The Power of Dharma Practice

My very dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your report and for all that you're doing, that is very good. Regarding tonglen, it is incredible that you are doing that, it is fantastic, it is better than giving me a billion, trillion dollars, so thank you for doing tonglen. If you miss a day, you don't have to start again, this practice is not like that, you just do it when you can. It’s most important to do it well, with meditation.

Yes, the swift path is the Red Commentary, which was the basis of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

Our aim is to achieve enlightenment in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. While we are listening, reflecting and meditating on the path to enlightenment, because we are not out of samsara, we are in samsara, therefore we experience the shortcomings of samsara. We experience old age, sickness, suffering and death, and that includes cancer, so that is a sign that we are in samsara, therefore that happens, all those things happen.

Don't worry so much, the main thing is to achieve enlightenment and to free sentient beings from samsara, so if we practice Dharma then those sicknesses can be stopped by the power of Dharma practice, by purification and collecting merits and especially bodhicitta. It is said in the teachings that when we are practicing Dharma, many obstacles happen, so that is good, that is a sign, proof we are purifying negative karma and collecting merits, so that is very positive.

I often mention the example of somebody who runs a five-star hotel, where lots of people are coming so that person makes a lot of money every day, but they have to kill thousands of fish and chickens. They have to kill so many animals every day for the restaurant in the five-star hotel, and a lot of money comes in from that. It looks like this person is doing well, making a lot of money, and for people in the world who don't know Dharma, this is what they call success, but that person is creating so much negative karma each day by killing thousands, even tens of thousands, maybe even millions of animals—chickens, fish, shrimp—every day. Can you imagine? Every single action of that person’s body, speech and mind is negative karma, and most of them are not even doing one minute of confessing negative karma, because they don't know, they have no opportunity in life, and they are only creating rainfalls of negative karma, day and night.

Then the next person is a Dharma practitioner who has renounced this life; the ordained person who has nothing and who gets very sick, time after time. This goes on in their life and they almost die many times. For ordinary people who don't know Dharma, it looks like that Dharma practitioner has so many problems, one after another. The other person who owns the five-star hotel, it looks like their life is very good because they are healthy. But in reality, all the negative karma collected by the five-star hotel owner is not experienced in this life; it is all collected and will be experienced in hell for eons and eons and eons of suffering, where they cannot hear Dharma and in the next life cannot meet the guru.

The renounced person has nothing and is always sick, but this is positive because of their pure Dharma practice. All their past heavy negative karma is ripening in this life, so instead of being born in hell and suffering for eons, the negative karma is ripening now, in this life, instead of in future lives. Even if they are always sick in this life, at the time of death, even then, they will have so much happiness and in the next life they will be reborn in the pure land or in the higher realms where they will always meet Dharma and be able to practice Dharma.

Their future lives are much better and they are like the sun shining in the world. In their future lives beyond this life, they are like the sun shining, bringing so much happiness and so much merit, and then being able to go to enlightenment.

So in reality there is a huge difference between those two people. There are many examples like this. Worldly people think that when someone makes a lot of money and is very successful, then that one is good, whereas the monk or nun who has renounced this life and lives very simply, but is sick all the time, is so bad.

With much love and prayers, and thank you for your understanding ...