Business Crisis and Failure

They need to do strong confession practice, so please read the chapter of confession from the Golden Light Sutra. This should be recited seventy times by the family.

I have sponsored a big, extensive Medicine Buddha puja, and if the family can, they should cover the money offering, in order to collect extensive merit. At the beginning, motivate with bodhicitta, to achieve full enlightenment, to make every sentient being become free from samsara and bring them to the full enlightenment by themselves.

Making offerings to the monks doing the extensive Medicine Buddha puja is so good—it’s so much good karma, because they are living in the 36 precepts or the 253 precepts, so there is unbelievable merit.

Also, most of the monks have received teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, so they are disciples of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Every one of them has the same guru, so they are pores of the guru. You can think, “I am making offering to each one.” Then, however much you offer, for example, one rupee or one dollar, you collect the most unbelievable merit—more merit than having made offerings to numberless buddhas, Dharma and Sangha, and numberless statues, stupas and scriptures. Even without thinking that they are the guru’s pores.

In India a long time ago there were four ordinary fully ordained monks, who did not have the realization of wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. Then somebody who was very poor made a one-time offering of medicinal food, and because of that, in the next life that person was born as the most rich, powerful and famous King Kashika.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling ones,
Thank you for your kind email. Regarding your business, if you want to be successful you need to recite the Padmasambhava prayer called Tendrel Nyesel 11,000 times. You can recite some each day, so the first time read the whole prayer—the long or medium version— and after that you can read the short version. The short version is what you count.

It is important to know that the cause of success generally in your everyday life is being kind, having a kind heart and thinking of others—their happiness, their suffering—in order to free them from suffering and bring them happiness. Thinking of others first and cherishing them is best, then you cause happiness to others every day—even insects, ants, any insect, any animal, and human beings.

In your everyday life help others however you can. With your body, speech and mind help others as much as you can. Especially if you do this with a good heart, thinking of others, then you create so much unbelievable good karma every day. That helps bring success not only in this life but also from life to life.

The Buddha was the founder of Buddhadharma; he descended in this world and taught Dharma. 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 great results 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).

During the time when the Buddha’s teachings are still in this world, if you give charity the size of a hair to somebody, then for 80,000 eons you will have unbelievable, unbelievable wealth and success from life to life. That is unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, and the conclusion is that it leads to enlightenment.

So, every day live your life like that. It is so important. It doesn’t mean giving something very expensive. You can give any help to others with your body, speech and mind. This is always good and it causes unbelievable, unbelievable success from life to life. Whatever you think of will happen and there will even be success for things you haven’t thought of.

Please try this and live your life as much as possible with the thought of cherishing others and bodhicitta in every action you do—sleeping, walking, working, shopping, etc.

If you are not doing this already, it is very important to do this daily motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).

With much love and prayers ...

You need to do the Nölsang Incense Ritual twice for the business.

I have checked extensively and it is important to start with these things:

• Recite one mala a day of Ganapati until the matter is clear.
• Make a two-story statue of Ganapati.
• The Kangyur has to be read by Sera Je and Sera Me Monasteries.

My very dear one,
Thank you for your kind letter. You mentioned the various practices that you have been doing, mostly for the success of your business. The practice I suggest for you is to recite the mantra promised by Tara, seven times a day, with a strong request, relying on Tara with your whole heart.

The very important advice I have for you is regarding your motivation when you make these prayers. If it is just to get wealth for yourself, only for this life’s happiness, then it is only negative karma, nonvirtue. But if it is to collect wealth in order to benefit others, then it is good karma and virtue. But even this must be done with a sincere heart, not for gaining a good reputation from other people for oneself, for this life’s happiness, which means expecting something in return.

You should have the precious text in your house called Ser Wo Nada (The Golden Light Drum Sound). I will send it to you. Of course, if you can read Tibetan, you can read it, too, but just having this text in the house dispels the spirit called “king” and others. So, it is very important to have that text in the house. Keep it in a respectful place.

I have one big question for you. Did you do feng shui in your house? Because in the letter you didn’t mention feng shui, you mentioned difficulties. Of course, it is not the main cause of success, the main cause is good karma. If you know some people who can do feng shui you can give me their names, and I can check who is more beneficial.

As far as feng shui is concerned, the bedroom is very important, and where you locate the bed. Is your bed facing toward the door, and do your feet face the door of the room? Or does it face the bathroom? Is it like that? That is bad; it means you lose everything. Then, if there is a staircase facing the front door of the house, this is also bad. You could put a plant where the steps begin. Another thing to consider is where you put your chair in your office. Also, which direction is the front door of the house facing, is it lit up, does it have plants around it, or is it dirty with garbage? The front door should be clean, with lights on both sides of the steps, and at the top you should have flowers, something welcoming. A tree growing against the door is not good. But if you are going to cut down the tree, then be careful, that is dangerous, because nagas could be staying in the tree. You have to offer food, or something, and ask for permission to cut the tree down before you do it. After you cut it down you could cover it with vines, honey, syrup, or milk. Apart from what is mentioned in feng shui, I know of two people who cut down a tree and got very sick. In the monastery, two monks cut down a tree in front of the door and got very sick. One of the monks could not move his body and the other got a sickness connected with the nervous system and couldn’t walk well.

You should not allow suicidal thoughts to arise, because even though you have problems, you should not think of suicide as an escape from the problems, a solution, a way to have peace. You are not thinking about the negative karma of suicide and the long-term, heavy suffering result for many lifetimes. If you have clairvoyance to see the sufferings of the lower realms and even in the human realm for many hundreds of thousands of lifetimes, then of course it is very scary to let the thought of suicide arise, much more scary then the present financial problem. Compared to that, the present problem is nothing. It is like a great liberation. Suicide would cause you much heavier problems for a long time. It’s like a small bug bite. You feel pain, so you try to kill yourself because you feel pain from a small bug bite. You can see from this example that this becomes nonsense.

Also, the human body is so precious, with the potential to be Buddha, that every insect has. This time you have received a perfect human body and have the potential to be able to overcome oceans of samsaric suffering by eliminating the delusions and karma, actualizing the path, and achieving enlightenment for sentient beings. This body is unbelievably precious, not only for yourself, but to cause happiness in all future lives, liberation from samsara, enlightenment, and all these levels of happiness for all sentient beings. So, you can see how this is unbelievably precious. When depression comes, please read my advice on the website of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, or you could ask them for all my advice on depression, and study all of that.

However, the essence, the most important thing, is to accept this as experiencing the result of past negative karma. This is the foundation that will help to immediately cut down the problem. The depression is also a result of your past negative karma – disturbing others’ minds. Also, failure in business, instead of increasing wealth, can be from the very negative karma of stealing in the past and also the opposite of generosity, miserliness, not giving, which came from the self-cherishing thought. Therefore, this life and this time the wheel of karma has turned on oneself, because in the past one harmed others, so now that wheel of karma has turned on you. So, rather then taking it on you, you turn the wheel of karma on your ego, on the self-cherishing thought, and cut it, destroy it. All the financial problems, whatever is not working, give them to the self-cherishing thought and totally destroy it. This will immediately give you inner peace and happiness. If you follow the ego, you become a friend of ego, then you become depressed and sad and all this happens.

In this way, all these problems become Dharma, a path that cuts the suffering and the cause of suffering – delusions, and eliminates the delusions and karma. You are using your problems, failures, and lack of success to achieve inner happiness, the greatest success, enlightenment, and to liberate numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment. You can see how all the problems become happiness and incredible joy. It is no longer a problem, it is your biggest support. You can do tong-len meditation, with compassion, taking on other sentient beings’ sufferings and their causes and with loving kindness, give all happiness, temporary and ultimate, your body and possessions, to all sentient beings.

Most of the time, think that this depression is not yours but all sentient beings, so you experience it for them and let them have happiness, up to enlightenment. You can recite these verses, and recite OM MANI PADME HUM.

“Whatever suffering sentient beings have may it ripen on me
Whatever happiness I have may it ripen for all sentient beings.”

At the moment this is enough. I hope there is something useful here for you that can help you. I am very sorry it took a long time to write you.

PS: This is just from my observations, but maybe you should put your head toward the southwest; if that’s not possible then toward the southeast.

Please print the Arya Sanghata Sutra forty times. If you can write it, you collect the most merit.

With much love and prayer...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much for your very kind email. I checked regarding what you can do to have success in your business and this is what came out:

• Recite the Celestial Mansion mantra 60 times. [Find links to this practice in the FPMT Catalogue.]

• Write the Sanghata Sutra three times.

• You need to wear one Dzambala protection. I will send this to you.

• You need to print this Akashagarbha mantra on a small card and keep it on you, like a business card.

• It is very good if you can do the Dzambhala water offering practice to Black Dzambhala (standing) and White Dzambhala (riding on a dragon). The best would be if you could get two small statues made of Dzambhala and actually do the water offering practice on these two statues. You can order them through Kopan Monastery. I will send you a photo of Black Dzambhala, which is more rare.

• Burn special incense in your shop. I will send you a practice and explanation on this.

• You should ask the Sangha at Vajrapani Institute or Nalanda Monastery to do two Four Mandala Offerings to Tara pujas and to dedicate them to your business. You need to arrange offerings for the Sangha if they do this.

I was very happy to receive your email and I’m looking forward to meeting you. Thank you very much for your kind service to sentient beings, to the teachings of Buddha and to me.

With much love and prayers ...