Arya Sanghata Sutra

My most dear, most precious, most kind, most wish fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. Maybe this could be the last letter, because you said you could die at any time. It’s very true, but also you could be enlightened at any time.

It depends on whether you practice bodhicitta in daily life, which means you dedicate your life to the sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras and asuras beings. That means, for example, toward animals—every ant, mosquito, red worm; when there is rain on the ground there are short ones and long ones; even those animals in the stomach which are curled up and then very long when they are stretched out; even the tiniest insects, even the tiniest sentient beings in the water, all that.

Your life is given to sentient beings, especially when you have bodhisattva vows. When bodhisattva vows are taken it is like that. You live life for them, to not give harm and to only cause happiness. Happiness can be temporal and ultimate, so the main aim is ultimate happiness, enlightenment.

I am very happy to hear from you. How are you? How is your family? Now I will give you your practice, after checking through the divination.

Your main deity is Heruka. There are three kinds of Heruka:

• Luipa Heruka, with external mandala
• Five-deity Heruka
• Heruka body mandala.

From these three aspects of Heruka you can choose your main deity, based on whichever one you feel the strongest connection with. If you choose Heruka body mandala, first you need an initiation of five-deity Heruka, then you can receive Heruka body mandala initiation. Then you can do retreat, the enabling action retreat, then there is a three-year retreat.

I don’t know if you have already received the Heruka five-deity initiation or not, but for five-deity Heruka there is a long and short sadhana. Heruka body mandala also has a long and short sadhana. The three purifications (one practice of Heruka) are done after receiving the initiation, and after receiving the commentary then you can do the long or short sadhana.

Please see my advice for how long to meditate on each section of the lamrim.

Also read the Arya Sanghata Sutra continuously. It’s not necessary to finish it each day but read according to your time, so read it and then start again. This means to read some each day and, in this way, [you are collecting] merit.

By reading the Arya Sanghata Sutra you will understand the incredible merit of this practice. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merit. When you find out the merit of reading and writing it, you might fall down, you might faint, but when you wake up you will be in the pure land, not in New Zealand, but in the pure land, with ice cream and milkshakes, and better than New Zealand, better pizza, better beaches.

As you know, when you are reading this sutra and also when reading the lamrim, it is like reading the essence of all the Buddhadharma, the essence of the five great texts (Abhisamayalamkara, Vinaya, Madhyamaka, Abhidharmakosha and Pramanavarttika, logic) and the foundation of tantra.

Even if you have studied Buddhadharma very extensively, if you practice lamrim, that practice is the essence of Buddhadharma. Otherwise, it is like putting lots of news into the computer, but it doesn’t get used to subdue the mind or to benefit the mind. It isn’t used to bring the mind into a good shape, to develop realizations of the path to enlightenment.

You are most welcome to enlightenment, to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings, the cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations.

Thank you very much.

Arya Sanghata Sutra

Complete a full recitation of the Arya Sanghata Sutra each week. You can do this all at once or recite some each day and in one week complete one recitation. This is a quick way to achieve success and to actualize the path; to achieve every success in working for sentient beings and for the teachings of Buddha. It is a most unbelievable way to collect merit and purify negative karma. Just hearing a few words from this sutra purifies the five heavy negative karmas without break [five immediate negativities.]

This is the most important thing for success, to be free from samsara and achieve enlightenment and to benefit all sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment, as well as for purification and everything. Also, if you can, dedicate that FPMT may bring all sentient beings to enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Life is very short and death can happen at any time. We are unbelievably lucky to find Buddha’s texts and sutras such as this and also to be able to read the texts in foreign languages. We are very lucky.

Lamrim Study and Practice

To gain effortful lamrim experience, meditate on the lamrim outline, going through the cycle four times. Then do effortless meditation.

The main lamrim text for you to read is the Red Commentary, but there is no translation yet. If you’re able to study with a geshe or something, then you can request teachings from this lamrim text. Study this text five times from beginning to end if you can.

When reading, this itself is a form of meditation. When you relate it to yourself, such as the sections on suffering, it helps to generate renunciation, and when you relate it to others, it helps to generate compassion. In this way it becomes meditation to develop renunciation, compassion and bodhicitta and so forth.

After studying the commentary you can use The Essential Nectar or another lamrim outline as a guidebook. Of course, you can also read other lamrim texts, such as Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or Lamrim Chenmo.

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

Regarding your family and situation, you should recite the Celestial Mansion mantra twenty times a day, to be able to help whatever you are doing. [Find links to the Celestial Mansion Extremely Secret Sublime Success Mantra eBook & PDF in the FPMT Catalogue.]

Also recite these two mantras from The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) forty times each day.

Holy Name Mantra that Fulfills Wishes

DE ZHIN SHEG PA SA DZIN GYÄL PO LA CHAG TSHÄL LO

TADYATHA / OM DHARE DHARE / DHARANI BÄNDHE SWAAHAA

Visualize Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. All the different buddhas are the embodiment of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, so you can just think about Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and that will be OK.

I will pray also.

Read Arya Sanghata Sutra eleven times. Reading this sutra collects the most unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merits. Pray to the Buddha before reading the text and read it with bodhicitta: to free the numberless sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, every single animal including insects and fish in the sea, humans, suras, asuras, so every single sentient being—from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment, the peerless happiness.

Think, “For that, I need to achieve enlightenment by myself; for that, I need to achieve the state of omniscience, therefore I am going to recite this sutra.” That is the main motivation, but of course, to help other sentient beings, you need success, so for this, you recite the text.

With much love and prayers ...

I received the Sanghata Sutra and sat there for some time saying, “Fantastic, incredible, fantastic.”

I feel I have offered a little service to the world by promoting and spreading the Sanghata Sutra, because anyone who reads it or writes it out creates unimaginable merit.

Probably I don’t need to tell you what the text says about how much merit you collect each time you hear this sutra. Each time you hear it, how much merit do you collect? One buddha has completed the merit of wisdom and the merit of virtue – there is nothing more to collect. The merit you collect by hearing the Arya Sanghata Sutra is equal to the merit of the number of buddhas equaling the number of grains of sand in the Ganga River, multiplied by twelve. And these grains of sand are not the ordinary type. It is explained in the teachings, in the great enlightened Pabongka Rinpoche’s notes, that these grains are made of extremely subtle atoms. There are seven kinds of subtle atoms: water atoms, earth atoms, and so forth. These sand grains are much, much finer than the normal kind.

In addition to that, when it comes to talking about the benefits of bodhicitta, or the benefits of the Arya Sanghata Sutra, the Ganga does not refer to the Indian River Ganges but to the Pacific Ocean. The merit of just one set of buddhas equaling the number of sand grains in the River Ganga is beyond words, unimaginable. Even just the merit that one buddha has collected is beyond words. So, beyond that, the merit that you collect every time you hear the Arya Sanghata Sutra is equal to twelve times the merit of the number of buddhas equal to the grains of sand in the River Ganga. That is just through hearing it. This means that anyone hearing it – animals, frogs, birds, your pets, even spirits – collects that much merit. Can you imagine? When those animals hear you recite Buddha’s teachings, it definitely causes them to receive a higher rebirth and to meet the Dharma.

The minute you hear it, the five uninterrupted negative karmas – the extremely heavy negative karmas that send you immediately after death to the lowest hot hell, which has the heaviest suffering of the lower realms, with a lifespan that lasts for one intermediate eon – are completely purified. Therefore, in the past, when I was in Washington, I played a CD of the sutra in the car on the way to go shopping, which is a 40 minute drive. I was sitting in the front of the car, so I kept the window down. Sitting behind me were two nuns. The weather was not sunny; it was a bit foggy and cold. The wind was going back through the window and making them cold. But if I had cared only for them, then all those people living in the houses along the road and all the animals would not have heard the CD. There is a big difference. So, I kept the window down and played the CD very loud, like young people playing music in a car—those young people, teenagers who have that strange hair that goes straight up onto their head or who have a lot of rings on their ears or on their face, around the eyes or whatever…just to be descriptive.

So, just while going to do shopping, you are liberating so many sentient beings on the way there – just one way. During that drive there was a deer in the road, so the car stopped and then the deer had the opportunity to hear a little bit of the sutra. So, if the five uninterrupted actions are purified, there is no question about the ten non-virtuous actions – they are also purified. I thought that was a great thing to do. Also, the people in the car are purified of all those negative karmas and collect incredible amounts of merit. It is such an easy way to make life meaningful. You just put the CD on in the car and play it, that’s it. As long as you are not deaf and can hear, you don’t need to use much effort. It’s the easiest way to purify negative karma and collect vast amounts of merit. It is the quickest, easiest way to achieve liberation from samsara and end all the oceans of samsaric suffering that one has experienced over and over, countless times, without beginning. It is a quick way to achieve enlightenment for anyone who hears it. Also, more merit makes it easy and quick to realize the emptiness of the “I,” the aggregates, and phenomena; it is a quick way to eliminate the root of samsara, ignorance, and a quick way to actualize bodhicitta. You need so much merit to actualize bodhicitta. If you have bodhicitta, you are a bodhisattva. In that second, you become the spiritual son of all the buddhas; you become the supreme object of offerings of all sentient beings. They collect so much merit when they make offerings to you – when they see you, hear your voice, touch you, or offer something to you. Even if some sentient beings harm you, after you have the realization of bodhicitta, then from your side, you only benefit in return. You pray for good things to happen to that person. There is a saying regarding bodhisattvas, “If you can’t make a good connection by doing good things, then by doing some harm, make a connection with a bodhisattva.”

This does not mean that you must harm a bodhisattva, but that in case that happens, it is saying it is worthwhile. In return the bodhisattva only benefits, only prays, so in return that sentient being is guided by that bodhisattva from life to life. For example, the Buddha, during his time as a bodhisattva, sacrificed his blood for the five yakshas; they drank his blood. Then, due to that connection, in the next life, they became his disciples as human beings – they became the first five disciples and Buddha gave them teachings at Sarnath. That was the first turning of the Dharma Wheel. They drank his blood, but the bodhisattva made a prayer for them in the next life to be his direct disciples, to be able to receive teachings and so forth. Of course, they then go on to liberation and enlightenment. There is incredible benefit for sentient beings if one is a bodhisattva. Only with bodhicitta can you complete the two types of merits and achieve the two kayas. Without bodhicitta, even if you have wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, you cannot achieve the two kayas. The highest you can achieve is arhatship, liberation from samsara – eliminating the delusions and karma.

If you read the Arya Sanghata Sutra, you collect far greater merit than just through hearing it, and if you write it, there is even more merit. Remember the merit of the buddhas equaling the number of grains of sand in the Ganges River multiplied by twelve? The amount of merit if you write it is eight times that (eg, 96 x one set of buddhas).

The last time I went to South-east Asia, because of my little advertisement about how much more merit you collect if you write it, many people had written it and had finished already. This is wonderful. The director of a Dharma center there told me that when they recited it incredible things happened, for example, somebody offered $100,000 to build a school. In another country, a student read it one time. When he read it, he thought, “Buddha wouldn’t lie,” and he read it with that strong faith. He then won the lottery and built a large house with the money to sell and use the money for Dharma projects. Also, when a woman who had been smoking her whole life read the sutra the first time, she was able to stop smoking just like that. This means that Buddha is really working and blessing through this text. Buddha is really in action.

Through the merit you collect, you are able to fulfill all the wishes of all sentient beings. You are able to liberate the countless hell beings and bring them to a higher rebirth, liberation from samsara, and to enlightenment. You are able to help the countless hungry ghosts, animals, humans, sura beings, asura beings, and intermediate state beings. Please remember each time you begin to recite the Sanghata Sutra these incredible advantages you can offer yourself and others from collecting so much merit.

Not only you, but so many people who have recited the Arya Sanghata Sutra have received so much benefit to their mind and heart, becoming more and more Dharma. It is extremely good if you can write a few lines every day. When you write it, you are also reading it. I am extremely happy that you enjoy this sutra so much. You see the benefit for your mind and you see that it is an amazing sutra.

My very dear one,
I am very happy to hear that you read the Sanghata Sutra, with your dog present. This is one of the most precious teachings the Buddha gave. By reading it you have the opportunity to collect so many merits. It is very good if you can read a little of this sutra every day, even just a few pages. By writing this sutra, with every word you write you collect a lot of merit, even more than by reading it. By creating more merits our life becomes easier, more wish-fulfilling, without difficulties, easier. We have better health, a longer life, and more harmony in our life, in the world, and everywhere.

All the happiness you receive comes from good karma. If you do not have good karma then you are unhappy. It is most important for a good rebirth, for meeting the Dharma in your next life, for practicing the path, and achieving liberation from samsara, ultimate happiness, and, most important, full enlightenment, the peerless happiness. Then you are able to benefit so many sentient beings. By creating more merit you become closer to actualizing realizations, to enlightenment, and to enlightening all sentient beings. You are closer to freeing all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering and closer to bringing all beings quickly to enlightenment.

All of this starts with creating more merit by reading this sutra.

With much love and prayers...