Business Crisis and Failure

You said that you met with a Tibetan lama, who you consulted about your business. He did an observation and said there were many problems but the business could change. Because your business didn't change, now you are having doubts about Buddhism, about your beliefs, about being generous to the masters and abbots of the monasteries, and making offerings to them.

The lama you met with said things could change this year. This year is not finished yet. You should think about what he said. He said it COULD be changed this year. He meant it's possible, if the causes and conditions come together, if you create them, then things can change. But it seems that you are clinging to the idea that things could change very fast. Even though the year has not finished, your doubts arose. It seems to me that you expected too much too quickly, and this made you upset because it's not happening.

There was a very high lama, the head of the Nyingmas, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Our first student, the Russian lady, Princess Zena Rachevsky, lived in Nepal for many years, studied with Lama Yeshe, and translated. Her husband, a quite wealthy American man, sent money for her every year, maybe every six months. She, Lama, and I lived on that money. One time the money didn't come for a long time, in the Year of the Rooster, which is a special year to make pilgrimage in Nepal. Many people come over the mountains to make that pilgrimage. At that time, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was giving the transmission of the Kangyur in Nepal. She went to ask him to do a divination to see whether the money would come. The money didn't come, so I told her that if the person who asks the question doesn't have the karma to receive the right answer, but to receive the wrong answer, then this is what happens. I also did a divination. I told her that, for myself, if a mistake is made, then it is my own mistake, but with high lamas, there is no mistake, they are enlightened beings, so they don't make mistakes. If the other person has the karma to receive a wrong answer, that is what happens. She understood that situation one hundred percent.

My dear Jim,
How are you? I understand that there has been a lot of change in your life. However, you must know that you are not the only one who is experiencing this problem of failure in business. There are many people in the world who have lost millions of dollars, and I know there are other students in Hong Kong, other businesspeople, who were unbelievably wealthy before, and now are having problems. And I also know that in the world there are people for whom nothing is working at the moment. Everything is blocked, and they don’t know what to do, or how to solve the problem.

Generally, this shows the nature of samsara, its ups and downs. Even if someone is wealthy through all this life, in the next life they can be poor. That is besides the changes within one life. Things can’t always stay the same. What is always the same is suffering, that everything is suffering in nature, until we are free of samsara. Its nature is for nothing to be definite, and for nothing to give satisfaction except Dharma, practicing the gradual path to enlightenment with determination. The nature of samsara is like fire; it’s hot. One has to accept that. There is no reason to be upset that the nature of fire is hot. The only thing to do is get out of the fire. It’s the same with this: the only method is to get out of samsara.

It is said that even an enlightened being like the Buddha experienced difficulties, although he had purified the two obscurations and completed the two realizations. At one time, Buddha had a thorn go six inches into his foot, as a result of an action he committed in a past life. The conclusion to draw from this is: If even the Buddha demonstrates this pain due to past karma, why not us? Why not me, an ordinary sentient being? Of course, I have to experience past karma. The ultimate solution is nothing other than spiritual practice: Dharma, which means purifying past negative karma and creating as little negative karma as possible. This is the fundamental solution for success, for this life’s work for oneself and for others.

We are unbelievably happy. We have incredible freedom compared to hell beings. What we think is a problem is nothing; it is only great pleasure. We are in a pure realm where there is no suffering, compared to hell beings. Even in the human realm, there are many others who have a hundred times worse problems than you. And the worst thing is that they haven’t found a valid spiritual path, and have no solutions to their suffering. They have no idea of future rebirths, and what can happen then. They are so deluded, completely crazy, and don’t know where they are going.

Therefore, you are an unbelievably fortunate being, with unbelievable freedom. So, you must use the freedom to practice Dharma. Of course, what happened to you is ending past negative karma.

Enjoy life by recognizing all the incredible freedoms you have, a precious human rebirth, and Buddha nature, which you can use to achieve all happiness, including enlightenment, and cause it for all sentient beings.

With much love and prayer...

My very dear one,
Here is how to make the Dzambhala practice most profitable, in order to bring success and wealth. First, generate a bodhicitta motivation to obtain wealth for what is needed for the gurus and for the Sangha, who preserve and spread the Dharma, and for sentient beings who are experiencing a poverty of Dharma and material poverty. Perform Dzambhala practice to obtain all those things immediately. The main thing is to meditate on this.

When you are pouring the water on the head of the Dzambhala statue and reciting the mantra, visualize that the essence of Dzambhala is the guru. Offer the water and think that you have generated enormous amounts of bliss, and that Dzambhala is extremely inspired to grant you all success and bring you all wealth, or whatever you wish, without delaying for even a second.

In order to achieve a result, it is important not just to perform Dzambhala practice. The main thing for success is to practice generosity, making offerings to the guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and practicing generosity and kindness toward sentient beings. That is the basic cause. There are so many opportunities offered to you in everyday life to create as much merit as possible.

If one is very stingy, and doesn’t practice much generosity, even if you perform the practice of Dzambhala, the wealth-giving Buddha, many times, it can take a long time for success to come. In daily life, practice whatever generosity you can, like when you meet beggars: just give whatever you can. It doesn’t only have to be beggars on the street, it can be anybody. When people come to your house, offer them food and drink, and so forth. Use that opportunity to practice Dharma by practicing charity. Especially make offerings to other students of your gurus, thinking they are the same as your gurus. This creates so much merit, much more than making offerings to the buddhas of the three times, to the Dharma, and Sangha, and to the numberless statues, scriptures, and thangkas that exist throughout other universes. You can do this in many different ways. Besides offering money, give where there is a great need for charity.

Reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra is also good. This collects a lot of merit, more merit than making offerings to buddhas and bodhisattvas.

It is also very powerful to collect extensive merits by making prostrations to Buddha. This collects a lot of merit, with each prostration, especially if you prostrate to all the Buddhas, statues, scriptures, and thangkas, because, as you know, if there is only one atom under your body as you prostrate, you create the merit to be born as a wheel-turning king for 1,000 lifetimes. To be born as a wheel-turning king, you need inconceivable merit. That’s why Buddha taught this in the Lankavatarasutra, to give an idea of how much merit is collected. Of course, the number of atoms your body covers when you do one prostration to Buddha includes the atoms in the carpet and under that, down to the bottom of the earth, so there is an immense number of atoms. You create so much merit, and so many causes to achieve enlightenment.

Another thing to bring quick success and extensive merit is to recite the long-life mantra of Buddha Amitayus. Reciting the mantra functions to bring long life not only for you, but also for the other people for whom you recite it. It also functions to purify negative karma and collect large amounts of merit. Printing the Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra, or any teaching on the Perfection of Wisdom also collects merit. To write or print them, and to have them at home so you can make offerings to them is so powerful. It’s an incredible way to collect merit.

Another way is to rejoice. Each time you rejoice in your own past, present, and future merits, it doubles or triples them. You collect so much merit by rejoicing, or feeling happiness about other sentient beings’ merit.

If you rejoice in a sentient being’s merit, and the level of the person’s mind is lower than yours, you collect double the person’s merit. If the person’s level of mind is equal to yours, you collect the same amount of merit. If the person’s level of mind is higher than yours, then you collect half their merit. Since there are so many sentient beings, you can imagine how much merit you collect. You will want to practice rejoicing all day long, and night. If you rejoice in the merit generated by one bodhisattva in one day, you receive half of the merit. Because bodhisattvas have realized bodhicitta, they seek only the happiness of others, so whatever activity the bodhisattva does collects so much merit, every second. Can you imagine if you get half of a bodhisattva’s merit for one day? Now you can see how incredible it is. It is said by Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo that to get that kind of merit without rejoicing would take 13,000 years! You can see that this is a great thing to do, and is so easy to do. You can collect merit within seconds that would take 13,000 years. You don’t need to prepare anything, just your thoughts. You can do this while walking, jogging, eating, lying on the beach: any time. So, this is a really fantastic practice, if you want to have quick success, great wealth, realizations of the path, and benefit others, especially if you want to achieve enlightenment in order to liberate sentient beings from samsaric sufferings, and bring them to full enlightenment.

There are also the four powers mentioned in the lamrim, in order to collect extensive merit and good luck, which is the cause of success. Among these is the power of the attitude, the bodhicitta motivation, which collects a lot of merit. Whatever you are doing creates so much merit if you perform it with bodhicitta. For example, when you are going to perform something for the benefit of sentient beings, each step you take is for all sentient beings, so an infinite amount of merit is created with each step. Each mantra you chant collects so much merit. When you offer food to humans or spirits, with each act of giving, you collect vast amounts of merit.

With much love and prayers...

Dear Tony,
It is important that you practice with strong faith. Your good karma from the past to have wealth and enjoyment has finished. When you had the opportunity, you didn’t use it to create more good karma and more wealth by making offerings to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and by offering charity to sentient beings.

Your recent good karma was just used for yourself, with attachment clinging to this life, so it did not become virtue, and the merit finished. This is the same as working hard and accumulating a lot of money, and then spending it, without putting anything in the bank or investing anything. All the money just gets used up. It is the same here.

When you are enjoying the results of good karma, you should continuously use it to create more good karma with a sincere heart, with the thought of benefiting others. This way, there will be prosperity continuously.

Much love and prayer...

Even though your wishes are good, others involved, from their side, have to have the good karma to enjoy whatever success you are seeking, so maybe they should practice generosity and kindness. Small or big, do as much as possible.

My suggestion is to practice Dzambhala every day. Of course, your motivation should be purely to help others, to benefit sentient beings as much as possible, and to benefit the teachings of Buddha from which sentient beings receive all happiness. You can do Dzambhala water practice, and also make torma offerings to Dzambhala. Make a torma offering to Dzambhala every day. Offer fruits and cakes on your altar.

If you are able, sponsor Kopan Monastery to do 100,000 praises to the Twenty-one Taras. This came out very beneficial for you in my observations – for your success – with the motivation of bodhicitta as follows: “In order to free all sentient beings from all sufferings and to bring them to enlightenment, I am going to make offerings to all the Sangha.” There are about 300 monks and 260 nuns at Kopan, they are holy objects, so you create a lot of merit by offering to them. If you are taking Lama Lhundrup as your teacher, then when you make an offering to all the guru’s disciples, it becomes an offering to your guru’s pores. With such an offering, you collect far more merit than offering to many buddhas, bodhisattvas, statues, stupas, and scriptures in all the directions in any universe. Since there are so many Sangha members, as mentioned before, you can imagine how much merit is collected from making offerings of tea, food, and money to them. Reciting the 100,000 praises might take two or three days. This is only if you are able to afford it.

Another puja to do is She nyin dü dog.

You should also recite the Celestial Mansion Extremely Secret Sublime Success mantra seven times. First, visualize a wish-granting jewel at your heart. Many different colors shine out from the jewel, and in the center of the jewel, visualize your mind in the form of the seed syllable BHRUM. Then visualize that the essence of samsara and peace (liberation and enlightenment) all absorb into the BHRUM. Then, light beams draw in to the center of the jewel all success, whatever you wish for, for you and for others. With this visualization, you should recite the Celestial Mansion mantra. This is the mantra of the extremely well developed jewel of the unfathomable celestial mansion, and brings whatever you wish. There are two short mantras which should be recited a few times at the end of the meditation session. [Find links to this practice in the FPMT Catalogue.]

Also, recite the Buddha’s name: De zhin sheg pa sa dzin gyäl po la chhag tshäl lo.

Starting from today, the next fifteen days is the anniversary of the special time when the Buddha performed miracles to overcome heretics. During this time, the merit from virtuous activities multiplies 100 million times due to the power of his holy deeds. So, when you make one light offering during this time, the merit is equal to making 100 million light offerings; when you make one water bowl offering, the merit is equal to making 100 million water bowl offerings. You should take this opportunity to offer charity to Sangha and so on, to benefit sentient beings. This might help to change your business situation. Even if the charity you offer is small, it has a lot of meaning.

My most dear beloved Jimmy, 
I hope you are well. I wanted to send this message to you quickly. We will try what we can. It might be a little late. We should have done some pujas and prayers dedicated for you and your success earlier. It seems that making a four-foot high statue of Kurukulla can make a difference, especially if the statue is completed within two weeks. It seems that work and business can then become positive and successful.

If things don't succeed, you shouldn't let this make your mind unhappy and depressed, feeling great shame. From the Dharma point of view, it's nothing. Even if you don't succeed, this is nothing to worry about or feel concerned about. If it were something non-virtuous, like killing, stealing, and the other ten non-virtues, it would be something to worry about. It's just work, and you didn't succeed because people don't want to invest money. It's nothing to worry about from a Dharma point of view. Only from a worldly person's point of view is it something shameful.

Try as much as possible, but if it doesn't happen, then you shouldn't worry. Don't make your mind down. It's unnecessary and also causes you to be physically unhealthy. The important thing is that in your life you have collected so much merit and offered so much service to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the FPMT organization, because of me, our relationship in the Dharma.

A business failure would be shameful according to a worldly person's point of view, those with attachment clinging to this life, but it is not shameful. From a worldly person's view, if one is able to kill one's enemy, one rejoices. In Dharma, this is wrong rejoicing, and is very harmful to oneself and others. Why is it harmful to others? Because it becomes heavy negative karma, which means you can’t have realizations, and you can't benefit others.

Also, from a worldly person's view, to defeat others and win is regarded as the best thing. But from a Dharma point of view, from the Mahayana view, or in reality, to offer the victory to others and take the loss upon oneself is the most profitable, because by doing this sincerely you create the karma to win in all your future lives. You always create the cause for victory and no defeat. From a worldly point of view, you take the victory and give the loss to others, but that negative karma brings loss in so many future lives, so much unhappiness. With Mahayana Buddhism, with Dharma, you have happiness in all future lives, you achieve the victory, and because of that and because your practice is to benefit others, you take others' sufferings and experience them and give others all happiness, temporary and ultimate, including enlightenment. So, because of that, being able to offer the victory and take the loss, you are happy. It is very satisfying, very fulfilling.

As I have mentioned to you before, your victory is something that causes happiness to many sentient beings, offering great benefit to them. Taking the victory is not for you, but for all sentient beings. It is like His Holiness the Dalai Lama not creating violence but fighting for the truth, for the Tibetan people to have their own country and total religious freedom, to preserve and spread the Dharma in Tibet and in the rest of the world, for the Dharma to exist for a long time, and for it to flourish and spread all over the world. His Holiness is fighting for this because people are not happy. In China, there is no religious freedom and people are unhappy. One has to think of the benefit for sentient beings in the decisions we take. Which, taking the victory or the loss, has most benefit for sentient beings – you make your decision from that basis.

From the Dharma point of view, bearing hardships to create negative karma or to harm others is not perseverance. It is wrong perseverance. However, those who bear hardships to practice Dharma, for realizations, to achieve liberation and enlightenment so that they can liberate and enlighten other sentient beings, are practicing perseverance, one of the six paramitas, because the object is virtue.

Another example is a person living an ascetic life of renunciation in a cave, to achieve liberation and enlightenment so as to be able to enlighten all sentient beings. From a worldly person's point of view, they think this person living in a cave is an object of compassion; they see this life as suffering – having no material possessions and living in a cave instead of a luxury house. From the Dharma point of view, thinking that this person is pitiful is wrong compassion. This is the view of the worldly mind. Sentient beings not practicing Dharma and engaging in negative karma, creating the sufferings of samsara and the lower realms, are objects of compassion. That is unbearable.

It is good to think that in emptiness, there is no gain and no loss. It is very good to think in this way in case you don’t achieve your aim in business. You must think like this over and over. As I mentioned one morning, when I talked about emptiness to you, think of a truly existent “I,” truly existent company, truly existent business, and truly existent funds. In reality, these things have no such true existence, the true existence that appears and that we believe in, such as a real company and business.

Look at this situation as like a dream. Then, all this loss and gain is like a dream. Then, you get the feeling that it isn’t important, that it's nothing. That's what we should do. Try those methods in meditation. Don't bring yourself down and make yourself unhappy. I want you to have a very, very long life. Remember that the appearance of this life is very short; it can stop any minute, hour, or day. Think about this business loss as like a water bubble. Also, even if the whole world criticizes you, it's nothing. Even if people give you a bad reputation, it's nothing when you think of impermanence and death.

Overall, in this case, what seems to be needed is merit. My suggestion to you is to make many offerings. I have asked two people to buy prayer wheels turned by candles for you. It's important to replace the old candle when it burns down so that the prayer wheel is always turning. This is a very special method. I also have special dakini mantras and prayers and requests to help to eliminate obstacles.

So for now, thank you very much for all your generosity and support for me and the organization. It's wonderful.

With much love and prayer...