Long Retreat

My most dear one,
Of course, of course, there is something to do before your retreat. You must read The Door to Satisfaction, my book on thought transformation. This is the best thing to do before retreat. You can also read How to Practice Dharma: Teachings on the Eight Worldly Dharmas, then your retreat becomes pure. Think strongly about impermanence, compassion and bodhicitta.

Generally, any problem we experience purifies our negative karma from life to life and we will have so much happiness, especially by using sickness on the path to enlightenment. Pray especially to experience the numberless problems of numberless sentient beings. Wow, wow, wow. Yum, yum, yum. What is better than that?

During that time, you can think, “I’m experiencing this problem on behalf of all sentient beings.” Take the problem on the self-cherishing thought, our worst enemy that only harms others and ourselves, and give it to the self-cherishing thought. It is destroyed, just as a US missile is aimed at the enemy target so far away and then totally destroys it in one second.

This is the best Dharma practice and the quick path to enlightenment. It purifies our negative karma. Wow, wow, wow. It’s the best practice. This is what makes the great lojong practitioners so happy!

Choje Gotsangpa said:

By experiencing these problems, sickness, spirit harm and obstacles myself, may all [the sufferings] collected since beginningless lives by other sentient beings be pacified. They are so kind, helping me.

Recite this like a mantra every day, a mala or half mala or whatever you can.

Regarding all the spirit possession, the sickness or other conditions, think, “All the people who harm me are so kind. They are helping me to destroy the self-cherishing thought, my worst enemy. They are helping me to destroy my negative karma, therefore they are most kind.”

Think they are like the guru, who gives us practices and teachings on the path to enlightenment. The spirits that cause problems are similar to that.

Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa said:

Bad conditions are like the virtuous friend.
The obstacles are persuading us to practice virtue,
Suffering is the broom clearing away our negative karma.

Meditate and be happy with the suffering. Instead of looking at the suffering as suffering, look at it as happiness. Train the mind like that. Don’t let the mind dislike and waste the suffering.

Padampa Sangye of Tingri said:

Even though you think happiness and suffering came from others,
Actually, the condition is yourself.

When we don’t examine [the root cause], it looks like [the problems] came from others, but actually they came from us.

In the Bodhicaryavatara, Shantideva said that if we don’t harm others no one will harm us.

[6:42] In the past I gave harm to other sentient beings,
Therefore sentient beings are now giving harm to me.

It is worthwhile to receive harm from others because we caused harm to them. Otherwise, we think we can give harm to others, but they can’t give harm to us. This is a dictator’s mind!

Also in the Bodhicaryavatara:

[6:47] My karma persuaded others to give this harm to me,
Therefore, [if by my actions] they are born in the hole of the hell,
[Surely it is I who caused this.]

And:

[6:21] Suffering eliminates arrogance
And compassion arises for samsaric beings.
Thus we are careful to avoid creating negative karma
[And find joy in virtue].

When a problem starts, immediately think of these quotations. This protects us from creating negative karma. Somebody well-trained in lojong is happy to experience suffering.

Regarding Six-arm Mahakala, getting sick is the best puja because that is the purification of our past negative karma.

It is said by Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa:

By experiencing this small suffering
My past negative karma is purified,
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore rejoice, be happy with this present suffering.

So, practice Dharma and go to enlightenment. Goodbye!

Rinpoche checked and said that prior to the retreat you need to organize the following to be done at the retreat place:

• The Prajnaparamita in 8,000 stanzas (Tib: gye tongpa; Wyl: brgyad stong pa)
• Mamo trü kang puja.

My very dear one,
Billions of thanks for finishing this retreat, it’s so inspiring! And great that Geshe-la was able to help, then it’s clear for you.

Numberless thanks for doing the retreat and dedicating your life to sentient beings, following the wishes of His Holiness and Lama Yeshe. You were able to complete it with Geshe-la's help, as he did two three-year retreats, so you are fortunate!

I am sure Vajrayogini is blissed out and extremely pleased. Now you're ready to go to the pure land. In the world there are so many problems now, with COVID-19, the environment and so forth. Now you can go to Vajrayogini pure land and there you can become enlightened very quickly, much quicker than in Amitabha pure land, as it takes more than one life there.

This is a great inspiration in the world for others to do the three-year retreat of Vajrayogini.

Tsarchen Losel Gyatso, (the author of the special prayer bringing you to the pure land in the sadhana) said, according to the Heruka root tantra: "Just by reciting the supreme heart [mantra], that is making you closer to Vajrayogini and you can achieve the pure land."

It is true that is happening. There is the inner pure land and the outer pure land. The inner pure land is when you have actualized the clear light seeing emptiness.

The Fifth Dalai Lama said those who are most intelligent and those of middle [capability] are able to go to the pure land in this life [by doing this practice]. The last one [the person of lower capability] is welcomed by the dakas and dakinis in the intermediate state. The dakas and dakinis do prostrations and invite [that person to go to the pure land] or at least to go through to the next life and achieve realizations [in their next life]. There is extremely quick transference of the consciousness to the pure land at the deathtime.

With love and prayer ...

P.S. I hope all the students go to the pure land of Vajrayogini very easily; a holiday forever! Escaping from samsara, the ocean of suffering that has no beginning.

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
You can do the preliminaries and lamrim meditation, mainly renunciation, starting from correctly devoting to the virtuous friend, seeing the guru as a buddha, using quotations and logic.

The best lamrim text for you is Jampel Sharlung, written by the [Fifth] Dalai Lama, but I don’t know if it’s available in English. If you read Tibetan, you can read this text, otherwise you can read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, or the Middle-Length Lamrim [See The Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment]. You can use one of those books and read it two times from beginning to the end, and the rest of the information comes with the meditation instructions. If you read Tibetan, you can get the text Jampel Sharlung and read that.

Do effortful lamrim meditation, following the lamrim outline, then do effortless meditation. After you generate bodhicitta, then spend lot of time on tantra, the generation and completion stages.

Of course, you can do a three-year retreat, or do one or two years, or the short one, the enabling retreat. There’s also your own tantric deity practice, which you need to do every day.

Do these practices:

• Four immeasurable thoughts, to collect merit and purify in order to generate realizations: 10,000
• Dorje Khadro fire puja: 50,000
• Prostrations with Vajrasattva: 150,000
• Guru yoga with migtsema: 400,000

You can do migtsemas with Lama Chöpa in the morning, and then recite the rest with Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga. When there’s the time, if you recite migtsemas while doing Lama Chöpa, you can count them, and then when you do Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga you can also count migtsemas. The dissolution of the merit field can be done in the last session of Lama Chöpa. So between Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and Lama Chöpa, using that as the base, you can do sessions like that. That’s how it can done, but it’s up to you.

If you don’t do the preliminaries, which allow you to collect merit and purify negativities, the mind can become troubled. Then problems such as lung can come, even though you understand a lot.

Everything we do is for enlightenment, to achieve the path to enlightenment for every sentient being, to free them from samsara and bring them to enlightenment—every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every ant, every mosquito, every rat, every spider, every bee, every seahorse, every starfish, every octopus, every human being, every sura being, and every asura being—to free them from the ocean of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.

The purpose of all these practices is not a small matter. It’s like the sky what you can do. You have to understand this.

I didn’t mention the deity, in case you already have a deity, in order not to confuse you.

If you can, if you are brave enough to recite Vajra Cutter Sutra every day, that is unbelievable, unbelievable. It’s a very quick way to become free from samsara, and a very quick way to achieve enlightenment. It’s most incredibly helpful for sentient beings.

Thank you very much. You are most welcome to enlightenment. Goodbye samsara.

With much love and prayers ...

Below is a plan for more than one year, so you can continue at home after the one-year period and do sessions in the morning and evening, or as you have time.

Begin with the lamrim, as follows:

• Guru devotion: three months
• Lower scope: four months
• Middle scope: one month
• Bodhicitta: six months
• Emptiness: three months

Then for training in familiarity:

• Generation stage: five months
• Completion stage: one month

With much love and prayer ...

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

A billion, zillion, trillion, numberless thanks, skies of thanks to you for surviving and being Buddhist and being able to do all these practices.

Now you are going to start Medicine Buddha—that is excellent. Please, as you do this, dedicate for the world—for all the wars, famine, disease, economic problems, torture, all those things, the dangers of fire, water, air, earthquakes and tsunamis to be pacified immediately. Dedicate to pacify all the problems in the world, and for perfect peace and happiness to prevail in your heart and in the hearts of all sentient beings of this world, by generating loving kindness and bodhicitta in your heart and in their hearts. May Buddhadharma last a long time in this world. May sentient beings meet Buddhadharma and achieve enlightenment.

What I love is your comment—it was a most interesting thing—when I asked you which pure land you wanted to go to, you said you would choose to be born in the suffering world, rather than going to the pure land. That for me, is a sign of good achievement of Dharma practice. I have told this somewhere, also your story. This is a great, great result of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM and so forth. It’s so good.

Please enjoy the happiest life with bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers ...