A Great Inspiration to the World

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

Thank you very, very, very much for all the help you gave me in the past.

So yes, now you are in the pure land, in the mandala, so it is like that. I think I must have told you that when someone does strict retreat, at that time they don’t meet people, they don’t meet dogs and birds (I’m joking), they don’t meet any people. So it can be just exactly like that when you are living in prison; it can be exactly like doing a retreat. It’s like that—you don’t meet people, you’re just alone, and all day long you have time to do what you need, to practice and study and all that. So it is exactly the same as where you are now.

In Tibet, of course, so many people passed away in prison, but there are some monks or some lamas or maybe even lay people, who went to prison and some of them got higher realizations by being in the prison. They got very high realizations. I don’t know about achieving enlightenment, but they developed their mind and they got very high realizations in the prison. These stories did happen and then they passed away in an incredible way, with incredible signs.

So, everything has to do with the mind. Hell comes from the mind and enlightenment comes from the mind, so our mind is the creator and it’s up to us. Even everyday happiness or problems are up to us—every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

If we have a positive mind, then everything’s happy, also the actions we do with our body, speech and mind create good karma and cause happiness. When our mind is negative, having attachment, anger, ignorance, the self-cherishing thought, especially ignorance, anger, attachment, then there’s pride and so many other delusions, then we make our life [unhappy]. The actions of our body, speech and mind become negative karma and that becomes the cause of unhappiness, suffering. Even in that day, that hour, that minute, that second, our life becomes unhappy. So it’s up to the mind.

On the same day we can have happiness or we can have problems. If we change our mind from a negative mind, a negative way of thinking, a wrong way of thinking; if we change from that to a positive way of thinking, then we will have happiness, our problems are stopped, there are no problems. But if we change our mind from positive into negative, we didn’t have problem before but now, now we find problems. It is like that.

We’re the main person, even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, and of course, there are numberless sentient beings—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings—the suffering beings from beginningless rebirth. Then there are numberless beings who have become enlightened, those who met Dharma, then from life to life developed on the path and became enlightened, so at the same time they are like this.

I will give one example. If we fall into the fire—so this is an example—then somebody sends us a rope from the top to save us, that rope is the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha; the rope is Dharma. We have to recognize that’s the rope so that we can become freed from the fire by being pulled up.

If we don’t recognize that the rope is there to help us or if we don’t catch it, then we don’t hold onto it. If we recognize that the rope is to free us from the fire, then we hold it very tightly, we hold the rope one-pointedly and then the people at the top can pull us out, so then we will be free from fire.

Basically, it depends on us whether we recognize the rope or not, whether we hold it, whether we believe in that rope by one-pointedly holding it. We have to recognize that, we have to do that. So it depends on us, it is up to us, since we’re the main person who decides either to hold or not hold onto it.

This is very important. Our mind is the main creator, therefore the enlightenment, the happiness, is just there. So it’s up to our mind every day, every second. Enlightenment is just there, enlightenment is right there. Thank you very much.

I don’t remember what I said to you last time, but anyway, I think you are incredible, incredible, a great, great, great inspiration to the world, because you have memorized The Wheel of Sharp Weapons. Wow! I do have a plan to give a commentary on The Wheel of Sharp Weapons here at Kopan Monastery, Nunnery, but I haven’t done that yet.

Then Lama Atisha’s teaching, The Jewel Garland, the thought transformation [verses], this teaching. That’s the first one, so I want to do that. And then The Wheel of Sharp Weapons is the last teaching that I’m supposed to give commentary on.

The other one the abbot of Kopan requested is Lama Tsongkhapa’s most important teaching on the interpretive and definite meaning, the well-explained heart teaching. So I have to do a lung of that, not that I can teach it, but I can just give a lung of that because I have received it several times from Geshe Sopa, from His Holiness, and recently from the incarnation of Kyabje Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, whose previous incarnation was His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s guru.

He received it from Serkong Dorje Chang, who was his father. Serkong Dorje Chang complete the path, he achieved enlightenment. So Serkong Dorje Chang received it from Lama Tsongkhapa, who appeared and then he heard the whole teaching, so like that. So I have the near lineage and that’s why they want a lung of that.

I think you’re far better than me, a better Dharma practitioner, because you memorized The Wheel of Sharp Weapons. That’s incredible, the whole world should know what you have done, what you have accomplished. That’s great. I wonder what is the next one that you’re going to do—it will be unbelievable.

Then The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas. If you can [memorize] that, it will be unbelievable, so good. The Thirty-Seven Practices are so good, unbelievably good; that’s another one.

Then, after that, the praise that Lama Tsongkhapa wrote, Dependent Arising: A Praise of the Buddha. Buddha has revealed dependent arising, so again, you see, that is a small prayer and there’s also a big one. This is the short one, the interpretive meaning, well-explained, the heart of the teaching. [If you can memorize] the short one, this is so good, wow. That will be incredible.

The Thirty-Seven Practices are so good, for example, when our life is in trouble or something. Whether our life is in trouble or not depends on our mind. One way, in our life we have incredible freedom to practice Dharma, to learn Dharma, so it can be really positive, but if we think in a negative way, then it becomes great suffering.

For most people it becomes very big suffering, but for Dharma practitioners it becomes the happiest life. Wherever you can study Dharma and you can meditate, so you have freedom, mental freedom, but not the physical freedom.

Thank you very, very, very much for this.

With much love and prayers ...