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 ...