The Best Thing to Do Is to Become a Buddha or Bodhisattva
Buddhas Have Incredible Qualities
Next you asked me about the best way to make your life and work useful for others, and how to balance work with being a mother. My answer to this question is to say that first you have to make the purpose of your life very clear. The best life is a life not lived for oneself but lived for others, like that of a buddha or bodhisattva.
Buddhas achieve enlightenment only for sentient beings, not for themselves to be spaced out or blissed out, like a person taking drugs. As I mentioned already, a buddha is able to directly see, without any resistance or blockage, all the past phenomena that already happened, at the same time all the future phenomena that are yet to happen, and at the same time all the present phenomena that are happening now. Thus, a buddha’s holy mind can read every single sentient being’s mind. A buddha knows the minds of the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts and the numberless animals. A buddha knows, for example, the minds of all the tiny insects born on or in food, the number of which is difficult for human beings even to count. A buddha can also read the minds of the numberless human beings, the numberless asuras, the numberless suras and the numberless intermediate state beings. A buddha can read everyone’s mind at the same time without any resistance or blockage. The ability of a buddha to directly see all phenomena proves that a buddha’s holy mind is also there in that very place. And wherever there is a buddha’s holy mind, there is a buddha’s holy body, the extremely subtle wind that is the vehicle of the mind.
Buddhas Manifest as Pure Beings to Guide Pure Beings
For the sake of the numberless sentient beings, the buddhas manifest in all kinds of forms according to their karma. For ordinary beings, the buddhas manifest as ordinary beings, while for pure beings, the buddhas manifest as pure beings. There are different levels of pure beings. From among the five Mahayana paths, those who have achieved the great level of the first path, the path of merit, which is called Continuous Dharma, are able to see numberless buddhas in nirmanakaya aspect right there, wherever they are.6
There is a story about Kadampa Geshe Jayulwa, a Tibetan ascetic monk, who was an incomparable follower of his guru Chengawa. Whenever his guru called him, even if he was in the middle of offering a mandala he wouldn’t wait until he finished it but would immediately rush to offer service to his guru. Likewise, if he was in the middle of writing the Tibetan syllable na, he wouldn’t finish it but would immediately run to offer service as soon as he heard his guru calling him. Such devotion, which makes us extremely happy to serve the guru, is really incredible.
It is recounted that Geshe Jayulwa used to clean his guru’s room. Every day he would put the dirt he collected in his shamtab (the robe that monks wear on the lower part of their body) and go downstairs to dispose of it. One morning while he was carrying the dirt down the stairs, as he reached the third step he achieved the great path of merit called Continuous Dharma. Of course, this happened because he also practiced meditation, but it happened mainly because he had incredible devotion to his guru, seeing him as a buddha by looking at him as buddha, while bearing much hardship to follow him correctly. Because of this, while he was offering service the many negative karmas and obscurations he had collected from past lives were being purified. That day, when on the third step he reached the level of Continuous Dharma, he saw numberless buddhas in nirmanakaya aspect.
Like that, if we achieve this level of the path, we will see numberless buddhas. Before that, we didn’t see any buddhas, but right there, when we reach that level and our minds are purer, we see numberless buddhas in nirmanakaya aspect. Then when we reach the exalted path, the right-seeing path where we perceive emptiness directly, we see numberless buddhas in sambhogakaya aspect.7 Then, when all the obscurations, the gross as well as the subtle, have been totally ceased and all the realizations have been completed, such that there is nothing more to purify and nothing more to gain, that is, when we become fully enlightened, at that time we become one with all the buddhas. “We become one with all the buddhas” means that we become the guru. There is a very deep meaning behind that, but I won’t explain it here. In short, at that time all the buddhas have brought you to enlightenment.
Buddhas Manifest as Ordinary Beings to Guide Ordinary Beings
The Sutra of the Meeting of Father and Son says:
[Buddhas manifest in] the costumes of Indra and Brahma
And sometimes in the costume of [the devil] Mara.
In that way, they work for sentient beings,
But worldly beings are not able to know that.
They manifest in the costume and conduct of women.
They also exist in the animal realm.
They don’t have attachment but show attachment.
They don’t have fear but show fear.
They don’t have ignorance but show ignorance.
They are not crazy but show craziness.
They aren’t lame but show lameness.
With various forms,
They subdue sentient beings.
In short, the buddhas guide sentient beings by appearing in suitable forms for different sentient beings.
Bodhisattvas Have Incredible Qualities
Then, there are also bodhisattvas. A bodhisattva is someone who has yet to become a buddha but is following the Mahayana path to enlightenment. All the bodhisattvas, as I mentioned before, live purely for sentient beings. They don’t have a single thought of self-cherishing. They don’t even breathe in and out for themselves; every breath they take is only for the numberless sentient beings. Therefore, whatever they do is not only for the beings who like the bodhisattva, or only for those who praise them, or only for those who benefit them. Bodhisattva live purely and totally for the numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless asuras, numberless suras and numberless intermediate state beings. Here I’m not talking about only the sentient beings in this world, but those in the numberless universes.
The compassion of the numberless bodhisattvas embraces even the most ugly and terrifying creatures, big and small. They cherish them as most precious, most dear, most kind and wish-fulfilling. Therefore, if, for example, we carelessly step on and kill an insect, no matter how tiny it is, it is as if we harmed the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas. But if we avoid stepping on an insect, or prevent other people from stepping on it by, for example, moving it out of harm’s way, that becomes the best offering to the numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas and pleases them the most.
There is a story about a previous life of the Buddha when he was still a bodhisattva. At that time, he and his brother—who is to become Maitreya Buddha, the fifth buddha of this fortunate eon, and will appear in this world after Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings cease to exist—were young princes. One day when they were out walking on a hill in Namo Buddha, Nepal, they came across a mother tiger and her four cubs who were dying of starvation. After they returned home, the Buddha returned alone to give his holy body to the starving tigers. Because they were so weak, they weren't able to attack and kill him, so the Buddha cut his own neck with a sharp blade of grass. The tigers then slowly approached him, licked his blood and then ate his body. The Buddha purposely did that for the sake of the tigers. He sacrificed himself not only that one time; the Buddha did that numberless times for us sentient beings, in order to free us from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring us to enlightenment.
Even though the five tigers ate the Buddha’s holy body, it is a special quality of bodhisattvas that if a sentient being harms them, in return those sentient beings only receive benefit. Due to the power of the Buddha’s bodhicitta, as well as his prayers and dedications for them, the five tigers later became his first five disciples when the Buddha turned the wheel of Dharma for the first time in Sarnath, India.
In this first teaching, the Buddha taught the four noble truths. The first noble truth is that of true sufferings. This is the truth, or reality, of the three types of suffering I mentioned previously—the suffering of pain, suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering. The second truth is that of the true cause of suffering. Here the Buddha explained that the reason suffering exists is because the causes of suffering, delusions and karma, exist. Then, he taught that because there is a cause of suffering, it can be ceased and freedom from suffering achieved. This is the third truth, the true cessation of suffering, which is nirvana, a state of everlasting happiness. How is it possible to achieve this state? This is done by actualizing the fourth truth, true path, which is the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness and so forth.
The four noble truths are the very foundation of all the Buddha’s teachings in the different traditions of Buddhism. They are also the foundation of both the sutra and tantra teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. When practicing the Mahayana sutra path, we collect the merits of virtue and the merits of wisdom for three countless great eons and thereby achieve a buddha’s holy body and holy mind, the rupakaya and dharmakaya.
In addition, motivated by incredible compassion, if we can’t wait three countless great eons to free sentient beings from samsara and want to do so much quicker, we can engage in practicing the Mahayana tantra path by which we can achieve enlightenment in one life. For this, the Buddha taught the three lower classes of tantra, kriya tantra, charya tantra and yoga tantra. Then, for those who have even stronger compassion, who feel that even taking one long life to achieve enlightenment is too much time, the Buddha taught mahanuttara tantra whereby we can achieve enlightenment in the brief lifetime of degenerate times.
The Best Thing to Do Is to Stop Harming and to Benefit Sentient Beings
Not Harming and Instead Benefiting Sentient Beings Pleases All the Buddhas
Nagarjuna’s Praises Satisfying Sentient Beings [v. 5] quotes the Buddha:
Overpowered by compassion for sentient beings,
I gave them my wives, sons, wealth, and vast kingdoms,
As well as my flesh, blood, fat, eyes, and also my bodies.
Therefore, if you harm sentient beings, it becomes harm to me.
Here the Buddha describes how, out of compassion for sentient beings, he made charity to them over many lifetimes of even his wives, sons, wealth and kingdoms, as well as of his flesh, blood, fat, eyes and bodies. The Buddha says that because he did that, if we harm sentient beings, we are harming him.
This text [v. 6] continues:
Therefore, if you benefit sentient beings, it is the supreme offering to me,
Whereas harming sentient beings is the very worst harm to me.
Since I and sentient beings experience happiness and suffering similarly,
How can anyone who harms sentient beings be my disciple?
Even if we do something of small benefit to sentient beings, whether we believe in the Buddha or not it becomes an offering to him. We get that benefit because our action pleases the Buddha.
Benefiting Others Benefits us
If we live our life for others—if we stop harming them and, on that basis, cause them happiness—the result will be that we experience temporary happiness in this and all future lives while we are still in samsara. All our wishes will be fulfilled and from life to life we will experience more and more happiness. It will also bring us to everlasting happiness, freedom from the oceans of samsaric sufferings, and to peerless happiness, enlightenment. Wow, wow, wow. That is amazing, amazing, amazing.
To stop harming others and instead benefit them from our heart is Dharma. It is holy Dharma. First, it prevents rebirth in the lower realms and causes us to receive a higher rebirth. Second, it causes us to experience again as much happiness as we have already experienced from beginningless rebirths up to now. This outcome can be understood from Sutra of a Pile of Flowers. It causes us to experience ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, which is everlasting happiness. Then, it causes us to experience the peerless happiness of enlightenment. Wow, wow, wow. On top of all that, it enables us to liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment by ourselves alone. That we can bring everyone to enlightenment is amazing. Wow, wow, wow. Can you even imagine these benefits?
In short, when with a good heart we do one action that benefits a sentient being by causing them happiness, it has two results. It causes happiness to us naturally in all our lives and it also brings happiness to them. So, the benefit is that by one action of benefiting others, two works get done, the works for ourselves and the works for others. Wow, wow, wow!
Whatever Activity We Do, Do It for Sentient Beings
Therefore, whatever we do, we should do it for sentient beings—to cause them temporary happiness, to free them from samsara and to bring them to the peerless happiness of enlightenment. We should eat for them, sleep for them and also wash and dress for them. We should do our job for them. We should go shopping for them. We can even do pipi and kaka for them.8 Wow, that is the happiest life. It brings satisfaction and fulfillment. It causes us to have a healthy mind free from regret and depression. We experience unbelievable joy when we start to free sentient beings from the suffering of samsara and cause them temporary and ultimate happiness. Can you imagine it? Wow, wow, wow.
Whenever we rejoice, we cause our merits to double, quadruple and so forth, and we get happiness now, happiness when we are dying, and happiness in the future. We experience greater and greater happiness, skies of happiness, more and more happiness. Wow, wow, wow. And not only do we cause ourselves happiness, we also cause much happiness to others, to the six-realm sentient beings and especially to the sentient beings in this world.
Even if we don’t have bodhicitta but are sincerely good-hearted and kind and always help everyone, including animals, wherever we go people will always like us. Even if we go somewhere where we don’t know anyone, everyone there will like us. People will also praise us, pray for us and help us. Even if we don’t need help, they will insist on helping us! They will do that because they really want to help us. Then, as I already explained, whenever we benefit someone, the result will be that we receive much happiness and success in this life followed by more and more happiness and success in each successive life. It goes on and on for hundreds, thousands and millions of lifetimes. Wow, wow, wow!
To Live Our Life for Others Is the Best Life
How this present life turns out for us, how much happiness and success we experience in all our future lives, and how quickly we achieve enlightenment in the future, whether in three, seven or sixteen lifetimes, all depends on what we do in this life. It depends on whether or not we are helping sentient beings and living our life for them. And that depends on how we live our life this year, this month, this week, today, and even this hour.
Even doing something small for others has the incredible result of happiness and success from life to life. It goes on and on and our mind is always at peace. We experience happiness all the time, whether we are with other people or alone. We have no regrets now and in the future. Even when we are dying, we have no regrets. Instead, there is much for us to rejoice in because we have done so much to benefit sentient beings. Then, by our dying with a happy mind, everyone around us at the time will also be happy.
On the other hand, if we die with a suffering mind, it will make our friends and family upset, but they won’t be able to do anything to help us. Basically, we are the only one who can cause ourselves to have the best death—one that is most beneficial for sentient beings. When we die, think that we are dying for sentient beings. If we can do this, we will be without fear and will be most happy, as if we are going on a picnic. Then, exactly as we prayed to happen, we will go to the pure land of a buddha where there are no samsaric sufferings.
All Our Wishes Are Fulfilled by Benefiting Others
Here I have explained the reasons why living our life for others is the best life. On the other hand, the reason we have suffered from beginningless rebirths up to now is because we have lived our life with self-cherishing, working only for ourselves.
As the great bodhisattva Shantideva, an Indian holy being, says in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:
[8:131] If you don’t completely exchange
Your happiness and others’ suffering,
You won’t achieve buddhahood
And you won’t have happiness even in samsara.[8:132] Leave aside the happiness of future lives,
Even the works of this life won’t succeed;
Your servants won’t work for you
And your masters won’t pay you.
If we don’t stop cherishing ourselves and instead cherish others, we won’t experience happiness in this life and will only experience many problems. All this harm comes to us from our own self-cherishing thought. On the other hand, according to my own experience and as I have already explained in great detail, the best way for all our wishes for happiness to be fulfilled is to benefit human beings, our family and others, as well as animals, even insects.
Some Examples of Ways in Which to Benefit Animals
I will give you some examples of ways in which to benefit animals. In Washington State, I have a retreat house called Amitabha Buddha Pure Land. One day when I was out for a walk, I found two large ant nests on the property. I remembered that I have a text that explains how to make charity to ants. It was given to me by an old man who had become a monk in Tibet late in his life and then did a hundred nyung näs in the Lawudo cave in Nepal where my previous life is said to have meditated. Anyway, I followed the instructions and I blessed water and mixed it with tsampa, toasted barley flour. I also crushed some mani pills and added them to the tsampa. These pills have been blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many other monks through reciting thousands of OM MANI PADME HUMs, the mantra of Chenrezig, the buddha of compassion. Then I added a little bit of butter to the mixture and let it dry before I sprinkled it on the nests. By eating it, the ants’ minds were purified, and they won’t be reborn again in the lower realms.
Two Western monks, Tenzin and Tharchin, live at Amitabha Buddha Pure Land and take care of the place. They spend several hours every day filling bowls with water to offer on the many altars in the house. They also look after the flowers outside that are offered to several large statues. Now Tharchin also makes charity to the ants every week. Sometimes he finds as many as a hundred nests, sometimes only seventy or eighty. It takes him several hours to make the mixture of blessed water, tsampa and crushed mani pills. After he sprinkles it on the nests, they disappear in a couple of days.
Also, at Amitabha Buddha Pure Land, on the right side of the main house, there is a bird bath. I put a piece of glass in the water that has a very special mantra carved into it that comes from Padmasambhava. When birds drink this water or bathe in it, their negative karmas are purified and it causes them to quickly achieve enlightenment. It makes me very happy to see the many birds that come to drink and bathe in that water.
There are also two structures on either side of the main house where we feed birds. The mantra that is written on the roofs purifies the birds that come there to eat. While they are eating, they hear a recording of mantras and holy texts of the Buddha, such as Golden Light Sutra and Diamond Cutter Sutra, recited by my guru Kyabje Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche. The benefits to the birds of hearing these mantras and texts are incredible.
On top of that, each week, I think, the two monks buy many fishing worms in order to save them from being used to catch fish. They bring them back to Amitabha Buddha Pure Land where they sprinkle blessed water on them. Then Tharchin takes them around the large statues in buckets hanging from a yoke before putting them in a safe place. There is a statue of the Medicine Buddha made in Indonesia from volcanic rock and a statue of Amitabha Buddha made in Vietnam. Two Tibetan artists spent a lot of time perfecting the statue of Amitabha Buddha, which is bigger than life size and very well made. More recently a third statue of Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, standing and in Chinese style, was offered by a benefactor. Taking animals around these statues purifies their negative karmas and stops them being reborn in the lower realms. It also causes them to accumulate many causes of enlightenment, as well as the causes of every happiness, including good rebirths while they are in samsara.
The Sangha living at Kacho Dechen Ling, my house in Aptos, California, also liberate fishing worms as well as other kinds of animals. These are a few examples of the things we do in the West to benefit animals. In addition, Kopan Monastery in Nepal has an animal sanctuary where we keep many goats that have been saved from slaughter in order to help people who are sick and experiencing danger to their lives recover. My plan is to eventually find an even bigger piece of land for a new animal sanctuary.
These are some examples of ways in which it is possible to benefit animals. You should also try to do as much as you can to help animals. There are also many ways in which to help people, such as the old and infirm, but I won’t talk about these here.
The Best Ways to Achieve Success in Your Life
Being Kind to Others Is the Best Way to Achieve Success
In short, helping others, even doing something small for them, is the best way to fulfill all our wishes for happiness, whether they be for external material wealth or the inner wealth of the realizations of the path to enlightenment. To be a good human being and to help not only human beings but even insects as much as we can, is the very best thing to do, according to my own experience. This applies both to Buddhists living their life in Dharma and to people living a secular life who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. Everyone can be kind to others. If somebody is kind to us, it makes us happy. Therefore, first, we should be kind to others. If we love and help others, others will love us unconditionally. When we help others sincerely from our heart, that happens naturally, even if we don’t expect it. It will also bring us material wealth as well as increase the inner wealth of your positive qualities. All this happens naturally. It is really wonderful.
This is the answer to your question about how to achieve success in your life and work. If you do as I said, wherever you go there will always be people to help you. You will be surprised that even if you don’t expect something, it will come about as soon as you think of it.
There are also deities, both male and female, that act to increase wealth. You can do various practices in relation to them, such as torma offerings, making wealth vases and reciting mantras. However, I personally think that the very best thing to do is to be kind to others every day. Do whatever you can to help others, even something small, and do whatever you can to stop even a small suffering. Always try to help others. That is the best thing! If we practice mindfulness of karma and practice bodhicitta, our enlightenment will come about very easily and quickly. Then, liberating sentient beings and bringing them to enlightenment will also come about very easily and quickly.
I’m telling you this based on my own experience. For many years now I have been helping others, little by little, and also making offerings to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. From this, naturally wealth has come, which, of course, means that now I have even more opportunities to help others. It goes on and on like that. I’m not saying that I have achieved realizations or enlightenment, nothing like that. But I can say that helping others has brought me external things. That is my experience. By helping others, our life becomes full. That is the cause of success and the cause of everything, including enlightenment. Wow, wow, wow. It will also enable us to cause all happiness, including enlightenment, to all sentient beings. Wow, wow, wow.
Some Specific Practices for You to Do to Achieve Success
Now, in particular for you, I would like to suggest that every day you to do the morning motivation called The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). I also did some observations and what came out good for you to do is to recite the Mantra Destroying All Negative Karmas and Obscurations. I will give you the oral transmission of this mantra by telephone. In general, you should recite it seven times a day, every day. However, when you wish to achieve success in a very important work, the day before the work or for a few days before it you should recite one or more malas of the mantra, even as many as six malas.9 Otherwise, normally just recite the mantra seven times a day.
It is said in the Kangyur, the Buddha’s teachings, that by reciting one time the Mantra of the Celestial Mansion Increasing Jewels, Extremely Secret Sublime Success, which is included in the Mantra Destroying All Negative Karmas and Obscurations,10 we collect much greater merits than those collected by filling up the whole entire universe with wish-granting jewels and offering it to the Buddha. In other words, the merits collected by filling up the whole entire universe with wish-granting jewels and offering it the Buddha are almost nothing compared to the merits collected by reciting this mantra one time. In addition, you can find the specific benefits of reciting the Mantra Destroying All Negative Karmas and Obscurations in the short practice by that name.
Correctly Following Your Guru Is the Key to All Success, Including Enlightenment
I have talked quite a bit to you about how to fulfill all your wishes. As I mentioned, there are many things you can do to help people and animals, even ants and birds. But then, on that basis, here I want to tell you—from my heart to your heart—that if you have a guru and are concerned about the success of your wishes, including making money, and if you want happiness, you should do what the great yogi Tilopa advised:
Integrate the three, field, thought, and phenomena,
Into one and make requests.
You will definitely achieve whatever results you desire.
Here “field” refers to your guru, the field of merit; “thought” refers to devotion toward our guru, and “phenomena” refers to the things that we can offer to your guru, which include material possessions, the people around us, and our own body, speech and mind. Tilopa says that if we integrate these three into one practice and then single-pointedly make requests to your guru, we will definitely achieve whatever results we desire. Among the various kinds of results, the most important are the realizations of the path to enlightenment and enlightenment itself.
Thinking along the same lines, the great enlightened being Kunkyen Pema Karpo, Omniscient White Lotus, also said:
Through relying on the refuge of this and all future lives,
Your father, who is the victorious ones of the three times combined in one,
You should make requests to him without paying mere lip service.
Don’t doubt that what are highly renowned as
“The common and sublime realizations” will happen effortlessly.
“Your father” is your guru. As I said before, a guru is anyone with whom we have made a Dharma connection by, for example, receiving just a few words of an oral transmission while thinking of them as our guru and ourselves as their disciple. “The victorious ones of the three times” are the numberless past buddhas, present buddhas and future buddhas. We should rely on our guru, who is all the buddhas of the three times combined in one, as our object of refuge in this life and all our future lives. If we do this, without any doubt at all we will effortlessly achieve the common realizations as well as the sublime realization, which is enlightenment.
Enlightenment is the highest success we can achieve. It is the state in which both the gross and subtle obscurations have been ceased forever and all the realizations have been completed. In other words, it is the state in which there is nothing more to purify and nothing more to gain. It is achieved by actualizing the remedy, the path to enlightenment, which consists of method and wisdom. This is a simple way of explaining enlightenment. If I were to give you an elaborate explanation, it would take many years to cover all the details of what enlightenment entails.
You Collect the Most Merits by Making Offerings, Serving and Fulfilling Your Guru’s Wishes
When we offer our guru even a single candy, just one piece of an orange, or a single glass of water, or when we do a small service for your guru, such as helping them put on their shoes or helping them get dressed, it becomes an offering or an act of service to the numberless buddhas of the past, present and future. By making even a small offering to our guru, we collect far more merits than by making offerings to the numberless buddhas, numberless Dharma and numberless Sangha, and to the numberless statues, numberless stupas and numberless scriptures of the Buddha. Although the merits of making offerings to them are unbelievable, we collect far greater merits by making offerings to our guru. Likewise, with any service we do for our guru, no matter how small, such as putting perfume on one tiny pore of our guru’s holy body, we collect the merits of having made offerings to numberless buddhas, Dharma and Sangha and numberless statues, stupas and scriptures of the Buddha. We can’t even begin to imagine the merits we collect! Then, because of that, our obscurations are purified more quickly and we complete the collection of merits of virtue and merits of wisdom more quickly, due to which we achieve enlightenment more quickly.
Whenever we offer anything to our guru, such as robes, a seat or a bed, it is very important to have the awareness that our guru’s holy body, holy speech and holy mind are all the buddhas’ holy bodies, holy speech and holy minds. For example, when we offer food to our guru, think that each atom of our guru’s holy body is all the buddhas. Similarly, even if we offer a tiny drop of perfume on the tip of a needle to a single pore of our guru’s holy body, think that every single pore of our guru’s holy body is all the buddhas. If we have that awareness whenever we make an offering of any kind to our guru, it becomes an incredible practice. Each time we do that, it brings us closer to enlightenment. In this way, we become the most fortunate being in the whole world.
Also, whenever we obtain and follow the advice of our guru and whenever we fulfill our guru’s holy wishes, it brings us closer to enlightenment. If our guru gave us vows, whether those of lay people or those of the ordained, for however many years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and even seconds we live in them and keep them purely, we are constantly fulfilling our guru’s wishes. This brings about the greatest purification and we collect the most extensive merits, which brings us to enlightenment. Likewise, if our guru advises us to recite certain mantras, with each mantra we recite we get closer to enlightenment. Similarly, if our guru advises us to give advice to others or teach them Dharma, with every word we speak we get closer to enlightenment. If our guru advises us to do a certain job, each time we do it we get closer to enlightenment. If the guru asks us to go somewhere, with each step we make toward that place we get closer to enlightenment.
Even though there are many purification practices, such as reciting the Vajrasattva mantra and prostrating to the Thirty-Five Buddhas, and there are also many methods to collect extensive merits, such as making mandala offerings, rejoicing and so forth, the very best way to purify the negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths and to collect extensive merits is to please our guru the most. Not only pleasing our guru but pleasing our guru the most is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. We should always keep that aim in our heart. By achieving enlightenment quickly, we will be able to liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings quickly. Due to this, they won’t have to suffer for a long time in samsara, experiencing the most unimaginable sufferings of the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms, as well as experiencing the sufferings of human beings, asuras and suras. We will be able to liberate them from samsara much more quickly and also bring them to enlightenment much more quickly.
In conclusion, here in this letter I have given you advice in response to all your questions. There is general, or what I call secular, advice for people who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma, and there is advice for Buddhists, those who believe in reincarnation and karma. Because advice for both types of people can be found here, don’t think that this is only advice for those who believe in reincarnation and karma and that there is no advice for people who are living a secular life. If you study this letter well, you will find there is also advice for people who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. For example, I mentioned how it is important to be a good human being and that this is the answer to everything. Being a good human being means living a life of loving kindness and compassion to others, as well as practicing moral discipline, patience, tolerance, satisfaction and contentment, and also forgiving those who hurt us and apologizing to those whom we have hurt. These qualities of a good human being are necessary in order to have a happy life, even for those who don’t believe in reincarnation and karma. Otherwise, they will just end up making themselves crazy.
In short, this is my heart advice to you. It will take time for you to understand it, and you will also need to collect merit in order to be able to understand it. Someone who doesn’t have merit won’t be able to understand it and my advice will seem very strange to them.
Thank you very much. That’s all I have to say.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Notes
6 The nirmanakaya, or emanation body of a buddha, is a body that is visible to ordinary beings. For example, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was a supreme nirmanakaya, or supreme emanation body. [Return to text]
7 The sambhogakaya, the enjoyment body of a buddha, is visible only to arya bodhisattvas, that is, to bodhisattvas who have perceived emptiness directly. [Return to text]
8 When going to the toilet, visualize all sentient beings in your heart. As you urinate or defecate, think that all your own and other sentient beings’ sufferings and delusions leave your body in the form of the urine or feces. Visualize the Lord of Death below you with his mouth wide open. The urine or feces go into the mouth of the Lord of Death where they are transformed into nectar. Visualize that the mouth of the Lord of Death closes and is sealed with a double vajra. In this way, urinating and defecating become not only a means to purify your own and others’ negative karmas and collect merits, but they also become a practice for prolonging your life. This is explained in the context of the meditations to do when reciting migtsemas, a short prayer to Lama Tsongkhapa. [Return to text]
9 Mala” is the Sanskrit name for a Tibetan rosary, which generally consists of 108 beads. Reciting a mala of a mantra, therefore, means to recite the mantra 108 times. [Return to text]
10 The Mantra of the Celestial Mansion Increasing Jewels, Extremely Secret Sublime Success is: OṂ VIPULA GARBHE MAṆI PRABHE / TATHĀGATA DHARIŚANI / MAṆI MAṆI SUPRABHE VIMALA SAṂGARA GAMBHIRA HŪṂ HŪṂ JVALA JVALA / BUDDHA VILOKITE GUHYA / ADHIṢṬHĪTE GARBHE SVĀHĀ. When the syllables PADMA DHARA AMOGA JAYATI CURU CURU SVĀHĀ are added at the end, it becomes the Mantra Destroying All Negative Karmas and Obscurations. [Return to text]
