Offering Service to the Guru
The Merit of Serving the Guru
Rinpoche sent this letter to thank a student for their service and to remind them how to use difficulties on the path.
My very dear one,
I hope you are well and enjoying [your life] there. Enjoyment doesn't come from outside; it comes from the mind, from karma, and so much depends on how we think. We may be experiencing the results of our negative karma, such as sickness and catastrophes, but if our mind is well trained in lojong, we will be able to use these situations in the most beneficial way to achieve enlightenment, happiness.
For the quickest enlightenment, for the best purification of all our past negative karma and to collect extensive merit like the sky, by having bodhicitta motivation we experience the sufferings on behalf of all sentient beings.
I hope I didn't send you to the center and it is like a suffering world, a suffering life. I asked you to become a nun, I took you away from your boyfriend, then you came here and had a difficult life. But here you are serving me every day, as we have a Dharma connection.
As Sakya Pandita said:
Even if you practice the paramita of charity for a thousand eons by giving your arms, legs and so forth to sentient beings, and you dedicate the merit of that to them, you collect all that merit in one second by offering service to the guru.
This is according to Sakya Pandita. When you serve the guru, you collect unbelievable merit in one second. It’s most unbelievable, most amazing.
You can enjoy [your life] there, and every day you can think about what Sakya Pandita said. Think you are eating food for me, going to the toilet for me and cleaning the house for me. Each water bowl is for me and even your breathing is for me. You must realize that. You are doing things that I need to have done. When you can't do something physically, then at that time you can change to another activity.
With much love and prayers. I hope to see you soon.
The Merit of Offering Service
This advice about the benefits of correctly following the virtuous friend was given to a couple who had offered service for a long time and wrote offering their practice.
My most dear, most kind, wish-fulfilling ones,
You have been helping at the center so much and for such a long time. This is a healthy action and if your minimum thought is to benefit others, then it is a beneficial action. So that is incredibly good. Secondly, you might have been doing all that while thinking of me, so it is a very healthy action.
Sakya Pandita said,
All the merit you accumulate by practicing the paramita of charity for a thousand eons—giving to other sentient beings not only your head and limbs but even the merit you receive by offering your body in this way—is collected in one second by following the path of the guru. Therefore, offer service and feel happy.
That means by fulfilling the guru’s wishes or following the guru’s advice for even in one second, we collect all the merits of an eon in one second. So there was a need for the work you did and you did it by thinking of me. Also, the practice you did, same thing, you did it by thinking of me. You are offering service to the guru, therefore rejoice and be happy! There are many words and quotations that say this, but this is enough.
In this work, no matter how many difficulties you experience, it is beyond beneficial. Therefore, you should rejoice. It’s unbelievable! It is said that for those who correctly follow the virtuous friend, the karma to be born in the lower realms is purified. By following the guru, those heavy karmas are experienced as some small harm or difficulties in this life or even as some small harm in your dreams.
The Ksitigarbha Sutra mentions,
For those who correctly follow the virtuous friend and offer service, even the negative karmas that would cause them to wander in the lower realms for an unfathomable time, tens of millions of eons, are totally purified by manifesting in this life as disease or some other small harm to the body or mind, or even by experiencing that in a dream.
In this quotation, to “correctly follow the virtuous friend and offer service” doesn’t mean in the same place as the guru; it can be in another part of the world.
The Kalachakra Tantra says,
You cannot become enlightened in this life even if you make offerings to the Three Rare Sublime Ones and save the lives of millions of creatures for all the eons of the three times; but if, with devotion, you please the guru, who has oceans of qualities, you will definitely achieve the general and sublime realizations in this life.
Also, it is mentioned in the Oceans of Transcendental Wisdom,
For the wise fortunate one, serving the guru has greater meaning than making prostrations to all the buddhas of the three times for sixty million eons. If you accomplish the work according to the guru’s advice, all your wishes will quickly be achieved, and you will collect unimaginable merit. And those who please the guru with the offering of their possessions will be liberated from the three realms of samsara, be born in the pure realm of nirmanakaya and go straight to the sorrowless state.
With love and prayer ...
The Obstacles Are Purifying Your Karma
A student wrote to give Rinpoche an update and mentioned all the obstacles they had been experiencing.
My very, very dear one,
As you have been doing in the past and continue to do, you have been serving the center with the motivation of bodhicitta. The success of that is the root of the path to enlightenment, devoting to the guru, like with Lama Yeshe and His Holiness the Dalai Lama and then me, but I’m like a sloth going so slow.
So doing this with guru yoga, for you that’s the highest merit and the greatest purification. I’m very happy. I hope all your family are well.
The obstacles you are experiencing are purifying your karma, etc. Please make the following prayer.
The great Lama Choje Gotsangpa said:
By my experiencing this karma, may all the four things —all my negative karma, sickness, obscurations and spirit harm—be purified.
You can recite this, say one mala or two malas each day.
With much love and prayer ...
Pleasing the Guru
Rinpoche wrote this letter to a monk who was helping at a Dharma center. Rinpoche had heard a lot of praise for how hard he was working.
My very dear one,
How are you? I have been hearing excellent news about you. How you work so hard and are dedicated to me and to all sentient beings and to the teachings of the Buddha. You are working so hard and have dedicated your life and this has benefits.
The great, great, great holy being from where the Sakya teachings came, Sakya Pandita, mentioned that even the brightness and heat of the sun cannot produce fire without a magnifying glass. Like that, without the guru, we cannot receive the Buddha’s blessings. Therefore, if the guru is pleased then all the buddhas are pleased.
Therefore, by pleasing the guru all the buddhas are pleased with you, who are the embodiment of all the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
I go for refuge to you who are the embodied Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I go for refuge.
It is mentioned in the Drop of Mahamudra:
Just as fire burns wood and in one second makes ashes,
If the guru is pleased, then your negative karma is burned in a second
And many eons of heavy negative karma are ceased.
Also, Sakya Pandita said,
For a thousand eons you can make charity of your limbs, legs, hands and so forth, and even the merits from that is given back to sentient beings, but you receive all that merit in one second by following the guru’s path.
That means the merit from making charity, from giving your limbs to sentient beings and dedicating that merit for thousands of eons, you achieve in one second when you fulfill the guru’s wishes, the guru’s advice.
Please enjoy your everyday life, every hour, your most meaningful life, every minute, please enjoy.
With much love and prayers ...
The Merit of Pleasing the Guru
Rinpoche sent this card to an interpreter who was offering service at a Dharma center.
My very dear one,
What a great joyfulness you have offered by being at the center and helping the Sangha, teaching Tibetan and translating for Geshe-la, many things. Thank you very, very much for doing all these things on my behalf. It’s really great! Thank you. You are just like the manifestations of Manjushri or Tara. Great, yet simple, so great!
I am sure so many people enjoy and are happy having you to help. I am wondered how I can repay you. As you are always happy and satisfied and everything, please continue like this and enjoy.
I am sending you this Buddha Amitayus mantra that I wrote out as exercise for my right hand and also to purify the remaining negative karma and collect extensive merits. It has extensive benefits. It is the greatest offering, more than offering to the ten-direction Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, statues, stupas and scriptures.
When you recite the mantra from the Amitayus Long Life Sutra (Tse dö), it is like reading the whole Kangyur. Universes filled with wish-fulfilling jewels are small compared to writing this mantra.
Nagarjuna said:
Abandon making other offerings,
And strive purely to make offerings only to your guru.
By pleasing your guru, you will achieve
The sublime wisdom of the omniscient mind.
That is because there is less merit making offerings to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha than offering to the guru. This means obtaining the guru’s advice and fulfilling the guru’s wishes, not only making physical offerings.
Sakya Pandita said:
The merit you collect by making charity of your limbs for a thousand eons, giving away your head, legs and so forth, and even dedicating that merit to sentient beings, can all be achieved in one second by following the guru’s path.
What it says is that making charity of various parts of the body for a thousand eons, even if the merit of that is dedicated to sentient beings, you collect all that merit in one second when you follow the guru’s advice and follow the guru’s wishes. You collect all that merit in one second by following the guru’s path.
That means, can you imagine how you are so lucky, so unbelievable fortunate? You can’t imagine. So it is very good you have a good opportunity to learn Dharma philosophy from the geshe at the centre. This is a great opportunity.
I hope to see you soon.
With much love and prayers ...
Working for the Guru Purifies Eons of Negative Karma
A student wrote that he hadn’t started a Vajrasattva retreat because he had been serving the center and didn’t yet have the time. Rinpoche had advised him to do the retreat some time ago.
When you work for the guru even if it’s not meditation, even if it’s physical work, because there is a need for that, it contains so many thousands of mandala offerings, prostrations, etc. It purifies so many eons of negative karma and it is the greatest purification. It is said in the sutra Donpo gopai do that serving the guru makes us achieve enlightenment.
You can do Vajrasattva as planned or do a little each day.