Problems During One's Practice

Student's Letter

Dearest Lama Zopa Rinpoche,
When you were at our Dharma center, out of your incredible kindness, you gave me the Thirty-five Buddhas practice to do daily. I love doing this practice and want to continue doing this for as long as I possibly can. Before doing this practice I had some problems with tennis elbow, an inflammation of the elbow, and after seeing many different types of doctors, one of them gave me a cortisone shot which took away the inflammation. But now the inflammation has reappeared and even though it doesn't hurt to do the Thirty-five Buddhas practice, after I have finished the pain begins. I don't want to stop doing the practice and feel that I can continue doing the practice and just live with the pain and work with it in meditation, but some other people are telling me that I could do more damage and I should stop and just visualize doing the practice until the inflammation goes away. I can get another cortisone shot, but this could just be temporary, and then the pain could flare up again when I start doing the Thirty-five Buddhas practice again. So, please could you tell me what is the best way. Thank you so very, very much.

From the depth of my heart and with the greatest of heartfelt love,
Nicola
 

Rinpoche's Response

Dear Nicola,
You can do the practice with your hands in the mudra of prostrations, reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, and visualizing them. If you can do a few prostrations that is very good.

Experiencing hardships and sufferings for Dharma practice is very powerful purification practice.

Best wishes ...

These are the five sutras that you need to recite (or have someone else recite):

1) Heart Sutra, the sutra of right view
2) Transcendental Wisdom Passing Away
3) The sutra of pure conduct, the meditation—the King of Prayers
4) The sutra of washing (Dorje Namjom)
5) One syllable Heart of the Sutra—AH. You just recite AH and meditate on the meaning of AH—that the “I,” action, and the object—no phenomena—have true existence. Meditate on emptiness—that is the meaning of AH. Recite AH then meditate on that meaning, looking at everything, all phenomena, the “I,” action, and the object, everything, as empty.

As Shantideva mentioned in the Bodhicaryavatara, the Buddha has taught all the branches of teachings to actualize wisdom. This means the 84,000 teachings are to actualize wisdom. The heart of these 84,000 is wisdom gone beyond the perfection of wisdom, which has 100,000 stanzas; the twelve volumes have 20,000 stanzas; the three volumes are shorter than that and have 8,000 stanzas; the heart of all those teachings is the perfection of wisdom, the heart of wisdom, the heart sutra, and even more condensed than that is a few syllables of the perfection of wisdom.

Now even more condensed than this is all the Prajnaparamita teachings embodied in one syllable, which is AH. When Lama Atisha recited the Heart Sutra, when it says “no I, no aggregate, no form,” Lama Atisha used AH in place of “no.” AH negates the inherent existence that is projected on the “I,” action, the object, all phenomena, that are merely imputed by the mind, projected by one’s own ignorance, the concept of true existence, and grasping at true existence.

My most dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am very sorry for the many eons of delay in replying.

Regarding your question about lack of confidence. Is your question whether it is difficult to achieve enlightenment in this lifetime, or do you mean is it difficult to achieve enlightenment at all?

Generally, you need to think more like this: what is the root of samsara, and how wrong concepts, superstitions, and objects are believed to be true are not true. You have to think of all the reasons for a true understanding of emptiness, how things are not truly existent, as well as all the processes of how wisdom directly ceases the cause of suffering, the root of samsara.

Regarding, wisdom realizing emptiness, first it is imagined and later it is an actual, direct realization of emptiness. This is what ceases all defilements, the cause of all the delusions. So, think about this and the five paths. Go over all the details, and within each path, what they do, how different delusions are ceased in this way, etc.

You should think like this: If somebody has cancer, but just talks about all the medicines that they need to take, or carries them around, but doesn’t actually take them, then they won’t recover. So many people with similar sickness have taken the medicines and recovered, so, in the same way, if you take the medicines you will recover.

Your way of thinking could be negative imprints from past lives coming up. I think more study may help. It’s similar during the annual November course at Kopan Monastery. After two weeks most people have faith in reincarnation, but still one or two people have doubts, even though they all receive the same teachings and do the same meditations. This is due to merit—those who have more Dharma imprints have more faith in Dharma, so it’s due to imprints and merit.

With much love and prayers...

Dear Deborah,
It is very good that you completed the retreat. There is no choice. No matter how sick you are, however many problems come, you cannot give up Dharma. You have to keep your mind in Dharma, in virtue. When death comes, the best thing is to die with Dharma and bodhicitta in your mind. That is the only way you can be saved and protected from the lower realms. Dharma and bodhicitta are what cause the pure land and precious human rebirth.

So, you must always keep Dharma. There is nothing worthwhile in life other than Dharma. What makes one want to live is only Dharma and the best Dharma is bodhicitta. What brings success in actualizing bodhicitta is guru devotion, which is the root of the path to enlightenment. Since we do not want suffering and we do want happiness, then whatever problems we encounter we cannot give up Dharma. Giving up Dharma means we are giving up all happiness, enlightenment, the causes of happiness, the happiness of future lives, liberating other sentient beings from samsara, our own ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, and this life’s happiness. Even a peaceful mind comes from Dharma, through protecting the mind from delusions. So, you must have courage.

It’s very important not to get into the habit of missing commitments or not doing practice. If you get into the habit, then it is difficult to get out of it again. Of course, if you do miss commitments you can do Samayavajra, short self-initiation, or tsog offering—do one round of tsog focusing on the essential point of generating bliss and voidness in the merit field. But you shouldn’t get into the habit of missing commitments. If that starts happening, it’s better to make a timetable and stick to it, discipline yourself.

If the mind has sunk down and it is difficult to practice, then you must meditate on death and impermanence. That is very important. It takes care of so many problems, solves everything. It cuts attachment to people, places, and things. You stop clinging. If you think that you are going to die today then you won’t waste time, you will make sure that you practice, that you do your meditation. Thinking about impermanence and death helps to not get caught up by attachment. It helps to calm the mind. It cuts through the mind getting distracted by external objects, which wastes so much time. When the mind gets distracted, it doesn’t allow you to meditate on guru devotion or do your practice, so one hour, one day, one week goes past like this, completely wasted. Thinking you are going to die today also helps to develop compassion for sentient beings.

Reflect on impermanence and death thinking, “I am going to die today, even this hour, even this minute.” It is very powerful and takes care of so many things, so many problems are solved. Even if you are angry with somebody, you will see there isn’t any point continuing to be angry because you might die soon.

So, think about death, the suffering of the lower realms, and the nature of samsara. Also, think about the kindness of sentient beings and how much they are suffering. Think: “I am responsible for freeing them from suffering and bringing them to enlightenment.” Then, depending on whatever delusion is arising, meditate on emptiness or on the three principles of the path.

Milarepa did not do business or work for money. He did the complete opposite, and achieved enlightenment in a small number of years. If you want to do the opposite of this, that means you want to practice the obstacles to achieving enlightenment. That makes it very hard to achieve enlightenment. There will be no enlightenment, because of worldly concerns and attachment to comfort.

No one achieved enlightenment without renouncing worldly concern, or by following worldly concerns.