Practice Advice for Cancer

My dear one,
You’re reciting the Diamond Cutter Sutra every day. That is excellent. If the recitation is done with bodhicitta motivation, that is the best thing for you to do, now and in the future. Also, study what I have written on Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death. [Find links to this booklet in the "Teachings, Advice and Commentaries" subsection of the FPMT Catalogue.]

Try to do more than 200,000 mantras of Vajrasattva, as much as you can.

Then do or arrange for Amitabha tsa tsas (16x) to be done. You can do these or someone can do them for you. Dedicate to achieving all the path and enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. If there is a bigger Amitabha tsa tsa somewhere, then in addition you can have a few of these made, if you can find them. I’m not sure where, so just do this if you can find them.

These practices you can do as you feel, depending on your condition. It’s not necessary to be in retreat style; the main thing is that they are done.

With much love and prayer...

PS: As I mentioned, try to do more than 200,000 Vajrasattva mantras, so then it is better to be in retreat.

My dear one,
Having this sickness is a great purification, also for the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras and asura beings.

You should recite Buddha’s name mantra as much as possible, with strong visualization of compassion and light.

Also recite Vajrasattva mantra, visualizing that from the deity everything gets purified—disease, spirit harm, negative karma and obscurations. With OM VAJRASATTVA HUM, visualize that your body is in the nature of light and from the deity’s holy body, light radiates and purifies you. Meditate in this way to purify.

Liberate animals—80 fish. It is best to do this in Kathmandu, as they can be taken around Boudha and Swayambhunath stupas, then put back in water. Otherwise please follow my advice on how to do animal liberation. You can do this at the center, with many holy objects on a table. Take the animals around the table, bless the water, sprinkle it on the animals and then release them. The book, Liberating Animals, is available from FPMT Foundation Store. 

If you can take the eight Mahayana precepts, (you can have both breakfast and lunch) then this is excellent. Generate the motivation to attain enlightenment for all sentient beings. This creates the cause for this and future lives’ happiness, liberation and enlightenment and also creates the cause to liberate all sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering and to liberate them from the ocean of samsara. The precepts are able to do all that!

The best for you is the Tibetan medicine rinchen tsundru dha shel [Moon Crystal] and rinchen tang cho. This medicine is something that has been used for thousands of years. It is made from precious jewels, purified and made harmless. It is the Tibetan government’s medicine that is exported and has been used for thousands of years. These came out best in my observation. Take eight Moon Crystal and ten tang cho; one week take Moon Crystal and the next week tang cho, alternating like that. This came out very good. You should get this medicine soon. There should always be two or three days’ break between taking the pills. See if you can get this medicine in Australia, otherwise you can email Holly and she will arrange to send the pills to you.

The best thing is that the ripening of negative karma can be used for happiness, and not just for happiness of this life, but also for future lives, liberation from samsara and enlightenment. It can be used for ultimate enlightenment. It’s an essenceless thing, actually, but if you can experience it with bodhicitta, it becomes the cause of enlightenment and liberates oceans of hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras and asuras from samsara. It grants the greatest happiness and becomes most meaningful.

It’s the most meaningful and gives the greatest happiness. There’s nothing greater than to experience this illness for all sentient beings with bodhicitta—not just for your family but for numberless sentient beings—to cause happiness for them, up to enlightenment. Think that you have received all sentient beings’ suffering and its causes, including cancer, for numberless sentient beings who are suffering and will die. So by experiencing the suffering of sentient beings, including their cancer, you get all the benefits mentioned before, plus all the rest of the sufferings and their causes. The benefits are greater, numberless times greater. You will experience the causes of numberless enlightenments and you will cause this for numberless sentient beings.

So every day, every hour, as much as possible, think like this, especially if you have done the prayer in the past to receive all sentient beings’ suffering and its causes, and to give away all your happiness and merit to all sentient beings. Then think: “Now I have the greatest success, by receiving their suffering and I’m experiencing this, as mentioned before, on behalf of all sentient beings.”

Try to be brave, as much as possible, to think in this way. Letting numberless beings of each realm have the peerless happiness of enlightenment, without suffering, really makes your life meaningful. Every time you think this, it lets you purify negative karma from beginningless rebirths, not just for a limited number of lives. So, the cancer and its cause get purified and each time, you are collecting numberless causes for enlightenment. If you take the suffering of cancer of one sentient being or all the entire suffering of one sentient being, this is a cause to achieve enlightenment, peerless happiness, and is the greatest success from all the successes of the life. Since there are numberless hell beings and pretas, up to intermediate beings, this causes seven types of numberless causes for enlightenment. By taking the cancer of one person, there is one cause of enlightenment, but taking one sentient being’s many sufferings creates so many causes for enlightenment. So it is most amazing, most amazing. It is a most amazingly meaningful and most happy thing.

Then, even when you die, it is impossible to be born in the lower realms. Instead you will be reborn in Amitabha’s pure land, and according to my root guru Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, you can achieve enlightenment there. Also in Shambala and Heruka pure lands, you can become enlightened. At the least, you get higher rebirth, perfect human rebirth, meet the virtuous friend, practice Dharma, and understand and realize much easier in that life than in this life.

The author of the Seven-point Mind Training, Geshe Chekawa, had in all his lives prayed to be reborn in hell for the sake of all sentient beings. When he was about to die at his hermitage, he had a vision of the pure lands and he said, “I didn’t achieve my wishes because I’m being reborn in a pure land. I didn’t succeed!” He told his young monk attendant this. He felt this regret as a brave-minded bodhisattva. It was not a political statement, but he really wanted to be reborn in hell. He got the purest result, totally opposite to what he wanted by taking rebirth in a pure land. That’s why he had the vision of the pure land.

I will stop here. I hope you understand my letter. Please write to me, so I can understand how things are going with you.

With biggest love and prayers...

It comes out very good for anyone with cancer to do:

• Ksitigarbha sutra and mantra
• Recite the Golden Light Sutra

These practices can be done even by people who are not Buddhist. This is just something to try. By doing these practices it is an incredible purification that can help the disease go away and the karma to be purified.

Doing these practices purifies the mind, so that one’s past negative karma gets purified and one collects extensive merits.

Then best is to do these practices with bodhicitta—do them for numberless sentient beings who have the same sickness, and not only for those who are sick, but for the numberless sentient beings who are suffering in the six realms and the intermediate state. 

It looks very good to have the operation now.

1. Read Amitayas long-life sutra (Tibetan: tse-dö) 70 times before the operation; others can help with this. The sutra is available for download from FPMT as a pdf file.
2. Do the Four Mandala Offerings to Tara puja once before the operation. Request Nalanda Monastery to do this puja for the success of the operation, for a long life and for successful lamrim practice.  

My very dear John,
Thank you for your kind note. I checked and it is very good if you become a monk, and very good if you keep your vows well. It is better to stay in a monastery or supportive environment with other Sangha for the first three to five years.

Regarding your father’s cancer, visualize a large or small stupa, full of light that is coming towards you. You are totally illuminated and become light. Stay like this for a long time, as long as you can, then send light to others—to your father and all beings. Do this several times a day and carry on until he recovers.

Another thing you can do for him is Medicine Buddha Puja. Visualize Medicine Buddha above his head filling him with nectar.

With much love and prayers...

My dear Elaine,
I checked regarding your cancer and it’s important for you to immediately start retreat. The retreat should be for a minimum of three weeks, but it doesn't have to be strict, you can keep it relaxed. The main subject is tonglen. Do Lama Chöpa every morning and then use the verse on tonglen. Recite it in a contemplative way, not fast, so that you can meditate. The main thing is to recite the verse and contemplate its meaning while doing the meditation. It is not about doing a certain number.

Do this as much as you can, in a retreat style, not pushing too much, taking it easy, for a minimum of three weeks. Then, the puja she-nyin dü-dog needs to be done seven times. In my observation it is best if Drati Khangtsen does this for you. Check with Geshe Khedrup or Geshe Gyurme for help contacting Drati Khangsten to organize the pujas.

Once you have finished the retreat, it is good if you can have another medical checkup to see how the cancer is and also contact me again at that time.

With much love and prayers...