Practice Advice for Cancer

My very dear Lorenzo,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. According to my divinations, these are the practices you should do:

40,000 Vajrasattva mantras, with strong meditation on purification

40,000 prostrations to the 35 Buddhas

300,000 Samayavajra mantras

Five nyung näs, or as many as you can do. This is the best solution and a very powerful purification practice to purify all the problems of samsara, not only sickness and cancer. It is good to do as many nyung näs possible. If you don’t know how to do one on your own, you can do them as a group at the Dharma center. If you can’t get a group to do it, then go to the Dharma center and ask one of the Sangha or an experienced older student to help you. You can do it in any Dharma center in your country.

Also, it would be very beneficial for you to take the eight Mahayana precepts. If you cannot take all eight vows, then take however many you can. Take the eight Mahayana precepts again and again. That way you create so much karma to immediately have a good rebirth after death.

If you can, liberate 400,000 animals, like worms, crickets, and insects that are to be fed to fish. They sell these animals as food for other animals. Also, they are cheap to buy and very easy to liberate: thousands at one time. If they are liberated according to the method I have explained in my small booklet, then you collect vast amounts of merit.

Also, you need to have the puja performed for you called Chi Lu. You can ask the geshe at the Dharma center to do this for you. Also, he should do the puja Lagyu Segyu for you.

If you can, recite malas of Buddha Amitayas’ mantra every day. If you have received the Mitukpa initiation or any other highest yoga tantra initiation, then you can generate yourself as the deity. If you haven’t received a highest yoga tantra initiation, then you should visualize the deity in front of you. Visualize beams of nectar emitting and purifying the four things (disease, sickness, spirit harm, and negative karma), then visualize beams of nectar emitting again and that you are receiving all realizations up to enlightenment. Visualize in your heart all the gurus, Sanghas, and sentient beings who help others more than harm them, as well as your friends, family, and enemies. Visualize that beams of nectar purify them of all defilements, negative karma, sickness, and spirit harm, and that they receive all realizations.

Please study well the instructions below on thought transformation, and I will pray for you.

One thing to think is that, of course, life is impermanent. This is fundamental to the teachings of Buddhism. In samsara nothing is definite, nothing is always the same. You are a very sincere student and very devoted to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, so by performing practices you should think that this is one of the signs of purification. Instead of many eons experiencing heavy suffering in the lower realms, especially in hell, all that heavy negative karma is purified by experiencing it in this life, in this form, so it is purification, and that should give you incredible happiness, like liberation, compared to having to experience suffering in the lower realms, especially the hells.

It says in the teachings that all the fire in the whole human world is like cool air or a snowflake on the body compared to the heat of one tiny spark of fire from the hell realm.

By experiencing this sickness now, one doesn’t have to experience many eons of suffering in the lower realms, particularly the hell realms. That is a great achievement, wonderful, something to feel so happy about, such a great success!

Also, you can use this karmic experience to experience the Four Noble Truths, so it becomes a teaching. Because there is suffering that we did not want to experience, which we do not like, there is a cause for this. Why this happened is because of samsara—karma and delusion—and this shows that all of this is dependent arising and not independent of causes and conditions. That also means that this can cease. All this suffering exists by being dependent on causes and conditions, not independently. If it was independent then it could not cease, then it would be permanent. True suffering and its cause depend on causes and conditions and to cease them we need to actualize the true path shown by the Buddha in his teachings.

Besides the Buddha of Compassion—His Holiness the Dalai Lama—there are many other great teachers who can show the true path that one can learn and actualize.

The other thing I wanted to say is that, most of the time, use this pain on the path to achieving enlightenment. Use the pain and sickness as a means of causing happiness for all sentient beings, not only temporal happiness but ultimate happiness, to liberate them from samsara and bring them to enlightenment. There is a very important section in the Guru Puja from the verse that says: “seeing all the rainfalls of undesirable things happen is finishing the results of my negative karmas” down to the practice of charity. Use your sickness in thought transformation practice to develop bodhicitta. Go over these stanzas in the Guru Puja down to the paramita of charity, thinking that you are experiencing this problem and sickness on behalf of all sentient beings. In your mind, use the sickness on the path to enlightenment, not just on the path to happiness. This is caused by experiencing all sicknesses for the benefit of all sentient beings, or on behalf of all sentient beings.

Each time you experience suffering think that you are experiencing it on behalf of all sentient beings. By doing this you collect vast amounts of merit, so many times every day, and purify many eons of negative karma each time you experience suffering for others. That way your sickness brings you closer to enlightenment each time, and your sickness becomes extremely precious, like a wish-granting jewel. It is most precious having this sickness, it has the same label: “sickness,” but now you see it as the most positive thing and even that it is needed. Without sickness there is nothing which causes you to do all these practices, your life would be wasted, and so much negative karma would be created instead of all these merits.

What does it mean to take on all the sufferings of sickness and the causes of the sufferings on yourself? You can think in the morning and in the evening that you are experiencing this suffering on behalf of all sentient beings. Try to think that as much as possible. This way you are experiencing the sickness with bodhicitta and using the sickness to develop bodhicitta. If you use the sickness to develop great compassion for all sentient beings who are suffering and to develop bodhicitta, then this is best use of your sickness. Your sickness makes your life most beneficial for countless sentient beings, including you. This means your sickness enables you to definitely achieve enlightenment quickly, because the stronger the compassion and bodhicitta you develop the quicker your enlightenment. Each time you experience your sickness for all sentient beings you collect so much merit, no question regarding experiencing suffering on behalf of sentient beings

With much love and prayers...

I checked for a long time regarding your health. This is my advice:

1. You should do White Heruka retreat. (Of course, it is up to you whether you do this or not.)

2. Each month the students should recite the Golden Light Sutra at least once. They should dedicate it to your long life. The dedication can also include to prevent wars and fighting in the world today, natural disasters such as hurricanes and fires etc, difficulties in Burma, Pakistan, in essence, for world peace.

3. The Kangyur needs to be recited.

My very dear mother,
In order to bring living beings, who are suffering intensely, to full enlightenment, the perfected state of bliss, the essential path to be able to do this is:

1. compassion for all living beings, as well as

2. wisdom. Not only wisdom understanding what is right to practice and what is to be abandoned, but also ultimate wisdom realizing the ultimate nature of the self, the “I,” body, mind, and all phenomena.

These two are the very essential path among the other many realizations on the path to enlightenment. These two are the very essence, the root.

I heard that you have cancer and that you have no fear at all of death. That is a very good sign that you have lived your life with a good heart, and that you lived a good life. Having this mental state is the result of a good life. I wish everybody in the world could also think like this. How wonderful that would be, then there would be so much peace and happiness in the world and you would never hear even the word “war.” All beings would live their lives only benefiting each other, giving only peace to each other, helping each other, because of having a good heart and caring for others, as you have done, and also as your family is doing.

It is definitely beneficial if you can live longer in this human world, as you can help others and inspire others, rather than passing away. Your life is much more beneficial to the world if you continue to live. Therefore, I am suggesting this meditation to heal your cancer.

This is based on a very secret and special female aspect of an enlightened being. Also, it is a highest tantric deity whose name is Vajrayogini. This deity’s path is very simple, most profound, and very secret. It has all the most important and skillful techniques to overcome the cycle of death and rebirth, as well as all the sufferings, quickly, and to eliminate the subtle defilements quickly by achieving enlightenment, so that you can also enlighten other sentient beings more quickly.

Generate the purest motivation, called the altruistic mind to achieve enlightenment, by thinking that the purpose of your life is not just to achieve happiness in this life. Thinking like this doesn’t make my human life special, in fact, thinking like this is no different from how animals think, even tiny insects. Also, the purpose of my life is not to cling to this life’s happiness, that attachment is non-virtue and transforms every action into non-virtue. Therefore, the result is only unhappiness, even if you achieve a human rebirth, or deva rebirth (those beings who live in a higher realm and have a billion times more sense enjoyments than human beings), let alone if you are reborn in the hell realms, hungry ghost realms, or as an animal. So, this is not the purpose of living, not the real meaning of life.

Even if one is free from the circle of existence, the continuity of the contaminated aggregates, which are caused by karma and delusion (“karma” means action), circle from life to life and go on and on like this, and therefore one experiences the sufferings of the six realms again and again without end, until we stop the continuity of the aggregates circling.

If we are suffering then we cannot liberate others. For example, if you are blind you cannot lead others or help other blind people; if you are drowning then you cannot save others who are also drowning. Therefore, we must be liberated forever from this circling existence, these contaminated aggregates caused by karma and delusion. To achieve this total liberation for oneself alone is still not the true meaning of life. The real meaning of life is to benefit others, to eliminate others’ sufferings, and to cause others happiness.

This has four levels:

1. To cause happiness in this life for others. This is one level of benefiting others. The next level which is more important is:

2. To cause them to have happiness in all future lives. Then, more important than this is:

3. To cause others to be in the sorrowless state, which is total liberation from suffering and the circle of existences. Even more important than this is to benefit other sentient beings by:

4. Bringing sentient beings to full enlightenment, peerless happiness, by oneself alone. The purpose of our lives is to cause this happiness for others. That is why we have a human body, so that we can do perfect work for sentient beings, to enlighten them.

The only way to do this is first we need to be enlightened. That means one’s own mental continuum must become the omniscient mind. For that to happen you need to actualize the whole path to enlightenment, from guru devotion up to enlightenment, all the stages and paths, and offer service to others.

To be able to offer service to other sentient beings, one needs a long and healthy life. So, think: For the benefit of all sentient beings, so as to liberate countless sentient beings from suffering and its causes and to bring them to full enlightenment, I am going to meditate and perform the recitation of Vajrayogini. Use a picture of the deity Vajrayogini to help you.

Visualize Vajrayogini on your crown or in front of you. Don’t visualize the offering goddesses around Vajrayogini, just visualize the main deity in the center. Make strong requests to Vajrayogini:

Please purify all the sickness, spirit harm, negative karma, and defilements, without the delay of even one second. May I receive within me all the qualities of Vajrayogini, all the blessings, from guru devotion, the three principal aspects of the path, to enlightenment, the two stages of highest tantra, fully developed perfect omniscience, compassion, and power.

Feel Vajrayogini has perfect loving compassion for you. She sends white beams to you, like sunbeams, that totally illuminate you. Instantly, the cancer and other conditions, spirit harm, and causes of sickness, delusions and karma, are completely purified.

With this visualization, please recite this mantra:

OM OM OM SARVA BUDDHA DAKINIYE VAJRA VARNANIYE VAJRA VAIROCANIYE HUM HUM HUM PHAT PHAT PHAT SVAHA

I am sending you a mala. If you can recite three malas of this mantra, with a strong meditation, the purification can help you a lot. Probably in the past you had strong karma with this deity.

Hope to see you soon some time in the future. If there is anything you want to express or if you have any difficulties, please let me know. You are always in my prayers.

With much love and prayers...

1. 500 animal liberation practices

2. Take two Hayagriva pills (from Lama Yeshe). We can send these to you if you send us your postal address.

3. Take Gur Khyung three times a day for two weeks. (We can send this if you send us your postal address.)

4. Ask the Bati Khamtsen to do Gyabshi puja three times. Let me know if you need help organizing this, otherwise the geshe you know can do it.

5. Wear Hayagriva protection. We can send this, unless the geshe has it.

6. Ask the geshe to do Kago for him and to make ngag chu (water blessed with mantras) for him to drink.

7. Recite Black Manjushri mantra (mostly) and some Migtsema mantras.

8. Recite Heruka root mantra ten times.

9. Ask the geshe to do naga incense puja on the correct naga days in the calendar.

10. There is a prayer for the family members to recite for him called key ga na chi dug gnal dhog pa (reversing the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death). This may not have been translated, so maybe you can request the geshe to translate it if he is able to, and we can get a copy.

11. Do Medicine Buddha puja regularly and recite the long Medicine Buddha mantra. Also ask the geshe and the nuns to do this. Attached is very short version, where you visualize the seven Medicine Buddhas above your husband’s head, then recite the short mantra a few times, and then mostly the long mantra. There is also a link in this version to where you can get the correct version of the puja.

I have been doing many prayers and also pujas for him.

Also, he should take seven mani pills for five weeks. If no one has them near you, we can send them. Please let us know if you need them.

Take Hayagriva pills. We will send some from Lama Yeshe and some are from me. There are ten, so take two each week, space them out.

Ask Tsamlo Khamtsen in Sera Je to recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra 60 times, for his quickest recovery.

Also, ask Tsamlo Khamtsen to do Naga Torma (Lu Tor) and to continue until he hopefully recovers. They should do this on the naga days.

My very dear one,
It would be very good if you can do five good quality nyung näs.

So, you have been seeking the best meditation and best meditation place for the last few years. I am sure the best place is booked for you in Tushita pure land, but the check-in and registration may not be up there, so you will have to look for those somewhere in this world.

This year it seems your life is OK, but it seems negative next year, the year after that (the next two years), and also the year after that (the next three years). Probably, you will need to build another stupa again for your long life, bigger than the one you built before. I don’t want to tell you the size yet, until it is nearer the time. You might feel disappointed or even dissolve if I mention the size now.

With much love and prayers... 

I checked quite a lot and am advising the following:

1.  The puja “Liberating from the harm of the naga and landlord” (lü-dang-sadag-gi-don-drol) needs to be performed by the lama who you know, and you must be present.
2.  Liberate 3,000 animals.
3.  I will send you blessed pills and water. It will take several days for me to bless the water and then I will send it by courier.
4.  Namgyal tong-chö [1,000 offerings to Namgyal] needs to be performed three times by Bati Khamtsen.

This is everything that needs to be done.