Animal Health Care and Healing

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

Thank you so much your kind email. Yes, I will pray for your dog.

Recovering is one thing, but the most important thing is that because of the continuation of mind—even though the mind separates from the body, which is called death—there is the next life, as there was a past life. For us ordinary beings who are under the control of delusion and karma, we are born with that and if we don’t get to practice Dharma and actualize the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness—which ceases delusion and karma—then we have to die under the control of delusion and karma, so we will have a suffering death.

So I will pray and you can pray for the dog to not be reborn again in the hell, hungry ghost or animal realms.

May the dog be reborn in the Buddha’s pure land where it can become enlightened, or receive a perfect human body and receive Mahayana teachings, meet a perfect qualified Mahayana guru who reveals the unmistaken path and by pleasing most the holy mind of the virtuous friend, may the dog achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one and everyone,
Thank you very, very much, a billon, zillion, trillion times, to all the students and all the friends especially for your inspiration.

Please tell everyone my billion, zillion, trillion, on and on thanks for the support for the dogs and the lady. I am offering the rest of the money, what is needed.

The Buddha said:

Any sentient being who during the period of my teachings,
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair)
For 80,000 eons there will be a great result of great enjoyment.
No pain, no disease and enjoyment of happiness
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end, you can actually achieve the result—the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment)
After hearing that there is the great result, who wouldn’t want to collect merit?

Please pass this quote and my thanks to everyone. Also please give it to the lady who has the dogs. Say it is from me.

With much love and prayers...

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your letter informing me about your project saving horses. I saw the photos and I think it’s really great. The horses look happy and are enjoying themselves.

I am especially very happy with your idea of building a stupa for them to circumambulate and generate lots of positive karma. It’s a cause for them to meet the Dharma, so that sooner or later they can be free from the oceans of suffering forever and achieve the peerless happiness of enlightenment.

I need to especially thank you and all your family for helping the horses purify their negative karma created since beginningless time and helping them achieve peerless happiness. For these reasons I am extremely, extremely happy with what you are doing.

It feels like the horses are part of your family, members of your family. That is very nice.

With much love and prayer... 

Please do the following for her. Please give her the following medicines:

• Rinchen Jur-mar four times a week, every alternate day
• Moon Crystal three times a week, every alternate day

This means that she takes one precious pill a day. Do this for three weeks and then we will see how she is.

Please recite the Chenrezig long mantra a few times and then four malas of OM MANI PADME HUM. Then, blow on her water. This can be done at intervals during the mantra recitation. Visualize Chenrezig above the water and also bless the water that way, making strong prayers.

Also, bless the same water with three malas of the Vajra Armor^* mantra. Blow on the water during recitation of the mantras. She needs to drink this water several times a day if possible. You can keep topping the water up and blessing it.

^*Vajra Armor Practice

Oneself becomes Vajrapani, black, very ferocious, holding a vajra and snake lasso. Holy body is completed in glorification with the cemetery costumes. Both feet standing on a lotus and sun disc, stretched out.

Abiding in the very center of the host of transcendental wisdom fire blazing. From the holy body emits fire garuda, iron scorpions, black pig wind, fire poison and harmful breath – like a very violent hailstorm wind.

Think that they completely destroy all the diseases, epidemics, spirit possessions and interferes.

Recite the mantra:

HUM VAJRA PHAT!

OM PADMA SHAVARI HUM PHAT/ NEN PAR SHIG / NAGA NEN / TADYATHA / SARVA / BIRITHA / HANA HANA / VAJRA NA / RAJA RAJA / SVAHA

Recite this as many times as possible at the end of the session, blow over water then drink or apply. Also you can recite the mantra then blow on cream or butter and apply to infected areas outside on the skin. In your daily practice blow in your nostrils after you finish reciting the mantra (holding hand in front of mouth, blow air up, so it goes up your nostrils).

Think that all the diseases, spirit harms etc. are totally destroyed, then place the mind in emptiness a little bit. Beyond from what is to be protected and who is protecting (conventional truth).

Again arise into that deity’s holy body, while it is empty.

Then do the dedication prayer and the increasing merit mantra prayer.

This is taken by Ghana for daily practice from the most Wrathful Chakra of Protecting the Root Attachment. 
Translated from the sadhana by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, March 7, 2003, in Kachoe Dechen Ling for Esther. Scribe Holly Ansett.

Dear compassionate, dedicated organizers of animal health care,
I'm very happy to get your letter. I'm also happy that you have one of my students to help you.

It's very important not only to have human rights, caring for and supporting humans, but also to be helping animals. It is unbelievable and terrifying that because one animal has a disease then millions of animals die. What will happen when animals have power and one human has a disease and millions of humans are killed. How terrifying for the human beings in this world—just like chopping vegetables or grass. But the animals are not like grass. They have a mind and are just like human beings. If this happened to human beings, they could go to the United Nations, announce it on television, demonstrate, and use so many methods to express their suffering and to fight. The chickens are totally powerless, as they can't express their suffering to the world. They are totally in the hands of the human beings, whatever they do. They are cut like vegetables and can't do anything, while at the same time, they have the same mind, desiring happiness and not wanting suffering. When we beat them they run away because they don't like it. When we give them food they don't run away because they are happy to be given food. When I was in the US at Thanksgiving, many turkeys were killed. That day we did an extensive Medicine Buddha puja and dedicated it to them. I was happy that I was able to do that.

We do many animal liberation ceremonies, liberating animals, especially in Singapore and Hong Kong, and also in Taiwan and Malaysia at the centers there. In Singapore, there is one dedicated member who has committed to liberate 100 million animals. He has already liberated around 70 million. The way we liberate animals is mostly for sea animals, such as fish and frogs, but also some birds. In Singapore they bring the animals in trucks with oxygen to the reservoir, river, ocean—wherever. When I am there, we bring relics—holy objects, pictures of Buddha, and tsa-tsas—which are arranged nicely on the table and then piled up around them are offerings—fruit juice, bread, and other things. We offer all the things on behalf of the animals, and after the animal liberation the people share and enjoy the food offerings. We have lunch together if the liberation is performed in the morning. All the people come, including children, and we liberate the animals, for example, by putting the fish in the ocean. It is a good practice, saving the animals from being killed in the market. People get a very good feeling from voluntarily helping a being, and it is nice for the older people, the parents.

The way we perform the liberation is to carry the animals around the holy objects—as many as we can arrange. We chant mantras in order to bless water for purifying them and also chant mantras loudly so that the animals can hear. When circumambulating the holy objects, if, for example, there are 1,000 statues, 1,000 stupas, and 1,000 scriptures, then taking one animal around the objects, in one circumambulation, creates 3,000 causes for a happy rebirth, 3,000 causes for liberation, and 3,000 causes for enlightenment. If there are 100,000 objects, then it creates 100,000 causes for enlightenment, 100,000 causes for liberation, and 100,000 causes for not being reborn in the lower realms, with each circumambulation.

When obtaining animals from the market, one plastic bag may contain as many as 1,000 crickets, which are used to feed other animals. There are also other animals that are used to feed other beings. If there are 1,000 worms, then 1,000 causes for each—a happy rebirth, liberation, and enlightenment—are created for every holy object that is circumambulated. It's unbelievable what you can do. This is an unbelievable practice for saving animals’ lives. Usually this is what we do. In general, people liberate animals by buying them from the market and then putting them back in their natural habitat without circumambulating with them, blessing them with water, and reciting mantras for them. In the Chinese tradition they offer refuge to them, but do not do as much loud recitation so that they can hear it.

First is the circumambulation, taking them around the objects, so that they receive a high rebirth, meet the Dharma, are liberated from samsara, and achieve enlightenment. By blessing the water with powerful mantras, the negative karma is purified that would otherwise ripen as suffering in the lower realms. Hearing prayers and powerful mantras definitely brings them to enlightenment. This is the deepest benefit. This means they don't have to suffer in samsara forever. It is the way to bring them from happiness to happiness to enlightenment. I'm very happy with this way of practicing.

It is also done like this at the center in Singapore. There are many objects on the altar (as explained before), the animals are carried in a truck, and then the truck drives around the building where the center is located. Other places set up an altar at the beach and do the practice there. While liberating the animals, the people are also liberated. As they circumambulate, the animals are liberating the people. Generally, when birds are released in the forest they get eaten by another being and, in the ocean, animals can be eaten at any time by another being. But by doing these different practices, after death there is a happy rebirth and all the advantages, up to enlightenment.

I have also wanted to liberate large animals—buffaloes and cows especially, because they are killed by hitting a hammer against their head and thus don't die immediately. I received a lot of help with this from students, but unfortunately there is an obstacle. The land is not flat where we would keep them, it is steep, and the animals’ excrement would be washed into the river, and the water from this river is drunk by the monastery. So, now my plan is to buy land at Maitreya Project and build an animal sanctuary there. The idea is to build a stupa, or many small ones, keep them in the center, and then the animals receive sessions of circumambulations—four times per day. We will play the sounds of powerful mantras and teachings on bodhicitta and the Heart Sutra from speakers to purify their negative karma. There are many ideas in order to help, besides just giving food and shelter. I'm really looking forward to this, and already there are some animals there.

I'm very happy that you asked for tapes of prayers and mantras. My secretary will send these to you. If the animals' minds hear the Arya Sanghata Sutra, they are liberated from the uninterrupted karmas that cause the mind to be reborn in the hottest hell, having the most suffering, and being of the longest duration, from the heaviest karma of killing one’s mother or father, causing disunity amongst the Sangha, killing an arhat, and drawing blood from a Buddha. These are purified as well as the ten non-virtuous actions. Also, anyone who hears this sutra, whether in the house, in the street, or working nearby, is purified.

Please enjoy what I have sent. I can also make and send tapes of the five powerful mantras, such as Namgyalma, or whichever others you need, in order to help. Thank you very much for working for peace in the world and especially in the animal world.

Thank you very much!

Yours sincerely, and with my prayers to you.