Impermanence and Death

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
I am happy you are well now you have a baby and a husband. It looks like you are happy and the father is also there, but as you know our life is impermanent in nature. It is not permanent and we don’t know when it will change. 

Only Buddha has no death and is totally free from the oceans of samsaric suffering, free from rebirth and old age. Not only the Buddha, even the arhats, dra chom pa, are free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings. All these I have mentioned. Buddha has removed not only the gross delusions but also the subtle defilements. Buddha has no obscurations and has completed all the realizations, so he is called in Tibetan sang gye.

Buddha has shown us how to realize that life is impermanent in nature and death can happen at any time. Buddha has shown the path, the way for sentient beings to realize this. The [opportunity] to meet the teachings of the Buddha is not all the time. It is important to realize that it is only at this time. The teachings are not forever but only at this time, therefore Buddha has shown us death, even though he did not have to die at all.

Please live your life in the most beneficial way, as much as possible for sentient beings, with the good heart and bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
First, I want to thank you from my heart for your work recently, taking responsibility for organizing the big retreat. People found it beneficial for their minds, and also, at that time I gave teachings. So I’m extremely happy.

It’s very good that you have taken the opportunity to learn from Geshe Namdak. It’s extremely, extremely worthwhile. He studied for many years at Sera and I think he has studied well, it seems, so it’s very worthwhile for him to teach, to educate the students, including the Western students. I think that’s very, very, very good, unbelievable.

You won’t get mistaken ideas or misunderstanding of different things because he studied for a long time and received many teachings from His Holiness. Therefore, the decision and opportunity you have taken is very, very worthwhile. I’m so happy with that. 

Also, [you are receiving] lojong teachings from Geshe Zopa. Your relatives died and your cat got sick. You know that happens to everybody in this world. After conception, the person’s consciousness goes into the mother’s womb and then that being dies after that. After a few seconds or even after they are fully developed, the body dies. Or they come out [of the mother’s womb], but they die during childhood, in middle age, in old age, or even in one day. People die at any time in their life and in one day many people in the world die. You know that.

Just like us, they too haven’t realized that all six-realm sentient beings—not only those in this world—have been our mother, father, brother, sister, all that. They have all been our enemy, friend and stranger from beginningless rebirths, not just one time. Ordinary people think their father and mother are just for this one life, but all sentient beings have been our parents numberless times since beginningless rebirths.

Of course, their kindness—wow, wow, wow—their kindness. Just briefly, as advised by Kyabje Khunu Lama Rinpoche, they are kind in giving us this body, in particular the human body that allows us to practice Dharma—wow, wow, wow—and to learn Dharma. Wow, wow, wow, what an incredible thing.

We have been given this opportunity to practice Dharma, to never be reborn in the lower realms and to get a higher rebirth, and not only that, by understanding karma and taking refuge, and by learning the three higher trainings, we can become free from samsara and achieve nirvana, liberation from samsara, forever. Wow, wow, wow. Not just for a weekend, for a holiday, for a month or a few weeks, not like that, it’s forever. Wow, wow, wow.

Then bodhicitta. We begin with compassion for all sentient beings, loving kindness and compassion for all the sentient beings, then [we develop] bodhicitta, we practice the six paramitas and achieve enlightenment. Then we become a perfect guide, liberating numberless sentient beings from the lower realms, and not only that, freeing them from the entire oceans of suffering of samsara, and not only that, bringing them to peerless happiness, buddhahood. Wow, wow, wow! 

Lama khyen, lama khyen.

That came from the kindness of our parents. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It’s amazing, amazing, amazing, what we can do for ourselves and what we can do for others. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Amazing, amazing, amazing. They protected our life from danger hundreds of times, from so many hundreds of life dangers every day. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow—the kindness. They bore so many hardships for our life—wow, wow, wow—and they gave us education in the path of the world. They even gave us education from beginningless rebirths, numberless times. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

When we see animals take care of their babies, how they sacrifice their life, dedicate their life, we can’t imagine. And people who take care of their children, how much they sacrifice—wow, wow, wow.

At the airport one time I watched a family with several children and in five minutes I saw how the children cried. One said he wanted this and another one wanted that; it never finished , and there was no peace for the parents. Even after five minutes I got bored, but the parents do this from life to life, for years and years, they sacrifice their life.

We have to relate everything to ourselves. Just as the mother animal takes care of its child, they have also been doing this for us numberless times in our past lives. Everyone has been close to our heart, just like this life’s parents. We feel everyone close to our heart and like that, we feel close to them. Relating to ourselves, in the end we see the real, unbelievable kindness of all the animals and human beings. They bore hardships, protected our life from danger and so forth.

We have to know that even this world will finish; it will become empty. I think there are 80,000 eons, something like that, but I have to check how long the evolution takes—how long it lasts and how long it takes to decay, and then how the whole world disappears and is empty. I think each time it’s 80,000 eons. Therefore, everybody has to die, not only your parents, not only your father, not only your aunt, like that.

The Buddha’s basic teaching is impermanence and death. The first Dharma is renunciation of this life by thinking about impermanence and death. Normally our lives are under the control of the wrong concepts about impermanence. We think that we’re going to live for a long time, and then our Dharma practice is delayed. Although we wish to practice Dharma and we recognize that, it gets delayed. We think that first we have to do the things for this life, for this life’s pleasure, happiness. We try to get that work done, to achieve that. It always goes like that, so then we don’t learn or practice Dharma.

It goes on like that for as long as the life continues, wasted. We’re not just wasting our life, we’re also using the pleasures of this life to collect negative karma, and that results in our rebirth in the lower realms, the hells and so forth. That’s how it looks. We’re not just wasting the life, [we’re also collecting negative karma.] Therefore impermanence and death is a very, very, very important teaching. If we can defeat the concept of permanence and a permanent life, then we can win.

It is not only definite that death is going to happen, but also, the actual time of death can happen at any time of the day or night. It can happen any day, any time. While we are doing something, then death happens. We start something, but don’t finish. While we’re eating, we die. We don’t finish our meal, or while we’re in the bathroom, we die.

There are some students who died already. One Chinese nun died in the bathroom at the Shiné Land [Land of Calm Abiding, an FPMT retreat center]. There’s also one Malaysian student who wanted to be a nun so much, but Khadro-la didn’t really give an inspiring answer. Khadro-la told her to be careful or something; anyway, she died in the bathroom. Another Iranian student, an old student, an extremely kind lady, a mother, died in the bathroom in England. I think she slipped.

Even if we start something, we’re not able to finish and we die. This is very, very important. It’s not for causing fear, that is not the point. The point is to understand that the solution is to practice Dharma right away. That’s the answer, to practice Dharma correctly.

That means correctly devoting to the virtuous friend by looking at the guru as a buddha, by realizing the guru is a buddha, using logic and quotations. Then renunciation, bodhicitta, right view—that’s the common path. The uncommon path is the two stages of tantra. It is very, very important to practice lamrim, and that includes the preliminary practices as well, and then to have lamrim realizations, to purify [negativities] and collect merit.

Correctly devoting to the virtuous friend is the root of the path to enlightenment, the whole entire path. Of course, when you recite OM MANI PADME HUM, or anything else that you do, you can dedicate the merits for your family members who have died, and of course, for all the sentient beings. You can dedicate the merits, of course. That includes dedicating for your parents too. Dedicate for them as well, to help them not to be born in the lower realms, to be free from samsara and to achieve enlightenment. What they need is merit and dedication, so that they can achieve enlightenment. What they need is that.

Thank you very much.

In terms of practice, the main lamrim text for you is Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. As you know, Buddha taught 84,000 teachings, Buddhadharma, which includes the Hinayana or Lesser Vehicle path, as well as the Greater Vehicle path, sutra, and the tantra path.

There are three ways of liberating sentient beings from samsara and bringing them to enlightenment. These are contained in the lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment. There is the graduated path of the three capable beings: the graduated path of the lower capable being in general, the graduated path of the middle capable being in general, and the graduated path of the higher capable being.

Those are combined into the teachings, as Lama Tsongkhapa mentioned in the Three Principal Aspects of the Path.

In the Kagyü and Nyingma tradition, there is lo dog nam zhi, the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to the Dharma, and away from the four wrong concepts, and in the Sakya tradition there is zhen pa zhi drä, Parting from the Four Clingings.

If we divide renunciation into two it becomes four points, but Lama Tsongkhapa made three. If renunciation of both this life and future lives is combined into one aspect, then it becomes three.

The first thing is to study [lamrim] from the beginning to the end. All the instructions are there. Then what comes after that are the meditation instructions. You must do this mindfully, so that everything becomes a meditation.

The whole idea is to bring us closer to the lamrim and to bring the realizations of the path to enlightenment within our mind, so our mind becomes the path to enlightenment for all sentient beings—not just for us, but for the numberless hell beings, the numberless hungry ghosts, the numberless animals, the numberless humans, the numberless suras, the numberless asuras and the numberless intermediate state beings. There are numberless beings in each realm.

Think we’re doing this for everyone; that is important. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Before it was just for oneself, but when we think about any other sentient being—one, two, three, four or five—how much we are suffering becomes less and less and less important. Our own suffering is nothing; it totally disappears. It’s more important to think more and more about the numberless sentient beings.

When you do effortful meditation, the first topic is correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, looking at the guru as a buddha, seeing a buddha by looking at the guru from our own side using quotations and logic. We are not expecting that from the guru’s side—it’s not that we do nothing and expect it from the guru’s side. From our own side we are able to see that. We see hell is created by the mind from our side and enlightenment has to come from our heart, from our mind. Our mind is the creator; everything comes from the mind.

Study Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand four times. Then for two months, do effortful meditation on correctly following the virtuous friend. When you do the lamrim meditation you can use the outlines in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and in The Essential Nectar.

This doesn’t mean you can’t read other lamrim texts. You can read others, then bring your mind back to the outline; that’s how you do it. By reading other lamrim texts that are beneficial for your mind, which are not clarified in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, but are clarified in the others, you can integrate them into that.  

Do effortful meditation following the lamrim outline and repeat that four times. Then do effortless meditation. Thank you very much.

Preliminary practices

• Dorje Khadro fire puja: 70,000. This is a golden Dharma of Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings. It’s very profound and most beneficial.
• Prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas: 300,000. 

Lama Tsongkhapa did so many hundred thousand prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas, then he received realizations like rainfall. In Lama Tsongkhapa’s lineage, some people do one thousand per day in the morning. Some people do three hundred prostrations per day and it’s also very common to do one hundred. It’s an unbelievable practice and a most unbelievable way to collect merit and to purify. If you read about the benefits of the practice of prostration, then you will understand.

• Mandala offerings: 400,000.

This is mentioned as one of the powerful ways to collect extensive merit. The more merit you collect, the easier it is to achieve realizations of the path to enlightenment and to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. That means each mandala offering benefits numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless humans, numberless suras, numberless asuras, numberless intermediate state beings.

That means, as the scientists have found there are 30,000 different kinds of ants, therefore every mandala is for each ant, for each mosquito, for each tiny fly, for those animals in the ocean that we can’t see with the eyes, only with machines, for those that are large like mountains, whales, those in the oceans, in the ground and in the bushes, even those living in people’s and animals’ bodies, all those tiny sentient beings that we can’t see easily with the eyes.

So one mandala is for everyone, you can’t imagine. [By doing this you can attain] wisdom and achieve all the happiness up to enlightenment. This is most incredible, incredible, most unbelievable, most unbelievable, most unbelievable. Even more than that, you will enjoy your life giving happiness to all the sentient beings. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

You can do some in the form of retreat, or if you are working, you can do the preliminary practices in the morning and in the evening, depending on your time. Sometimes you can do retreat and sometimes you can do the practices in a looser way, while you are going to work. Then you will finish over time. That’s incredible, incredible, incredible. What brings more happiness than this! To achieve happiness for sentient beings and to benefit them. Wow, wow, wow.

If you can, read the Golden Light Sutra once each week. More is good, but at least read it once a week. There are the elaborate, middle-length and short versions. I think they are all are in English. You can recite this sutra until your deathtime.

I want to tell you that you are most welcome to enlightenment for sentient beings. Goodbye to samsara and the oceans of samsaric suffering. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I remember Geshe-la telling me that he was making sure, making very clear that one man who was taking refuge really took refuge. So this might be you that he was talking about. Geshe-la said this man was helping him with work filling statues and things like that. So thank you very much for clarifying who you are, your story.

Yes I understand your practice is on and off. It is said that life is in the nature of impermanence and death. It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva that it’s unsure, we cannot understand what will happen first—tomorrow or the next life.

So to attend to the actions of tomorrow or to attend to the actions of next life—which one? That means even eating, sleeping, making food and so forth, our main purpose, our main aim should be making preparation for death, for all the happiness of the next life, not to be reborn in the lower realms, to be born in pure land, to have the body of the happy transmigrator being, a deva or human being. Of course, that means refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and protecting our karma, practicing morality. That causes us to be free from samsara and to achieve ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara.

So we need to practice the three higher trainings, how to generate morality, how to generate concentration and how to generate wisdom, then renouncing the self-cherishing thought and practicing bodhicitta, and the root to the path to enlightenment, and then we will achieve enlightenment, then we’re free, then we can free the sentient beings from samsara by ourselves, and bring them to enlightenment by ourselves.

This is a commentary, what the Bodhicaryavatara says. Also in that text, Bodhicaryavatara, it says we cannot just relax, thinking “I will not die today.” That means not practicing Dharma; that means following delusion and karma. So we continually have to make preparation, to work for the happiness of future lives, not just this one. “Lives” means all the future lives, and all that I explained before, the three levels of happiness.

Also, Milarepa said, from his experience, by remembering impermanence and death we become victorious over laziness. By remembering impermanence and death, whatever we do becomes holy Dharma. That means our actions are not worldly Dharma, nonvirtue, actions done with attachment to this life, including anger and ignorance.

The Buddha’s teachings mention the example of someone who is definitely going to be executed. As the person takes each step toward the place of execution, they reach closer and closer to the executioner. So it’s just like that for all the human beings’ lives.

That means from now on we have a certain number of hours, a certain number of minutes, seconds and split seconds, so our life is over very fast, it’s finishing very fast. It’s like listening to a wristwatch—tsa tsa tsa tsa—like that.

Like the person who’s going to be born in hell, for example, then so fast in the presence of the Lord of Death. Even the heaviest human suffering is great peace compared to the very small suffering of hell. A second passes so fast, then a certain number [of seconds] are finished so fast, so we’re reaching the hells so fast. The reality is like that.

It is mentioned—it takes a lot of time to mention the quote to you, so I will just mention the meaning.

It is mentioned that during that time, our brothers, our family, other people, our parents, etc., bring us lots of gifts, offering flowers and so forth, but however much they give us, we have no interest because we’re going to die, we’re going to be killed. Our main fear is what is going to happen [when we die], so we wouldn’t have any interest in our parents or anybody bringing us so many presents, delicious cake or milkshakes, whatever they bring us on the way. We have no interest, we don’t see any purpose, any meaning, we have no interest. In reality it’s like that.

We don’t think about impermanence and death, therefore we’re not practicing mindfulness. We’re not realized and we’re totally distracted by the pleasures of this life, especially as we think they exist [inherently] from there. They never existed from there; it’s a total hallucination, they’re existing from the mind, they’re merely imputed by the mind. That which exists, there’s nothing from [its own side], but we have the great hallucination that everything exists from there.

The minute we examine it we find it’s wrong, we find that it’s wrong. When we don’t examine it, then we have the hallucination, we believe the hallucination. When we don’t think about impermanence and death, then we have attachment or we think everything exists from there; that’s the basis of hallucination.

By discriminating objects, attachment and anger arises—thinking “bad” and “good” the attachment and anger arises. If we remember impermanence and death, the reality of life—not the reality that this is emptiness, but the conventional reality of life, impermanence and death—it is like that.

So we’re continuously going there to be executed, therefore [at the time of death] when our parents or other people bring us a lot of presents, we have no interest. But if we don’t think about it or we don’t know we’re going to be killed, we’re going to continuously enjoy those things. Of course, if we don’t think about impermanence and death, and we think that life is permanent then of course attachment arises to the pleasures of this life, all the offerings. Then we have attachment to all the things—attachment to all the cakes, the milkshakes, the music—and attachment to all the people, attachment and anger.

The reality of life is it’s like lightning in the sky, when it is totally dark and there’s lightning. For a short time we have a human body and our house and our car and our things—they become clear and then they go away. We don’t realize it now but when we die, that’s how we get the feeling, like this.

Our mind is totally habituated in the concept of permanence, even the life, the mind, I, all this is now the energy of impermanence, but from beginningless rebirth we are habituated in permanence, the hallucination. It’s like a waterfall which doesn’t stop. Every minute it’s continuously falling down and then the water quickly goes away.

In Buddha’s teaching, Gyatso Rowaling, or Extensive Ocean, human beings’ life goes like lightning in the sky. We are going to the death so fast. We are reaching toward our death, which means the Lord of Death and the lower realms, the hell realms, like the waterfall.

Therefore, when we have freedom, power and strength, within that time we must do Dharma practice, we must do Dharma practice. Otherwise, even if our life is long and we go to old age, but we are thinking to do Dharma practice at those times, later, you know, then it’s very difficult to do that in so many ways. It is very difficult to practice Dharma at that time, even if we’re able to live long.

Why? Because life in the world is impermanent and there are the conditions of 424 diseases, 1,000 spirit harms, 360 spirit possessions who harm us, something like that, then 84,000 interferers and 1,080 other things. There are so many conditions for death, so death can happen suddenly.

It is said in the Buddha’s teachings that in the morning [we see] so many people, but in the afternoon we don’t see anybody. That means we’ve already gone, died. We see so many people in the afternoon, but then the next morning, some people we don’t see; that means we’ve gone, died.

The Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelsang Gyatso, said at this present time we are subduing the enemy and developing our friends, having a comfortable body and even the mind. We may be laughing but then when it’s night-time, when dusk comes, then the body is in the cemetery being eaten by birds. In Tibet the body is given to the vultures, it relates to that, or being eaten by dogs. It happens like that; that’s the sense of it being true.

Remember that it often happens, suddenly death happens. Guru Padmasambhava said that even if the king of medicine actually comes to us, if the life is finished he cannot help maintain our life. If the king of medicine comes after we die, he cannot join us back to life. Anybody who is not free from delusion and karma, the cause of samsaric suffering, nobody, no samsaric being, has lived without death. Since we are born there is nobody who didn’t die; there’s nobody.

Of course, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is liberated from [suffering] and has totally ceased delusion and karma, the cause of suffering. He’s totally liberated from suffering and even the arhats are free from suffering. The buddhas have ceased the subtle defilements and they have completed all the realizations, so they don’t have the danger of death, old age and sickness, they are totally free.

Why is Buddha showing the aspect of passing away? That is because if Buddha always lived in this world, then we wouldn’t regard Buddha’s teachings as precious, we wouldn’t realize how precious they are. Also, for people who believe in permanence, to destroy that wrong concept, to help people realize the nature of impermanence and death, the Buddha shows the aspect of passing away. Buddha is totally free from the cycle of death and rebirth, because there is no cause of death and rebirth. There’s no cause, because there’s no delusion and karma.

There’s no one who is very powerful, a lawyer, a judge, or someone involved in a very powerful court case, there’s nothing for death to never happen, for them to never die. Somebody who is an expert in talking, can they stop death? There’s nothing. Somebody who’s so expert in speaking can’t continue to live and never experience death. There’s no such thing.

Also, we can’t have somebody else die for us. In Tibetan it’s called lu, which means somebody else dies for us. There’s no such thing, that we never die, that we can always live.

However much food, wealth, friends we have, there’s nothing we can take with us. We have no choice to be with that when we die. If we pull the hair from the butter, only the hair comes out, so our consciousness alone has to go to the next life. Even this world has begun and has an end, and totally becomes space, we have to know that.

Of course our family, our relatives will die. It’s not only that we, ourselves, will die. This is a small thing to understand. Nobody who is under the control of delusion and karma can live without death until they’re free from that.

So what is missing for you, what I think you need, it seems you didn’t really read well the lamrim, the complete lamrim. It seems you didn’t really go through it. You believe so much in your existence, and that of your family and friends, believing so much that they’re existing inherently. That’s why when something happens you are completely shocked.

If we’re aware of what the Buddha said, then we won’t be shocked. We understand it’s a normal thing, a normal thing. The nature of samsara is impermanence, so we don’t get shocked, we know the nature of suffering is like this and we understand impermanence and death. So it’s a small thing; actually it’s a very small thing.

When we believe that which is impermanent is permanent, then we have a very, very strong shock. Then when impermanence or change happens, when there’s a death in the family, then it’s an incredible shock. Many times, old people, couples who have lived together for a long time, when the husband dies, then the wife also dies soon after.

So it’s very important for you to please read the lamrim text. If possible, read Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, and if that’s not possible, then read Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Read that at least four times from beginning to end. Please read the text mindfully, then that becomes a meditation. You are mentally preparing, planting seeds of realizations of the path to enlightenment, so it’s really, really good. Every day you can spend time on that.

So now, you and I, we don’t live long, we will die quite soon, so please do this every day as much as you can. Read mindfully so that it becomes a meditation. This is very, very important, then in this way you can achieve enlightenment soon. Otherwise, we’re lost in samsara, our life is lost in samsara, so that’s why we get lost again and again.

I’ve explained this much; that the nature of life is death and impermanence.

For purification of all the negative karmas, I suggest you do 200,000 prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas. You can use the Lama Chöpa merit field, because the Thirty-five Buddhas of prostration are there. You can memorize the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, you can record the names with a tape recorder or whatever and while playing the recording you can recite and do the prostrations while reciting at the same time, then later it comes in your heart.

Lama Tsongkhapa, as you know, did so many hundreds of thousands of prostrations by reciting the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, then realizations came like rainfall, so easily. Even if you do prostration to the Thirty-five Buddhas well one time, really well, meditating with the remedy of the four powers, then the five very heavy negative karmas without break—killing one’s father, killing one’s mother, killing an arhat, drawing blood from a buddha or causing disharmony amongst the Sangha—if you did any of these negative actions in this life or in the past, they get totally purified, even by doing [the prostration well] one time. This is unbelievably powerful.

This is how you can be free from the sufferings of the lower realms; free from eons and eons and eons and eons of suffering in the lower realms resulting from one heavy negative karma. The negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths, as much as possible purify this, and you’ll be able to purify even more.

This is the best practice for you to do, so you must do this every day. You can do one hundred at least. In Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition, the Gelugpa tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings, the great practitioners, the holy beings, the ordinary Sangha and the lay people, do many hundreds of prostrations per day, hundreds or thousands, like that. So for you, to do at least 100,000 is very good.

Do this every day and when you do it you can count the prostrations, then sometimes you can do it in the form of retreat. You do four or five sessions, whatever, each day, so sometimes you can do it in that way and then you will finish many more.

For example, you can do seven days, fifteen days, one month, two months or four months of retreat, then when you have less time, when you have work, you can do one hundred or more than one hundred, like that. Then again sometimes you can do retreat, with four or five sessions, whatever you can.

In reality, the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, suras and asuras, everyone has been our mother and father, as you have heard many times. Everyone has been our mother, father, sister, also friend, enemy; everyone has been our friend, our wife, our children, so just like this life’s parents, it’s exactly the same for every sentient being.

You may have heard this explained many times, in the sutras and tantras the basis [of realization] is generating bodhicitta, compassion and bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is what we need to practice with that and to realize emptiness. That’s all I want to let you know. Not only having intelligence, but in order to practice and knowing what to think, the main thing is very much bodhicitta, in order to develop compassion, just like a mother has for her daughter and son.

Rather than using the example of the father for developing compassion, it’s the mother, because it is the person we’re born from and who has been with us the most, taking care of us. So that’s normally who is cherished as the most precious, kindest one.

All sentient beings have been our mother, the kindest to us, so we have to generate compassion for every sentient being, not only being concerned with this life’s parents or cherishing this life’s relatives and only feeling close to them. That is attachment. So what we need is to develop this feeling toward all sentient beings.

According to bodhicitta, everyone has been like our mother, most kind from beginningless rebirths, kind in the four ways of giving us our body, our life, protecting us from hundreds of dangers every day, from conception time not doing an operation, bearing so much hardship for our life, unbelievable, unbelievable, experiencing so much pain for us.

Our mother leads us in the path of the world; she gave us education so that in this life we can meet Dharma, we’re able to read Dharma books, we’re able to read and write, to learn the path to enlightenment, the base which is the two truths, and that includes all the existence, the path of method and wisdom, and then the goal, the dharmakaya and rupakaya.

So what the Buddha’s holy body and holy mind is that we can achieve, we can understand all of that and actualize that, all this learning and experience, by the kindness of the mother.

Thank you very much. If you have questions that are bothering you, then from time to time you can ask. But if you ask how many seconds until death, that one I can’t answer. There are many questions I can’t answer; we need an omniscient mind, we need enlightenment or at least clairvoyance. Thank you very much. That’s all.

With much love and prayers ...

From the great yogi Milarepa, who achieved peerless happiness, buddhahood, in one brief lifetime of degenerated time:

Even though we wish to never be separated from our relationships, family and connected ones,
It is definite we have to be separated from them.

Even though we wish to always enjoy good rooms, beddings and belongings,
It is definite we have to be separated from these.

Even though we wish to always enjoy the enjoyments, without being separated,
It is definite that we have to be separated from them.

Not only is it definite that we have to be separated from this, but it can happen any moment.

From Mickey Mouse Zopa

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one, 
I am very sorry for the long delay. Please find my advice for your life practices.

You are most welcome to enlightenment and most welcome to free numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment.

There is nothing more important than to meditate on the lamrim and have realizations. This is most beneficial for sentient beings and that means also for yourself.

I just wanted to add this. One thing that general people do not think about—even scientists or people who are very learned in Buddhist philosophy—is impermanence and death. Death can come any day, any year, any month, or any day or night, any hour. Not just death, but the mind continues and whatever rebirth we will take depends on karma. So for those of us who don’t have realizations, even though we practice Dharma our mind is usually nonvirtuous. We have to think [about impermanence and death] until we are free from samara, which is all suffering.

One important thing is that we have to get out of samsara and then the most important thing is to achieve enlightenment, to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings from each suffering realm and bring them to full enlightenment. This is why we need to practice Dharma.

I am suggesting these preliminary practices [see below] because Lama Tsongkhapa asked Manjushri, “What is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment?” Manjushri said, “First purify obstacles and [collect] extensive merits, then one-pointedly pray to the guru. Next, the actual body of practice is training the mind in the lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment.” This is how Manjushri answered, so without practicing purification and collecting merits, lamrim realizations cannot happen, the mind cannot change, so for that we need to do preliminary practices.

Start the day off with the daily meditation, which includes the mantras for blessing the speech and the direct meditation on the path to enlightenment. [See The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment.)]

Golden Light Sutra: Read this every month, six times. There is an elaborate, medium and very short text. If you can, read any of them and continue doing this throughout your life. It’s an unbelievable way to collect merit, and even if just an animal or someone else hears the sutra they collect unbelievable merit and purify negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths. It’s most unbelievably fortunate to be able to recite this and to come to know the Buddha’s teachings. The Golden Light Sutra helps for world peace and for your own country and it becomes healing for all the sick people in your country. So please read the Golden Light Sutra with strong bodhicitta, to free the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering

Nyung nä retreat: You are most welcome to do some nyung näs each year. It is very strong purification and a quick way to purify negative karmas collected since beginningless rebirths and to collect merits and go to the pure land and achieve enlightenment.

Four immeasurable thoughts: 600,000, with meditation.

Tsa tsas: 200,000, either Twenty-one Taras or just Green Tara. I don’t think we have a Twenty-one Taras tsa tsa yet, so it would have to be created. If a mold is made, it shouldn’t be too small, and it should be done well, with good art. It could be created by Peter or Denise Griffin. Another deity can be Secret Vajrapani, but if you just make the Tara tsa tsas that is OK and then at some big gathering you can offer them to people, after painting them gold.

You also need to practice effortful lamrim meditation and continue until you have stable realizations. Then do effortless meditation on the lamrim.

With much love and prayers ...

My dear father,
How are you? I hope you are well!

I heard from your daughter that you are constantly missing your wife, her mother, who passed away. I understand, because you lived together for a long time, for so many years. She relied on you and you relied on her, so you lived like that.

The reason you two met each other in this life and lived together is the result of past karma, past actions. It is not just one time you had this connection. You have had connections with her in the past in whatever form it was—as wife or husband, father or mother, brother or sister, enemy or friend. She could have been your wife before, or your husband in recent past lives, or your girlfriend or boyfriend.

This is not the only time you have been together. Being together in this life is also the result of past habits, karma, which did not have a beginning. There are also many other reasons, such as habits from your past, and not only that, as long as we are in samsara, the circle of birth and death, as long as we are not free from that, by taking these aggregates, which are in the nature of suffering, this body and mind is also in the nature of suffering, again and again.

You lived with her and she lived with you, which is a strong cause to meet again in future lives, until you are free from samsara. Until you are free from birth and death, endlessly you will meet each other again. Until you are free from samsara and she is free from samsara, you will meet each other again and again. So there is no need to worry at all.

The only thing that is changing is to a different body, so the body is not the same. Changing the body is like changing our clothes. Even in one day we change our clothes several times. In the morning we wear one thing, then another when we are going to a party and another at night. So, changing the body is like changing our clothes.

All of us are like this. This is what will happen to all of us until we are free from samsara. Then our mind will be holy, a positive mind, a healthy mind, a more positive mind and more virtue. This is the main mind that frees us from the oceans of samsara.

The aggregates of body and mind are in the nature of suffering, but we can be free from this suffering by realizing the ultimate nature of I and the aggregates. This wisdom is the main one that ceases the direct cause of samsaric suffering, delusion and karma.

It isn’t that the Omniscient One, the Buddha, transplants his wisdom into us. It is not like that. It is achieved by understanding, meditating and actualizing the path, the true path revealed by the Buddha, the Omniscient One.

So you don’t have to worry at all! Totally relax. Worry doesn’t help one single thing. It does not benefit; it has no benefit to the life.

Please hang this mantra that I wrote for you near your bed or where you stay longest. It gives unbelievable purification, it purifies the negative mind, obscurations and karma. It brings benefit up to enlightenment.

With much love and prayers ...