Practices for Business Success

My very dear one,
Regarding your question about how to have success in your business, there are a few things that it would be good for you to do.

Go to Nepal, to the Boudanath stupa, and make 1,000 light offerings (candles) every day, using the long light offering practice that I wrote. You can also do circumambulations and prostrations in the morning, noon, and night. After each session, make strong prayers. You can do a few sessions each day, consisting of the light offering and meditation, circumambulation, and then prostrations. At the end, make strong prayers that your business has the greatest profit, and will immediately be most beneficial for the teachings of Buddha and sentient beings.

There is one other thing you can do, which has equal benefit, and that is to sponsor food for Chöden Rinpoche for seven days. After you have taken teachings from him and developed a guru-disciple relationship with him, you offer all his expenses for seven days’ worth of food. This is also very powerful for changing the situation with your business.

Another thing you can do to collect merit is to make a donation to the Sangha who are staying at Land of Medicine Buddha attending Chöden Rinpoche’s teachings. You could offer toward the Sangha’s food and accommodation, or just make a general donation to them. Offering to the Sangha creates unbelievable benefit. If you offer with the thought that they are the same as the guru’s pores, since they have the same guru as you, that is a very powerful way to collect merit.

Whenever you meet someone who has the same guru as you, you can offer him or her chocolate, water, or money—anything that you have—with the thought that he or she has the same guru, and so is the same as the guru’s pores. If you offer to many Sangha members who have the same guru as you, then you are making offerings to that many pores of the guru. This is the easiest way to collect a lot of merit through offerings.

By offering just one candy, flowers, or a grain of rice to a statue of the Buddha or even a visualized Buddha, you collect a lot of merit. But making offerings to the guru’s pores collects more merit than offering to all the buddhas, dharmas, sanghas, statues, stupas, and scriptures, not only in this continent and this world but all that exist in all the universes and all the directions. Making offerings to any pore of the guru with this attitude creates much more merit than all of these offerings.

No matter how much money you have—even 10 billion dollars—it is nothing compared to this benefit. You will attain temporal happiness and ultimate happiness from this good karma, as well as all realizations up to enlightenment. Even after you achieve enlightenment, the many qualities of a Buddha’s holy mind still cause so many sentient beings to become enlightened. These are the benefits of just that simple act of making offerings to the guru’s pores.

These benefits should be understood, so that when you make offerings to the guru’s pores, you think correctly. This is the best business. If your business needs purification, or is short of merit, then this is what you should do to create success for your business.

By making offerings to the guru’s pores, with the remembrance that they are the guru’s pores, you collect mind-blowing merits. With this business of making merit, there is no risk, and the benefit is always there, every time, no matter what. There is no risk of deflation or loss. By making offerings, or charity, the karmic result is ongoing. There is no negative change, and it won’t go decrease due to inflation.

So, if you can make offerings to the Sangha with this in your mind, whatever you can give, even just for a few days or one week, or just give a general donation to the Sangha, the most important thing is to think that you are making offerings to the guru’s pores.

By using these methods, you can collect the most merit. If you collect a lot of merit, suddenly a miracle can happen that you won’t be able to believe—not only great success in business, but suddenly everything booms in your life. Similarly with realizations, miracles can happen. Of course, miracles do not happen without causes and conditions.

With much love and prayers...

My dear one,
It was very nice to see you the other day. I am sending you this text from the Kangyur, the collection of Buddha’s teachings (the sutras). It came out very beneficial for you to recite these names and mantras. Especially recite these before you go to see important people or participate in important meetings, where you want people to listen to you and follow your suggestions.

Generally, in the text, it says to recite it three times a day, but you could recite it two times, and keep the text in your wallet or car or somewhere handy. This can help in business and bring wealth.

Buddha taught such things because his omniscient mind knows the various ways to help others. He knows exactly which methods fit each sentient being. Out of great compassion, the Buddha gave various mantras to help to remove suffering. He taught these various methods while showing the unmistaken path to be free from samsara, to achieve liberation, and to achieve enlightenment.

This mantra is much more valuable than a sky filled with diamonds, gold, and wish-fulfilling jewels. This ordinary kind of wealth is nothing compared to the benefits of this mantra. Just seeing this mantra directs you to enlightenment. Your life becomes irreversibly led toward enlightenment. The mantra can purify the ten non-virtuous actions and the five heinous actions. It can prevent you from being born in the three lower realms. The same is true of touching, keeping the mantra, and also hearing the mantra. Just remembering the mantra becomes an offering to all the buddhas.

This mantra is called the “Great Increasing Jewel Fathomless Celestial Mansion Extremely Well-Abiding Secret Holy Mantra.” See if you can recite it just ten times a day. It is a very, very special mantra. Later, I will try to write down all its benefits for you. I will also write them in Tibetan, so you can keep them in your house and in your office if you like. [Find a link to the Celestial Mansion Extremely Secret Sublime Success Mantra in the FPMT Catalogue.]

Buddha taught these mantras because different sentient beings appeared at different times with different problems, and requested Buddha for help. Buddha gave various methods, even manifesting as different deities. By using these means for the Buddha and others you are repaying the Buddha’s kindness.

You can also recite the following sutra and mantra:

Arya Mahalakshinii Sutra: The Sutra of the Exalted Great Glorified Female Being

Prostration to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas.

Thus I have heard at one time. The Bhagavan (Destroyer-Qualified Gone Beyond One) was abiding in the Blissful Realm. Then, the bodhisattva mahasattva, the Arya Compassionate Eye Looking One Enriched with Qualities, went to the place where the Bhagavan was, prostrated his head at the feet of the Bhagavan, circumambulated the Bhagavan three times, and sat down to one side. Then, the Bhagavan looked at the Great Glorified Female Being and proclaimed to the Arya Compassionate Eye Looking One Enriched with Qualities as follows:

These twelve holy names of the Great Glorified Female Being, anyone—bikshus (virtue beggar), bikshunis (female virtue beggars), upasakas (male nearing virtue), and upasikas (female nearing virtue)—and none other than those—who knows of this, keeps this text, reads it, writes it, leads others in writing it; this one will eliminate poverty and will become wealthy.

Then, all the assembly of yakshas (jungpo) assented saying, "May it be so."

Then, the Bhagavan proclaimed, "The twelve holy names of the Great Glorified Female Being are as follows:"

The Twelve Holy Names of the Great Glorified Female Being
Pälden ma — Glorified Female One
Trashi ma — Auspicious Female One
Padmäi trengwa chän — One Having Lotus Garlands
Norgyi dagmo — Female Owner of Wealth
Karmo — White Female One
Tragpa chhenmo — Female Great Famous One
Padmäi chän — Eye of the Lotus
Jepa mo — Female Performing One
Ö chhenmo — Female Great Light
Zä jinma — Female Giving Food
Rinpochhe rabtu jinma — Female Extremely Generous Jewel
Päl chhenmo — Female Great Glorified One

Mantra

SAYADAYA THEDÄN / DZINI / GHRINI / SARVA ARTHA SAADHANI / SHASHINI ALAKSHMINI / SENAA SHAYA SIDDHAYANTU MANTRA BADAAH SVAHA

OM BHRI KUTI BARAMA SU BHAGE SVAHA (3x)

For anyone who recites this three times,¹ all opposing forces will perish and you will become the fortunate one. You will have good fortune and you will have unceasing wealth. When you recite this and then go to see someone, that person will regard you as his/her child, will be happy, and will do exactly as he/she is asked.

If you recite this unceasingly, even if Brahma and the Brahmins do violent activities to bring harm, you won’t be affected. It also becomes as if having made offering to many buddhas. The Bhagavan has proclaimed it like that.

Then the Bodhisattva Compassionate Eye Looking One Endowed with Qualities rejoiced and highly praised the teaching of the Bhagavan.²

The Sutra of the Exalted Great Glorified Female One is completed.³

This practice is for overcoming financial difficulties, especially if someone is causing you financial problems, but also to empower financial endeavors that are dependent on others to bring success.

This can be given to anybody who has difficulties such as not having wealth. Also, those who are having great difficulties finding a job and who have no money, or who have a lot of debt, a difficult life, and who are unable to pay [their bills].

Doing this practice is one method, one solution. Especially if the person has the karma, it is possible that this practice could make a difference. It could help those who have financial difficulties or difficulties with wealth.

With much love and prayers...

Notes

1. From Lama Zopa Rinpoche: "Once you have the idea of how this teaching happened and the benefits, when you do the recitation, you do not have to recite the whole sutra. Just recite the main teaching—the twelve holy names of the Great Glorified Female One and the mantras." [Return to text]

2. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. [Return to text]

3. Translated into Tibetan, revised, and recorded by the Indian Abbot Jinamitra, and Zhu Chhen, the translator, Bende Yeshe De. Translated from the Tibetan into English by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, April 16, 2006. Scribed by Venerable Thubten Wongmo and Kendall Magnussen. Lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen. [Return to text]