Dharma and Worldly Activities

We were waiting for a taxi, and it took some time to get one. The thought came while we were waiting that it’s good to practice rejoicing when the taxi comes and other people get inside. It’s good to practice rejoicing that the person received happiness, what they need. This is an excellent practice, and helps the negative emotional mind, anger, and being upset not to arise. You keep the mind in virtue and Dharma because you are sincerely wishing happiness for others. This is very pure Dharma and also keeps your mind in a state of happiness. Wishing happiness for others opens the door of all happiness, whether wishing happiness for an insect, a person, or many people.

In the Lama Chöpa it says, "The mind that cherishes all mother beings and would secure them in bliss is the gateway leading to infinite virtue." This is from the Buddha's Mahayana teachings. This means it becomes a cause for enlightenment. If you want to be, like His Holiness says, intelligently selfish, rejoice. The common result of rejoicing in this way just once, in this life and hundreds of thousands of future lives, is you have no difficulty finding a taxi, you immediately find a vehicle when you are traveling. It could be difficult for other people, but for you it is easy. It creates the karma for that. Your rejoicing does something good, such as this practice of thinking of the karmic result, which is happiness for yourself. This is called being intelligently selfish, because at least from this you get the karmic result of happiness in a future life, at least it becomes Dharma and virtue.

When you are driving along in your car and suddenly another car goes in front of you, you get upset. Then, the next car does something they are not supposed to do in front of you or next to your car.

When this happens immediately:

Remember that this unfavorable condition is my negative karma created by my selfish mind, my ego. This is the wheel of sharp weapons, the negative karma I created when I harmed others, circling back on me now. Without delaying for even a second, while the wheel of sharp weapons of my negative karma is turning on me, I immediately use it to cut my enemy, my ego.

Rejoice how this is the happiest, most wonderful thing in life—using the wheel of sharp weapons of my negative karma, produced by my ego, to cut my enemy, my ego. This is the happiest life, the most wonderful opportunity in life—to cut my ego using the sharp weapon of my negative karma. I cut the ego with the wheel of sharp weapons produced by my negative karma circling back on me.

Feel unbelievably happy!

Here, first, you are accepting the problem, as it is caused by your karma. By doing that, it pacifies the negative emotional thoughts, feeling upset or angry. The second thing is that you're looking at the shortcomings of ego, the harm given to you by ego. Third, you are using the harm given to ego to turn back on and cut the ego, that means destroying the ego, the self-cherishing thought, so that then bodhicitta can rise. From that you can achieve enlightenment. Then, you can liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and enlighten them. When that happens, that’s the ultimate goal of your life, the very meaning of your life is completed.

WOW!

This is one example, and you must think similarly in daily life with anything that annoys you, which disturbs you suddenly. Think like this about something with which it's difficult to practice patience, like when anger suddenly arises.

When you watch TV, one benefit is when you see people or animals die (e.g. animals alive and being cooked) you can immediately pray:

By the merits of the three times collected by myself and all other sentient beings may this being be reborn in the Pure Land of Buddha and achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Then recite a few mantras—mani mantras or mantras of the Five Powerful Deities of Purification.

Through the power of your merits from beginningless rebirths and others' merits, this action becomes very powerful. It makes watching TV very worthwhile in that you are able to benefit beings who have no guide.

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for taking a precious human rebirth and making your life most beneficial for sentient beings in the ten directions in this world.

It is a great gift for me that I have you. You are always such a happy person, that is another of your qualities, always filled with inspiration, devotion, intelligence, compassion, all the important stuff. These are the roots within you. So, I am very proud of having you. Maybe after a few years I will sell you to His Holiness the Dalai Lama or put you inside a mandala and offer you.

I would like to thank you very much for everything, for all your dedication, benefiting others, your traditional practice, and all the beautiful Dharma hats with mantras on, which liberate so many sentient beings every day in this world. It is such an easy way to liberate sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric suffering, bring them to enlightenment, and attract them to the Dharma Center, as well as to the retreat center. HA HA HE HE HO HO [Rinpoche laughing].

I want to tell you that when you give a hat to someone there should be a card explaining the benefits of the hat. You can incorporate the benefits that you have already compiled with these:

Just by wearing this hat in public, playing golf, in the street, on the beach, where many people are shopping, in the market, anywhere that animals or people can see you, you are liberating others.

If an insect flies around your hat (with mantras), or an insect goes under or around the hat, or a person walks around you on the way to a shop, you are liberating them all the time. You are bringing so many sentient beings, who are suffering, to enlightenment. The hat enlightens even the flies.

OM MANI PADME HUM is the mantra of the compassionate Buddha, who is the embodiment of all the Buddhas. This mantra is for developing compassion, which is the most precious, wish-fulfilling thing, for all happiness, including liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering, up to full enlightenment—the peerless happiness. You, one person, by generating compassion, can liberate all suffering sentient beings, who equal the limitless sky, from the oceans of samsaric suffering, and bring them to full enlightenment, fulfilling all their wishes and happiness.

The mantra on the front is from Buddha’s sutra teaching called Chulong Rolpai Do. Merely seeing this mantra pacifies 100,000 eons of negative karma.

Any sentient being who walks under the mantra on the back of the hat purifies 1000 eons of negative karma.

Seeing the mantra on the left side of the hat, below the signature, enables one to achieve enlightenment.

Of course, this applies to OM MANI PADME HUM as well. There is no question that this mantra also has this benefit. Also, it purifies one’s very heavy negative karma, including purifying the five uninterrupted negative karmas.

Please give my regards to your family.

With much love and prayers ...

It will not necessarily be better just because it has been kept in very good condition. It doesn’t mean that problems won’t occur. It all depends on the karma of the individual, because when the vehicle changes hands, even if the car has no problems, the new owner’s karma changes this, and the car may then have many problems. Or the car might currently have many problems, but when it changes owners, because the karma changes, the car might run great.

Yesterday I was talking to a student on the phone for some time. I thought that in order to make the time useful I should do something else, so I took the opportunity to walk around many enlightened buddhas’ relics: relics of Lama Atisha, Nagarjuna, the Buddha, the Karmapa, Milarepa, and Lama Tsongkhapa, as well as stupas that contain the four powerful mantras. That means that each circumambulation purifies the five uninterrupted negative karmas (drawing blood from a buddha, killing an arhat, causing a schism within the sangha and killing one’s mother or father). There is no question that it purifies the ten non-virtuous actions, directs one’s life toward enlightenment, brings one health, long life, and other temporal benefits, as well as the ability to achieve all the realizations, such as the three principal aspects of the path, the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment, etc.

So, while I was talking on the phone I walked around all the relics, pictures of Buddha, and tsa tsas that I have on a table in my room. I thought that my attendants Roger and Holly spend so many hours talking on the phone that it would be very nice to have a stupa that they could circumambulate. Also, the FPMT International Office could have small stupas, such as many tsa tsas, and, especially, some stupas that contain the four powerful mantras, as well as photos of Buddha, statues, texts etc. on a table, beautifully set up, very pleasant and inspiring. Also, you can make offerings around the table, flower and water offerings, the seven royal emblems and eight offering goddesses* carrying offerings, around the edge of the table. The stupa could be either outside in the garden, in the middle of each room, or in the center of the building. Then, because people spend many hours on the telephone they can take the opportunity to circumambulate as much as they can. Even if our speech does not have a virtuous motivation, our bodily action becomes virtuous and the cause of enlightenment, liberation from samsara, and happiness in future lives. If our speech is virtuous, then our bodily action also becomes virtuous by circumambulating, so we collect much more merit. If our mind is also virtuous then it is even better. It is important to take the opportunity to make one’s body, speech, and mind virtuous, as much as possible, to put effort into that, because the nature of life is impermanence and death.

So, in this way, one’s life is not wasted. By performing circumambulations life becomes extremely profound. Lama Atisha always traveled with a Kadampa stupa and circumambulated it so many times. You can see that circumambulating is very important.

The other thing you can do while on the phone is use your other hand to turn a prayer wheel. This purifies all sentient beings in the six realms. Beams emit from the prayer wheel and purify you and all sentient beings. All the realizations, especially great loving kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta, as well as the whole path, the five wisdoms, etc., are achieved.

*Note: The seven royal emblems are the precious wheel, precious jewel, precious queen, precious minister, precious elephant, precious horse and precious general; the eight offering goddesses are those of grace, garlands, song, dance, flowers, incense, lamps and perfume…as in the long mandala offering.