...service that we do daily life, whatever service one offer to the guru, so we should remember that each time when you do the work, the service, whatever it is, continuously brings you closer to enlightenment and purify your mind to achieve enlightenment.

So it’s like the Dromtönpa, when Lama Atisha was showing the aspect of sickness and the kaka, pipi and kaka, Lama Atisha’s pipi and kaka went on the bed, show aspect of being sick and could not get up, go to toilet, so then Dromtönpa, his translator Dromtönpa, without any thought of dirty, cleaned, offer service. So while he was doing that, because so much obscuration, negative karma is purified by cleaning Lama Atisha’s pipi and kaka on the bed, so, during that time, the eighteen, which takes eighteen days for eagles to fly, which takes eighteen days, suddenly he is able to see, able to read the mind of even the ants, worms. From that place up to the eighteen, distance which takes eighteen days for the eagle to fly, so he is able to read, all those beings’, even the insects, their mind, he can read. So he has achieved clairvoyance to see other beings’, to be able to read others’ mind, by cleaning, when he was cleaning Lama Atisha’s bed, Lama Atisha’s pipi and kaka, the Lama Atisha’s excrement, his guru’s. So like that.

So the realization just comes. The potential of all the realization [is] there, in our mind. So, what it need is just purification. The more we purify, realization comes from within. So Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo had one disciple. He didn’t know how to, he can’t read text, he didn’t learn ka, kha, ga, nga in alphabet, he did not learn, one attendant. I think his name is Jamyang; I’m not sure. So Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, who wrote the Liberation Palm, before he passed away, he told the attendant that sometime later you will be able to read whole Guru Puja by yourself, without anybody teaching you, without anybody teaching the Tibetan letter. So what happened with that, exactly happened. So that monk who did service to Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, came to Buxa, where I lived eight years, where I had some chance to hear some philosophical teaching from my gurus, three gurus: Geshe Rabten Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe, then another one call also Gen Yeshe. So this monk lived, a building, Indian building, which is quite high, not in the camp, not in the concentration camp. Monks lived there, but it was concentration when British, when it was under the control of British, Mahatma Gandhi-ji, Prime Minister Nehru were prisoned there. So it become Sera Monastery prayer hall where Nehru-ji was prisoned. Where Gandhi-ji was prisoned become nunnery.

So, but Pabongka, the incarnations’ places were quite high up, so the main teacher at Kopan Monastery, Lama Lhundrup, who looks after all the monks—there are three hundred monks—look after their disciplines and their education, the main teacher, the abbot, so he was living in the same building where Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s incarnation lived. So the attendant was there, so the attendant was able to read the Guru Puja…nobody, he didn’t know how to read, but one day he was able to read the Guru Puja. So this, he told Lama Lhundrup, he himself told Lama Lhundrup that he was told by Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo.

So this, so that, so if purification happened, then realization comes. So what we need is purification. So most powerful purification is correctly devoting virtuous friend, obeying the guru’s advice. The best is obtaining advice, devoting virtuous friend with action. Then second one is offering service, the offering respect and then cleaning place, cooking so forth, all these things. Then the last one, if one has material to offer, then, in order to collect merit, offering. So like that.

So that’s the, same, story with Lama Atisha. Lama Atisha’s cook, who had much more realization then the translator then the, no, no sorry, who had much more realization than the, never had time to meditate, he did, only spent time cooking for Lama Atisha, but his realization his much higher than the Gombawa, Kadampa geshe Gombawa, who only spent time meditating. So like that.

So I think now finished.

So I want to say thank you very much to everyone for this, to be able to share something and I hope there’s, I hope my mumbling has, I hope there’s small benefit. It is a great opportunity that, to learn Dharma. Not sure whether we will get such opportunity in other life, in other lifetimes, so therefore, while we have, while you have all the opportunities to learn, that you can hear in your own language without going through translations, without all the problems. When it comes to translations, missed out many words, or meanings presented different ways—there’s so many difficulties when it comes through translations. Didn’t come out exactly how it is presented by the lama, by the teacher, so it didn’t convey exactly the same feeling in others’ minds, so there are many problems.

So without need to go through all these difficulties, so therefore, very good opportunity to learn as much as possible now. Who can have realization what the text, what the Dharma text talks about, who can have realization is the ones who have guru devotion realizations. They’re the ones who can achieve enlightenment in this life. Even regards achieving enlightenment in this life, in the degenerate time, in degenerated, brief lifetime of degenerate time, so that person can, it happens for that person who has guru devotion realization, who correctly devoted virtuous friend.

So same, all the realizations of the path to enlightenment. Otherwise, how much we learn Dharma words, it is dry. Then, if one’s mind become like that, then you can have realization, possibility to have realization, bodhicitta, to realize emptiness, all these things, without much difficulties in this life.

So then dedicate the merits collected by listening, by explaining Dharma, all the past merits collected by oneself and future merit which will be collected and three time merits collected by others, may Buddha of Compassion, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and then all other holy beings have a stable life, all the holy wishes to be succeed immediately and Sanghas here—general Sanghas and particular Western Sanghas—and then to have complete, to be able to complete realization of the whole path in this very lifetime, and complete and also complete scriptural understandings by receiving all the necessary conditions. [pause]

Also please dedicate to be able to complete the five hundred feet Maitreya Buddha statue in Bodhgaya without any obstacles and to be most beneficial towards all sentient beings, to be to cause, generate bodhicitta, in the minds of all the sentient beings and cause all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment as quick as possible.

Normally, according to Vajrayana, we fill up statues with the mantras; so this is five hundred feet, it’s like filling up the whole sky with the mantra, so huge. So therefore, the idea is to make different temples inside. Inside the statue, one temple of Twenty-one Taras, only Tara; one temple only Medicine Buddha; one temple only Sixteen Arhats; then one temple, at the heart, to have a temple of relics, Buddha’s relics and many other relics, people to do prostration, circumambulation. Then one temple, I would like to have all the Buddha’s teachings Prajnaparamita teachings, written with gold on the paper, which I already started, eight thousand stanza, I already started writing with the gold, gold from Nepal. So, while I’m travelling, I’m writing the eight thousand stanza with the gold. So that would take, I think, that would take, whole text, me to do, will take several, quite a number of years. So there will be also text, on this silver painted, then write with, on the paper, gold painted written with silver. Then, different Heart Sutras there with corals, pearls to put around. So to make water bowls around and light offerings around for people to rejoice and to do prostration.

So however, I don’t talk much, just want to say one thing. In the sutra text, Yön-ten Rinpoche Du-ba Lä, sutra text Condensed Precious Qualities, there it says—I’m just going to explain the meaning—there it says, equaling number of the sand grain of River Ganga, the Indian river, the huge, long river, equaling the number sand grain of River Ganga, that many world you fill up with stupa made of seven types of jewels—not just stupa built with rocks or bricks, but stupa made of seven types of jewels, Buddha’s stupa, containing Buddha’s relics—you fill up that number of world. How many worlds? Equaling number of the sand grains of River Ganga. Then you fill up all that with stupa made of seven types jewel containing Buddha’s relics. Then all those sentient beings make offering, that much merit, and writing Prajnaparamita text, even just with ink, the merit is far more greater than that much, world equaling number of sand grains of River Ganga filled with stupa, you build stupa, stupa make out seven types of jewels containing Buddha’s relic, then number of that merit, but all those sentient beings living in those different world making offering, so that much merit is small, but writing the Wisdom of Perfection teaching, even with black ink, the merit is far more greater. So therefore, your sponsoring the Diamond Sutra which is silver and gold, and there’s also offering diamond and jewels, so therefore there’s unbelievable merit what you collect. So I just want to express this, to rejoice.

So whenever I write this, what I’m writing now, try to dedicate as much as possible for the world peace, wherever this text is going to be, this universe, this world, this area to not have wars, disease, dangers of fire, water, earth, all these problems, everyone to have bodhicitta, good heart and everyone to have perfect peace and happiness and to quickly to realize, to be able to have wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, that which ceases them all the defilements quickly and achieve enlightenment.

So like that.

[Lama Zopa Rinpoche chants in Tibetan. Lama Tsongkhapa prayer, and then Jang-chub sem-chog…]

Due to the past, present, future merit collected by oneself, three time merits collected by buddhas, bodhisattvas, all the sentient beings, that which are totally non-existent from its own side, may the I, who is totally non-existent from its own side, achieve Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, that which is also totally non-existent from its own side, lead all the sentient beings, who are also totally non-existent from their own side, to that enlightenment, which is also totally non-existent from its own side, by myself alone, who is also totally non-existent from its own side. [pause]

Then, please dedicate to complete actualizing Lama Tsongkhapa’s stainless path, unifying sutra and tantra in this very lifetime and one’s own family members and in the mind of all the sentient beings, to be able to meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching. However, then, oneself to cause, to flourish, to spread in all the directions.

[Lama Zopa Rinpoche chants in Tibetan. Chö-kyi gyal-po…]

So thank you very much.

Mandala offering