Bone, Lung, and Brain Cancer

My very dear Lorenzo,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. According to my divinations, these are the practices you should do:

40,000 Vajrasattva mantras, with strong meditation on purification

40,000 prostrations to the 35 Buddhas

300,000 Samayavajra mantras

Five nyung näs, or as many as you can do. This is the best solution and a very powerful purification practice to purify all the problems of samsara, not only sickness and cancer. It is good to do as many nyung näs possible. If you don’t know how to do one on your own, you can do them as a group at the Dharma center. If you can’t get a group to do it, then go to the Dharma center and ask one of the Sangha or an experienced older student to help you. You can do it in any Dharma center in your country.

Also, it would be very beneficial for you to take the eight Mahayana precepts. If you cannot take all eight vows, then take however many you can. Take the eight Mahayana precepts again and again. That way you create so much karma to immediately have a good rebirth after death.

If you can, liberate 400,000 animals, like worms, crickets, and insects that are to be fed to fish. They sell these animals as food for other animals. Also, they are cheap to buy and very easy to liberate: thousands at one time. If they are liberated according to the method I have explained in my small booklet, then you collect vast amounts of merit.

Also, you need to have the puja performed for you called Chi Lu. You can ask the geshe at the Dharma center to do this for you. Also, he should do the puja Lagyu Segyu for you.

If you can, recite malas of Buddha Amitayas’ mantra every day. If you have received the Mitukpa initiation or any other highest yoga tantra initiation, then you can generate yourself as the deity. If you haven’t received a highest yoga tantra initiation, then you should visualize the deity in front of you. Visualize beams of nectar emitting and purifying the four things (disease, sickness, spirit harm, and negative karma), then visualize beams of nectar emitting again and that you are receiving all realizations up to enlightenment. Visualize in your heart all the gurus, Sanghas, and sentient beings who help others more than harm them, as well as your friends, family, and enemies. Visualize that beams of nectar purify them of all defilements, negative karma, sickness, and spirit harm, and that they receive all realizations.

Please study well the instructions below on thought transformation, and I will pray for you.

One thing to think is that, of course, life is impermanent. This is fundamental to the teachings of Buddhism. In samsara nothing is definite, nothing is always the same. You are a very sincere student and very devoted to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, so by performing practices you should think that this is one of the signs of purification. Instead of many eons experiencing heavy suffering in the lower realms, especially in hell, all that heavy negative karma is purified by experiencing it in this life, in this form, so it is purification, and that should give you incredible happiness, like liberation, compared to having to experience suffering in the lower realms, especially the hells.

It says in the teachings that all the fire in the whole human world is like cool air or a snowflake on the body compared to the heat of one tiny spark of fire from the hell realm.

By experiencing this sickness now, one doesn’t have to experience many eons of suffering in the lower realms, particularly the hell realms. That is a great achievement, wonderful, something to feel so happy about, such a great success!

Also, you can use this karmic experience to experience the Four Noble Truths, so it becomes a teaching. Because there is suffering that we did not want to experience, which we do not like, there is a cause for this. Why this happened is because of samsara—karma and delusion—and this shows that all of this is dependent arising and not independent of causes and conditions. That also means that this can cease. All this suffering exists by being dependent on causes and conditions, not independently. If it was independent then it could not cease, then it would be permanent. True suffering and its cause depend on causes and conditions and to cease them we need to actualize the true path shown by the Buddha in his teachings.

Besides the Buddha of Compassion—His Holiness the Dalai Lama—there are many other great teachers who can show the true path that one can learn and actualize.

The other thing I wanted to say is that, most of the time, use this pain on the path to achieving enlightenment. Use the pain and sickness as a means of causing happiness for all sentient beings, not only temporal happiness but ultimate happiness, to liberate them from samsara and bring them to enlightenment. There is a very important section in the Guru Puja from the verse that says: “seeing all the rainfalls of undesirable things happen is finishing the results of my negative karmas” down to the practice of charity. Use your sickness in thought transformation practice to develop bodhicitta. Go over these stanzas in the Guru Puja down to the paramita of charity, thinking that you are experiencing this problem and sickness on behalf of all sentient beings. In your mind, use the sickness on the path to enlightenment, not just on the path to happiness. This is caused by experiencing all sicknesses for the benefit of all sentient beings, or on behalf of all sentient beings.

Each time you experience suffering think that you are experiencing it on behalf of all sentient beings. By doing this you collect vast amounts of merit, so many times every day, and purify many eons of negative karma each time you experience suffering for others. That way your sickness brings you closer to enlightenment each time, and your sickness becomes extremely precious, like a wish-granting jewel. It is most precious having this sickness, it has the same label: “sickness,” but now you see it as the most positive thing and even that it is needed. Without sickness there is nothing which causes you to do all these practices, your life would be wasted, and so much negative karma would be created instead of all these merits.

What does it mean to take on all the sufferings of sickness and the causes of the sufferings on yourself? You can think in the morning and in the evening that you are experiencing this suffering on behalf of all sentient beings. Try to think that as much as possible. This way you are experiencing the sickness with bodhicitta and using the sickness to develop bodhicitta. If you use the sickness to develop great compassion for all sentient beings who are suffering and to develop bodhicitta, then this is best use of your sickness. Your sickness makes your life most beneficial for countless sentient beings, including you. This means your sickness enables you to definitely achieve enlightenment quickly, because the stronger the compassion and bodhicitta you develop the quicker your enlightenment. Each time you experience your sickness for all sentient beings you collect so much merit, no question regarding experiencing suffering on behalf of sentient beings

With much love and prayers...