Eliminating Life Obstacles

Long-life Practices and Animal Liberation
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student with life obstacles.
Dear one,
Rinpoche has checked and you have some life obstacles. You need to:
- Recite the Amitayus Long Life Sutra 72 times
- Take the Hayagriva long-life initiation
- Liberate 2,000 animals, in either Aptos or Singapore
Animal Liberation to Remove Life Obstacles
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student with life obstacles.
My very dear Connor,
I was recently checking for one student and your name came up. Anyway, I checked and this year it seems there is some obstacle for you.
It came out for you to liberate 300 animals who are in the danger to be killed. It can be fish or some small animals and some big ones. If you don’t have much money, then you can also buy crickets or worms. In one plastic bag, there can be up to 1,000 crickets or worms, so you can do like that and include some bigger animals who are going to be killed if possible. If you can liberate 1,000 animals, this is best. You can buy them from a pet shop that uses them to feed to other animals, like snakes and so forth. That is one easy way to save many animals quickly.
Please make sure the motivation when doing the practice is not just for your long life, but for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the long life of all the holy beings, the long life of all the Sangha who spread the Dharma teachings, so that Dharma can last a long time and for the long life of all the students who do good things, for all those who recite OM MANI PADME HUM and for all those who are doing good in this world for other people, for those who are living in morality and so forth. By dedicating to everyone’s long life, you collect most unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable merits.
It also came out for you to read the Amitayus Long Life Sutra 70 times. This is also great for purification. Then it also came out for you to take a long-life initiation—as soon as you can would be best.
With much love and prayers...
Imminent Life Obstacles
A student with life obstacles that year needed to do the following practices.
- Liberate 100 animals
- Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra eleven times
- The puja lü-dang-sadag-gi-don-drol [Liberating from the harm of the naga and landlord] needs to be done
- Pacifying fire puja and controlling fire puja
Purification Practice for Life Obstacles
Rinpoche checked extensively for a student who had life obstacles and gave the following advice.
1) Chi lu puja (betraying the death).You can ask Geshe Ngawang Drakpa to do this.
2) Paint the Boudha and Swayambhunath stupa. This also entails offering umbrellas and banners to the stupas. [Note: This is something that Rinpoche does every month ; it costs about $350 to do this offering. Kopan Monastery takes care of this, but it can be arranged for you, or you are welcome to do it.]
3) The whole Prajnaparamita needs to be read. This takes about seven days. The Gyume monks in Dharamsala come out best to do this for you, so for this you can email the director of Tushita Centre and ask her to arrange it. Ask for the cost first and also work out the food offering and the offering to each monk. The director of Tushita can give you some guidance about this; she may know what is normal.
4) It is most important for you to do White Heruka practice every day in the early morning, for the next four months.
You need to do more purification practice and collect merit; it seems there is something heavy. Also do tonglen more, as well as practicing the five powers in your life as well as at death time. [Find links to the booklet Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death in the FPMT Catalogue.] Pay attention to this practice and study it more. It is good to make preparation, anyway. With the world situation now and all the disasters, it is more possible to die than to live, so it is wise to think like this, to prepare for death now and not to think that you will live forever.
Life Obstacles in Near Future
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who had obstacles to her life.
I received the letter from your students, asking for you to stay in the area. I read it all. Then I checked for quite a long time. It seems that you may have some life obstacles in the near future, so I checked what was best for you to do to overcome these:
- Take a long-life initiation.
- Liberate 500 animals – according to my method (taking them around holy objects). This is something your students could do with you.
- Do Tendrel Chi-lu 500 times. This is the practice of betraying death by reciting the King of Prayers.
- Practice White Heruka each day.
- Recite the Sanghata Sutra 60 times.
- Recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra five times.
- Print 80 long-life sutras (I can send it to you if you don’t have it.)
- You need to have the Gyanag Kok tok recited 400 times. This is a text to recite when it is your obstacle year.
Regarding teaching at the center and around the town, this came out as very good.
Pujas to Pacify Life Obstacles
A student was experiencing many obstacles and wrote to Rinpoche asking for advice.
I have checked, and there will also be obstacles next year. The following are the pujas that should be performed. The most beneficial thing for you to do to eliminate these obstacles and health issues for now and next year is reciting the Arya Manjushri Sangita Sutra as much as you can.
Then, you need to have the recitation of the Prajnaparamita (all three versions) performed. You can request this to be done by Kopan Monastery or Bati Khamtsen.
Also, you should do White Heruka long-life practice regularly.
Then, have Namgyal Tsechog performed, also by either Kopan or Bati Khamtsen.
Next year you need to take a long-life initiation. Lama Tsongkhapa is the best.
The pujas can pacify the very, very bad year ahead. For the price of 100 momos I will make a phone call to Yama to sort out the mess. I will explain to Yama your wish to benefit others and become enlightened.