Advice on Relationship Problems

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

I read your emails and checked for you. I will do some strong pujas for you.

This is specifically what came out:

• I will recite White Umbrella Deity prayers for you.
• You need a puja called che trül done for you. You need to be present for this puja, and it came out best for the Geshe-la to do it.
• In addition you need Drugchuma puja to be done. You don’t need to be present for this puja. It came out best for Geshe-la to do it.

So if you can, try these things. I am also making strong prayers for you. Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers

All the problems are very good because they purify negative karma accumulated in the past. Those difficulties and problems in your life purify the very heavy negative karmas collected in many lifetimes in the past. By purifying that, you will experience much happiness in the future like the sun shining, therefore it's positive.

Remember you have received many teachings for a long time and especially chöd practice. Chöd should not be just chanting, but the practice. It is especially for dealing with all these problems that you are experiencing, so you utilize the difficulties as the quickest way to achieve enlightenment for yourself and to free the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to peerless happiness, the state of omniscience.

Lama Chöpa [v. 103]:

Should even all the beings of the three realms without exception
Become angry at me, humiliate, criticize, threaten, or even kill me,
I seek your blessings not to be agitated, but to complete the perfection of patience
That works for their benefit in response to their harm.

The essence is explained in Lama Chopa [v. 96]:

Even if the environment and beings are filled with the fruits of negativity,
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.

Please take time to think about the meaning of these verses.

My very dear Hayley,
I am very sorry for the very long delay in replying. I read your letter.

So with compassion, to purify the negative karma related to __ and all others, not only in this life, but collected from beginningless rebirth, which is the cause of all the sufferings and all the problems now and in the future, and to have realizations to achieve the blissful state of peace, full enlightenment for sentient beings, peerless happiness for sentient beings, it comes out for you to:

• Read the Arya Sanghata Sutra and also write it out. Reading is fast, that is very good, that is what came out in my observation.

Reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra is a most unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable way to collect merit. Even just reading four words, one is able to purify the five very heavy negative karmas (killing one’s father and mother, killing an arhat, drawing blood from a buddha and causing disunity amongst the Sangha). The result of these five very heavy negative karmas is that after death one is immediately reborn in the lowest hot hell. There are eight hot hells and six neighboring hells and ordinary hell. The eighth hot hell is the inexhaustible hell realm, so that is unbelievable suffering. Reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra can purify the karma to be reborn there.

• Recite the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, and if possible, do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, thinking the Buddha is oneness with the Guru. 

This is a very powerful purification practice and also to collect merits. Lama Tsongkhapa did 700,000 prostrations by reciting the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names and he saw the Thirty-five Buddhas, so one of the images we have is according to the vision Lama Tsongkhapa had. After that, he had a rainfall of realizations, so it’s very powerful.

Please continue to make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta day and night.

With much love and prayers...

PS. I wanted to add some more.

Reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra will also help all three of your problems. It is unbelievably, unbelievably helpful and powerful to collect merit, a billion, zillion times, so much greater than that and also for strong purification.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but when I met you in New York, you were with __. I saw you outside and I already felt your connection with him, I felt that intimacy.

If you want my answer about finding a boyfriend or partner for your mental comfort or physical sex, of course, if you find somebody who has not renounced this life, the eight worldly dharmas— someone who is a servant of the eight worldly dharmas, the eight worldly concerns—then you will have so many problems in your life. You will have so many problems because that person is living the life with the mind of the eight worldly concerns and attachment to this life, with the self-cherishing thought. Then by being with that person you will suffer so much, because maybe he won’t take care of you or he will not be dedicated to you, then there is suffering. Also maybe that person has other friends besides you, girlfriends or boyfriends, or gets bored with you after some time, by seeing somebody else, then there are so many problems.

I think you should pray to Palden Lhamo (the main one) and also pray to Tara, and make prayers to both deities that the person who you have intimacy with and share your life with, that it will be somebody who is a buddha, a bodhisattva, with no self-cherishing thought, with the thought only of benefiting others. So pray like that. If you really, really want someone who can help you—not only fulfilling or giving pleasure this life, but ultimate happiness, the blissful state of peace, liberation from samsara—who gives you that quickly, and full enlightenment, the peerless happiness, state of omniscient mind, for you to be able to do perfect works for sentient beings, to benefit sentient beings, that is what you should pray.

Thank you very much. According to what you expressed to me and what you wanted, so I replied this way.

With much love and prayers...

Rinpoche: How is your friend now?

Student: My friend is practicing patience and not fighting with her husband and children.

Rinpoche: That is good they don’t fight any more. It's best not to fight and instead to practice patience—that is the real Dharma, please tell her.

Now it is an eclipse of the sun, so it’s an important time to meditate on rejoicing or bodhicitta or emptiness, to read the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and to do self-initiation—those who have done retreat on Highest Yoga Tantra can do even the short self-initiation—because today whatever merit we collect is multiplied one hundred million times, for the next few hours.

Practicing patience doesn’t mean that if someone asks us to immediately kill a gigantic lady the size of Mount Meru or the size of louse, then to do everything that the person asks. It is not like that. What it means is in our heart we feel or think that this person is the most kind, the most precious, the most dear one. This is what the Guru-Buddha has taught.

We need to practice patience with somebody, because the person who is called the enemy—the one who has anger towards us—if we practice patience towards that person and do not get angry back, then that person gives us the most precious thing, enlightenment, the state of omniscient mind. Think, “With that person I can bring the numberless sentient beings to enlightenment, to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment.” So this becomes the reason to practice patience. We have to be skillful in answering the other person, therefore we have to have wisdom. That shows we need to learn Dharma.

You can give this advice as a present to any person. I am saying you can give this, I am not saying you should.

Also without practicing patience, then with anger we completely destroy the precious merits, if they have not been dedicated for enlightenment and sealed with emptiness. If the merits are not dedicated for enlightenment, with emptiness, then even if we did retreat for many years, if we did many virtuous things, many strong extensive virtuous actions, nothing would happen, there would be no realizations and no change to the mind.

Hahahahahahaha! Please send this message to your friend. Thank you.

Student: Thank you so much. I will send these precious words.

Rinpoche: Sending this to her is more precious than all the wish-fulfilling jewels, more than one billion dollars or the sky filled with wish-granting jewels.

Thank you,
Zopa

Student: You’re so precious, Rinpoche. I cannot find a precious jewel like you in any other place in the world; so precious, so holy. Thank you so much for your precious words and taking time to talk to someone like me. I will also try my best to tame my mind and now I humbly bow at your feet, Rinpoche.

Rinpoche: I am not, but you are. Thank you, see you soon.

My suggestion is to try being with him for four months and check during that time. It is not necessary to have a fixed amount of time, that is just my suggestion.

I thought you already knew samsara and had experienced it. But whether you are a nun or a layperson, the most important thing is always to live life with bodhicitta and, if possible, with wisdom.

You said you were concerned that this relationship might cause harm to you or him. It is natural to hurt each other if your motivation is only attachment or the self-cherishing thought.

My very dear Norma,
As far as your relationship is concerned, it seems better to be with him, but don't grasp that you will be with him forever or that he will be with you. If you have the wrong concept of permanence in your heart, you will experience torment and big problems in the future. Of course, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't have loving kindness for him, because you want happiness and he wants happiness. A couple, a family, and the whole world live by depending on the kindness of each other. Of course, there are some countries that are giving harm but countries also support each other.

The proper attitude is not that he is for your happiness but that you are for his happiness. You are there to serve him. Of course, your attitude is not only that but to serve all sentient beings. When you think that you are there for him, so many expectations stop, they don't arise. If you don't think like this you experience so much worry and fear, so much attachment, and your expectations are not met—all this is torture. You have no real peace and happiness, no relaxation, only more torture.

I can't say one hundred percent, but according to my observations the relationship will last around three or four years. But this is just how long it will last in your heart, then it is not certain what will happen. It is up to you whether you need to tell him or not. Do whatever is best. Maybe there is no need to inform him.

Anyway, this is the attitude to have whether you live with this man or someone else: I am a servant for sentient beings. I'm here to serve others. So, you have loving kindness and compassion first from your side.

Also, you have life obstacles so you should liberate 60 animals, maybe the Dharma center can help you. Maybe it fits in with the hospice so discuss it with them. We have a certain way doing it, a most beneficial way of doing it. Not only do you liberate animals from a place where they will be killed, but you liberate them in their own environment, giving a long life to them and to you who are liberating them. What we do is most beneficial for the animals. We liberate them from the lower realms and from samsara and bring them to enlightenment by chanting mantras, taking them around many holy objects, blessing water and then pouring or sprinkling it on the animals, from forest birds to many other kinds of animals. There are three very important ways to liberate animals and to purify their negative karma.

Also, you should make 15 long life tsa-tsas. Contact the center about how to do this. You have to learn how to do it. Be sure you make them well, not imperfect with missing limbs, eyes, or nose. [See the Commentary on Tsa-tsa Practice for more information.]

Also, print 150 long life sutras. You can get one from the center. It is good to print and read it.

It is also good to keep the card of the Boudha stupa and to pray to it for success. If you remember the Boudha stupa when you die, you will be completely saved from the lower realms.

With much love and prayers...