Motivation for Building a Stupa

My very dear ones,
Thank you very much for your open heart and inspiration, practicing with an open heart toward enlightenment, having the inspiration to practice and the wish to benefit others, recognizing that you are one and others, who are numberless, all want happiness and don’t want suffering. Dedicating your life to others is most worthwhile, the best, not only now but up to enlightenment.

Particularly, we need to continuously learn Dharma taught by the Buddha; only then do we gain the wisdom to practice what is right and [avoid what is] wrong. Otherwise, there is the danger of practicing what is wrong, thinking it is right, and [mistaking] what is right for wrong. Not only in this life, but we have wasted hundreds, thousands, billions, zillions of lives, even the whole time we have been in samsara.

Learning continuously is so important in this life. That means in future lives we’ll be able to do more, to practice and have realizations. Then, we’ll soon become free from the oceans of samsaric suffering and achieve peerless happiness, the state of omniscient mind.

[Regarding the stupa] you can think that all sentient beings are building it. If you do that, every hell being gets the merit of building the stupa, and every human being who has not met Dharma collects merit. Also, the numberless suras and asuras, and the numberless crocodiles, or sharks, those that eat so many hundreds, thousands or millions of fish at one time—all collect merit.

If one hell being’s suffering were to take a form, the whole sky would be filled with that form. Therefore, it’s most important for them to be free from suffering as quickly as possible, not only today but even in one second.

So that means [depending on our motivation] it’s possible for everyone to create merit. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

P.S. The height of the stupa is two stories or up to three stories. You can build it two, two and a half, or three stories high—you can choose. If you think three is difficult, you can do two, or two and a half.

Regarding your motivation, even though you spend money to build the stupa, you can think all sentient beings are building it, in order to free the numberless sentient beings from suffering and bring them to the state of omniscient mind.

Think you are building the stupa for the numberless hell beings, the numberless preta beings, the numberless human beings, the numberless sura and asura beings, and the intermediate state beings. In this way, you create unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merit and the cause of enlightenment.

Thank you very much.