Diamond Cutter Sutra

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

Thank you very much your kind letter, expressing the difficulties of your family and their needs. I am very sorry for the long delay in replying.

It would be so beneficial if both of you can read the Vajra Cutter Sutra.

This is the Buddha’s teaching to realize the ultimate nature, to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering forever, so that includes all the problems of the six realms—every problem of hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, sura and asura beings, all sentient beings’ sufferings, every problem.

This sutra comes out very, very good for both of you to recite, also to purify your negative karma and all your difficulties, such as not finding a job.

Then specifically for you, it is also good to read the Golden Light Sutra. This seems very good to do, not only for your life situation but it also brings happiness to all sentient beings. It brings them to enlightenment and by the way, your life is taken care of. If you can read it four times a week, that is very good.

The motivation is to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara and bring them to peerless happiness, buddhahood, by yourself alone, therefore you need to achieve enlightenment. That includes ceasing all the difficulties in the world and bringing peace and happiness to this world. It includes even freedom for Tibet—total freedom and Dharma in Tibet—total freedom for what they need, so it includes all that. When you read the sutra, in the beginning you should remember all this and [motivate] to solve the global problems as well.

With much love and prayers

It’s a very good idea to do retreat for six months, and good to do some preliminaries first. It comes out for you to recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra 5,000 times. Of course, this will take some time, so start your six-month retreat like this:

In the mornings do Lama Chöpa (Guru Puja) then do a session of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. In the afternoons you could do more and your daily prayers, and then finish with the King of Prayers in the evening. This just gives you a general idea. Then after some time—giving yourself time without having to rush—do Heruka retreat.

Later, when you are continuing your normal life after retreat, try to complete 5,000 readings of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Rinpoche himself needs to read the Diamond Cutter Sutra ten times for the sick nuns.

Buddha said to Rabjul, "The benefits of the Diamond Sutra are as follows—listening to the Diamond Sutra generates merit far greater than the merit gained from making charity of the body as many times as there are grains of sand in the River Ganga, for 10,000 trillion eons. One generates a vast amount of merit. Therefore, there is no need to say how much merit is gained by anybody who writes it, receives it, memorizes, keeps, reads, tries to understand its meaning, and purely reveals it to others. Rabjul, the merit gained through this Dharma is inconceivable."

Just keeping the text generates so much merit and even more by revealing it to others. Listen to this teaching and don’t give up.

Buddha said to Rabjul, “The place where the text is read becomes worthy of being worshipped by devas, humans, and non-devas of the world. That place becomes worthy of prostrations and circumambulation—it becomes like a stupa. Anyone who receives the words of this sutra and then memorizes it, keeps it, reads it, and tries to understand the meaning will have a deeply significant experience.

“Why, Rabjul, those sentient beings who have committed non-virtuous actions which cause them to be reborn in the lower realms will experience those karmas in this life. The non-virtuous actions of past lives, which cause us to be reborn in the evil god realm are completely purified, and they will achieve enlightenment.”

The Diamond Cutter Sutra is unbelievable. It is one of the most profitable practices, because the root of all sufferings, yours and others, is the ignorance holding the “I” as truly existent, even though it is empty of that; and the ignorance holding the aggregates as truly existent, even though they are empty of that. The only antidote to cut that, to get rid of that, and through which to achieve liberation, the total cessation of the causes of suffering – delusions and karma – is the wisdom realizing emptiness. This is the subject of the Diamond Cutter Sutra: emptiness. So, each time you read it, it leaves such a positive imprint. Without taking much time, without much difficulty, it is easy to actualize wisdom.

You also create a lot of merit, so it helps to actualize bodhicitta quickly, together with all the other realizations. That’s the business, that’s the deal with the Diamond Cutter Sutra. You create so much merit for whatever you wish. You help others and you achieve all your wishes easily. If you recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra many times, of course there is no more worry about death at all: goodbye fear of death, goodbye fear of the lower realms. Almost, you can say, “A Diamond Cutter Sutra a day, goodbye lower realms.” There’s a saying in the West,” An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” With the Diamond Cutter Sutra you can say “Goodbye doctor!” Also, you can say “goodbye” to self-grasping, which has cheated you and totally controlled you from beginningless rebirths, and made you suffer countless times, from beginningless rebirths, in the oceans of hell sufferings, hungry ghost sufferings, animal sufferings, human being sufferings, sura sufferings, asura sufferings, and intermediate state being sufferings, etc. Also, reading it is an incredible way to collect extensive merit. If you read, listen to, or hear about the Diamond Cutter Sutra with faith, your mind collects a mind-blowing amount of merit. It is incredible, wow! It makes you laugh.

By having heard the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and not giving up your faith, merely from that you collect an inconceivable amount of merit. It is far greater than, for example, giving your body in an act of charity to sentient beings, in the morning, for the number of times equaling the sand grains of the River Ganga. This is not the River Ganga in India, it refers to the Pacific Ocean; and the sand grains are not what we usually think of, they are very tiny atoms, one of the seven types of subtle atoms. Then, again at noon, you make charity of your body to sentient beings that many times. Then, in the evening, again, you make charity of your body to sentient beings that many times, of the number of subtle atoms of sand grains in the Pacific Ocean. You do this every day for eons. The merits from even one day practicing that much charity to sentient beings, let alone three times a day for many eons, is immense. Even giving just one body to sentient beings is incredible, and the benefits are equally wonderful.

Even if you practiced charity like that each day for many eons, it collects a small amount of merit compared to hearing the Diamond Cutter Sutra and not giving up faith. That means if you keep it, read it, memorize it, and study its meaning, then you collect far greater merits. Reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra is a powerful source of purification of all previous negative karmas collected since beginningless rebirths. This is in addition to the merit you collect by reading it or just by keeping it with you.

The most important thing is that each time we read it, it plants a seed, an imprint, to realize emptiness. The more you read it, the more imprints it leaves on the mind. So, it becomes easy to realize emptiness. It becomes quicker and quicker to realize emptiness in this life. If you don’t realize it in this life, then you can realize it more quickly in future lives. Then, by developing this wisdom, you achieve the wisdom of great insight unified with shamatha. You can meditate on emptiness unified with shamatha and are able to experience rapturous ecstasy of the body and mind. Then, through this, you are able to achieve the direct perception of emptiness that eliminates the defilements and the disturbing thoughts, first, by eliminating the intellectual all-obscuring thought, and then the simultaneously born one. That is how you achieve liberation, by eliminating that completely, including the imprint, the seed. Then, with bodhicitta, the direct perception of wisdom eliminates even the subtle defilements, and you achieve omniscient mind. With this, you are able to do perfect work for sentient beings. You are able to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment. This is the goal of our life: to bring sentient beings to enlightenment. When that happens, when we are able to do that, we have achieved our goal.

Advice for Performing Many Recitations:
You can do some of your recitations in the form of retreat. At other times, like when you are working, then you can recite it one, two, or three times every day. Then, again, do some recitations in the form of retreat for two, three, seven days, a month, or a few months. When you recite it in the form of a retreat, do a half-hour or one hour lamrim meditation and then spend the rest of the session reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra, say, for two hours. That is just an idea, the amount of time is up to you. It’s not fixed. If you can combine it with lamrim meditation, that would be extremely good.