Understanding Karma

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your report and for all that you're doing, that is very good. Regarding tonglen, it is incredible that you are doing that, it is fantastic, it is better than giving me a billion, trillion dollars, so thank you for doing tonglen. If you miss a day, you don't have to start again, this practice is not like that, you just do it when you can. It’s most important to do it well, with meditation.

Yes, the swift path is the Red Commentary, which was the basis of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

Our aim is to achieve enlightenment in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. While we are listening, reflecting and meditating on the path to enlightenment, because we are not out of samsara, we are in samsara, therefore we experience the shortcomings of samsara. We experience old age, sickness, suffering and death, and that includes cancer, so that is a sign that we are in samsara, therefore that happens, all those things happen.

Don't worry so much, the main thing is to achieve enlightenment and to free sentient beings from samsara, so if we practice Dharma then those sicknesses can be stopped by the power of Dharma practice, by purification and collecting merits and especially bodhicitta. It is said in the teachings that when we are practicing Dharma, many obstacles happen, so that is good, that is a sign, proof we are purifying negative karma and collecting merits, so that is very positive.

I often mention the example of somebody who runs a five-star hotel, where lots of people are coming so that person makes a lot of money every day, but they have to kill thousands of fish and chickens. They have to kill so many animals every day for the restaurant in the five-star hotel, and a lot of money comes in from that. It looks like this person is doing well, making a lot of money, and for people in the world who don't know Dharma, this is what they call success, but that person is creating so much negative karma each day by killing thousands, even tens of thousands, maybe even millions of animals—chickens, fish, shrimp—every day. Can you imagine? Every single action of that person’s body, speech and mind is negative karma, and most of them are not even doing one minute of confessing negative karma, because they don't know, they have no opportunity in life, and they are only creating rainfalls of negative karma, day and night.

Then the next person is a Dharma practitioner who has renounced this life; the ordained person who has nothing and who gets very sick, time after time. This goes on in their life and they almost die many times. For ordinary people who don't know Dharma, it looks like that Dharma practitioner has so many problems, one after another. The other person who owns the five-star hotel, it looks like their life is very good because they are healthy. But in reality, all the negative karma collected by the five-star hotel owner is not experienced in this life; it is all collected and will be experienced in hell for eons and eons and eons of suffering, where they cannot hear Dharma and in the next life cannot meet the guru.

The renounced person has nothing and is always sick, but this is positive because of their pure Dharma practice. All their past heavy negative karma is ripening in this life, so instead of being born in hell and suffering for eons, the negative karma is ripening now, in this life, instead of in future lives. Even if they are always sick in this life, at the time of death, even then, they will have so much happiness and in the next life they will be reborn in the pure land or in the higher realms where they will always meet Dharma and be able to practice Dharma.

Their future lives are much better and they are like the sun shining in the world. In their future lives beyond this life, they are like the sun shining, bringing so much happiness and so much merit, and then being able to go to enlightenment.

So in reality there is a huge difference between those two people. There are many examples like this. Worldly people think that when someone makes a lot of money and is very successful, then that one is good, whereas the monk or nun who has renounced this life and lives very simply, but is sick all the time, is so bad.

With much love and prayers, and thank you for your understanding ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. First of all, I am terribly, terribly, terribly sorry your letter has been waiting more than one year. I’m so sorry I didn’t reply. Since you still need something, that’s why I am replying, if you still need it.

Here I want to tell you what the Buddha said in the teachings on the ten nonvirtues in regard to sexual misconduct.

The complete action of sexual misconduct needs the base, the sentient being, with whom one has sex, the motivation to have sex, the action and the goal. The goal is when the sexual orgasm happens. So the sexual action has to have these parts to be complete. It is done with the motivation, not just for sex, but with the self-cherishing thought, for our own happiness, our own pleasure. On the basis of that, of course there can be attachment to this life, clinging to this.

This act, when it has the four complete actions [four aspects of karma], first there is the ripened action [ripened result], which is rebirth in the hell realms or as a hungry ghost or animal. We are reborn in one of those realms and then we have to suffer in those realms. In one text it says for one eon, for example in the hells.

Then there are the three suffering results that we experience in this human realm. So due to another good karma we get born as a human being, but in that life we experience the three suffering results. One is the possessed result, which has to do with the place where we live. It will be a very dirty place, a filthy dirty place, unhygienic. Even for us, when we pass through another country or town that is very dirty—even for five minutes if we have to cross such a place or experience that—that is the possessed result. Then there are those who have to live their whole life in that place, or if not their whole life but some part of the life in a place like that.

If you and your wife become combative—if your wife wishes something and you wish something different, thinking different ways, then it is not harmonious but combative, even though you are physically living together—then that is the cause of separation.

There are also the four negative actions of speech—telling lies, gossip, slander and harsh speech, expressing words that hurt others. When we experience slander, this is the result similar to the cause, so for example with our partner.

Here I am saying generally to think that this is the real cause, then the separation happens. This is experiencing the result similar to the cause of sexual misconduct done in the past, not that which will be done in the future. I am talking about the result, so that means the cause, the sexual misconduct, happened in the past, and now you are experiencing the result.

In our life if this happens many times, not just one time, it is the result of past sexual misconduct. The past also means past lives. It could be the life before this one, or it could be a few lifetimes ago, or it could be a million, trillion eons ago.

We have to understand that karma is definite. [See the four outlines of karma.] That means what is created, it is definite that we will experience the result. That means if we create nonvirtue it is definite that we will experience the result, suffering. If we create virtue it is definite that we will experience the result, happiness.

The second thing is that karma is increasing, so that means if we kill one insect, then the result from that is that we will be killed by the continuity of that being, whom we killed in the past. We will be killed by the continuity of that being, even if that being reincarnates in different forms for five hundred lifetimes, but as a result we will still be killed by it. Also it depends on how great the harm was that has been done to others. If it is a lot then it could be even longer than this that we have to experience the result.

It’s the same with virtuous action—instead of killing, the opposite is to not kill. For example, living in the vow to not kill, or if one animal is going to be killed, instead of it being killed we liberate it. The result of that virtuous action is that when we are in danger of being killed, somebody liberates us, and that happens many times, for five hundred lifetimes. Also, saving a living being that is otherwise going to be killed generally causes a long life. If we cause the other sentient being to have a long life, then we will have a long life for five hundred lifetimes. That is the result of one action of causing other sentient beings to have a long life. Here we can understand the unbelievable benefits of liberating one person or animal who is in danger of being killed. If we save that being’s life, what a great benefit we will experience. So if we do this many times, like FPMT’s Singapore center (Amitabha Buddhist Centre), where so far they have liberated two hundred million animals—what incredible karma they have created.

The next thing in regard to karma is that if we haven’t created the karma, then we can’t experience the result, whether the result is happiness or unhappiness. If we have collected negative karma, then we will experience the result of that. That means there is no such thing as experiencing the result of happiness or suffering without having created the cause, at all.

The fourth aspect of karma is that whatever karma has been created never gets lost. So virtue or nonvirtue that is created, whether small or great, the result never gets lost. Even if it takes millions or trillions of eons to experience, it is definite that we will have to experience the result.

Therefore since we don’t like even small discomfort, even in our dreams or in daily life, we should not create even small nonvirtue. Since we like even small pleasure, we should engage in creating even small virtue. It becomes very important to do that.

The last result of sexual misconduct is in regard to creating the result similar to the cause of that negative karma. So even if it was done a billon or trillion eons ago or even much longer than that, numberless eons ago, we experience the result. The fourth result is creating the result similar to the cause, and what this means is that we do the action again in this life. The sexual misconduct, which is the result of that past negative karma done numberless eons ago, is done again. Here I am talking about the particular result of sexual misconduct and that karma. So for example each sexual misconduct action that was done would have its own result of the four suffering results, even if the action was done numberless eons ago or in the life before this one. So each complete action has four suffering results.

In regard to the last one, creating again the result similar to the cause, that means that we engage in sexual misconduct again with the self-cherishing thought, with attachment to this life, so then that again is a complete negative karma and again it produces the four suffering results. So it goes on and on and on. If we don’t do anything, if we don’t practice Dharma, if we don’t purify the negative karma of what we have done in the past, if we don’t practice morality, if we don’t abandon this negative karma, then our suffering in samsara has no end. So we can see, we are making our own samsara and it has no end, it is endless, endless suffering in samsara. That’s how it happens, even from one negative karma, such as sexual misconduct, then there are so many other negative karmas that we create.

It’s unbelievable, terrifying, most terrifying. We create the result similar to the cause and then do the same action again in this life.

Thinking of the past, from beginningless rebirth we have gone through the result of sexual misconduct, experiencing the four results numberless times, and the sufferings. So if we don’t practice Dharma, if we don’t purify negative karma, if we don’t live in morality, abstaining from negative actions, then we are continually creating the result similar to the cause and then doing the negative action again and again. It goes on and on and we create endless samsara. Nobody else is creating our samsara but our own mind. Our negative mind is creating our endless suffering.

So that’s why in Buddhist philosophy, Buddha said that everything came from the mind. That means even hell, the heaviest suffering of hell, up to the peerless happiness, as well as day to day pleasure, even a few minutes or a few seconds of sexual pleasure, even that pleasure, up to enlightenment, the happiness of future lives, all the pleasure of this life, all the samsaric pleasures that we experience while we are in samsara—all that came from our own mind. Ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, the blissful state of peace forever—even that came from our own mind. Then peerless happiness, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations, buddhahood—even that came from our own mind. So everything came from our own mind.

This also means that the enemy, friend, stranger also came from our own mind. This came from our attachment, anger and ignorance. The root of samsara is our own wrong concept, the ignorance holding the I and aggregates as real, as it appears to our hallucinating mind, as though it is existing from its own side, truly existent, existing by itself, a real one. This is what we experience and believe in our daily life.

Therefore our mind is the creator of our hell and our mind is the creator of our enlightenment. Our mind is the creator of our samsara; our mind is the creator of our own liberation from samsara; our mind is the creator of everyday problems; and our mind is the creator of everyday pleasure. Depending on how we think [and act]—the wrong way, nonvirtue, or the right way, virtue—from that result there is happiness or suffering. From a healthy mind we experience happiness and from an unhealthy mind we experience suffering.

That’s why the Buddha said (v. 183, Dhammapada),

Do not commit any unwholesome actions,
Engage in perfect wholesome actions,
Subdue your own mind.
This is the teaching of Buddha.

This is the Buddha’s heart advice, to subdue one’s own mind. This is the practice, this is the Buddha’s teaching and this is the practice. Even if we know by heart all of Buddha’s teachings, more than 100 volumes of the Kangyur, the Buddha’s teachings and the 200 volumes of the Tengyur, the commentaries by the Indian pandits, so even if we know all of these by heart, but if we never subdue our own mind, if we don’t use the teaching that we know to subdue our mind, to develop our mind, we are not practicing Buddhism, we are just learning the words but not practicing. It is similar to putting it into a computer or repeating the words like a tape recorder, but that is not practicing.

What you can do regarding past sexual misconduct is take vows. By taking the eight Mahayana precepts, which are for one day, we live in the vows to not engage in these actions for one day. We should take these precepts with bodhicitta motivation: to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to buddhahood, the peerless state of happiness. For that reason we need to achieve buddhahood, so it is for that reason we are taking the vows.

Then from that we collect more than skies of merit, just by taking the eight Mahayana precepts, not just one vow but taking eight vows with bodhicitta. It’s amazing, amazing, amazing, we collect so much merit, more than skies of merit, so with eight vows then eight times [the merit.] Even if we don’t take them for your whole life; even if we take the vows just for one day.

As well as the eight Mahayana precepts, there are also the pratimoksha vows, the eight precepts. Then there are the lifetime five lay precepts. Even if you can’t take all five (to not kill, steal, lie, engage in sexual misconduct or take intoxicants), you can take four vows or three vows or two vows or if not, then you can just take one vow. I usually say that if you are going to take one, then take the not killing vow, but do whatever you can. Of course there are the higher vows, the ten vows, the 36 vows of the getsul, the 253 vows of gelong, a fully ordained bhikshu or the 363 vows of gelongma, a fully ordained bhikshuni.

The other thing is that the past negative karma which has been done already, numberless times from beginningless rebirth, and there are so many, of course we have already started to experience the four suffering results, and there are still many, numberless, which we haven’t yet experienced, like the [results of] the ten nonvirtues and so forth. One thing is that purification is so important, so we need to live in morality. This is a way of purifying what was done in the past, so we can purify this by living in morality, but also there are many practices of purification that are very powerful.

These include pleasing most the holy mind of the virtuous friend, obtaining the guru’s advice, following the guru’s holy wishes, offering service to the guru, even offering fruit or even a biscuit, nuts or a glass of water to the guru. The guru is the most powerful holy object. This brings us closer to enlightenment, which means it helps to purify the past negative karmas as well.

Then with compassion bearing hardships, working for sentient beings, helping sentient beings. This is also very powerful, it helps and is a quick way to achieve enlightenment, so it is a very powerful way to purify past negative karmas.

Practices such as Vajrasattva are also very powerful. Also, reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, not only reciting but also prostrating, is a very powerful way to purify past negative karma. Even if we can’t prostrate we can visualize prostrating with both hands together, visualize numberless of your human body or visualize oneself as the deity, and numberless deities then doing prostrations to the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha while reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas. This is very powerful practice.

Lama Tsongkhapa did 700,000 prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas and then achieved realizations on the path to enlightenment. Realizations of sutra and tantra came like rainfall.

There are many other practices generally for purification. For those who have taken Highest Yoga Tantra initiations and done the deity retreat and fire puja, they can then do self-initiation. This is very powerful. Also, like reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, it is a remedy, and if it is done with the four powers it is perfect purification. This is mentioned in the Thirty-five Buddhas practice.

If you do Vajrasattva with the remedy of the four powers, it is a very powerful, perfect purification practice.

So if you kill a human being, tell lies (this refers to a big lie, for example, not having any realizations, but pretending you have realizations), take valuable things that are not given by others, engage in sexual misconduct and so forth, by reciting Vajrasattva mantra 100,000 times or 200,000 times or 400,000 times, the karma gets purified completely. For example if you recite the Vajrasattva 100-syllable mantra 21 times at the end of the day, it stops that day’s negative karma, which was done with your body, speech and mind, from becoming double the next day, so it is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable. Then it stops the karma from tripling on the second day. It not only purifies today’s negative karma, but also your past negative karma is purified.

If you recite the short mantra, OM VAJRASATTVA HUM, with the remedy of the four powers, you need to recite it 28 times a day. That stops the negative karma from doubling. So the negative karma created today is not doubled the next day, by doing this mantra.

Also if you recite the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas well just one time with the remedy of the four powers, then as my guru Kyabje Denmo Locho Rinpoche explained, it purifies even the very heavy negative karma, which after death would result in rebirth in the inexhaustible hell realms. This is the last hell realm, with the heaviest suffering. The length of life there is one intermediate eon, that is how long you would have had to suffer. So until the karma is finished, you would have to be born there and to suffer, even if this world ends. Then if there is no more hell there, you would still have to be reborn in another universe that has hell. There are six realms, so this goes on and on until your karma is finished. So that karma gets purified.

There are five heaviest karmas: killing this life’s father or mother, killing an arhat who is free from samsara, drawing blood from a buddha or causing disunity among the Sangha. Even these very heavy negative karmas get purified.

The conclusion is that it is best is to live in morality and to totally abandon the negative karma, such as sexual misconduct. You can do that by taking the eight Mahayana precepts, that is so good. They are for one day, but you can take them as many times as possible, whenever you can, and in this way keep the eight Mahayana precepts.

You need to receive the lineage first from a guru. This is just for the first time that you take them. After that you can take them from the altar, visualizing the Buddha, so you can take them anytime in your life. That is extremely good, to abandon negative karma as much as possible, and not only to abandon negative karma, but to live in the vows. By taking the eight Mahayana precepts, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, as I have already told you, we create so much merit.

The conclusion is, regarding karma the Buddha said : by habituating the mind in nonvirtue, we rely on the negative karma, we use negative karma and in the future we follow negative karma. This is what the Buddha said in the Sutra of the King of Concentration.

It is very powerful if we get habituated in this. Then again and again in this life we do the same action, this is what happens and it continues in future lives, not just in this life, but in future lives. In this way we depend on nonvirtue, and we create nonvirtue again and again, so we have endless suffering of samsara, just from this.

That’s why now you can see the benefits of being a monk or nun, living in a nunnery or monastery, the purpose of that. That is how to live in morality of body, speech and mind, to not engage in nonvirtue, to not harm others or oneself. By living in morality, in virtue, so for that reason living in a monastery and nunnery and not living a household life.

That makes it very easy, the condition, to not engage in the ten nonvirtues and so forth.

In my observation, according to your karma, your main deity is Kalachakra. You can recite the Kalachakra mantra once you receive the initiation. I am not sure when His Holiness the Dalai Lama is next giving the Kalachakra initiation, but when it is, you must attend. I heard that His Holiness Sakya Trizin is giving Kalachakra initiation in Nepal, but it may have already started, in Solu Khumbu in Nepal, in the Himalayan mountains, at Tengboche. I don’t know the details, it may have already happened. 

Also, I think you should do the Thirty-five Buddhas practice, reciting the buddhas’ names and prostrating. That would be best.

The main lamrim for you to focus on is Essence of Refined Gold, and after that Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Please study these from beginning to end, not jumping like a flea or a turtle, but studying the texts from beginning to end. Study like that four times—Essence of Refined Gold and then Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

This is my advice. Please read this again and again, not just one time. As much as possible live your life with bodhicitta mind in everything you do. This is the best life.

With much love and prayers ...

Rinpoche’s letter

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter explaining your experience. Since you are a lawyer, what you would do normally, and what other people in the world would do normally, is only think of this lifetime, especially if someone had killed your father. That kind of harm is a huge thing and difficult to bear.

Most people don’t think about karma, reincarnation and so forth, and that all problems come from the mind, from the I. They don’t know that. Or even if they know intellectually, they don’t practice that. So they would put that person whom they called “enemy” in prison or they would kill that person, harm them back or even do worse if they can. That is normally what people think and do in the world.

You were checking your experience for a long time and you realized that it is the result; you experienced the result of what you did in the past to others. The person who killed your father and grandmother was badly treated and harmed by you in the past.

Then you helped your brothers and sisters become harmonious and decide to help, instead of taking revenge. This is the greatest practice. This is what Buddha said to do when somebody harms us. This is what Buddha and what holy beings do in the world, and what bodhisattvas do. If somebody harms us, worldly people say that is an enemy, but instead of harming back, we should only benefit that person. This is what holy beings, bodhisattvas do. Your actions follow that. This is the actual practice.

You made numberless gurus—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, all the gurus, all the buddhas and numberless bodhisattvas—most happy. You and your brothers and sisters made them most happy, pleased them the most. It is the best.

With my two hands together at my heart, I am thanking you and your brothers and sisters a billion, zillion times from my heart. Please tell them I am thanking them. You pleased most His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Buddha of Compassion, and numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The great bodhisattva Shantideva said in the Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life:

My karma persuaded them,
Therefore, I received this harm.
Because of that, didn’t I make the person fall in the hole of the hell?

What that is saying is first why you received this harm. For example, relating to your life story, because you treated a person that way in a past life, the result happened: you received harm, and your father and grandmother were killed. Now the person who harmed you is in the human realm, but soon that will end. Due to that action [of killing your relatives] that person will leave the human realm, and due to that negative karma, they will get born in the hole of the hell. Then they will suffer in the hell realms for an unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable length of time. They will endure the heaviest suffering.

So you are not only practicing patience, but developing compassion, by thinking that the person who harmed you, which was due to your negative karma, now has to be born in hell and suffer for an unbelievable length of time. All that started originally from you; you harmed this person. This is a way to develop compassion—thinking about what obliged the person to engage in negative karma, to harm you. So please tell your sisters and brothers this.

In essence in Buddhism, first thinking only of your happiness, you see that to not receive harm from others, you don’t harm others. If you don’t harm others, then you don’t receive harm from others. If you benefit others, then as a result, others benefit you, bring happiness to you. So that is only thinking of cherishing yourself, thinking only of yourself.

Now, thinking of numberless sentient beings, you stop harming others, then they don’t receive harm. You benefit the numberless sentient beings and they receive happiness. This is incredible Mahayana Buddhism. This is the great vehicle, without talking about tantra. This is the basic practice of Mahayana Buddhism.

Similarly, the Tibetan people want to fight, like in the normal world, fight back at Mainland China, but His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised them to not fight. Without fighting, the truth will win. His Holiness is talking only about peace, in terms of dealing with Mainland China, only dealing in peace. If you fight, what happens is a similar story to what you mentioned. Then you are creating the negative karma to receive harm from others, again and again. Then there is no end to suffering in samsara, no end; not only no beginning, but no end.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised that only by being peaceful, only by truth, will the Tibetans win peace. This advice is so important. This way you don’t receive harm back from others. You aren’t attacked by others. You don’t experience war. You get only the result—peace and happiness. If you treat others peacefully, as a result you receive peace and others help you. That is really Dharma practice.

Please tell your brothers and sisters. That is the real practice, the best Dharma practice. What your family did should be an example to the world, to those who have the highest scientific knowledge. Your family is a good example for all those billionaires and zillionaires. It is a good example for anyone—educated, uneducated, poor or rich. This is the best example for them.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

Student’s Letter

Dear Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche,
… Five days after my ordination, my grandmother and father died at the same event. I felt shocked about losing my father. Just that morning, he had called and asked me if I was happy with the ordination. He was Catholic, but respectful. I replied I was very happy. Then he replied he was happy for me too. That night, he died with his mother in their house. They were poisoned by gas in their house. The gas was coming from the kitchen, and they fell asleep and died. In time, we discovered my father’s first cousin had killed them in order to steal or inherit money and keep it from my family. When we discovered that, it was a great shock. I have two brothers and two sisters. We were very angry.

I was incredibly angry and very confused. Just being ordained, I was trying my best to have a good heart and good thoughts. On the other hand, I was very angry about what happened. Out of anger I decided to go and visit the person who killed my father. I took my purse and started to walk to the car.

Suddenly an image of you, Rinpoche, came into my mind. You were sitting in meditation posture with a beautiful and exquisite smile. At that moment, I started to cry so deeply, and I realized what had happened. Straight away I thought, “Only because of Rinpoche’s great compassion did he ordain me.”

Then I decided not to visit the person who damaged my family. I cried and cried for a couple of days, trying to put all the experience together. I felt that ordination was protecting my mind from seeking revenge, killing, cheating and stealing. I was feeling so protected by you and feeling so, so fortunate, I made the following statement: “From now on, my aim and duty is going to be to reduce my anger. When I am capable of overcoming anger, then I will help my brothers and sisters.”

For many months I did analytical meditation on anger. After one year, the anger had been reduced very much. Then I started working with my brothers and sisters to help them reduce their anger. One day, continuing with analytical meditation, I thought, “Maybe that was family karma.” Then I thought, “If that is the case, that means that in the past we have done the same thing, killing and stealing an inheritance for our own family.”

I imagined killing my own family and stealing from them, and it was difficult to believe, because in this life I have not killed a human being and I had the belief that I am a good person. I continued meditating and analyzing this, and then I had an insight: “I cannot experience anything that I have not created the cause for.”

Again I imagined myself and my brothers and sisters killing someone’s father and stealing their inheritance. Oh, Rinpoche, the biggest pain I’ve ever experienced came, thinking and understanding that in a past life I had dared to kill someone. It was so painful. It’s very difficult to overcome that. By thinking about it over and over, after two years I felt some peace, and I understood that we were experiencing the result of actions that we had created. If we created the cause, we deserved the result.

Then I thought that if we created the cause in another lifetime, in this life the best thing to do is not to put that person in jail, but to offer the inheritance to the person who killed and stole from my family. After many meetings with my brothers and sisters, we decided to give away the money and properties from the inheritance to the cousin who had killed our relatives and not to put her in prison. We decided peace in death is more important than the inheritance, and peace in life is more important.

This story, Rinpoche, is to voice my huge gratitude to you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche for saving my life and protecting my mind all the time ….

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your letter and offerings. According to my observation you should recite the “mantra without attachment” from the Golden Light Sutra. Recite this with bodhicitta motivation, to have a most beneficial life and to achieve the three principal aspects of the path and the two stages, on the basis of correctly following the virtuous friend, having the stable realization that all your gurus are the Buddha. This doesn’t mean every single guru; it means all the gurus that you have a Dharma connection with.

I checked and it is very important that you do Lion-face Dakini practice. Usually this is done if there is some black magic. Please do Lion-face Dakini practice every day if you can.

One old student, a nun who started her own nunnery in USA, had black magic, so she asked me what to do because one-by-one all the students there became negative and then left and didn’t come back. Even the main person, the manager, became negative and left, so there was nobody helping her. I told her to do the Lion-face Dakini practice, I don’t remember how long she did it for, one or two months, and then after that gradually all the people came back. This is very clear proof that Lion-face Dakini practice helped and I also have other examples.

Please remember, the Kadampa geshe said:

Whatever small suffering you experience now, by experiencing all the problems and difficulties now, it finishes all your past negative karma and there will be happiness in the future, like the sun shining. Therefore, rejoice in this suffering, thinking of it as good and positive, and not as negative.

Also please especially do the practice of tonglen. Take other sentient beings’ sufferings and all the causes and conditions [of that suffering] into your heart. Think that the self-cherishing thought, the root of samsara, ignorance—where all the sufferings  and all the obstacles to practicing Dharma come from—is destroyed. Then with loving kindness give away all your possessions, your merits and your body, visualizing it as a wish-fulfilling jewel. Give away all your three-time merits up to enlightenment to all beings.

Please remember it is just about one time that we have received this most precious human rebirth, where we can stop being reborn in the lower realms forever and we are able to achieve all the happiness; the future lives’ happiness up to enlightenment. This is by having a perfect human rebirth and then not only that, you have met the Dharma, the teachings and the method, so that you can be free from all the sufferings forever and achieve all the happiness up to full enlightenment, and you can free the oceans of samsaric beings from all the sufferings and bring them to enlightenment.

So first, really rely on and take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This is what protects you from [negative] karma. Abandon the ten nonvirtuous actions such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, telling lies and so forth. This is what protects you and is the cause of [rebirth as a] deva or as a human being, where you can then achieve ultimate happiness. Then there is Highest Yoga Tantra practice, which is the means for you to achieve enlightenment in one brief lifetime on the basis of generating compassion to all sentient beings and bodhicitta, and by practicing the six paramitas. Please practice like this as much as one can.

Please recite the Celestial Mansion mantra for success. Recite this with bodhicitta motivation to benefit all sentient beings.

It is extremely good that you have done nyung näs; please continue to do them when you can. Nyung nä is an extremely powerful practice to purify negative karma and obscurations collected since beginningless rebirth and a very powerful way to collect extensive merits and particularly if you do the practice with bodhicitta then you collect more than skies of merits. This is what causes you to achieve full enlightenment for all sentient beings. Recite OM MANI PADME HUM and the long dharani, and do prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas. This also creates the karma to be reborn in a pure land; that is if you don’t become enlightened in this life.

There is one puja you need to have done called che trul.

Lion-face Dakini is very important for you to do. It definitely sounds like black magic, but please remember that black magic comes from your own negative karma, from the self-cherishing thought, from having harmed others in the past. So this is the result. What you experience now is the result of having done harm to others in the past.

It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva in the Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Because my karma persuaded them, I have received this harm from others.
Therefore, didn’t I create the cause for this sentient being to be reborn in the hole of hell?

What you are experiencing is the result of your karma, having caused suffering to others, having given harm, so now they are harming you, and because of this they are creating the karma to suffer and be born in the hell realms in the future.

You are experiencing the result of your past karma of having hatred to others, and in order to not experience that again, it is important to not get angry at others who are angry with you. Therefore practice not getting angry, which otherwise would be the cause of future suffering. On top of that practice compassion, in order to help them not be reborn in the hell realms. At least practice patience and then dedicate your merits for them to not be reborn in the hell realms.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

You can give money if you have it, and if it is possible. It is not good to refuse to pay the money. If you are going to help the girl, this is also helping your brother. Think in a Dharma way; don't think in a worldly way, because this is just negative karma and then it becomes one more cause for rebirth in the lower realms—and also in the upper realms—where there is so much suffering.

This girl has been your mother, your father, your brother, your husband, your wife and your dear friend numberless times. She has also been your enemy numberless times and she has been a stranger numberless times. It is also your past karmic debt that you have to pay this money this time.

Your brother should wear the protection [amulet], the mantra Liberating From Bondage of Body, Speech and Mind.

The Dharma way is to think of the kindness of sentient beings, [who are the cause of] all your past, present and future happiness—the happiness of the higher realms and ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara and the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations, full buddhahood.

Sentient beings are the most kind, most dear, most precious wish-fulling ones for you, therefore make charity, not because he is your brother or your relative now, which is just for a very short time. This is not only the motivation of Dharma, but also bodhicitta motivation.

You should know that karma is definite, which means it definitely brings the result. From virtue the result is definitely happiness and from nonvirtue the result is definitely suffering.

A suffering result now comes from nonvirtue, if the nonvirtue is not completely purified and if it hasn’t met the conditions that make it extinct. Similarly with virtue, [the result is happiness] if it’s not destroyed by heresy, anger and so forth.

The second outline of karma is that it is expandable. You have to know that by making charity just one time you will experience the result for many lifetimes, for many eons. This is what you have to really know, to recognize. Happiness is not just received one time from virtue and then it is finished. This is what many people may think, but it’s not correct. We experience the result for eons. We have to experience the result, happiness, for eons. Similarly, we experience suffering as a result of nonvirtue. It’s not just one time that we experience it and it’s finished; we have to experience it for eons.

We have to understand that if the karma is not created then the result never happens. If the karma is created then the resultant suffering or happiness—whether great or small——never gets lost, even if it was created billions, zillions, trillions of years ago. We still have to experience the result of negative karma from billions, zillions, trillions of years ago, not just from this past life.

People wonder why in the beginning they have a beautiful body and then suddenly it becomes defective, or they have a lot of mental and physical suffering. So much unimaginable suffering happens, which could be from karma created numberless eons ago. People are very surprised, and they think, “Oh, I haven’t done bad things in this life, so why am I experiencing this now?” Most people think it is just [experienced in] one life. Maybe some people think of karma created from past lives, but most don’t think it can be karma created billions or zillions of eons ago, numberless eons ago. Most people don’t think like that.

In the Tengyur—the commentaries of the great pandits from Nalanda on the Buddha’s teachings in the Kangyur—the Buddha said:

Any sentient being who, during the period of my teachings,
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair)
For 80,000 eons there will be great results of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease, and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end you can actually achieve the result—the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).
After hearing that there is the great result, who wouldn’t want to collect merit?

There is also a quote similar to this in the Arya Sanghata Sutra by the Buddha.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, kind, precious, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? I am sorry you didn’t have time to come to the celebration, but please come to see, the statue is waiting for you.

I wanted to say a billion, zillion thanks on behalf of the animals, for taking care of them. They can’t express it; I am their microphone to you. That’s really fantastic. It brings inner happiness and it really gives you a good purpose of life, a meaning to life and living, by giving happiness to others.

Even though there are many different levels of happiness, in the ordinary world we know only one kind, the happiness of this life. In reality there is also the happiness of future lives, until we cease the cause of reincarnation, the delusions and actions, called karma in Sanskrit.

The main delusion, the principal one is ignorance. That is the mere belief; the very root is believing there is a real I, while there is not. It never existed, it never happened, except what merely exists in mere name, merely labeled by the mind. It is extremely unbelievably subtle, what it is by analyzing. We believe the I exists from its own side, that it is truly existent or exists from its own side, existing by its nature. Even though we believe it is labeled, we don’t believe it is merely labeled.

So by that realization of ultimate wisdom realizing emptiness only and then by developing that, we get direct perception of emptiness. The ultimate realizations cease delusion and karma (its actions), which are the cause of oceans of samsaric suffering. Only then can we achieve ultimate happiness, the everlasting blissful state of peace.

Then higher than that, by ceasing the subtle obscurations we achieve total realization, where there is nothing more to achieve, to understand—what is called buddhahood, or sang-gye in Tibetan. Sang means the total elimination of all the obscurations and gye is the completion of all the realizations. That is the peerless happiness. Then we are able to benefit numberless sentient beings, to liberate them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to the peerless happiness—buddhahood or sang-gye, the total elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

There are many different levels of happiness that get better and better in the world. Ordinary people’s happiness is not pure perfect happiness because it is in the nature of suffering. It appears as pleasure for attachment, but not for wisdom. In reality there are numberless beings who achieve all the different levels of happiness.

I am very sorry, taking so much of your time, this just slipped out of my mouth. I hope to see you soon.

Please enjoy being kind to the animals. Your good karma from being kind takes care of your life, because it is a dependent arising. Good action has a good result for numberless future lives, it has good success.

With much love and prayers...