Breast Cancer

My very dear one,
I am very sorry for the long delay in replying to your letter.

I checked what are the best practices you can do for your health and this is what came out very good for you to do:

1. Print the Amitayus Long-life Sutra forty times. If you go to the FPMT Catalogue you will find links to the Tibetan and English versions of the sutra. You can print either of these and photocopy it forty times on nice paper (maybe yellow-colored).

2. Make fifty long-life tsa tsas (the three long-life deities). If you are able to get the mold for this and try to do it yourself, it is best. Otherwise, you can email the nuns at my house in California and they can make them for you, and you can make an offering to contribute to that. Also, as your sister is involved with the center, she could make them for you at the tsa-tsa studio.

3. Do White Tara long-life meditation every day. You can find the practice in the FPMT Catalogue.

4. Do Red Logyönma practice. You can get this from the FPMT Education Department.

5. You need a puja done for you, called “Betraying the Death.” I will do this puja for you. You could also ask the geshe at the center if he can do it for you.

I am also making prayers for you, also the Sangha at my house are dedicating animal liberations to you and when they make long-life tsa tsas each day.

With much love and prayers...

I received and read your letter and did quite a lot of checking for your situation. It seems there are things from the side of meditation that can be done that can help your situation, but these things will take time. Therefore, I feel it is better in the immediate future to go ahead with the operation. Alongside that, what you can start to do immediately is: Medicine Buddha puja daily for the next week.

For evening practice, as ongoing, do some malas of Vajrasattva, with strong repentance.

Also, do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. Remember to have strong repentance not only for negative actions in this life but also past lives.

Then, always meditate on the lamrim, particularly on impermanence. Think life is like a dream. In the seven-point thought transformation teaching, in the section on emptiness, it says: Look at all phenomena as a dream, examine the nature of the mind that is unborn, even the remedy is free in nature, place the mind in the essence of the path, this is the basis of all. This is important to contemplate, as well in the break time (when you are not doing formal meditation). Be like an illusory person.

If you look at the different aspects of this section of the teachings, the first relates to the object of mind, the second relates to the mind that holds the object, the third relates to the person, him or herself. These three aspects you relate to as empty. The last aspect is when you see yourself as illusory in the break time.

So, this is the way to meditate on emptiness. In the break time, relate to yourself as an illusory person, while you are eating, walking, sleeping, working, when you go the bathroom, washing, shopping, dancing – if you dance. Even when you have the operation, think of yourself as illusory. When I say person – it means the “I.” Person and “I” is the same.

So, this is some advice that will help to make your life most meaningful. I will pray, also I have asked the Sangha in my house to dedicate many animal liberations for you and also the making of long-life tsa-tsas.

Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta and emptiness – this will take you towards enlightenment.

I heard you have been helping the center, offering service. I want to thank you very much for this.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

PS: Longer term, I think it is important to do Black Garuda practice and nyung näs – but we can leave that for a little while and check again after some time.

My very dear Ven. Lindsey,
According to my observation, this is what came out very beneficial for you to do:

1. Liberate 500 animals. You can do more than this, but this is the minimum. Perform the animal liberations according to the instructions I have given, where you take the animals around holy objects, and bless them with mantras and blessed water. The main thing is to liberate animals that would normally be killed; in this way you are saving their lives. You can do this at the center so others can join in.

Dedicate this not only to your own long life, but also to the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and all holy beings in this world who benefit others. Also dedicate it to the long life of the Sangha, who live in pure morality.

2. Recite the very long Chenrezig Dharani (longest Chenrezig mantra) every day. Dedicate this to being completely healed from the cancer or to being reborn in a pure land.

3. Recite the Heart Sutra 130 times.

4. Do Medicine Buddha puja once a month at least.

I am also making prayers for you. Also, the Sangha at my house are dedicating animal liberations to you and long-life tsa-tsas, which they make each day.

With much love and prayers...

Student's Letter to FPMT Office

Dearest Lisa,
I regret to say that I have been in hospital for the last two weeks, thus unable to be actively involved in the work of the center. With the Ven. Geshe’s visit approaching it has been quite distressing, since I considered this to be a very important first task as a director. Luckily there has been a good support from the SPC and others.

Unfortunately, the situation with my health seems to be quite serious. Last year I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor (while breastfeeding my 10-month-old baby), and had a treatment for it all summer. Everything seemed to go perfectly. But now the back pain I thought was due to an injury seems to be from the cancer cell metastasis in my back. I am back home now trying to stabilize my health after one chemotherapy treatment, lots of injections, and everything that the hospital comes up with. I am trying to keep my spirits up. I meditate as much as I can, even though it’s hard to sit still. I also recite Medicine Buddha short mantra, and I have been reading and writing the Long-life Sutra for some time. My friend recommended that, if possible, I should try to seek advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche as to what would be the best to do in this situation. I would appreciate it very very much.

PS. The time in hospital was such an interesting lesson for me in compassion, samsara, and pain. It really was.

Rinpoche’s response

Dear Joan,
I was able to check regarding your health, and I advise the following:

1. Recite Black Manjrushri mantra.
2. Have the puja performed called she-nyin du-dög. I will arrange for this to be done for you as soon as possible.
3. Recite the mantra pacifying all the sicknesses 18 times a day.
4. Drink Palden Lhamo lake water (water from Lhamo Lhatso lake in Tibet). This may be very hard to find; maybe your friend might know how to get it.
5. Take these precious pills (Tibetan medicine):
              a) Moon Crystal: Two pills
              b) Rinchen mang-jor: Five pills
   Take one pill every three days. I can send you these precious pills if you are unable to get them. If that is the case, please send me your postal address.
    
6. Liberate animals equaling the number of your age. Use the practice that I have put together on how to liberate animals. 
7. Print 100 copies of the Long-life Sutra (print it on yellow paper). After you have printed them keep them on your altar and later they can go inside a stupa.

I am also making prayers for you and also the Sangha in my house are making prayers for you. Please continue with the practices you are already doing.

My very dear Joan,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. According to my observations, it is best for you to continue treatment with your Chinese doctor and taking Eastern medicine.

It would be very good for you to practice Most Secret Hayagriva. Make strong requests to Hayagriva (visualize him in front of you) to immediately purify all your sickness, spirit harm, negative karma, and obscurations and to receive all the qualities, from guru devotion up to enlightenment, especially all the qualities of Hayagriva's enlightened body, speech, and mind, so that you can enlighten all sentient beings. Then, chant the mantra.

It is also best for you to liberate 250 animals. You can do that at my house in Aptos. On the days that the nuns do animal liberation there, you can buy worms, take them there, and liberate them. If you can't buy all 250 worms at one time then you can do it a few times.

As well as dedicating the practice to your long life, also dedicate it to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's long life, as well as all the gurus, all the Sangha who preserve the holy Dharma, and all the benefactors.

In the future, after you have read the complete lamrim (such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and other lamrim books), you can take the Hayagriva initiation.

Please study the lamrim and practice meditations on the graduated path to enlightenment, step by step, as explained in the books.

Please continue to make your life most beneficial for all sentient beings.
With much love and prayers...

My very dear Neela,
I heard that you have cancer and they have to operate on your breast, unfortunately. Many women in the world have had to experience this. There are numberless others who have cancer and who have to have their breasts removed.

You are quite a spiritual person, so you don’t need to be afraid of death—it is normal, after one is born one has to die. Like plants grow and die, it is a part of nature.

Of course, sentient beings can reach arhatship by actualizing total aversion to samsara, realizing that the whole of samsara is in the nature of suffering, including the desire realm—where we are—the deva realm, form realm, and formless realm. Then, by achieving the five Hinayana paths: the path of accumulation, path of merit, path of seeing, path of meditation, and path of no more learning, one is able to overcome death.

Then there are the five Mahayana paths: the path of accumulation, path of merit, path of seeing, path of meditation, and path of no more learning. When the Mahayana paramita path is achieved, one completely abandons the sufferings of old age, sickness, and death. Then one actualizes the highest tantra generation and completion stages in order to achieve enlightenment quickly. The completion stage has five paths: isolation of body, isolation of speech and isolation of mind, illusory body, clear light, and the state of union—the path of no-more-learning. Clear light has two kinds—example clear light and meaning clear light. When one achieves the meaning clear light, then one overcomes death and one is totally, completely free.

If you are able to achieve even one path then you are free of death, with no more rebirths, no more suffering between birth and death. If not, then we have to go through the cycle of death and rebirth and all the suffering, such as the three types of suffering: the suffering of change, the suffering of pain, and the suffering of conditionality. Then there are the six types of suffering: the suffering of uncertainty, the suffering of insatiability, the suffering of casting off bodies repeatedly, the suffering of repeated rebirth, the suffering of repeatedly descending from high to low, and the suffering of having no companions. Also, there is the general suffering and four types of suffering: of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

There are also the specific sufferings, such as being reborn in the eight hot hells, eight cold hells, and 16 surrounding hells, with the inconceivable suffering of heat and cold, being killed, beaten, tortured, etc.

There is the suffering of the pretas: the heavy suffering of hunger and thirst for thousands of years, unable to find a spoonful of food or to find a drop of water, and suffering extreme heat and cold.

There is the suffering of the animal realm: being eaten by others, always having incredible fear, the suffering of being hot and cold, being used for work, and being beaten.

There is the suffering of humans: of pain, hunger and thirst, unpleasant sensations of heat and cold, the suffering of searching for sustenance, becoming fatigued, as well as the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

There are the sufferings of the demigods: being tortured by envy and fighting, enduring the suffering of having their bodies cut; and the suffering of being intelligent but unable to see the truth because of mental obscurations.

There is the suffering of the god realm: the suffering of dying and falling to a lower rebirth.

Therefore, we need to actually practice. Just worshipping is not sufficient; we need to actualize the path. If we don’t like suffering then we need to eliminate the causes of suffering: the delusions and karma. Only then can we achieve ultimate happiness, liberation, and freedom from samsara.

Then, if one can actualize the Mahayana path, one eliminates even the subtle defilements and achieves full enlightenment, and one is able to liberate numberless sentient beings, freeing them from the vast suffering of samsara and bringing them to full enlightenment; one is able to enlighten all sentient beings. That is the main object of our life, the purpose of our life and purpose of living. The purpose of our survival is to accomplish this.

So, we really need to learn what Buddha taught. Buddha is the only one who taught the whole path to liberation. Other religions are good but do not include the complete path to enlightenment.

I send you my love and prayers and also I am making prayers for you.