Advice on Guru Devotion for Student Having Difficulties

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

You are experiencing much pain and hardship, and that experience becomes the greatest purification for you. That pain purifies so many eons of the most intense suffering in the hell realms, preta realms, animal realms, or human realms. Even though it was unbearable, it was only for a short time, and you have purified countless eons, which now you don’t have to suffer. That is what you achieve. All the merit and the pain that you felt purifies obstacles to achieving enlightenment.

In regard to your guru devotion, you completely dedicated yourself to your guru. Your motivation was totally pure, so if you died with that motivation, it would be great. This is what bodhisattvas do. There are bodhisattvas who take different forms to benefit other sentient beings, making a connection with them, to purify them and in this way bring them to enlightenment and stop them from creating heavy negative karma.

It is said in the Fifty Verses of Guru Devotion:

Do whatever pleases the guru and abandon whatever displeases the guru.

Think that whatever the guru does, this is a special method to purify me, to end all my heavy, negative karma from the past, and all the obstacles to my realizations. This is for my success, for the highest enlightenment, to liberate me from samsara, and for the happiness of all my future lives.

There is a story about my attendant Roger, when he was working very hard in Kathmandu. He was very poor and sick, and every night he had to walk back to Kopan Monastery. One time he collapsed while he was crossing the fields on his way up to Kopan. He was extremely sick and also completely exhausted, and just could not get up, so he tried to use psychology to make himself get up. He imagined that he was in a stadium and there were lots of people watching him, and everyone was shouting, saying in one voice, “You can do it! Get up!” Everyone was saying this and it gave him courage, and he was able to get up and walk up to Kopan. Even though physically he was unable to, by using psychology he was able to get the strength to make it there.

There is also the story of how Tilopa treated Naropa—there were twelve great hardships and twelve small hardships that Naropa had to perform. Tilopa asked Naropa to jump off the roof, and there was a hole down below. Naropa jumped and almost died, but then Tilopa came and blessed him, and he was instantly healed. Then Tilopa told Naropa to jump into a fire. Naropa did it immediately and almost died, and Tilopa came and blessed him, and he was instantly healed. Then another time there was a wedding going on. The wife and husband were going by in a carriage, and Tilopa asked Naropa to run up to the bride and touch her. Naropa immediately did it without hesitation, and the people beat him up. Again, he almost died, but Tilopa came and blessed him, and healed him immediately.

Then Tilopa asked Naropa to go to the house of someone who was cooking and take the food from the stove. So, without hesitating, Naropa went to get it, and was beaten up by people and almost died. Then Tilopa came and healed him. After that, one day, Tilopa did pipi in the sand and then threw the sand into Naropa’s face. Then he told Naropa to look up into the sky—there was the transformed mandala of Hevajra. Tilopa then gave Naropa the initiation.

All these twelve great hardships were there to cause Naropa’s enlightenment, to purify him, through Tilopa’s great skill in guiding his disciple, with a strong devotional mind.

You are in my prayers every day.

With much love and prayer ...