Disharmony in the Family

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much, I received your happy birthday message. I’m going to talk about how to think.

Your sister is the most kind person for you; she is helping you develop bodhicitta. If there’s bodhicitta, then there’s enlightenment. Then you can liberate numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras and asuras, numberless beings in each realm, from samsara, from the oceans of suffering, and not only that, you can bring them to the state of total cessation of obscurations and the completion of realizations, sang gye, buddhahood, by yourself. Therefore, bodhicitta is the root of the path to enlightenment. She is helping you to generate bodhicitta.

The obstacle to bodhicitta is the self-cherishing thought. The enemy to bodhicitta is the self-cherishing thought. So what she says “You’re breaking … blah, blah, blah,” whatever she says that you don’t like, that is destroying your self-cherishing thought. That is so good, most kind. Even if you offer numberless wish-granting jewels filling the sky—not dollars but numberless wish-granting jewels, [you can’t repay your sister’s kindness.]

If you have one wish-granting jewel and put it on a banner on the fifteenth [of the Tibetan calendar], then whatever material needs you have in this life, you get them immediately, right after your prayer.

It’s like Sai Baba. I don’t know if you heard, but he moves his hand and then he gives dust to many people, but to some people he gives watches, gold strings and different things. It’s not just for a short time; they can keep those things for their whole life. It’s not an illusion. I heard that in Delhi some people do magic and they give a whole bunch of money into people’s hands, but when they arrive home there’s no money there. It’s an illusion, magic. This is not like that. Of course, first you must have unbelievable, most unbelievable, unbelievable merit. That’s the main cause. The condition is the wish-granting jewel. You pray to that jewel, and it has the power to actualize materials and to actualize immediately whatever you pray for, all the material needs. How many helicopters you need, how many swimming pools you need, how many apartments you need, all that, how many jet planes you need, ships, whatever you need, I don’t know what else. Whatever you pray for gets materialized in the next second or minute, like that.

Like that, even if you give her not only one but numberless wish-granting jewels filling the whole sky, still you can’t repay the kindness of her letting you generate bodhicitta and helping you to destroy your self-cherishing thought. It is the enemy that has harmed you since beginningless rebirths, is harming you now, and will also cause harm in the future until you generate bodhicitta realization. It harms like that and has caused harm to you, all those oceans of samsaric sufferings.

Not only that, with the self-cherishing thought, by following the self-cherishing thought, we harmed numberless sentient beings already, many times—not just once but numberless times since beginningless rebirths. All the sentient beings we have killed and eaten, and this is included in all the harms until now and while we continue with the self-cherishing thought it harms sentient beings. Like that. That’s why we need to generate bodhicitta as quickly as possible.

Bodhicitta benefits every being. There’s not one ant, not one tiny insect left out. It benefits every single being’s happiness, everybody. It brings peace to everybody; it frees them from the oceans of suffering of samsara and brings them to enlightenment, peerless happiness. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! Can you imagine how important it is? We need to generate bodhicitta right now, without delay of even a second. We can see the benefits of bodhicitta by reading the Bodhicaryavatara, the beginning chapter, and Verses in Praise of Bodhicitta by Kyabje Khunu Lama Rinpoche, my guru.

Even if you give her skies full of wish-granting jewels, you can never repay the kindness of her helping you. She’s the best help for you to destroy the enemy, the self-cherishing thought that harms you and harms all sentient beings, numberless sentient beings, past, present and also future. Now you recognize what is right, what is wrong. Now you see.

If we don’t exchange our happiness and others’ suffering; if we don’t exchange well, if we don’t change completely, we cannot achieve enlightenment. There’s no happiness, even in samsara, leave aside the happiness of future lives. Even the works of this life cannot succeed.

The great bodhisattva Shantideva said in the Bodhicaryavatara,

[6:106] If I didn’t harm others like this, nobody would harm me.

So you really have to understand that whatever she does is what you did, how you treated her in the past. It is not necessarily the past of this life; it could be a million, trillion or numberless eons ago, how you treated her. This is a result. How she treated you this time is the result of that. So basically, this came from you, how she treats you and everything you don’t like. It all comes from your mind.

Furthermore, Shantideva said,

[6:42] In the past I gave similar harm to the sentient beings.
Therefore, sentient beings harming me this time is worthwhile.

Basically, one thing is, it makes us accept what happens when we follow our mind of self-cherishing. That is a dictatorship, because we think, “I can harm others, but nobody can harm me!” That is a totally wrong reason, with no logic. So it’s totally a dictatorship. The self-cherishing thought is totally a dictatorship, therefore it is to be abandoned totally. As mentioned before, from beginningless rebirths it has been harming us up until now, and when we follow that, when we don’t abandon that, it will continuously harm us without end. Not only that, it harms numberless sentient beings and has done so since beginningless rebirths. That’s what our self-cherishing thought has done—harmed! If we still follow that, then we will harm numberless sentient beings without end. So that’s our real enemy. Outside of that, anyone who harms us, even the mosquitoes, all those ants who bite, even people, this is the result of what we have done. We have harmed them in the past and it came from our mind, our self-cherishing thought. Like this, we have caused harm with the self-cherishing thought toward all sentient beings, instead of bringing them peace and happiness and especially ultimate happiness, liberation and enlightenment.

It is mentioned by Shantideva, the great bodhisattva, the holy being and Indian pandit,

[6:47] First, my own karma persuaded others,
Then I received this harm from them.
Therefore, didn’t I lose sentient beings in the hole of the hell?

That means because we gave harm in the past, we created the karma, then as the result we receive harm from sentient beings. By making someone create negative karma, we cause that sentient being to be reborn in hell. After disappearing from the human realm, that being is born in hell, in the hole of the hell. If we fall down from a precipice, then we fall down in the hole of the hell, the hole of the fire, something like that. Of course, it’s not just fire, it’s hell. Didn’t we do that? Didn’t we make the sentient being get lost in the hole of the hell? So by this, instead of harming back, getting angry and harming back, we should develop compassion for that sentient being, as we caused all this to that sentient being. We need to develop compassion and with that we help them in whatever way we can.

If we are Buddhist, then we can recite one mala of OM MANI PADME HUM and dedicate for that person to have all the happiness up to enlightenment, buddhahood, for them to receive this. Whatever we can do to help others, instead of harming, help them. This is very good. When others harm us, we use that to develop compassion and to help. This is so great, so good. It makes us so happy and healthy, and our lives become meaningful.

Please think here, from the Bodhicaryavatara, by the great holy being Shantideva,

[6:73] If I cannot bear even this present suffering,
Then why don’t I dispel the anger that causes the suffering of hell?

What he is saying is that if we cannot bear the present suffering, then of course, what about the heaviest suffering in samsara, which is hell suffering? The cause of that suffering is the anger that is arising now, so why don’t we dispel that anger which is the cause of the heavy suffering? This is incredibly logical, so please don’t forget it. Please remember it every day, every day, especially with your sister. Without practicing patience, by getting angry, we are creating the cause, each time, for the heaviest suffering in samsara—hell suffering.

Nagarjuna, the second Buddha, who propagated the teachings on the Middle Way, the right view of emptiness taught by Buddha, wrote six different texts on emptiness called u ma rik tsok druk [Collection of Reasoning]. They’re incredible, incredible, incredible!

From his teachings in the Letter to a Friend, please understand this:

[86] However much suffering there might be
From being violently stabbed for one day with three hundred sharp spears,
Even the smallest suffering in the hell realms
Has no comparison with that.

[87] Even if you experience unbearable suffering like that
For hundreds of millions of eons,
As long as your nonvirtuous karma has not finished,
Your life won’t be free from suffering.

 Here in this human realm, in one day, if three hundred spears, short spears, are so heavily (painfully) put inside us, there’s no need to say how painful it is. It’s great pain, but if we compare this to a small suffering of hell, there’s no comparison.

There’s no comparison at all! There’s no way to explain. Even human beings’ greatest suffering—the greatest, unbelievable, most unbelievable—when compared to a small hell suffering, it is great peace. Human suffering is great peace, unbelievable peace and happiness, compared with a small suffering of hell. Following from that, even if we experience the most unbearable suffering for a million or ten million eons, or a hundred [million] times, until that nonvirtue finishes, that suffering never separates from our life.

Here, I want to tell you, to emphasize to you, what happens if merits are not dedicated well. Firstly, it’s so difficult for the actions of body, speech and mind to become Dharma, to become virtue, to collect merits which cause happiness in a higher realm, a deva or human rebirth, liberation from samsara and ultimate happiness, including the peerless happiness of enlightenment. All these come from virtue, from merits.

It’s so difficult to create virtue and for it to become Dharma. Generally, for actions to become Dharma, the mind, the motivation has to be Dharma, has to become virtuous. It’s so difficult, mainly because of the attachment to this life, to the happiness of this life. [We want] to have pleasure and not have suffering, to have interesting sound and not hear uninteresting sounds, to have praise, being attached to praise, and to not have criticism, and to have wealth and pleasure. We have attachment to pleasure and attachment to not being in poverty, attachment to receiving materials. Our life is totally controlled by attachment. As an analogy, we’re under the control of this, like a tsunami. From the ocean, the water comes and floods the whole city, and all the houses are covered by water.

Then, even the action which would become Dharma, pure Dharma, if it is not dedicated to achieving enlightenment for sentient beings, for ourselves to be enlightened for sentient beings, then all those merits, how much we have collected, they all get destroyed by anger arising. It’s like burnt rice, which cannot grow; it’s totally wasted. So it makes our life meaningless, empty, with no essence. It destroys the life and what is left is only suffering, no happiness. All the virtue gets totally destroyed, even though we collected it.

Then, not only that, we have to be in the hell realm, like that, for such a long time, and we have to suffer with heavy suffering. For example, if we are not a bodhisattva and we get angry with a bodhisattva who has bodhicitta, a holy being—if we get angry for one second, we create the karma to be reborn in the hell and suffer for one thousand eons, suffering like that. Depending on how many seconds we get angry for, then it’s unbelievably, unbelievably worse. We suffer for so many eons, unbelievable, unbelievable.

The third one is that realizations, like renunciation, bodhicitta, right view and so forth, the whole path to enlightenment, gets delayed for so many eons.

The great yogi Padampa Sangye, who lived during Milarepa’s time, said,

Even though [you think others] cause your happiness and suffering, the root is yourself.  

This verse comes from The Hundred Verses of Advice, which he gave to the people of Tingri. Every day, when you get pleasure, or when someone is helping you or harming you or whatever, every day when help or harm happens, you have to remember this quotation—that the root is yourself, your mind. You caused this, whether it is pleasure, people doing some good for you, or whether they are harming you. You are reminded of the root. The cause is that you harmed others.

Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa mentioned,

Bad conditions are your virtuous friend.
And these obstacles are persuading you to practice virtue.
The suffering is the broom clearing away negative karma.
Therefore, don’t let the mind be unhappy.

That means rejoice, be happy, enjoy!

Just to mention another example. This is very scientific. Let’s say someone wrote on the blackboard A, B or C, D, whatever. Before we’re taught “This is A, this is B, this is C, D,” we can see just lines, because we don’t know. This is going back to childhood time. Because we are not taught, our mind doesn’t label A, B, C, D, thinking, “That is A, B, C, D.” We don’t label and because we don’t label, as a result, there’s no appearance of, “This is A, this is B, this is C, this is D.” Therefore, the first time, we don’t see “This is A, this is B, C, D.” That is very clear. This is before we are taught by someone that, “This is A, this is B, this is C, this is D.”

After, someone introduces, “This is A, B, etc.,” then, by believing that, our mind labels and not only labels, it merely labels, “This is A, this is B, this is C, D.” The mind merely imputes because of seeing the valid basis, A, B, C, D, the lines. Because of seeing the lines—the valid base—then, because of that, the second time there’s the appearance, “This is A, B, C, D.”

Then the third time we see “This is A, B, C, D.” Seeing only comes at the third time. This is the evolution, but it is so quick and fast, we don’t recognize it normally. How we see this A, B, C, D, is not what is merely labeled by our mind. It should appear from there, merely labeled by mind but of course, it doesn’t appear to us, including to the I, like that.

Because the ignorance holding the I, the real I, the truly existent I, left a negative imprint from beginningless rebirth on the continuation of our consciousness, therefore, the third time, when the A, B, C, D appears, what is merely labeled by our mind previously, we see as the real one, the real A, real B, real C, D. “Real” means appearing from there, existing from there. At that time, the negative imprint decorated it. Due to the negative imprint left by or collected by the ignorance holding the I, which is the root of samsara, that I which is the merely labeled I the second time is supposed to appear as that to us. However, at that time, all the negative imprints left by the wrong concept holding the I, which is the root of samsara projects or decorates a real I, real, truly existent, existent by nature, existing from its own side, the real one. The A, B, C, D is also like that.

The second time, that which is merely labeled by our mind, when it appears back to us, then it doesn’t appear to us merely labeled by mind but it appears back as a real one, truly existent, existing by nature, by itself. It is decorated immediately by the negative imprint left by the wrong concept holding that things are truly existent. There’s the hallucination. That’s how the hallucination of real A, B, C, D, thinking that they are truly existent, is created and comes into existence. So basically, it is created by our mind, it came from our lesser mind, our ignorance.

When other people are complaining to us or disliking us, physically doing actions that we don’t like, speaking badly and in our mind appearing bad, all these hallucinations came from our own mind, were created by our mind, our wrong concept, our own wrong concept.

We can see now that there’s nothing to complain about to that person—the complaint is with us, therefore we need to change our mind. We need to totally change our mind. That is the biggest, most important, the utmost important meditation, practicing this awareness in everyday life. This mindfulness is real, real, real, real mindfulness. We should do that all the time. Then our mind can relax in peace, great peace, then especially, we will realize emptiness, then, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

When that happens, we will be free from the oceans of suffering of the six realms of samsara. Then we can generate strong compassion for sentient beings because they have this ignorance, such a huge ignorance in life, they have this hallucination. Wow, wow, wow, wow! This is terrifying, most terrifying. Unbelievable compassion for others arises, then bodhicitta arises from that, the precious thought of enlightenment, wanting to achieve that for sentient beings in order to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.

We develop wisdom possessed by bodhicitta and we develop bodhicitta possessed by wisdom, completely developed, then we are not only free from samsara but we are also able to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering. Not only that, we are able to remove even the subtle obscurations. By removing the gross obscurations we become free from samsara, but here, because of bodhicitta, the wisdom which realizes emptiness is such that, put it this way, the method, bodhicitta, ceases the subtle obscurations. By developing those two (bodhicitta and wisdom) we are able to complete the merits of wisdom and the merits of virtue, and then we are able to achieve the result, dharmakaya and rupakaya, the holy mind and body of a buddha. Then we are able to do perfect works for sentient beings and the purpose of being born—having received not only the precious human rebirth but the perfect human rebirth this time—is fulfilled, finished.

The ultimate benefits are bringing sentient beings to enlightenment, freeing them from samsara, from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to enlightenment. This happens to every sentient being—to every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every ant, every human being, every sura, every asura and intermediate state being. Then we say, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! Then say goodbye.

With love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind email. I am sorry for the many eons of delay in replying to you and to your relative, who I just replied to also.

According to my observation, if you can, look at a picture of the Buddha and then recite the two mantras for success (The Holy Name that Fulfills All Wishes), found in The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). Also, it would be very good to do this daily motivation, The Method to Transform, anyway.

The two mantras for success are:

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

TAYATHA / OM DHARE DHARE / DHARANI BÄNDHE SWAHA

It is best if you recite at least five malas a day of this mantra if you can, but it is so important to recite with bodhicitta.

For success you should also recite:

• Guhyasamaja Root Tantra. Unfortunately, this is not available in English yet. It is slowly being translated, so it is only in Tibetan phonetics, but if you can read Tibetan then that is OK.
• Vajra Cutter Sutra
• Chanting the Names of Manjushri

If you can read Tibetan, then you can do all three or do one each day. This would be unbelievable and most powerful for purification and for success. Recite these for sixteen months if you can. After that you can continue or you can recite one. It can be checked again after that.

Kadampa Geshe Chekawa said:

Put all the blame to one—that means the self-cherishing thought.
Toward others, meditate on their kindness.

This is the greatest instruction. On the basis of Buddha’s teachings, everything comes from the mind. Happiness comes from the mind and suffering comes from the mind, because the mind creates the cause through nonvirtue and virtue.

We have to remember these words in our daily life and when some undesirable things happen, we have to quickly rush and put the blame on our self-cherishing thought. When meeting unfavorable conditions, we want to subdue the self-cherishing thought and make it nonexistent.

The buddhas and numberless sentient beings were suffering like us before they became enlightened, but then they changed their mind. They were suffering like us, but instead of cherishing I, which is only one among the numberless sentient beings, they changed and cherished all sentient beings most. They renounced the I; they let go of the I. That’s how they achieved enlightenment.

We are not enlightened yet because we didn’t change our mind. We still renounce others and cherish the I. That is the source of all our sufferings, the door for all the sufferings from beginningless rebirths up to now. We have to experience all the sufferings of the six realms again and suffer in samsara.

When we cherish others, it is the door to all the happiness, and we receive happiness on the same day, right away. The minute we change our mind and cherish others, right away we create happiness, right there, and not only that, we also receive satisfaction and fulfillment. Then we have unbelievable happiness in our everyday life and happiness in all our future lives, liberation from samsara and ultimate happiness, the peerless happiness, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. We are able to cause this not only for ourselves, but for numberless sentient beings in each realm. We cause all this happiness up to enlightenment by cherishing others.

For example, the people downstairs who treat you badly, who don’t like you, who don’t love you, who are angry with you and complain to you, who do whatever is worst—if you look at these people as most positive, then you generate great compassion. You generate compassion for every suffering, obscured sentient being and then from compassion, bodhicitta is generated; from bodhicitta come bodhisattvas; and from bodhisattvas come buddhas.

From the buddhas come their two holy actions. One is the buddhas’ omniscience and one is within us, the virtuous thought and actions, so that is the buddhas’ holy actions. All our past, present and future happiness up to enlightenment—every single happiness—comes from the buddhas’ holy actions. Our virtuous thoughts come from the buddhas and they come from bodhisattvas; bodhisattvas come from bodhicitta; bodhicitta comes from great compassion; and great compassion comes by depending on the kindness of obscured, suffering sentient beings, especially these people downstairs who don’t like you, who blame you.

So now you can see how all your happiness from beginningless rebirths, endlessly— all the happiness, every single happiness, every single comfort—everything is received from the kindness of those who have anger, negative thoughts and blame you. It all comes from them, so they are most precious for you, most dear, most kind, most wish-fulfilling. You should meditate on this every day, doing analytical and fixed meditation on this. After you have realized that they are so precious, so kind, then hold on to that positive mind. Hold that in your mind, then your mind becomes positive. Develop that and keep that in the mind for as long you can.

The other [technique] is to think how sentient beings have been our mother numberless times from beginningless rebirths in different forms, and they have been kind to us. Just as a mother takes care of her child, we can see how much they suffer. There is the kindness of giving birth and the kindness of enduring so much pain, the kindness of protecting our life from hundreds of dangers every day, numberless times. Then they died for us, trying to protect us as much as they could, bearing so many hardships for us, and giving us an education. We have experienced their kindness from beginningless rebirths—wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It’s amazing, amazing, amazing!

If we don’t cherish others and practice patience with them, there is no enlightenment for us. If we cherish them and practice patience, then they give us enlightenment. We get enlightenment from them. They are most precious, most kind, most dear, wish-fulfilling, so we should meditate on all of that.

Those animals that you take care of, it’s excellent, because Buddha sacrificed his life, giving charity for three countless great eons. He gave up his eyes, his body, his limbs, to us sentient beings for three countless great eons, as well as practicing morality for three countless great eons, for us to achieve enlightenment. He practiced patience for three countless great eons for us to achieve enlightenment, to be free from samsara, and he practiced concentration and wisdom for three countless great eons for us to be free from samsara and to bring us to enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Therefore, what you are doing for others, it is nothing [compared to the Buddha], but compared to most people, who don’t do anything to help or to benefit others, it is a great thing for you to do, so you should take care of the animals, but not with attachment. You should take care of them as I already explained, thinking how incredibly kind they are, how precious they are, and with that mind you take care of them.

Every second, every minute, every hour becomes an incredible way to purify our past heavy negative karma and to collect the most extensive merits, and a quick way to achieve enlightenment for ourselves and a quick way to free sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.

Put all the blame on the self-cherishing thought—that means all the undesirable things that happen in this life are the result of our past negative karma, done with the self-cherishing thought, harming others.

Kadampa Geshe Khamglungpa said:

By experiencing this small suffering now,
It finishes my past negative karma
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice in this current suffering.

In the future lives we will have happiness like the sun shining. The sunshine is for everyone to enjoy, for people to enjoy, for animals to enjoy and for the plants grow. Like that there is so much happiness and we attain freedom from samsara and go to enlightenment. So, look at the suffering as positive.

In our lives, whether we experience happiness or suffering, everything comes from our mind. What has been done in the past with the self-cherishing thought becomes suffering and we experience the results in this life, even in one day. We can understand all this by reading about the ten nonvirtues, which are done with the self-cherishing thought, anger and attachment. So we can understand and get the idea from that.

Also it’s very, very important to think that there is no suffering, no problem that we experience in this life without having created the cause, without having caused the problem to others in the past. Therefore didn’t we deserve to receive harm from others as a result of this?

It is now even more important when others harm us to use that situation to generate compassion and to only help others and not harm them.

There is another quotation from the great bodhisattva Shantideva in A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life:

[6:47] First my own karma persuaded others,
Then I received this harm from them.
When others harm me they create negative karma
That makes them fall from the human rebirth.

So they get reborn in hell due to that negative karma; they fall from the human realm and they get reborn in the hole of hell. That means they fall from the precipice; they fall down in the hole where there is hell. If we really understand the quotation, this [result] came from us. If we didn’t harm others in the first place, then we would never receive harm from them. They don’t have to create negative karma and then they won’t have to be born in hell due to their negative karma. Then there is peace and happiness, so much happiness, up to enlightenment.

By harming us they get reborn in the hell realms and suffer for so long, for an unbelievable length of time. They experience the heaviest suffering, and it’s the fault of our self-cherishing thought, our mistakes. In this way we should generate compassion for those who are harming us, and help others in whatever way we can. At least we need to pray for them to be liberated, to not suffer from that karma, to be liberated from the lower realms, to be quickly freed from samsara and to achieve enlightenment. At least we can do prayers and dedicate our merits for them, as much as we can.

This is what I can tell you about how to practice in the situation you mentioned, how to use it for enlightenment.

Please try this as much as you can and live your life with bodhicitta, the thought of benefiting others night and day and in every action you do.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your email. I was happy to receive it and I’m very sorry it took so long to reply to you.

I checked and, if you can, put pictures of the four harmonious brothers—not just one, but more—in the house and in the rooms.

What came out as best for you is to pray to Medicine Buddha and recite Medicine Buddha’s mantra. That is basically for enlightenment, in order to free the numberless sentient beings as quickly as possible and bring them to enlightenment. That includes your family, however, the smallest reason is to be harmonious—that reason is like a tiny atom from the table or like one tiny atom from the mountain, like that. So, make strong prayers to Medicine Buddha.

Please think about what Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa said:

By experiencing this small suffering now,
It finishes my past negative karma
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice in this current suffering.

That means in the future your life will be like the sun shining. The sun is shining for everyone to enjoy—for the people in the world to enjoy, even for the insects to enjoy and for the plants and crops to grow.

This quotation means that your life goes to enlightenment by using the problems in the path to enlightenment, with bodhicitta and emptiness, especially with bodhicitta.

Also, please do tonglen practice and those things. If you don’t know how to do tonglen there are many explanations. For you it is very important to do the practice, to learn it.

This is what you have to remember, not just thinking you are receiving problems with no cause. You created negative karma in the past and treated others like that, so that’s why you are experiencing the result now.

It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva in A Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Previously I must have caused similar harm
To other sentient beings.
Therefore, it is right for this harm to be returned
To me who is the cause of injury to others.
    [Ch. 6, v. 42]

So we have to know this; we have to live your life with this basic understanding. 

It is said by Kadampa Geshe Chekawa, in two advices or instructions which explain that it is so important to transform all our problems into the path to enlightenment:

Put all the blame to one—that means your self-cherishing thought.
Toward all beings, meditate on their kindness,

This means all sentient beings, who come in three types—friend, enemy and stranger. With others, meditate on their kindness. This means everyone, especially the enemy. If we don’t cherish the enemy and don’t practice patience with that person then we can’t achieve enlightenment. If we cherish them and practice patience, then we can achieve enlightenment because of that person. So you have to know that.

Shantideva also mentioned in A Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Because my karma persuaded them, I received this harm from others.
Therefore, didn’t I make that person become lost in the hole of the hell realms?

That means the person is now in the human realm, but by harming us they create the causes to disappear from the human realm in their next life and to be reborn in the hell realms.

But it’s actually our own mistake, coming from the self-cherishing thought. Why is the person harming us now? It is because in the past, due to having treated that person badly, then as a result, the person now harms us.

So now you can see that [the problems] came from the self-cherishing thought, therefore this is not something get angry back at the person and harm them back. You need to use this to generate compassion, to help however you can or at least don’t harm them. Pray, dedicate your merits and recite OM MANI PADME HUM to help that person avoid being born in the lower realms and if born there, to help them, to liberate them, to help them in whatever way you can.

With your life experience you can relate to this. What your daughter is doing to you is helping you to develop compassion; it’s not so you create negative karma, even if she is harming you. In reality this is the cause to make you develop compassion all the time, so please help her, please do not harm her.

You need to think in this way and in reality it will bring incredible joy to your life and will open your mind toward Buddhadharma. You are unbelievably fortunate and it will bring incredible happiness. You can use any problem on the path to enlightenment, and that means you can achieve enlightenment quickly in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara sufferings and not only that, you can bring them to buddhahood as quickly as possible.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim and living your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
[Recently at Vajrapani Institute] I spoke about how dangerous anger is. That is the first thing. Generally in the mind, we should have the idea that anger is a great danger, worse than an atomic bomb.

An atomic bomb can destroy the world, but anger has been harming us from beginningless lives, causing us to be born in the hell realms, in the lower realms; it has destroyed our merits and delayed our realizations. If we get angry with a bodhisattva, if we don’t have bodhicitta, then one thousand eons of realizations are destroyed—our realizations are delayed and we are reborn in the lower realms.

We can see generally that having anger is very harmful, it is our worst enemy. It has been harming us from beginningless rebirths and harming all sentient beings from beginningless rebirths. Even atomic bombs don’t do that, they only destroy the world.

I spoke at Vajrapani Institute recently about this. In my talk there are quotations from A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, especially on how to use our problems to arise compassion for the enemy. It would be good for you to try to get the transcript or video and really study this.

For harmony at home, have the eight auspicious symbols in the house—not only one, but as many as possible. This brings harmony to the family and stops inauspiciousness.

For practice, the best thing is to recite OM MANI PADME HUM. This has more than skies of merits and is the easy way, the quickest way, to be reborn in the pure land. From there we never get reborn in the lower realms, so this is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment. There is nothing more important in our life than reciting OM MANI PADME HUM. In Tibet they are doing this all the time—beggars on the street and  people who are shopping, walking, doing their job and so forth. To recite this mantra with bodhicitta—wow, wow, wow—you must know there is nothing more important than that.

For success, recite the Medicine Buddha mantra and the seven Medicine Buddha names. For sure, this is unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably powerful. These two things you can do for sure.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious one,
It is very good if you keep a lot of the eight auspicious signs. Keep different kinds—cloth, thangkas or wooden ones—all together or separate. Also there are many [images] of the four harmonious brothers, so you can try to get different kinds and have them around.

Yes, it is karma, that is the basic thing. The eight auspicious signs and the four harmonious brothers are for protection from harm and for success.

Do your practice well. Abandon negative karma as much as possible and practice good karma. Especially transform your mind from ego, from self-cherishing, to cherishing others and if possible into bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers ...

You will need:

-  A round mirror
-  Ribbons of the following colors: white, red, yellow, blue and green
-  Sindura powder
-  Water
-  Sugar

The technique:

• First mix the sindura with water and sugar to make a sort of liquid that will stick to the mirror. It needs to have a special consistency and it's good to do trials beforehand.
• On the mirror, write the letters HA RI NI SA SUKSA SIDDHI DZA with the sindura mixture. The letters can be written either like this or in Tibetan script.
• In the middle of the living room, position the mirror facing downwards, with the five ribbons attached to it, like beams in all directions.
• On the western wall of the room, draw a sun and half-moon with the same sindura.