Uterine Cancer and Previous Abortions

Uterine Cancer and Previous Abortions

Date of Advice:
March 2015
Date Posted:
September 2022

Rinpoche offered this practice advice to a student who had uterine cancer and was going to have an operation. The student also wrote that she had two abortions when she was younger and now strongly regretted doing that.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I checked and according to my observations your operation is not best, but good.

Read the Diamond Cutter Sutra nine times before going to the hospital. You should start to read it more or less straight away. It is so powerful for purifying the obscurations and negative karma accumulated from beginningless rebirths. The purpose is not just for yourself but for every single sentient being—every hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, asura and intermediate state being—for them to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and to lead them to total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

Preliminaries:
  • Water bowl offerings: 4,000.
  • Tsa tsas: 10,000. Most should be the three long-life deities. Some can be the three types of savior: Vajrapani, Manjushri, Chenrezig.
  • Mandala offerings: 101,000.

Deity: Yamantaka and Tara Cittamani.

To achieve enlightenment the quickest, the purpose is that we can’t bear that the numberless sentient beings, numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras, asuras, intermediate state beings are suffering in samsara. Their suffering is most unbearable. First of all, that; and second, they have been our mother and kind to us. Third, all our past, present and future happiness including enlightenment is received by the kindness of every sentient being.

Even Buddha, Dharma and Sangha that we always take refuge in to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering, to be free from lower realms, to receive a higher rebirth, liberation, and to whom we pray, came from sentient beings. So they are most unbelievably kind. Therefore, we are responsible for liberating the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bringing them to sang gye, the elimination of the obscurations and completion of the realizations. We need to do that as quickly as possible, and for that we need to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. For that we need to practice Highest Yoga Tantra, which contains the quickest path to enlightenment, the clear light, mahamudra.

The main lamrim for you to study is Manjushri’s Own Words [The Sacred Words of Manjushri; Tib: Jam päl zhal lung]. Read this text four times from beginning to end, and do effortful meditation on the lamrim. Cycle through the lamrim outline three times and then do effortless meditation.

Also do nyung näs. It is very, very common that there are people who do one hundred nyung näs. Sometimes they do fifty, then they have a break and do another fifty. Sometimes they do them straight, one after another. If you can do nyung näs as much as possible each year, that would be the greatest thing, the best thing. That contains everything: purification and collecting extensive merits. One nyung nä purifies negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths, so it’s a most powerful practice.

If possible, recite OM MANI PADME HUM. Even if we recite this mantra without bodhicitta, reciting it one time we collect more merit than the number of drops of water in the ocean or blades of grass growing in the fields or on the mountains, or the number of snowdrops or raindrops. Then if we recite this mantra with bodhicitta we collect merit greater than space. It’s most amazing, most amazing purification and collection of merits.

Also do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas and Thousand-arm Chenrezig. Wow, wow, wow, from that we collect the most amazing merits. When we do one prostration to the Buddha, however many atoms of earth our body covers, from the ground to the bottom of the earth, we create that many causes to be born as a wheel-turning king equaling one thousand times that many atoms. Why the example of the wheel-turning king is used is because to be born one time as a wheel-turning king we have to collect numberless merits, but of course it doesn’t mean that we have to be born only as a wheel-turning king. In the Lankavatara Sutra the Buddha used the example of the wheel-turning king, because to be born like that we have to create inconceivable, inconceivable merit.

Dedicate the merit for you to achieve enlightenment in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. Reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas prayer is unbelievable. So many eons of negative karma are purified by reciting each of the names once. Lama Tsongkhapa did 700,000 prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas prayer and received rainfalls of realizations.

During a nyung nä there are two days of eight Mahayana precepts. On the first day there is one meal and on the second day there is no eating or drinking. It is unbelievably powerful purification, particularly because it causes us to generate compassion for all sentient beings and then that brings us to enlightenment quickly. Not only that, it brings us to the pure land when we die. That’s the most powerful way to be born in the pure land, in Amitabha Buddha’s pure land. Once we are born there it is impossible to be reborn in the lower realms.

So, if you can, do many hundreds of nyung näs, like one thousand nyung näs. Geshe Lama Konchog did two thousand nyung näs. A great lama called Drupa Rinpoche, who built a monastery in the Himalayan mountains and helped so many people on the mountains, was always organizing 100 million mani retreats and stopping the killing of animals. He himself did to two thousand nyung näs and he had disciples who did three thousand nyung näs.

If you can do many nyung näs that would be unbelievable. We have a Brazilian nun who has probably finished more than five hundred nyung näs now. And we have students in France doing nyung näs. I sponsor all those students who do one hundred nyung näs.

With much love and prayers ...