Advice for Prisoners

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am sorry for the many eons of delay.

I am not qualified to be your guru, but I’ll try and you try. Please read the advice that I have given to others, as you can also learn from this.

I am so happy that you already intend to sacrifice your life for numberless sentient beings. That means for every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura being, every asura being and every intermediate state being.

The best thing you can do is to live your life for sentient beings. This is the most important thing and it’s what makes your life most worthwhile. It’s not only satisfying and the fulfillment of everything, but also what you do becomes the cause of enlightenment for sentient beings, day and night. Then you will have no regrets, even when you die.

Think that you are in prison for the benefit of sentient beings—for sentient beings become free from the prison of attachment from beginningless rebirths, free from the prison of samsara and attachment to this life, and free from attachment to the next life’s samsara. This is the second kind of prison. Think that all sentient beings are in this prison of samsara and attachment, and [wish] for them be free from that.

The third prison is the prison of the self-cherishing thought. Think, “May numberless sentient beings be free from the third prison of the self-cherishing thought [experienced] from beginningless rebirths.”

Then, [wishing] for them to be free from the fourth prison, the prison of ignorance, which is the root of samsara. There is no real I, only what is merely labeled by mind, but it appears as a real one and due to that ignorance, we believe and trust in that. This ignorance, believing that is true, is the root of samsara. So think, “May I be liberated and may the numberless sentient beings be liberated from the prison of ignorance.”

Not only that, [our suffering] has no beginning. We are in that prison and we want to be free from that ourselves and for sentient beings to be free from that prison—free from the ordinary concepts, the ordinary appearance, the ordinary subtle mind and wind that creates samsara.

[Generate the wish] to be able to free them from all the prisons which have caused all their suffering from beginningless rebirths. Think, “I am in prison and I want to help others become free.” This is the attitude that you should have.

The great Kagyü yogi Choje Gotsangpa said:

By my experiencing this problem of being in prison
May all sentient beings immediately be free from disease, spirit harm, negative karma, delusions
And from being in all the prisons—
Not only the outside prison, but the inside prisons—
Which contain all the sufferings and have no beginning,
And may they achieve enlightenment.

Enlightenment means to achieve the rupakaya and dharmakaya, the Buddha’s holy body and mind. 

You can use the original quotation (below) from Choje Gotsangpa for any sickness, relationship problems or even death:

By my experiencing this problem
May all the mother sentient beings be free from all the sickness, spirt harms, negative karmas and obscurations
Collected from beginningless rebirths
And achieve enlightenment.

It is very good if you can normally to recite this verse and meditate on it. Meditation doesn’t mean only sitting; you can also think about the verse while eating or walking.

It is extremely important for you to recite OM MANI PADME HUM, also the long and short Chenrezig mantra. There is no number for you to recite, just recite as many as you can.

It seems that reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, the Chenrezig mantra, is the main thing for you to practice in your life. Also recite the longest Chenrezig mantra if possible. In the beginning it may take time, but if you can, recite the longest mantra three times at the beginning, then after some months you can recite it seven times or more. The longest one is the best, most precious. If you can, recite the longest Chenrezig mantra once or three times or seven times. By reciting the longest Compassionate-Eye-Looking One mantra every day, you get the same benefits as having recited one hundred million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras. It is so unbelievable, unbelievable!

Reciting the longest mantra has incredible benefits. It can benefit so many animals, for example, if you recite the longest mantra and then you wash in the lake or the ocean, whoever that water touches or whoever drinks it, humans or animals, will never be reborn in the lower realms. It purifies their negative karma to be born from the womb, egg or heat (like lice), so they don’t get born from those three things. So much heavy negative karma that has been collected from the past gets purified and in your future lives you will always be with the buddhas and bodhisattvas and go toward enlightenment.

Even when you are walking, with your breath going in and out, just by the wind touching your body, wherever the wind goes to touch others—animals and humans— it purifies their negative karma and prevents their rebirth in the lower realms. There are unbelievable benefits, so do whatever you can. Please recite OM MANI PADME HUM.

Some benefits mentioned are that even a fully ordained monk who has broken the four root vows—killing a human being, engaging in sexual intercourse, taking things not given and telling the biggest lie about having realizations—it purifies the negative karma that would result in being born in the hell realms. By reciting OM MANI PADME HUM even one time, it purifies all those heavy negative karmas received from these four defeats. It is so powerful. Then reciting it seven times, twenty-one times or a mala, there are incredible benefits. Please read the benefits of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, so you know more.

In this way, recite OM MANI PADME HUM. This is a quick way to be free from the actual prison that you have been in since beginningless rebirths. The actual prison is attachment, ignorance and anger. So, to be free from that prison.

This is just one example of the benefits of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM, the Chenrezig mantra, one time. It purifies the four defeats of having broken the four root vows, so this is totally purified.

The five heavy negative karmas without break are also totally purified. The five heavy negative karmas without break are karmas that are created by deeds that are so heavy that they ripen immediately as a rebirth in the hell realm. They are killing one’s mother, killing one’s father, drawing the blood of a buddha, killing an arhat and causing disunity among the Sangha.

If you recite the mantra seven times, it purifies one hundred lifetimes of negative karma. If you recite it twenty-one times it purifies four thousand eons of negative karma and you are able to have bodhicitta realizations. If you recite it 108 times, it purifies forty thousand eons of negative karma. If you recite the mantra in the ears of animals, then as soon as they die they get reborn in the human realm, not as a hell being, hungry ghost or animal. So they get a deva or human body.

The benefits are infinite if you recite this mantra. Then you can enjoy your life. Maybe for ordinary people, their view of being in prison is that it is something very bad, but for you, because you are practicing Dharma, and you are able to recite this mantra—wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow—for you it’s the best thing to happen, as it brings you to achieve enlightenment quickly.

The conclusion is if you recite OM MANI PADME HUM it is so easy to purify the negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and to collect extensive merits. Then especially to generate compassion for all sentient beings, so wanting to take the responsibility on yourself to free the numberless sentient beings from suffering. Not only wishing for that, but generating compassion. So then you achieve enlightenment quickly, by the way. Then it is such an easy way to be born in the pure land of Amitabha Buddha.

By reciting OM MANI PADME HUM you collect more merit than the number of drops of water in the ocean, than the number of snowflakes in a snowfall, than the number of drops of water in rainfall, than the number of sand grains in the Pacific Ocean, and if you do it with bodhicitta it creates the cause of happiness up to enlightenment. Then you are able to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment by purifying the negative karma and collecting more than skies of merit.

The main lamrim text for you to study is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. This is the essence of the entire Buddhadharma. You can read other lamrim texts, but this is the main one. This is the most important thing for you to study. Study it four times from beginning to end.

You are most welcome to full enlightenment, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations, in order for you to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and its causes and bring them to buddhahood.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,

Thank you very, very, very much for all the help you gave me in the past.

So yes, now you are in the pure land, in the mandala, so it is like that. I think I must have told you that when someone does strict retreat, at that time they don’t meet people, they don’t meet dogs and birds (I’m joking), they don’t meet any people. So it can be just exactly like that when you are living in prison; it can be exactly like doing a retreat. It’s like that—you don’t meet people, you’re just alone, and all day long you have time to do what you need, to practice and study and all that. So it is exactly the same as where you are now.

In Tibet, of course, so many people passed away in prison, but there are some monks or some lamas or maybe even lay people, who went to prison and some of them got higher realizations by being in the prison. They got very high realizations. I don’t know about achieving enlightenment, but they developed their mind and they got very high realizations in the prison. These stories did happen and then they passed away in an incredible way, with incredible signs.

So, everything has to do with the mind. Hell comes from the mind and enlightenment comes from the mind, so our mind is the creator and it’s up to us. Even everyday happiness or problems are up to us—every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

If we have a positive mind, then everything’s happy, also the actions we do with our body, speech and mind create good karma and cause happiness. When our mind is negative, having attachment, anger, ignorance, the self-cherishing thought, especially ignorance, anger, attachment, then there’s pride and so many other delusions, then we make our life [unhappy]. The actions of our body, speech and mind become negative karma and that becomes the cause of unhappiness, suffering. Even in that day, that hour, that minute, that second, our life becomes unhappy. So it’s up to the mind.

On the same day we can have happiness or we can have problems. If we change our mind from a negative mind, a negative way of thinking, a wrong way of thinking; if we change from that to a positive way of thinking, then we will have happiness, our problems are stopped, there are no problems. But if we change our mind from positive into negative, we didn’t have problem before but now, now we find problems. It is like that.

We’re the main person, even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, and of course, there are numberless sentient beings—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings—the suffering beings from beginningless rebirth. Then there are numberless beings who have become enlightened, those who met Dharma, then from life to life developed on the path and became enlightened, so at the same time they are like this.

I will give one example. If we fall into the fire—so this is an example—then somebody sends us a rope from the top to save us, that rope is the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha; the rope is Dharma. We have to recognize that’s the rope so that we can become freed from the fire by being pulled up.

If we don’t recognize that the rope is there to help us or if we don’t catch it, then we don’t hold onto it. If we recognize that the rope is to free us from the fire, then we hold it very tightly, we hold the rope one-pointedly and then the people at the top can pull us out, so then we will be free from fire.

Basically, it depends on us whether we recognize the rope or not, whether we hold it, whether we believe in that rope by one-pointedly holding it. We have to recognize that, we have to do that. So it depends on us, it is up to us, since we’re the main person who decides either to hold or not hold onto it.

This is very important. Our mind is the main creator, therefore the enlightenment, the happiness, is just there. So it’s up to our mind every day, every second. Enlightenment is just there, enlightenment is right there. Thank you very much.

I don’t remember what I said to you last time, but anyway, I think you are incredible, incredible, a great, great, great inspiration to the world, because you have memorized The Wheel of Sharp Weapons. Wow! I do have a plan to give a commentary on The Wheel of Sharp Weapons here at Kopan Monastery, Nunnery, but I haven’t done that yet.

Then Lama Atisha’s teaching, The Jewel Garland, the thought transformation [verses], this teaching. That’s the first one, so I want to do that. And then The Wheel of Sharp Weapons is the last teaching that I’m supposed to give commentary on.

The other one the abbot of Kopan requested is Lama Tsongkhapa’s most important teaching on the interpretive and definite meaning, the well-explained heart teaching. So I have to do a lung of that, not that I can teach it, but I can just give a lung of that because I have received it several times from Geshe Sopa, from His Holiness, and recently from the incarnation of Kyabje Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, whose previous incarnation was His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s guru.

He received it from Serkong Dorje Chang, who was his father. Serkong Dorje Chang complete the path, he achieved enlightenment. So Serkong Dorje Chang received it from Lama Tsongkhapa, who appeared and then he heard the whole teaching, so like that. So I have the near lineage and that’s why they want a lung of that.

I think you’re far better than me, a better Dharma practitioner, because you memorized The Wheel of Sharp Weapons. That’s incredible, the whole world should know what you have done, what you have accomplished. That’s great. I wonder what is the next one that you’re going to do—it will be unbelievable.

Then The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas. If you can [memorize] that, it will be unbelievable, so good. The Thirty-Seven Practices are so good, unbelievably good; that’s another one.

Then, after that, the praise that Lama Tsongkhapa wrote, Dependent Arising: A Praise of the Buddha. Buddha has revealed dependent arising, so again, you see, that is a small prayer and there’s also a big one. This is the short one, the interpretive meaning, well-explained, the heart of the teaching. [If you can memorize] the short one, this is so good, wow. That will be incredible.

The Thirty-Seven Practices are so good, for example, when our life is in trouble or something. Whether our life is in trouble or not depends on our mind. One way, in our life we have incredible freedom to practice Dharma, to learn Dharma, so it can be really positive, but if we think in a negative way, then it becomes great suffering.

For most people it becomes very big suffering, but for Dharma practitioners it becomes the happiest life. Wherever you can study Dharma and you can meditate, so you have freedom, mental freedom, but not the physical freedom.

Thank you very, very, very much for this.

With much love and prayers ...

Dear one,

I have asked someone to try and send you advice that I have given in the past to prisoners and also some Dharma books to read. I will also check which books are best for you.

Anyway, the place you are in can look bad both inside and out, but it can be the place of retreat according to Mahayana sutra and tantra, thus allowing you to become free from samsara, to attain liberation and enlightenment. The situation can be good for developing concentration because it is without all the distractions of worldly concern—being attached to pleasure and not wanting suffering; being attached to receiving fame and notoriety and [not wanting a bad reputation]; wanting praise and not wanting blame.

We become free of distractions in this life by practicing Dharma, thereby increasing peace in life. It’s like the example of Milarepa, who generated incredible peace by completely renouncing everything of this life. He became free of attachment, free of grasping at self and free of self-concern. He was free from all that. These are the real enemies and the cause of suffering in this and future lives, in all samsara, and the cause of harm for all sentient beings since beginningless time.

Milarepa did that and actualized bodhicitta through renunciation of this and future lives. He eliminated all the temporal and ultimate obscurations; he became free of those and attained liberation from samsara and total enlightenment. Not only that, on the basis of bodhicitta—the precious thought of enlightenment, which brings all the temporal and ultimate happiness for oneself and the temporal and ultimate happiness for all sentient beings—he practiced tantra, Mahayana tantra not Hinayana tantra, and he became free of ordinary appearance and ordinary concept, and instead of that he experienced pure appearance and concept. At that time, you are the deity, you become a buddha, not a spirit in samsara, overwhelmed by delusion and karma.

By being free of the ordinary or impure concept and mind that causes all the suffering, according to Mahayana tantra, then we achieve the ultimate goal of buddhahood, which means the total cessation of obscurations, gross and subtle, and the completion of all realizations. Due to this, having bodhicitta born of great compassion, Milarepa became famous in the world, even though there were many yogis who were pratimoksha vow holders. Also, he became famous in the West and not just in India and Nepal. His life story, a most inspiring life story, gives inspiration to so many meditators due to his renunciation of attachment to this life and the unbelievable peace that he attained in his life due to enlightenment.

In the early part of his life, after his father died, Milarepa’s family was harmed by relatives and he retaliated with black magic. In that valley, on the nearby hills, in a deep hole he practiced black magic for seven days, then he used it to crush the relatives’ house. Rocks fell while they were having a party, singing and dancing, and they were killed. After this, Milarepa generated deep regret for what he had done. Then he went to his black magic guru who advised him to go and meet Marpa. He had no offerings to make to Marpa, but requested to have food, shelter and teachings; he requested Marpa to give him everything. Marpa accepted, being an enlightened being, free of all obscurations and complete in realizations.

Guru Marpa knew exactly how to subdue Milarepa’s mind and guide him to enlightenment. In the view of general people, it looked like he was only giving punishment. It was difficult for outside people to understand that Marpa was guiding him to enlightenment, but he brought him to enlightenment in a brief lifetime of degenerate times. Marpa didn’t give Milarepa teachings and initiations for years and instead only gave him difficult jobs and scolding. He was asked to build towers, one of which you can still see today, though I didn’t see it when I went on pilgrimage in Tibet. Milarepa wasn’t allowed any porters; he had to do everything himself. First he had to build a tower then tear it down and return the stones to their original place. Then a second time he had to do that—build it, tear it down and return the stones. The third time he had to build it again, but not tear it down.

His guru wanted to give him more hardships in order for him to become enlightened more quickly. This enlightened being, Marpa, looked like a farmer, all dusty from his work in the fields. His wisdom mother pushed Marpa to give initiations and teachings to Milarepa, as she couldn’t bear what was happening. Marpa then manifested a mandala and gave initiation and teachings, then sent him to remote places in Tibet —Mount Kailash, [Tsari and Labchi]—where he generated realizations in the different places. His example gave inspiration to so many people. He followed his guru’s words exactly, without anger or heresy. He was very capable, so he achieved full enlightenment in a brief life of degenerate times.

If you know how to think, you can see everything as retreat. All the suffering, problems, viruses in the world, and other problems such as earthquakes, tsunamis, water, wind and fire problems in the world, all came from sentient beings not taking care of their minds. Instead, they followed anger, attachment and ignorance. The root of samsara is holding the I as truly existent, grasping it as true, as real. That I which suffers in samsara, goes to hell and to enlightenment, is merely labelled by the mind. The I causes all our problems, but in actuality it exists in mere name.

If you are happy, I will send you some books from Nepal, or if it’s difficult to send them from here, I will send them from other places. If OK, then please read my heart advice, from my heart to your heart.

This life is very short, so rather than following wrong concepts, the self-cherishing thoughts, follow the positive mind, the very happy mind, which is free from attachment to this life and to the future lives’ samsara. Follow the unbelievably happy mind which is free from self-cherishing. Bodhicitta only cherishes sentient beings and is the basis for tantra. Then for yourself, living in pure appearance and concept, there will be skies of happiness, free of ordinary, impure subtle wind and mind and living in pure wind and mind. You can achieve unbelievable skies of happiness, unbelievable.

I will check if books can be sent to you, then by reading them you can make your life the creator of happiness all the way to enlightenment. By being in the detention centre, you can make your life into unbelievable happiness. Whether you experience happiness or suffering depends on how you think, the way you think.

The mind is the creator of whether you have happiness or suffering. Like for example, when someone is angry with you and complains, it’s up to your mind. If you call it “harm” then the person becomes the enemy, and you believe in that. If you don’t label in that way, they are the best help and the best friend. Then you see everything as positive. It’s up to you. If you don’t follow anger but instead follow patience, then everything is positive and pure.

I have given you this advice, so you can think about what I have explained. [Happiness] is in your hands. You can achieve happiness in the detention centre. You should know that in Tibet in the past, everything went upside down. Rich people became beggars and beggars became rich. High lamas were imprisoned, but because they could meditate, they generated high realizations. Prison helped them. Happiness is in your hands. This is in your hands. If you don’t liberate yourself, no-one can help. If you work to liberate yourself, others can help, like now, my message, my talk.

With love and prayers ...

Rinpoche later added this advice in relation to not receiving correspondence.

You should be kind, respectful and speak nicely to the people, then people will like you, and then they will give [the messages] to you. That positive mind of loving kindness and compassion for the people around you, anyway, having that is the correct way to live the life. Then by paying respect, with the body paying respect, then other people will be very happy. Then you will get the messages.

Those messages are not harmful. By the power of your mind, you can make the place where you are, which is so terrible looking, like paradise, and you can make your situation extremely happy.

Being nice is not politics; it’s the real meaning of life, how to live a positive life. Only benefiting others and not harming them; only bringing happiness to others brings happiness to us. So that’s the way to enjoy our life and for others to enjoy the life, from our body, speech and mind being very positive and very kind. Life is very short. We cannot say how many years, months, weeks or days we will have; we can’t say. Therefore, it is so important, with the short life that we have, to live it with a good heart toward others. That’s how we live your life very happily and also how we cause everyone to be happy. That’s the purpose of life.

Rinpoche also gave this advice in relation to living in such difficult conditions.

Thinking “This is bad, that is bad, how bad it is,” even those people who are not in prison, but are doing retreat, Buddhist retreat, those who know how to practice have very small desire and are very content in living their life. The main Dharma practice is to give up attachment, from where all the suffering—100,000 million sufferings—and all the problems arise. The absence or presence [of attachment] is what makes us happy and lets us make other people happy and unhappy. It’s what makes us unhappy and makes so many other people, including family, unhappy, with so much suffering.

Try not to follow that. Try to be free from that, away from that. The real way to be free from suffering and the real way to achieve happiness and satisfaction in the life is by letting go of attachment, becoming free from attachment. We need to let go of attachment, the cause of suffering, the cause of all the problems, the cause of all the diseases, such as skin disease, cancer or diabetes—that’s one problem, but there are so many [physical] problems and mental problems. This is the way of doing retreat in the Buddhist tradition, even if we are not in prison but in retreat.

All our problems come from ignorance, holding the I as real while it is not. What exists is in mere name. Not more than that. Nothing more than that. So that is the reality. That, and the self-cherishing thought and the common delusions—ignorance, anger, attachment. So many problems come from attachment. That’s where our life problems come from.

The real meaning of retreat is retreat from these. This is what makes our life unhappy, miserable, crazy, with so much harming of others. Even among other prisoners it causes so many problems, and it causes problems for the family and for the world. From there, it causes problems for this world. Then also mentally from life to life, for sentient beings throughout the six realms, even though their universe is very far away. There are numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings and numberless intermediate state beings, like that. There are the six-realm suffering, obscured beings.

You don’t live in retreat in luxury, with luxury food and luxury conditions. You live life with small desire and with satisfaction, contentment. You have simple food and simple living, not luxury living. Living this way it is easy to control the mind and to achieve so much peace and happiness. Living this way you achieve incredible peace and happiness in this life by renouncing attachment. You also receive happiness in the future lives by renouncing attachment to samsara, to the samsaric perfections. You achieve unbelievable happiness by renouncing the self-cherishing thought, then you achieve the ultimate happiness, the highest peerless happiness, the total cessation of the obscurations and the completion of realizations, what’s called buddhahood, enlightenment. So like that, through the retreat, through this, it’s easy, so you can develop the mind and achieve all those high levels of peace and happiness.

Even Buddhists, not only people who haven’t met Dharma, who don’t know Dharma, but even Buddhists, many Buddhists, would not know that by renouncing attachment to this life we achieve really incredible, deep peace and happiness in this life. They don’t know that.

For common people, if they renounce attachment, for example in the West, people think renouncing attachment means they won’t have happiness and will only have suffering. That’s the normal understanding that people have. This is what they think, but it is totally wrong. Only people who practice the holy Dharma, the real spiritual [path], know this. Through their experience, they come to know this.

I have a car in America with a label or sign at the front, an advertisement, which says “Less desire, means more happiness and peace in the mind, in the heart.” That’s what you need to learn. By being involved in drugs and so forth, anything, then due to that, many years were spent in prison and this and that. All the problems are caused by attachment and they cease by not following that. If you had let go of attachment before, then you wouldn’t have had to experience all the problems that you’ve had until now. You didn’t need to experience it; it didn’t need to happen.

As an example, Milarepa, a lay person, achieved buddhahood in a brief lifetime of degenerate times. After he was initiated and had been given teachings and advice by his guru, who was a buddha, he went into a cave in the mountains to meditate. He had nothing and he lived only on nettles. Nettles were around, so it was easy. He lived on nettles for years. One day a thief came and since there was nothing to steal, they wanted to cook nettles in the clay pot. They asked where the salt was and where the chilies were.

Milarepa put another nettle in the pot and said, “This is salt.” He didn’t have chili so he put another nettle inside. We can’t stand food without the taste of chili and salt, but he was not in prison, he was in retreat. He had really progressed his mind on the path to enlightenment. Here there was no salt and chili, so from that example, we can understand. He achieved buddhahood, enlightenment, in a brief lifetime of degenerate times, in a few years.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I am sorry for the long delay in replying to your emails. If you can, please read my advice on how to enjoy prison in a Dharma way.

Can you get books while you are in prison? If so, it would be good for you to have these four books while you are there:

• Transforming Problems into Happiness
• Teachings from the Vajrasattva Retreat. This is from the retreat I gave in USA; it is a big book.
• Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand
• The Heart of the Path.

Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand should be your main book to read, to go through and to meditate on. By reading mindfully, slowly, that becomes meditation. It is extremely worthwhile to read this, even if there is no one in prison that you can ask to clarify things from the text.

The more you read the books, slowly, slowly, the more the understanding will come. Because of positive imprints in your mind from having met the Dharma in past lives, the realizations will happen.

I am very, very happy that you wrote to me and explained yourself. Because of what you did—the illegal things in the past—now you have to go to prison, but while you are in prison you can purify the negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths. That is one benefit of being in prison to rejoice in. So please think about that.

It is said by the great meditator from Tibet, Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa:

By experiencing this present small suffering,
The past negative karma is ceased
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice, be happy in this present suffering.

This means you can be happy about being in prison. Normal people in the world—those who don’t know Dharma, who haven’t met Dharma and who don’t practice Dharma—may look at being in prison only as suffering, only as unhappiness, because they can’t see their family and they can’t be free to do whatever they want whenever they want, etc. Normally, being free means being able to do normal worldly activities whenever you want, with attachment and anger.

But now, by thinking in a Dharma way, for you being in prison becomes Dharma. For others it is nonvirtue and there is so much unhappiness, but for you it’s very positive, so your future will be like the sun shining in the world. The sun shining brings so many people enjoyment, all the creatures and animals enjoy it so much, the plants grow and the flowers grow. In the same way, your life, your mental continuum, will go up, and you will have higher and higher realizations until you are free from samsara, free from the oceans of samsaric suffering. And not only that, you will be able to cease all the subtle defilements and achieve enlightenment, the completion of all realizations. There is nothing more to achieve for sentient beings.

Especially, you can use the problems, the sufferings, the difficulties, in the path to achieve buddhahood for sentient beings, to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering quickly, and not only that, bring them to buddhahood, the peerless happiness.

This is mentioned in Guru Puja [Tib: Lama Chöpa], which means “pleasing the guru.” This text was composed by the fourth Panchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyältsen, who checked all the ancient Indian pandits, the great yogis Sahara, Tilopa, Naropa and all the great yogis from ancient India who got enlightened; Marpa, Milarepa and all those who got enlightened in Tibet; also the great pandits from the four sects in Tibet; all the great lamas and enlightened beings from the Nyingma tradition, including Padmasambhava and Longchen Rabjampa; the five great Sakya lineage lamas, all those enlightened beings; and Lama Tsongkhapa.

Panchen Lama Losang Chökyi Gyältsen checked all the main points of what they practiced and then he put together this text Lama Chöpa, which is the most precious text in the Gelug tradition. This is the main prayer, the extensive guru yoga.

In Lama Chöpa [v. 96] it is mentioned:

Even if the environment and beings are filled with the fruits of negative karma,
And unwished for sufferings pour down like rain,
I seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path
By seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of my negative karma.

This is requesting the guru.

It is mentioned in the Seven-Point Thought Transformation:

There are three objects, three poisons, and three sources of virtue.
Remember this by repeated recollection.
Practice every activity by these words.

The “three objects” refers to the objects of our anger, attachment and ignorance. Then there are the three poisonous minds and [the three sources of virtue], which are our past, present and future merits, so we dedicate that for sentient beings.

One [way of collecting merit] is by offering to the guru, by looking at the guru as a buddha, as having no mistakes, only qualities. Another [way to collect merit] is by offering charity to every sentient being—every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura, every asura being and every intermediate state being—in each realm. There are numberless sentient beings, for example, what we can see here, every ant in the house, outside the house or on the road, also every mosquito, every bug, every chicken, every fish in the ocean and so forth, and then the sentient beings in numberless universes. There are numberless sentient beings, not only in this world.

Sorry, I didn’t mean that you give away your three poisonous minds to sentient beings, it does not mean that.

So you can think: “By my experiencing this [problem], may every sentient being be free from disease and spirit harm—the conditions caused by negative karma and defilements, which have been collected from beginningless rebirths—and may they have virtue, without these three poisonous minds. May they have the highest enlightenment, buddhahood; may they achieve that.”

When attachment or anger arises, you can pray and dedicate for all the sentient beings.

The other thing is that all sentient beings have the three poisonous minds, which are caused by delusion and karma. The result is suffering in the lower realms, and not only that, the result in the human realm and deva realm is the suffering of pain and the suffering of change, which is actually all of our samsara pleasures—the pleasure of music, the pleasure of food, the pleasure of clothing, the pleasure of sex, the pleasure of drugs and so forth.

These “pleasures” cannot continue, however, Dharma continues. Dharma happiness can continue and be completed, but samsaric happiness cannot continue and cannot be completed. Dharma continues until we achieve liberation from samsara forever—the peerless happiness, buddhahood.

From those two sufferings (the suffering of pain and the suffering of change) comes the third suffering, pervasive compounding suffering. The aggregates are under the control of delusion and karma and are pervaded by suffering; they come from delusion and karma and the seed, then suffering and delusion arise again.

You can think you receive all sentient beings’ suffering on and on and on, onto oneself, into your own heart, on your root of samsara, which is the ignorance holding the I as real while it is not. So you receive all sentient beings’ suffering onto that concept and onto the self-cherishing thought, the great demon, the enemy. It’s like dropping a bomb on your self-cherishing. You take all sentient beings’ suffering and the causes, everything. You take all that, so it’s like dropping a bomb on your great enemy, the demon, the self-cherishing thought.

Your self-cherishing becomes nonexistent and the root of samsara, ignorance, becomes nonexistent. Meditate on that. Even the real I—even the mere name—becomes non-objectifying, as it is not there, in reality, at all. Meditate on emptiness a little bit.

Next generate loving kindness by giving your body, possessions and merits to all other sentient beings.

I have given some advice on tonglen. You can read this advice and look at the meditations on taking and giving—taking on others’ sufferings and giving one’s own happiness to others. When you take on their sufferings, do it with compassion.

By transforming bad conditions onto the path to enlightenment, each time you do this tonglen meditation, think you are taking not just one sentient being’s suffering, but numberless sentient beings’ sufferings, so each time you create skies of merit. Even more than that, think you are giving your body, possessions and three times’ merits, even just once, to numberless sentient beings, so again you collect more than skies of merits. This is unbelievable, unbelievable.

There is no business in the world like Dharma practice. You collect the greatest merits and it is the greatest purification. You purify past negative karma and obstacles, and it is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. This becomes the happiest life, the most meaningful life for sentient beings, most beneficial for sentient beings.

Then by the way—this is the best for you—this is how to make your life the happiest. It is mentioned in the teachings that when you have any suffering or sickness, whatever problem you have, think of all sentient beings who have the same problem, and think you receive all their suffering; think you have received that. Then you can rejoice; you are so happy, most happy, as you are taking all sentient beings’ suffering. Think you have received this and you are experiencing it instead of them, so they achieve enlightenment, the Buddha’s holy body, the rupakaya and the Buddha’s holy mind, the dharmakaya.

By doing this practice of lojong [thought transformation], your mind is so happy. Whether you have cancer or are in prison or whatever suffering you have, you can think you have received all sentient beings’ suffering and its causes, and they are free from suffering, so then you can be unbelievable happy, so happy.

It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva in A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life¹:

If my life is used for the sake of others,
Then I will receive all the perfections
In this life and future lives, and then enlightenment.

This means liberation from samsara and then enlightenment, so it includes everything. Also in your next life you will become a king or even a universal king. When there is a universal king, there is only one in the world; it doesn’t happen that there are two at the same time. So you can become a king, a deva, a human being or even a universal king. When a universal king happens in world then everyone is able to live in the ten virtues by the power of that king. So, it is unbelievably powerful and beneficial.

If you use others for your own happiness, the result is that in the next life you become a servant, a slave, or you are reborn in the lower realms or as a very foolish being. This is mentioned by Shantideva.

But if your life is used for others’ happiness, there is an unbelievable, unbelievable result. As I just mentioned, the result is [received] up to enlightenment.

So I’ll stop now. You can read my explanation of tonglen.

The main texts for you to read in prison are lamrim texts. There are many paths to enlightenment, but for you, what brings you to enlightenment through the path, by generating the path, is the lamrim text Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. This is the main text for you to study from beginning to end. Read it mindfully; that itself is meditation.

Please live your whole life, day and night, with bodhicitta motivation. Please do the daily motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), every day.

You are most welcome to enlightenment—to enlighten all sentient beings by becoming enlightened yourself. If you can do even a little bit of practice it makes your life very worthwhile, so please come to enlightenment for the sake of sentient beings, to enlighten them, to free them from samsara and to enlighten them.

The mantra for you to recite in prison is Vajrasattva, so please do as many Vajrasattva mantras as you can. Perhaps you might know this: if you recite the long Vajrasattva mantra—the one hundred-syllable mantra—twenty-one times, then whatever negative karma you have collected each day is purified. Your past negative karma is also purified, so it doesn’t become double the next day and then triple by the third day, going on and on and on, like that.

So reciting the long Vajrasattva mantra twenty-one times stops the negative karma from multiplying. [Without purification practice] the negative karma becomes double the next day, and then triple by the third day, and so forth. This mantra has incredible benefits, it is unbelievable.

It is said in the teachings that for learned ones, even though negative karma created is heavy, it becomes small. That means learned ones know how to purify negative karma with Vajrasattva, so the karma becomes small or ceases completely.

For foolish ones who don’t know about Vajrasattva practice, even though their negative karma may be small, if they do not purify it each day, it increases day-by-day. It starts the size of one atom, but by increasing day-by-day, when they die it becomes like a mountain, so heavy.

Now you can see sentient beings, even human beings, most haven’t met Dharma. They do not know Dharma, so they do not practice Vajrasattva, thus every single negative karma created increases day-by-day. Not just one negative karma is created each day; so many are created with body, speech and mind in one day. When they die each negative karma becomes like a mountain, then for eons they are reborn and suffer in the lower realms.

Therefore, now you should know how fortunate you are, because you have met the holy Dharma. You are so fortunate, because this time your mind has opened to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Wow, wow, wow, wow! How fortunate that is, you are unbelievably lucky.

So in prison do as much Vajrasattva practice as you can for all sentient beings, not only for yourself but for all sentient beings—for every single hell being, every single hungry ghost, every single animal, every single human being, every single sura, every single asura and every single intermediate state being. There are numberless sentient beings, so [dedicate] for everyone to be free from samsara and to achieve enlightenment.

Regarding your request for me to be your guru, so you try and I'll try. You should try to read The Heart of the Path.

Please read this advice over and over again, and as much as possible make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night and in every action you do.

With much love and prayers ...

Notes

¹ Guide, Ch. 3, vv. 11–12:

Without any sense of loss
I shall give up my body and enjoyments
As well as all my virtues of the three times
For the sake of benefiting all.

By giving up all, sorrow is transcended
And my mind will realize the sorrowless state.
It is best that I (now) give everything to all beings
In the same way as I shall (at death).
[Return to text]

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I accept. I am not qualified, but I accept to do what I can.

Please find enclosed the practice that is my advice to do every day. Also, please read some past advice I have given to people in prison. Maybe you have read this already.

The way to think is that being in prison can be like being in retreat. People live outside of prison, with all the opportunities and having freedom, but they often don’t practice Dharma. You should think that even though you don’t have freedom, it can be like being in retreat.

Being in prison gives you time to meditate on the path to enlightenment; to do purification practices, to purify past negative karma collected since beginningless time; to collect extensive merit; and to meditate on the lamrim—the graduated path to enlightenment—such as renunciation, the sufferings of samsara, the six realm sufferings, bodhicitta, emptiness and so forth. It gives you time to understand that we have to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to do that we must purify our defilements, which are the causes of suffering, which have caused you to be in prison. Also, we need to collect extensive merit and actualize the path. To do that, we need to meditate on the lamrim and to have experiences of the lamrim, such as the six realm sufferings, especially the sufferings of the lower realms and so forth.

The idea is to spend your time in prison practicing Dharma; then there will be great success as it becomes a place of retreat and gives you the opportunity to have mental freedom for yourself. In this way, there is not just the happiness of this life, but the happiness of future lives and liberation and enlightenment.

The main thing is to have peace of mind wherever you practice Dharma and to achieve happiness now and in future lives for yourself and for the numberless sentient beings. This is not just temporary happiness, but ultimate happiness—liberation from the oceans of samsaric sufferings in the six realms, ultimate freedom. And not only that, but to achieve the peerless happiness, the total elimination of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations for all sentient beings. You will then be able to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and, not only that, bring them to full enlightenment, the peerless happiness.

This is the purpose of being in prison, the ultimate purpose of your life in prison. You should know this. It gives you total freedom for yourself, by your mind, freedom to achieve enlightenment.

If you can, get some Dharma books to study (maybe you can ask Liberation Prison Project if they can send them to you) such as books on the lamrim, lo-jong, the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, a commentary on the Heart Sutra, a commentary on the Eight Verses of Mind Training and on the Seven-Point Mind Training and so forth. Read and study these books. [Note: These specific links are offered by the editors.]

The main thing is for you to not see all this—not having freedom—as an obstacle. You should think that you have the best freedom, to free yourself and all beings from samsara by practicing the path. This is the best opportunity!

Please try to think this way.

With much love and prayers...

Without freedom one will take rebirth again and again, without one second’s break, continuously, because one’s own aggregates are contaminated, full of delusion and karma. Because of that they are in the nature of suffering, and so you will have to experience suffering again and again continuously. You are always caught in this, from life to life. Actually, this is the most terrifying prison.

What ordinary people call prison, where you are, is actually similar to the place where hermits live in retreat, like those ancient yogis, great holy beings of the past and present, and also future ones. They spend their whole life or many years in isolated places, caves, and hermitages, sometimes in extremely poor conditions, disciplining their body, speech, and mind, and living in virtue. They create the cause for happiness, not only temporal happiness but ultimate happiness, and it causes them to be liberated from all sufferings and their causes, and to achieve enlightenment and liberate numberless sentient beings.

Even if you are not alone but are locked in a room with many people, then also this situation should persuade you and remind you that you should never waste your life, that you have a most precious human body, and you should use it to practice and to develop your mind towards enlightenment.

When one sincerely practices being kind to others and one wants to give every single cause of happiness to others, then naturally the result is, even if you don’t expect it, that everybody becomes kind to you and is happy with you, listens to you, etc. In this way, you can help others, you can talk to them about the path, how to get out of the most terrifying prison—samsara, and achieve everlasting happiness and total liberation.

Also, every day, if you can, practice having a good heart as much as possible. It doesn’t matter where you are, whether you are at home or in prison, alone or with people, by practicing a good heart it makes your life unbelievably meaningful, so satisfying and fulfilled, and it doesn’t matter where you are, even in the hell realms. By practicing a good heart, experiencing the suffering and difficulties for other sentient beings, it makes everything so much better. You have so much more happiness and you enjoy so much.

To devote your life to achieving happiness for others is the best way to achieve happiness and the best result. You become like the sun rising, illuminating all. In this way, you achieve happiness now, every day, every hour, and every minute. By continuing to live your life like this, then you go from happiness to happiness, from life to life, and when you pass away, at the end of your life, you have so much happiness and no regrets, not the slightest fear of or worry about dying, and incredible enjoyment. Then, you can even die for others, to cause happiness for all living beings, temporarily and ultimately—enlightenment, and free all living beings from all suffering and its causes.

You can see that all the people, even though they are not in prison, in reality are in the heaviest, most frightening prison. It is like living in a solid iron box that is very hard to get out of. They are trapped inside the iron box of ignorance.

As long as you are practicing Dharma, then you are not in prison. When you practice renouncing attachment and stop clinging to this life and future lives, samsaric happiness, and practice the right view, emptiness, the very nature of phenomena, and especially, bodhicitta, you are liberating yourself from prison and bringing yourself to liberation and enlightenment. On the basis of right view and bodhicitta, you can also practice tantra, which is the quickest path.

By having this realization then you are no longer in prison, as you become free from all wrong views and concepts, you become the liberator, and you are no longer the prisoner. Even if ordinary people call you a prisoner, because you are in these physical conditions, in reality you are not. Every day that you practice virtue you are creating the cause of happiness, to be free from those emotional, negative thoughts and negative karma, so you are actually not a prisoner, and you are not putting yourself in prison. Whenever non-virtuous thoughts arise and you follow them, you are putting yourself in prison.