstacle to practice Dharma.

The great meditator in Tibet, Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa said:

By experiencing this present small suffering,
The past negative karma is ceased,
And there will be happiness in the future.

What he’s saying is that so many heavy negative karmas were collected in the past that would cause us to be reborn in the lower realms and to experience suffering there for many eons, whereby we wouldn’t even hear human language for eons. But due to practicing Dharma, reciting powerful mantras, reading Buddha’s teachings, and other different ways, by doing that, the past heavy negative karma are experienced in this life with some disease, some cares, some problems, etc., and that finishes the past negative karma.

Then in the future, we are like the sun shining in the world, causing humans and animals to enjoy so much happiness from life to life, and even to reach enlightenment in that way. So we don’t have to experience going to the lower realms and experiencing so many sufferings, so many heavy negative sufferings for eons. Instead, we are experiencing the suffering in this life.

Geshe Khamlungpa said:

Therefore, rejoice, be happy in this present suffering.

That means to rejoice in the present suffering and be happy, think how good it is! Whatever the problem is, by experiencing it in this life, there’s no need to be born in the lower realms for eons with the heaviest suffering. We don’t have to experience all that, so that’s the benefit of experiencing the suffering now.

So rejoice. It’s good to experience problems, and it’s very, very good to think like this, to know this. Also, you can do the pujas.

Much love, with much love and prayer. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

This is my very important message and very important practice advice to you; it is bodhicitta, destroying the self-cherishing thought.

The self-cherishing thought has been our own real enemy from beginningless rebirths. It has caused us to suffer from beginningless rebirths, experiencing the oceans of suffering of the hell beings, the oceans of suffering of the hungry ghosts, the oceans of animals’ suffering, the oceans of human beings’ suffering, the oceans of suffering of the sura beings, asura beings and preta beings. From beginningless rebirths the self-cherishing thought has caused us to suffer.

But of course, without even having studied the lamrim, we have no idea about the suffering of the lower realms, and no idea of even the gods, the desire realms, the form realm gods or the formless realms gods. We have no idea of their suffering, the different levels of suffering, then also there is the desire realm suffering—the suffering of pain, the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering.

The form realm gods do not have the suffering of pain, but Geshe Sopa says they have the suffering of change. The formless realm beings do not have the suffering of change, so what they have is the third type of suffering, pervasive compounding suffering, which is the basis of the other two sufferings.

Without reading the lamrim we won’t get the feeling, even without studying the sutras, so we will not even get a rough idea. We just say “suffering” but we don’t really feel that in our heart if we don’t know first how it is explained in the lamrim.

All the sufferings now, and the causes of samsaric suffering, make us suffer continuously. If we continue to follow self-cherishing thought, the real enemy, it will continuously make us suffer without end. There is no beginning, it’s beginningless, but there will also be no end to our suffering in samsara. If we follow the self-cherishing thought, there will be no end to our suffering in samsara. Unbelievable, unbelievable, most unbelievable!

People in the world don’t know this because they haven’t met Dharma and they don’t know Dharma, so then they have no idea. They are only thinking of this life. Even this life they don’t understand well. They don't think of the suffering of their future lives, therefore they use whoever they can, particularly animals. They use others like a handkerchief or a napkin, something that is just thrown away.

Lama khyen! So much suffering, they cause so much suffering, like for pigs in the world or the fish and chickens. Some animals are eaten while they are still alive, such as octopus. I saw this many times, how many animals are eaten alive.

Lama khyen! Lama khyen! Lama khyen! Some people completely use the animals like tissue paper, just as human beings use tissue paper. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. They even know the animals are suffering, but still they use them like tissue paper.

Anyway, the self-cherishing thought is really, really, the real enemy. Wow, wow. We think it is our best friend and we always serve the self-cherishing thought; we serve it like a guru, or like a king or like a parent. We totally serve the self-cherishing thought. Even for those of us who are sometimes practicing Dharma, it is for the self-cherishing thought.

Not only that, the self-cherishing thought made us harm numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings, numberless intermediate state beings, every sentient being from beginningless rebirth, with no beginning. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

We are just one sentient being, but we see others are numberless. We feel, “Someone is so bad to me; how I suffer is so bad.” But there are numberless sentient beings, wow, wow, wow, wow. There are even numberless hell beings and in each realm there are numberless beings. The self-cherishing thought made us harm the numberless, numberless, numberless beings, everyone. Not just one time, but numberless times from beginningless rebirth. This is the worst thing, the most terrible thing.

So now, this harm that we are receiving, think that this is most precious, most precious, more precious than wish-granting jewels. In the past the bodhisattvas found this jewel in the ocean and cleaned it three ways and put it on a banner on the fifteenth day. Then whatever they needed, like the needs of this life, they prayed for that, then they got it immediately. Just as Sai Baba [appeared] able to produce watches and things, then most people got ashes.

It is like that with a wish-granting jewel, we make a prayer then it is actualized the next minute. So how many helicopters we want, how many swimming pools we want, how many hotels we want, how many comforts we want—we get that immediately. Not just one wish-fulfilling jewel, but numberless, filling the whole sky. So this unpleasant thing we are experiencing, what we have been believing is bothering us, is more precious than that. Now we can see how it is so precious. We can use it as an atomic bomb to destroy the self-cherishing thought. To destroy our enemy, the self-cherishing thought.

It is the self-cherishing thought that has caused all our sufferings from beginningless rebirth, now and in the future, endlessly. Not only that, it has also caused us to harm all the sentient beings from beginningless rebirths. So that means when sentient beings harm us, it is the result of having harmed sentient beings before. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

So we should give this unpleasant thing to the self-cherishing thought, to destroy the self-cherishing thought, bomb it. If we are able to destroy the self-cherishing thought, then comes bodhicitta. Only then is there a place for bodhicitta in our mind. Otherwise, bodhicitta is like the horn on the rabbit, it is like a horn on our head. It is like a billion dollars in our hand. It is like a hair growing on the turtle’s backside, so it is like that.

Bodhicitta comes from destroying the self-cherishing thought, and this is then what comes, bodhicitta, jang chub sem. When jang chub sem comes, that is the root of the path to enlightenment—wishing to free each sentient being, the numberless sentient beings, each sentient being, from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment, peerless happiness.

Therefore, this suffering is so precious, more precious than wish-granting jewels. Even if we own so many wish-granting jewels, that doesn’t cause us to be free from the lower realms, that doesn’t cause us to be free from samsara, that doesn’t cause us to be free from lower nirvana, so that doesn’t cause us to achieve enlightenment.

But this one, destroying the self-cherishing thought, from that we can actualize bodhicitta. Wow, wow, wow, wow. The benefits of bodhicitta are like the sky, limitless. If buddhas talk about bodhicitta, they cannot finish explaining it.

So this is how we should think—that it is so precious, unbelievably precious. For us, it is unbelievably precious, because it can destroy the self-cherishing thought. We should think that instead of thinking that the self-cherishing thought is our best friend, like a god. We don’t say it’s a god, but we follow it like a god. We [don’t] say from the mouth, "God, god, god,” but in reality, the self-cherishing thought is like a god. We follow everything that the self-cherishing wants. If somebody disturbs the self-cherishing thought, then we kill them, we chop them, like chili, we do everything bad that we can to hurt them.

So you can think that this unpleasant thing that you are experiencing—I am using this as an example for you, but for other people, there are other problems. We can use that problem as most precious; we should see it as the most precious, most precious one.

Why is the obstacle so precious? Why? It is because we are experiencing it for all the sentient beings; we are experiencing this problem for all the sentient beings. Numberless sentient beings have this problem, so we are experiencing it for them. This is so precious because we are experiencing it for them. Then think that they become free from suffering in samsara and achieve enlightenment.

That’s why this is so precious, precious, precious for us. So then, we can use this for any problem we have. The real problem is the self-cherishing thought. The self-cherishing thought becomes like a god, it becomes our best friend, forever, in the morning and at night, all the time, constantly; the self-cherishing thought is close and we totally rely on that. Therefore, that is the biggest problem; that is the biggest enemy.

Why is there this problem? Because of the self-cherishing thought.

This practice may be hard for very new people, it might be difficult to understand, but for older students, this is exactly what they have to practice. Whatever disease, cancer, spirit harm, black magic, anything we have, we can think in this way.

Thank you very much. You have pain, so this advice is the same.

Please, please, please, life is very short and we can die anytime. We can die anytime. By this time next year, our consciousness may be somewhere else and our body will be already burned. By this time next month or next week or even tomorrow, now here, even today or tomorrow, we can be on the firewood, with the body burned. Then other people are scared to come, even our friends who liked us very much, who came to see us before, who do not want to be separated from us. Even they will be scared to come close to this body, this corpse.

Dharma practice is for all the time because the mind is continuous, not only beginningless but also endless. Whether we have a happy life or a suffering life in the future depends on karma. However, because we like only happiness and do not like suffering, what we need is only Dharma practice, not nonvirtue. So not only the four noble truths, the Lesser Vehicle path, but also the Mahayana path to achieve enlightenment, then on the basis of that we can be free from samsara. Then on the basis of Mahayana sutra [we practice] Mahayana tantra, then we can achieve enlightenment in one life. [Practicing] Highest Yoga Tantra, we can achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime of these degenerate times.

You have received so many teachings, even from His Holiness the Dalai Lama—wow, wow, wow—and also from other qualified other teachers. Wow, wow, wow. Thank you very much. 

Maybe what you are experiencing is spirit harm.

There was somebody who had similar spirit harm. That person could hear a sound all the time, like someone talking. She had this sound, then when she traveled to another country the language she could hear also changed. So that was from spirit harm; they can do like this. She had it for quite a long time.

There is another nun who was going to do shinä; she wanted to achieve shinä, but then this sound came. The sound was an obstacle, like the huge noise of water running, like a river, and it became an obstacle for shinä. Shinä is not easy and if you do not have much merit, then many obstacles arise. So this had been happening for a long time for her. Therefore, I told her to write out sutras in gold instead, using real gold, writing the Prajnaparamita to create the cause for shinä.

I did some prayers for you, but you also need to read the Vajra Cutter Sutra five times.

When we experience bad things, we think it’s very bad, but in reality, it is very good. It means our past lives’ negative karmas get purified by experiencing this now. So then, we don’t have to be born in the hell realms, the lower realms, and suffer for eons, for such a long time. That is the heaviest, the worst, the most painful suffering, for such a long time, for eons.

So that experience is due to our Dharma practice, the power of our Dharma practice, like bodhicitta. When we experience [sickness, spirit harm and so forth] in this life, then the karma gets finished, so we don’t have to be reborn in the lower realms and suffer for eons and eons. Then our future life is like the sun shining in the world, then we have so much happiness, happiness, happiness, wow, wow, wow, from life to life, and then we go to enlightenment.

Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung said:

Even just this small suffering
Finishes our past bad karmas and causes happiness in future lives.
Don’t look at the suffering as negative.
Rejoice; be happy with the suffering.

Thank you very much. Wow, wow, wow.

With much love and prayers ...

My very dear one,
This may be a very difficult time for you, however, it is important to use the complaints in your tonglen practice. Use the problems on the path to enlightenment. It’s so important for you to do this now; it’s so important to use the Dharma understanding you have.

Use this problem on the path to enlightenment and whatever you experience, make it for the benefit of sentient beings.

There was a great lama in Tibet called Choje Gotsangpa, who said, “Whatever difficulties or bad conditions I experience, may I be able to use it for the benefit of all sentient beings.”

Even though the situation appears as bad, you can use it as a positive; you can use it on the path to enlightenment.

With love and prayer ...

Dear gentlemen, my brother,
I heard that the previous person in charge caused all the problems for you. He took the big house that you built and did not finish, and he also took the money. You should think that this is very good.

No matter how much money we have—billions, zillions, trillions—for us ordinary beings, since we are born, we have to die. Like the plants—they are born, but they die. This is their nature and it’s the same for us ordinary beings.

Of course, Shakyamuni Buddha and numberless buddhas were ordinary beings like us, but they changed their minds and instead of cherishing the I, they renounced it. They cherished not just one person but numberless sentient beings—hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, sura beings, asura beings and numberless human beings.

They became free; they realized truth and emptiness. They became free from samsara and achieved the total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations, enlightenment. They liberated numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and are still doing that now, but we didn’t change our mind. Instead of cherishing numberless others, we cherish one I and renounce others.

Buddhas and bodhisattvas renounced the I and cherished numberless sentient beings. They all achieved enlightenment and caused temporal and ultimate happiness to others.

We are unable to give happiness to others and we destroy even our own happiness by cherishing the I, so we are still not free from the suffering of samsara. There is the suffering of pain, which is the cycle of death and rebirth, old age and sickness. Then the second type of suffering is all the samsaric pleasure, which is temporary. The third type of suffering is pervasive compounding suffering.

The five aggregates—form, feeling, discriminative awareness, compositional factors and consciousness—are under the control of delusion and karma. That’s why they are pervaded by suffering. The aggregates are contaminated by the seeds of the disturbing thought and controlled by karma, action. From the seeds of delusion, suffering arises again, thus we are still not free from all of these. This is the cycle of death and rebirth, the cycle of pain.

When death will happen to us, we cannot say. It can happen at any time—any month, any week, any day, any hour, any minute, any second. When death happens, the beggar, for example, who has only one stick, only one possession, has to leave this stick when he dies.

The king or president who has so many possessions, servants, population—however much wealth he has, gold, diamonds, wish-granting jewels—even though he has everything, when he dies, he will need to leave everything. Not only his possessions, but he cannot bring even the body which he cherishes to next life.

Even our own single hair [is left behind]. Consciousness alone will go to the next life. Only karma, our positive and negative actions, will go to the next life in our mental continuum. Otherwise, nothing. But most people don’t think like that. Even billionaires or zillionaires, when death comes, they have so much attachment, clinging. When they suddenly die, then unbelievable suffering comes. They are separated from their family, their possessions and their own body. They don’t know where all the suffering and happiness come from. The cause for happiness is so rare to create and [most people] don’t know it.

Even when you explain it to people, first of all they have no faith when they hear holy Dharma because they don’t have the karma. Even if they have the karma, they cannot accept it. Sometimes they get angry when they hear Dharma and they run away.

There is unbelievable worry, fear in their faces [at the time of death]. They don’t know [Dharma] and when death happens they suffer in the lower realms as hell beings, animals and hungry ghosts, for thousands of years without finding food, or as animals which steal or eat each other.

Therefore, you should know the reality is like this. There is nothing to be upset about and there is no need to think that this person is so bad. Even billionaires, zillionaires, trillionaires, as I mentioned, can die at any time.

This may be difficult for you because you don’t know all these stories. There was one Tibetan layperson called Milarepa. When Milarepa’s father died, his mother was badly treated by his uncle and aunt, and they also took all their wealth, so his mother advised him to learn black magic. He learned it and destroyed the whole house while the relatives were dancing and drinking. Thirty people and more animals downstairs were killed.

As a result of that karma, Milarepa would have suffered for so many eons and eons, but he was very sad after that happened. Then that lama who taught him black magic told him to see Guru Marpa if he wanted to practice holy Dharma. So Milarepa met Guru Marpa, who was an enlightened being, not an ordinary, obscured, suffering being.

Milarepa didn’t have any possessions, so he offered his body, speech and mind to Guru Marpa. He requested Marpa to teach holy Dharma and to provide the means of living together. So Marpa accepted and started to guide him and within a few years Milarepa was able to purify all the negative karma and achieve enlightenment. He achieved that in one brief lifetime of degenerate times.

Guru Marpa let Milarepa build alone a nine-story tower, but when it was finished Marpa asked him to tear it down and take all the stones back to where he found them. Then Marpa said to rebuild the tower again, and again tear it down, and again rebuild it. The tower still exists in Tibet but I didn’t see yet. The place is called Lhodrag in Tibet.

Marpa didn’t give teachings to Milarepa. He only scolded him, gave him a hard time and even beat him when he came with other students to receive teachings. Marpa himself was a buddha. Later he gave Milarepa teachings and initiations, and then Milarepa went to the mountains to meditate.

Milarepa followed Guru Marpa’s advice exactly and in that life he was able to purify all the defilements and negative karma and to achieve enlightenment, the unified state of Vajradhara, buddhahood. It’s not only Milarepa. There are many others who achieved enlightenment in one brief lifetime of degenerate times, but Milarepa became well-known to people, even in the West.

So I’ll tell you, in his early life, because he met the guru and had stable devotion—he never lost faith, he didn’t become heretical being and he always had faith that Marpa was a buddha—he was able to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime of these degenerate times, within a few years.

Similarly, you can also be like that. You don’t need to be a holy being from birth. If you change your mind, you can become a holy being during your life.

The second thing is about your situation. Because we have attachment to possessions, money, there is so much negative karma. Therefore, we suffer in this life, we suffer during death and after we die there’s unbelievable suffering for eons in the lower realms, as a hell being, hungry ghost or animal, and also in the human realms, on and on.

So now you don’t need to collect that heavy karma because of all the attachment. Now you are free. That person made you free, haha! 

So you can see, he is very, very kind, doing that to you. He is extremely kind, unbelievably kind. He saved you, he liberated you from many eons of unbelievable suffering of the lower realms and even the human realms in the future. Wow, wow, wow! What a kind, precious person!

Not only that, now you can make charity. You don’t have to feel you lost. You didn’t lose. You gained!

Anyway, death can happen at any time, and you can lose that [object of attachment] any time. This makes your life very simple, very easy, because there is no object to be attached to. So, you can make charity to him of all the money and the house.

You should think like this:

The purpose of my life is not just to achieve temporary happiness, such as money or a house. It’s not for that. Even liberation from samsara is not enough. The purpose of my life is to free other sentient beings from suffering and to help them achieve peerless happiness, to bring them to buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. Therefore, I’m going to make charity of this money and the house to the person who is taking it.

That becomes the cause of enlightenment; you are creating the cause to achieve peerless happiness, buddhahood. So you are not losing, you are gaining. The house and money is nothing.

Actually, by making charity with bodhicitta, it becomes the cause for you to achieve the highest enlightenment, peerless happiness. If it is done with bodhicitta, when you make charity of however much money, however many rooms there are—for example, if you give back one dollar as an act of charity—you create infinite skies of merit, good karma, the cause of happiness.

If you make charity of however many millions of dollars or bricks of the house, wow, wow, wow, you are actually gaining most unbelievable, most unbelievable, most unbelievable skies of merits. So many, many times. Actually you should rejoice, feeling happiness all day and night, all your life.

There is no place in your mind to feel depression, sadness. You should feel unbelievable happiness. So now think that person is most unbelievably kind; his kindness is like the sky to you. So do this practice of charity for him. This is my heartfelt advice to you. If you thank him for taking all these things, it’s saving you, protecting you from the suffering of samsara, and you receive many, many eons of merits.

The great holy being, the bodhisattva Shantideva said:

If I didn’t harm others, nobody will harm me.

If others are harming you at this time, it is the result of your harm to others before. Even the mosquito or ant biting us is the result of past karma, when we harmed others. It’s all caused by us.

Most people, except those who know precious Dharma and karma, when harmed by others they will harm them back even more. But if we harm back, that means we are again creating the karma, the cause, and then next time, in the next life we will suffer again. It goes on forever like that, without end. We will always suffer. Therefore, the best solution is to not harm back and to practice patience, tolerance and compassion. Wow, wow, wow! Practice bodhicitta. Wow, wow, wow!

Also, because of harming us, they get reborn in the hell realms, so that’s caused by us. That’s the way to develop compassion, instead of anger, instead of harming back. Whatever is of help to them, at least you can dedicate your merits and recite OM MANI PADME HUM for other people to not be reborn in hell, to not suffer.

Overall, everything comes from our mind. Hell, enlightenment, samsara, nirvana, happiness, suffering—everything comes from our mind. Our world comes from our mind. That’s the basic idea in Buddhism. By knowing that, you can see that you have unbelievable freedom. By changing your mind, you can stop the suffering and gain happiness, even enlightenment, peerless happiness. Not only to be free from samsara.

You can keep this letter and read it again and again, from time to time. This is so good for you to read it again and again. For years and years, it will bring so much happiness in your life, to you and your family. If you have happiness, you can give happiness to others.

Thank you very much.

The purpose of me meeting you and understanding your problem, or your incredible freedom, is so that I can discuss it with you. I am so happy.

With much love and prayers ...

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

How are you now? Try to think of this advice.

The great enlightened Tibetan lama, Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyältsen said:

[LC 96] Even if the environment and beings are filled with the fruits of negative karma,
And unwished for sufferings pour down like rain,
I seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path
By seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of my negative karma.

So use the sickness for your practice by thinking in this way. This means your illness is very positive. What you need is to finish your past karma so that you don’t have to experience the suffering results [in the future].

Kadampa Geshe Kharag Gomchung advised:

By experiencing this small suffering now
It finishes my past negative karma
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, be happy with these sufferings.

Then in the near future your life will be like the sun shining, with incredible happiness. Great success will happen.

With much love and prayers ...