Advice to Center Directors

Please do these things first:

• She nyin dü dog puja: To be done three times by eight to ten senior Lama Gyupas at Kopan Monastery.
• Amitayus Long Life Sutra (Tse dö): To be written out five times by you in English.
• White Tara meditation: Do this daily for some time. If you haven’t received a great initiation (Kriya or Highest Yoga Tantra) then you can still do it but not see yourself as the deity.

My most dear one,
What a great joy, what you have been doing and thinking there so that everybody, Sangha and non-Sangha, is coming together again.

I really appreciate all your past kindness and present kindness, and everybody appreciates this. That is really a good thing. Also, in this way you are helping the older students and the new students and especially the Sangha, by bringing them together. They are also learning from the geshe, learning his ideas. So it is very, very good.

My great, great appreciation to you and your sister. I must thank your parents for making both of you, for having brought you both into the human world.

As it is said in the lamrim teachings, this is just about one time meeting the guru, who is revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment. It is just one time meeting the holy Dharma and just one time having received a perfect human rebirth. So, we can’t imagine that now we are able to help other sentient beings.

The conclusion is that everything we do is to spread Dharma to sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment. Our every movement, every moment, is for that, and even our breath in and out is for that.

I have these quotations for you. Nagarjuna said:

Abandon making all the other offerings,
And strive to make pure offerings to the guru.
By pleasing the guru, you will achieve the supreme transcendental wisdom of omniscience.

That is because there is less merit offering 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 physically making an offering. This is the greatest offering, and we collect more merit than offering to the ten-direction buddhas, Dharma, Sangha, statues, stupas and scriptures.

Sakya Pandita said:

Even if we make charity of our head, legs and hands for one thousand eons and then dedicate that merit to sentient beings—all that merit is collected in one second when we practice the guru’s path.

What this is saying is that having made charity of various parts of the body for a thousand eons, and even if the merit of that is dedicated to sentient beings, when we follow the guru’s advice or follow the guru’s wishes, we collect all that merit in one second.

I hope to see you soon.

With much love and prayers ...

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I’m very, very happy with all that you said, that it is harmonious, and all the good things you informed me about, and also that a number of students are close to Geshe-la. That is so good.

I’m very happy, so no question, even though you made mistakes in the past, but [they] didn’t get to explain or you didn’t learn how to run the organization—not in a business way, but through Dharma, with compassion, with devotion and with compassion. This wasn’t explained and there was no training for directors on how to run the center in this way, so that training didn’t happen. Then of course, you were quite new to Sangha also and you made many mistakes, but you noticed this as the year went by.

Now I’m sure you have a much better understanding as you noticed that you made mistakes and you know what needs to be corrected, to be done, so there is development. Now you understand what is the correct way to do things, so there is development. This is how I think, but if you don’t notice mistakes, then mistakes happen all the time and the situation doesn’t get better.

That is not only for outside work but also for our Dharma practice, our own Dharma practice, it’s the same. We need to develop everything and to subdue the mind. That is why Buddha said:

Do not commit any unwholesome actions,
Engage in perfect wholesome actions,
Subdue one’s own mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

The Buddha said, “Subduing the mind, it is the teaching of Buddha.” He didn’t say only being learned in the teachings of Buddha, only being a scholar is the teaching of Buddha, he said, “Subduing one’s own mind, this is the teaching of Buddha.”

Thank you very much and I hope to see you soon. Please enjoy this perfect human life, especially being Sangha, preserving the Dharma and bringing sentient beings to enlightenment, not only nirvana.

With much love and prayers ...

Being a director, the first and the main thing is having ideas; then second is finding people to help, so you don’t have to do everything. You can do the things that other people cannot do.

My very dear one

As you received [the advice] in the dream, you should do as you received. These are wonderful and very positive things to do. My appearance to you can be Buddha appearing that way, in my aspect.

So, as you have received, please do that. Again it can be all the buddhas advising you, taking my form. Many times it happens like that. Many people get messages [from] my form but in reality all the buddhas are manifesting that way.

With love and prayer ...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much your nice offering and picture. I heard you are doing very well at the center. Thank you very, very, very much.

You are serving His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Yeshe and Mickey Mouse (me) and all sentient beings, as you are doing the work with bodhicitta motivation. I heard really good things, that you are doing very well. Thank you very, very, very much.

What else is there that we should be doing in the world? There is nothing better than this.

With much love and prayers ...