Advice to Politicians

My most dear one,
How are you? I remember last time you were at Kopan you said that you’re thinking of me most, or something. So last time, I don’t remember, we were talking about something else. I hope you are well now. How is the virus in the country you are in? I hope your son is well now.

So now my answer regarding this person:

According to my observation, it seems he won’t get the government position, but for this there is the possibility of a method. Every day he can recite the Tara prayer, The Mantra Promised by Tara; it’s an extremely powerful prayer. [Find links to this practice in the FPMT Catalogue.]

For example, I had success in a court case, even though so many pujas were done with various similar methods, still there was a danger of that person going to prison. After this practice was done—I recited it only a few times—then he succeeded and finally he won. So it’s a very, very powerful practice, this Mantra Promised by Tara.

He can read the whole thing once or twice and then recite the mantra. He doesn’t have to read the whole benefits all the time.

Between reciting the mantra, he should pray like this: “That I get the position and become most beneficial for the sentient beings and for the people of the country.” That’s what you can put in the prayer, where you express what you need.

I hope he can read English. If he can’t read English, then it has to be translated by someone who can do it very well, professionally.

It might also be good to make a statue of Ganapati [Ganesh]. Ganapati is a common statue worshipped by Hindus and by Buddhists, by those who practice Buddhist tantra. There are twelve arms and it is red in color. That’s the general common one and there are two or three different aspects.

I received the initiation a long time ago from His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s guru, Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche. According to my observation it is a beneficial thing to build a statue, to have a small statue. Mine is small but quite a good size, not the size of a person, smaller. If someone wants a high position, then Ganapati is for that.

If we get a very high position, or if we’re regarded like that, the main idea is to benefit, to cause happiness for many sentient beings, as many as possible. The motivation is not to cause happiness for ourselves alone, but to cause happiness for as many sentient beings as possible.

So he can build a statue and do the practice every day. I don’t know if you can have it made there, but the statue that I sent the picture of is built in Nepal. They’re good at making statues in Nepal. It’s probably one of the best places to have statues made, generally.

If the man wants, I can ask the Nepali man who made this statue, and also at the same time, one or two monks here can do the practice for him in order to get this government position. How many months or years—years or six months—how much time does it take to get the position, to win?

Please tell him that if the motivation is only to get power, to have control or to be famous, or just for himself, to achieve happiness just for himself and not to cause happiness for others, then that motivation itself is the cause of many problems. If the motivation is not positive, but for others to be his servant, for his own happiness, that’s wrong.

But to become the servant for the sentient beings, for others, for oneself to be the servant, to free others from suffering and bring them as much happiness as we can, to cause happiness to others; if that’s the motivation—for others—so that’s very selfless, a very positive mind. Then all the buddhas and bodhisattvas are so happy and a lot of success can come, not just winning the election. It becomes the cause of all the success. That positive mind, that pure mind, being goodhearted, is wonderful.

Also, after he has won, he should live life like this, he should behave like this with a good heart.

As much as we have a good heart, then we have less problems; so much success naturally comes and everyone is happy. Even non-human beings are happy, devas and those other beings, protectors, so many other beings, non-human beings, nagas, they are very happy because we decided to be the servant, to serve others, to pacify others’ suffering and to obtain happiness for other sentient beings.

So then our life is happy wherever we go, all the time, more and more happy. Greater and greater happiness develops and even when we die the mind is so happy, there’s no regret, and where our consciousness goes, where we migrate to is only a happy place, a pure realm, or the realm of a happy migrator being.

So again, with better quality then we can even bring greater benefit to others, then greater and greater [benefit], then we go to buddhahood. Please pass this message along. This is what I would suggest.

The statue costs quite a bit of money, so whether it is expensive or not, that is up to him. But what I can do is he can pay half and I can pay half for him. If the statue is made here and they know how to make it, that’s very good.

With much love and prayer ...

My very dear one,
I was very happy that it was the right time to come, according to your wish. I hope I didn’t cause any difficulties for the people. I hope they have rested now, and that it was beneficial.

Here are some gifts. Anyone who sees or touches the Namgyalma mantra (yellow round sticker) has their negative karma purified. Even if they are touched by the shadow of the car or house that has this sticker on, their negative karma is purified. So, if you have it in the house or on your car, then all the animals and people that come in contact with your car or house are blessed, and if they are touched even by the shadow of your house or car, their negative karma is purified. If you have the Namgyalma mantra above your house (it could be on a banner prayer flag on the very top of the house), then anyone who enters the house has their negative karma purified and they don’t get reborn in the lower realms. I suggest you put it in your house and maybe on the ceiling of your car, or on the ceiling in your house. Also, you can give it to others in the community and explain the benefits of it.

I have a few on the roof of my car (inside). If you can, use as many as possible, but you have to have some way to stick them to the inside of the car roof, or you can put a few on the sun visor. If this mantra is in the car then any animal that touches the car, that gets killed by accident, that is run over, including the very very tiny ones, so small that you can’t see them, has its negative karma purified because it has touched the car.

It is also excellent to put it on the body of a person who is dying; this is one way that their negative karma gets purified.

I am also sending you some death cards, the one that has many deities and different mantras on it, that can purify you just by looking at them. This is to put next to your pillow. If you look at it every day, it plants the seed of enlightenment each day, so that you don’t get reborn in the hell realms, lower realms, and it purifies heavy negative karma, the five uninterrupted negative karmas, such as criticizing an Arya Sangha, etc. Merely seeing it purifies negative karma, as well as past life negative karma, and plants the seed of enlightenment. This is to put near ;your pillow and to look at again and again. Make nice copies of this and give them to many people.

Put this red card mantra above the door. Anyone who walks under this mantra purifies 100 million eons of negative karma. This is the reason I put it above any door in the house. Also, just by seeing this mantra purifies 100,000 eons of negative karma. Please give these to people and especially to the minister, to put above his door. Also, please give the minister the Tibet cards and the Namgyalma mantra and explain the benefits of them.

The small yellow mantra on paper is the eleven powerful mantras—for purification. You can put this on the body when someone dies.

There was a lady I met at the Sherpa dinner, who I spent time talking to. Can you give her some of these cards and the Namgyalma mantra, etc? Please explain the benefits of them and say hello to her from me. Please also give her the book on Geshe Lama Konchog, the book on Lama Osel (Reincarnation: The Boy Lama), and also the card for a dying person. If you can, please explain the benefits of the card to her.

I already mentioned in the card the present I left for the minister. I apologized as I made a mess by writing some things on the little cards, some that I liked and some that I didn’t, as originally I had the idea to use them and to make them more meaningful, that’s why I marked them. So, I apologize for making a mess; maybe his children will enjoy them.

You did an excellent job organizing the teachings and initiations, everything was excellent, and you would have been so well prepared for Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche. This is very good, keep that care and respectful manner, because you are showing such a good example, and in the future it is very good when you invite a great Lama—everything will be well planned and done well. This makes people happy, and makes their life meaningful.

Please tell the community that I was very happy to meet them. Thank you very much. Maybe next time I will have more time for sightseeing with a group or pilgrimage.

Certainly you can greatly contribute so much to Essential Education (EE). Very many young people get into trouble with drugs, so I would like to have one part of EE set up where they can come, real drug addicts, to retreat. I want to start this in different countries, to help young people. This could be part of Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth. So please get more involved in EE, like this, as much as possible.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

P.S. Regarding the letter for the mayor, please read it and add in his name. I checked and it came out best for the center to do two Medicine Buddha pujas (the best would be the long version, but it is only in Tibetan, so if there is a Tibetan who can do this then they can do it). Otherwise, the center and students should do the middle-length versions (those are usually used). This is what needs to be done for the mayor for his re-election. This could be very helpful. Please could you can arrange it.

P.P.S. Please pass on the small letter and gifts to the minister as well.

Letter for Mayor

My very dear one,
How are you? I am very happy to have met you and your family at the dinner. I was very happy we had some time to meet.

Here is a book I wanted to give you about my guru, Lama Yeshe, who took care of me for thirty years. This book is about his passing away, reincarnation, and discovery. I hope you will enjoy it very much

Here are some cards also for you and a stupa of Nepal’s most precious holy object—the Boudha Stupa—which is called the all-encompassing wish-fulfulling stupa.

The story of this stupa is as follows. There was a woman who commissioned the Boudha stupa to be built, but she died before it could be finished and her four sons completed the work. When the stupa was finished, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas absorbed into it. It is called the all-encompassing, wish-fulfilling Stupa.

Of those four children, the oldest brother prayed to become a Dharma king. He was reborn in Tibet as King Trisong Detsen. The next brother prayed to be able to support the Dharma. He was reborn as minister to King Trisong Detsen. The next brother prayed that during that time he could preserve and spread the lineage of ordination, the vows that are the foundation of perfect concentration and wisdom, the whole path to enlightenment. He became an abbot in Tibet, spreading the ordination lineage vows. The fourth brother prayed to be able to remove any obstacles from the spread of Dharma. He was reborn as Padmasambhava and was invited by the king to remove obstacles to the building of Samye monastery. Padmasambhava then hooked and subdued many harmful spirits and committed them to protect the teachings as the Dharma protectors of Tibet, such as the den ma chu nyi, the twelve protectors of Tibet and the Himalayan region.

This was how Buddhism spread and lasted a long time in Tibet, producing many buddhas and bodhisattvas. Now Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism has spread all over the world. Every year, all over the world, many thousands of people are able to meet the Dharma, to make their lives meaningful, to have peace, giving them an opportunity to direct their lives toward enlightenment, liberating so many beings from all the sufferings of samsara, so they can achieve enlightenment and great liberation. All of this is because the family built the stupa. It is said that any prayers made at this stupa will be actualized; particularly, whatever you pray for the first time you see it, will succeed.

I understand that there will be an election soon and that you want to continue as mayor of the city (I may be mistaken here), but if I am not and if you wish to have that job, then it will be very beneficial to do the recitation of Medicine Buddha mantra and to do Medicine Buddha practice. Make requests every day to Medicine Buddha for success, because your aim is to benefit others and to bring happiness to the world.

I will send you a small practice if you want to do it. Also, you can discuss it further with the center director.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Letter for Minister

My very dear one,
I left one small present for you. I must apologize because I made a mess on the cards because I was thinking to make them meaningful, so I must apologize. I hope you don't mind one book. I hope you enjoy it.

Here are some cards for you and a stupa of Nepal’s most precious holy object—the Boudha Stupa—which is called the all-encompassing wish-fulfulling stupa. It is said that any prayers made at this stupa will be actualized; particularly, whatever you pray for the first time you see it, will succeed.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

My very dear friend Dennis,
I was very happy to meet you and your wife and mother and to be able to chat during the recent dinner for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Washington DC.

I would really like to invite you to visit my house when you come to Santa Cruz; please do. I will tell the Sangha here to receive and take care of you if I am not here. You are welcome to meditate in my room, in which there are many holy objects, such as statues, stupas, and scriptures. You can also relax and have real Indian chai, or if you wish we can also serve you good Tibetan tea.

I would like to give you the contact details of my secretary, who is a Buddhist nun. Please contact her before you come so that she can make proper arrangements.

I hope to see you very soon. I will be here in Santa Cruz for another ten days, in retreat. Then I will be going to our Kopan Monastery in Nepal for our annual one-month course, which is a meditation retreat on the stages of the path to enlightenment. The first was in 1971 and it has been held annually ever since, attended by people from all over the world. After that I will go to India to teach in Bodhgaya at our center, Root Institute for Wisdom Culture, for a week, and then at the beginning of the year I will go to south India for fourteen days of very important teachings and initiations from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

I would also like to invite you to come to our monastery if you are ever in Nepal. Kopan was the very first of our 152 worldwide centers and is where all the others came from. I think you would really enjoy the monastery and be very happy to see it. Of course, you are more than welcome to stay there but there is also a five-star hotel nearby in Boudhanath.

Also, if you like trekking, our Lawudo Retreat Center is not far from the Everest Base Camp. It’s about a half-hour helicopter ride from Kathmandu and then a two-day walk. People say this is where my previous incarnation lived. It is also a very important Padmasambhava holy place. This area is totally another world, much different from even Kathmandu. So, if you ever do decide to visit I can tell the people there to receive you. It is very high in the mountains and you’ll need a sleeping bag and so forth.

If there is anything that you want or if I can help you in any way, please let me know. Here I am sending this Potala palace and some other gifts for you to enjoy.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear one,
I was very very happy to receive your kind letter and also to have met you. I am also happy that you will attempt to read the book I sent when you have a free moment.

It was the first time I had seen the Karma Kit, which I sent you. I may have made a mess because I was trying to change around a few things to make it more meaningful. I am thinking of making a new one, using more meaningful words. When it is done I will be very happy to send you one.

I am sending you one of the most precious teachings of the Buddha called the Arya Sanghata Sutra. I think you will enjoy it. It is one of the most precious teachings of the Buddha and reading it once creates more good luck than there are atoms in this earth, more than there are drops of water in all the oceans.

Usually, people think that good luck exists independently in the world, but that is mistaken – no such good luck or bad luck exists. What I am saying here is that good luck, merit, has to be created by the mind.

You can create that good luck, merit, peace of mind, success, and happiness for every moment, for every day, for this life, and also for all future lives. You can even create ultimate happiness. However, all this happiness of future lives is temporary while one is still in samsara (samsara means the cycle of birth, death, sickness, and old age, and all the other sufferings). But there is also ultimate happiness, which is never ending, ever lasting happiness, totally free forever from all the oceans of different problems of all the human beings, and even of the sura and asura beings (these beings have more sensual pleasure than humans), also free forever from the sufferings of the hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals.

One can attain this ultimate happiness by completely eliminating the cause of suffering, by ceasing all delusions and wrong concepts, including their seeds, which are not concrete, but are imprints on one's mental continuum. Then, there is the highest happiness of full enlightenment, which is the cessation of even the subtlest imprints of delusions (which are obstacles to omniscience). Once that is generated, you are fully enlightened, awakened, and omniscient. This means that you then have full understanding, that there is no object or phenomenon unknown to you, that you can see everything directly. You can then read each and every being’s mind at the same time, and at the same time see all the past phenomena. You can also see the present and the future – all directly.

Being omniscient means you know all the right methods to free each sentient being from all their suffering, and bring them from happiness to happiness, all the way to full enlightenment. So, achieving this ultimate happiness is how you can offer perfect service to others without the slightest mistake. This is not the only quality, along with this your mind is also completely filled with compassion for each and every sentient being, whose minds are obscured, who are not fully enlightened, and who are suffering.

Also, at that time, you have not only attained a completely omniscient mind and complete compassion, but you have also gained the perfect power to be able to reveal all perfect methods at the right time, without even the delay of a second.

One can create all of this from one's own mind by thinking positively. That is the only way to start the process for future happiness – not with tablets or surgery for the mind. The reality in Buddhist philosophy is that each sentient being, no matter how big or tiny – even insects like mosquitoes – has Buddha nature, the nature to be fully enlightened, the potential to be free forever from all suffering and its causes.

One example is the sky. It is not one with the dark fog covering it. The fog is there due to causes and conditions and can be removed, can be cleared away, due to other causes and conditions. It is like how dust can be wiped off a mirror and stains can be removed from dirty clothes.

So, every day, whatever actions we do, eating, working, sleeping (not only meditating), we can transform them into the cause for all of this happiness, up to enlightenment, as well as the happiness of every moment.

I apologize for taking your precious time by chatting, sorry. I just have one more thing in my mind. In the United States, when there are problems like war, what I find strange is that no one thinks to use religion to solve the problem. In fact, that would be so much more powerful. With spiritual power you do not need weapons. When you use weapons to solve a problem, so many soldiers get killed and so many civilians get harmed. Of course, one thing is to use religion when one is dying. For example, in one state in the US they are doing some cancer research. In the hospital they had two groups of cancer patients. They asked many different religious people (even my monastery in Nepal was asked) to pray for one of the groups of patients, but not for the other. Afterwards they checked and found that the people who belonged to the group that had been prayed for were much better. There was an improvement, while the people in the other group did not get better. Praying is such a simple thing and it made things better, and of course there are so many things one can do.

For instance, the precious teaching of the Buddha called the Golden Light Sutra could be read in Iraq month after month (not just once). That text has the power to bring world peace and also becomes a healing practice for all the sick people in the city where it is read. By reading this Sutra your life only gets better and better, only goes up, never down, right up to enlightenment. Reading it becomes an incredible protection for the country where it is read and gives incredible power to its king or president. It also enables you to defeat a country's enemy by making them lose power and unable to attack the country and its leader. If you read this text with mindfulness, you will see there is so much there. It can also help against terrorist attacks – this is all through the spiritual power of the Buddha’s holy words. It fulfills the wishes for happiness of everybody who reads it, now and forever. Their problems are taken care of naturally, with the help of so many devas and protectors who are around to help. This is just what I think and I am expressing it to you, that is all.

Some years ago I suggested to the Prime Minister of Mongolia [Mongolia was very insecure and afraid it could be invaded] to invite 100 monks to every city, every year, and have them recite the Golden Light Sutra 100 times. He accepted, but I am not sure whether it has happened.

Please enjoy the cards, yaks, and kiwi pen I am sending you, and please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

With love and prayer...